The Paradox of Defining the Divine
Throughout history, humans have sought to define God. We build doctrines, write creeds, carve statues, and construct explanations in an attempt to grasp the infinite. But can the infinite truly be contained in human words? More specifically, does saying Jesus is God limit God?
At first glance, it might seem that defining Jesus as God confines the vastness of the Divine into a singular form. If God is beyond human understanding, how can He be fully expressed in one person? Doesn’t that make Him smaller, more predictable, more contained?
But what if the Incarnation is not about limitation, but revelation? What if, rather than reducing God, Jesus expands our understanding of who God is?
The Unnameable God and the Mystery of Christ
Many mystical traditions within Christianity, including Celtic Christianity, recognize that God cannot be fully defined. He is beyond our categories, beyond our language, beyond anything we can construct.
This echoes the idea found in other traditions, such as Taoism, which begins with the famous words:
“The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao.”
Similarly, God, in His essence, cannot be reduced to human words or concepts. In the Old Testament, when Moses asks for God’s name, the response is simply: “I AM.” A name that is not a name—a statement of being, of existence itself.
And yet, Christianity holds to the radical claim that this same, unknowable, ungraspable God became flesh. Not as a way to limit Himself, but as a way to make Himself known.
“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14)
Rather than confining God, Jesus reveals God. In Him, we see what was previously invisible. In Him, the nature of God is not diminished but made accessible.
Jesus as the Window, Not the Wall
If we think of God as a vast, endless ocean, Jesus is not the box that contains that ocean. Instead, He is the window that allows us to see it. He is the bridge, the way, the opening into the mystery.
In John 14:6, Jesus says:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
This has often been read as exclusive, as if Jesus is saying that God can only be known through Him. But what if it’s an invitation instead? What if Jesus is not limiting God, but showing us how to step into the infinite mystery?
Rather than placing a boundary around the Divine, Jesus opens the door.
The Risk of Small Gods
If there is a real danger of limiting God, it doesn’t come from saying Jesus is God. The danger comes when we make any definition of God too small.
Psalm 115 warns of the risks of carving false images of God:
“Their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands.
They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see.
Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.”
The real limitation happens when we reduce God to our own expectations—when we make Him fit within a rigid theology, a specific culture, or a narrow moral system.
Many have made Jesus into a tame figure, a sanitized religious icon, rather than the radical, boundary-breaking presence He was. But Jesus did not come to reinforce small, rigid views of God. He came to shatter them.
Jesus: The Wild and Uncontainable God
The Celtic Christians understood something that modern faith often forgets—God is wild. He moves in the wind and the waves, in the unseen spaces of our hearts. He is not locked in temples or confined to institutions.
Jesus embodied this wildness. He broke religious laws to heal the sick. He ate with sinners. He challenged the powerful. He told parables that flipped conventional wisdom on its head.
The Incarnation does not trap God inside human form. Instead, it reveals that God is willing to step into human experience. He does not stay distant but enters the very heart of our struggles, our questions, and our humanity.
The moment we try to possess Jesus, to make Him fit neatly into our systems, we lose the very thing He came to reveal. He is not the God of control—He is the God of encounter.
Living Beyond Limitation
So does saying Jesus is God limit God? Only if we think of it as a restriction rather than a revelation.
Rather than defining God in a way that confines Him, Jesus shows us that God is not an idea to be grasped, but a presence to be encountered. He is not a theological equation to be solved, but a living reality to be experienced.
Maybe the real invitation is not to explain Jesus, but to follow Him. Not to define God, but to step into the mystery He reveals. Not to build rigid idols of who we think God should be, but to let Him be as wild, untamed, and boundless as He truly is.
And in doing so, perhaps we, too, become more alive.
Ancient Whispers 
Leave a comment