“Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other.” - Deuteronomy 4:39 (NIV)
I felt this verse goes well with our church’s statement of faith regarding God: “There is only one true God, revealed to us as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the same in essence and equal in every way.” As I have reflected upon our church’s confession of faith and upon the Scripture, I think we can sum up our church’s belief about God in three affirmations:
1. God is Real.
The Bible does not seek to prove the existence of God. It merely assumes that God’s existence is evident and asserts this as true. For example, in the very first verse of the book of Genesis, we are told, “In the beginning God.”
“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows and proclaims His handiwork. Day after day pours forth speech, and night after night shows forth knowledge. There is no speech nor spoken word [from the stars]; their voice is not heard. Yet their voice [in evidence] goes out through all the earth, their sayings to the end of the world.” - Psalm 19:1-4 (Amplified)
“They (the human race) know the truth about God becausehe has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything
God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.” - Romans 1:19-20 (NLT)
A man once asked a boy where he had been. The boy said he had been to Sunday School, where he had learned about God. The man, scoffed and said, “Son I’ll give you a quarter if you show me where God is.” The boy replied, “I’ll give you a dollar, mister, if you can show me where He ain’t!”
“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” - Psalm 14:1 (NIV)
2. God is Revealed.
Part of the reason why we contend that God is real is that He has revealed Himself.
In his book, “Max on Life,” Max Lucado answers a variety of questions submitted to him through the years in response to his many, many books. In the first section of his book, entitled, “Hope - God, Grace and ‘Why am I here?’” he deals with a question submitted by one of his readers where they ask: “How can we know God truly exists? Can I know He is not just a product of my imagination?” Max gives the following answer:
Belief in God is not blind faith. Belief means having a firm conviction (“I believe this to be true”), not hoping it’s true (“I believe the Cubs will win the World Series”). It’s the kind of assurance you get standing on a huge rock. So how can people get to that place in their belief in God? Space: Look to the skies. Two hundred billion stars just in the Milky Way galaxy. Billions of galaxies and expanding. Where does it end? How did it all begin? Earth: Look to creation. So many varieties. So much beauty. A circle of life. How did it all come to be? Why does it work in perfect synchronicity? Ethics: Look to our morals. A common sense of right and wrong shared by people in different countries and different times inhistory. Murder is always bad. Courage is always good. Who programmed us? Bible: Look to God’s Word. Examine the wisdom. Experience the stories. Trace its preservation throughout time. How did it remain so well
intact despite wars and opposition? Empty tomb: Look to the resurrection. So many of those who claimed to have seen the risen Lord died with that testimony on their lips. Would they die for a lie? Or did they believe they, too, would rise? Jesus: Look to him. No other man in history has caused so many questions, stirred so many hearts, given so many answers. Could he be who he said he was?
This is significant. Christianity is not a philosophical worldview based on our concept of what God is like. Rather, it is fact based worldview based on God’s revelation of what He is like.
As we consider God’s revelation of Himself to us, we learn about . . .
A. The nature of God. God is a Trinity. The fact that God exists in three Persons is well documented in Scripture through:
1) The use of plurals in the Bible.
A) Moses speaks of one God in Deuteronomy 6:4, but also refers to God in the plural in Genesis 1:26, where God called Himself, “us.”
B) Also, in Deuteronomy 6:4, the Hebrew word “Elohim” is used for God, which is a plural word.
C) Isaiah 6:1-8 refers to the Trinity. Why three holies (v. 3)? And why does God refer to Himself in the plural (v. 8)? Because God is a Trinity.
2) The baptism of Jesus (Matthew 3:16-17). The Father’s voice is heard; the Son is visibly present; and the Spirit descended in the form of a dove.
3) The Great Commission (Matthew 28:19). We are commanded to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
4) Other Scriptures (2 Samuel 23:1-3; Isaiah 48:16-17, 63:7-10; Acts 2:33; 2 Corinthians 13:14; 1 Peter 1:2).
5) The Son is the only visible member of the Trinity (John 14:8-9). As such, He is the ultimate revelation of God.
Karl Barth was lecturing to a group of students at Princeton. One student asked the German theologian “Sir, don’t you think that God has revealed himself in other religions and not only in
Christianity?” With a modest thunder he answered, “No, God has not revealed himself in any religion, including Christianity. He has revealed himself in his Son.”
B. The Essence of God. When emphasizing God’s essence, the Bible says that God is “One,” that is one in essence. In other words, what is true of the Father is true of the Son and is true of the Holy Spirit.
Consider what we are told about the attributes of God. God is . . .
1) Sovereign - Father (Ephesians 1:11; Matthew 6:10), Son (John 5:21; Revelation 19:16), Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:11; Hebrews 2:4).
2) Holy - Father (John 17:25), Son (Luke 1:35; Hebrews 7:26), Spirit (the very name “Holy Spirit” reveals this facet of His character).
3) Just - Father (Job 37:23, 8:3), Son (Acts 3:14; John 5:22; Revelation 19:11), Spirit (Nehemiah 9:20).
4) Love - Father (John 3:16), Son (Ephesians 5:25; 1 John 3:16), Spirit (the Spirit’s love is demonstrated by His revealing salvation - John 16:7-15 and truth - 1 Corinthians 2:9-10).
5) Eternal - Father (John 5:26), Son (Micah 5:2; John 1:1-2; 1 John 5:11), Spirit (Isaiah 48:16).
6) Omniscient (all-knowing) - Father (Hebrews 4:13; 1 Peter 1:2), Son (John 18:4; John 2:25; 1 Corinthians 4:5), Spirit (Isaiah 11:2; 1 Corinthians 2:11)
7) Omnipresent (everywhere present) - Father (2 Chronicles 2:6), Son (Matthew 28:20), Spirit (Psalm 139:7).
8) Omnipotent (all powerful) - Father (Mark 14:36), Son (Hebrews 1:3; Matthew 24:30), Spirit (Romans 15:19).
9) Immutable (unchanging) - Father (Hebrews 6:17; Psalm 33:11; 1 Thessalonians 5:24), Son (Hebrews 13:8), Spirit (Faithful to indwell the believer forever - John 14:16).
10) True - Father (John 7:28), Son (1 John 5:20; John 1:14, 14:6; Revelation 19:11), Spirit (1 John 5:6; John 14:17, 15:26, 16:13).
A good illustration of the Trinity comes from world-renowned scientist Dr. Henry Morris. He notes that the entire universe is trinitarian by design. The universe consists of three things: matter, space, and time. Take away any one of those three and the universe would cease to exist. But each one of those is itself a trinity.
Matter = mass + energy + motion
Space = length + height + breadth
Time = past + present + future
Thus the whole universe witnesses to the character of the God who made it (Psalm 19:1).
3. God is Relational. This is why the idea of the Trinity is important. When the Bible tells us that man was created in the image of God, part of what that means is that man was created as a relational being, just like God (Genesis 1:26-27).
“In his essential life, God is a fellowship. This is perhaps the supreme revelation of God given in the Scriptures: it is that God’s life is eternally within himself a fellowship of three equal and distinct persons, Father, Son and Spirit, and that in his relationship to his moral creation God was extending to them the fellowship that was essentially his own.” - The New Bible Dictionary
God wants us to have this kind of relationship with Him and, as a result, with others - spouse, kids, friends, church.
Most Christians today perceive God like one person noted: God is a lot like our pastor. I don’t see him through the week and I don’t understand him on Sunday. God is big. But as Stuart Hamlin wrote: “He’s big enough to rule this mighty universe, yet small enough to live within my heart.”
