There are certain things about God that I believe are clear throughout Scripture. They are:

1. God created us to be in relationship with Him
2. God is love
3. God is knowable

From the very beginning God desired to have intimacy and fellowship with His creation. He did not create us so that we might be separated from Him, nor did He create us simply to ultimately condemn most of us.
No, Scripture is clear that we have a God who loves us passionately and completely. As the late Rich Mullins once sang the love of God is a “reckless raging fury.”

Few people would argue with either of those points. But, for some reason or another, many have arrived at the conclusion that God is, ultimately, unknowable to us. That there is just too much to His character and nature that escape our finite minds.
As a result, it is easy to gloss over seeming inconsistencies with slogans such as “He’s God and I’m not” or “God moves in mysterious ways” or even “who can know the mind of God?”
Prooftexts about “his ways are higher than our ways” are trotted out to make the claim that God does what God does and, even if it seems diametrically opposed to what we are to understand of God, we can’t question it.

That’s a bunch of hooey. I believe that God can be known and wants to be known. If we believe that Jesus was Immanuel, God in the flesh, then we must believe that we can draw nearer to the heart of God and understand who He is, up to and including His character and nature.
Through the person of Jesus is how we come to know God more clearly and more fully. This Jesus who loved the oppressed and cared for the marginalized is the knowledge of God. Through His kenosis, His humility, His sacrifice, His teachings, His love and His example we are able to know God.
And any view of God that does not align with the person of Christ must be re-addressed.
Because this same Jesus is the one who said:

“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father…I and the Father are one.”

and:

“…believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

and:

“You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”

“and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

“If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

I could go on, but you get the point. God is knowable and He is knowable through the person, example and live of Jesus Christ.
So when we bump up against traditions, interpretations and understandings that conflict with the person of Christ then it behooves us to explore, wrestle and ask these questions anew. And the way to do that is to dig deeper into the heart of Christ.
He is the avenue through which we can greater understand the character and nature of God which is so bound up in His Love.

As a side note: I often hear people proof-text Isaiah 55:9 where God tells us that “my ways (are)higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” as proof that God can act contrary to what our perception of His character and nature is. However, it is important to note that the context of Isaiah 55 is the compassion of God. If we are faithful to that passage we can understand that God is far more capable of realizing what is consistent within Himself than we are. That is the mystery: How God can love and be so compassionate.

Next I want us to look at what Christ Himself has to say about issues of salvation. For He is the only way for us to truly know God.