Who is God? Part 1
How great is God? Is God good or evil? Is God near or far or both? Can God be three and one? Does God have a plan? Did God really create everything that is? Does God provide today? A Greek word for God is Theos and so the study of God is called theology. Let’s discuss some questions about God as revealed in the Christian Bible.
All who study Christian theology agree that God has no gender. However, there is extensive use of masculine imagery when referring to God. For some modern gender sensitivities this may be offensive. However, for this study let us simply lay aside our gender preferences and allow the original use of language to speak to us without neutering it. Perhaps in so doing we may discover a divine purpose in gender metaphors which go way beyond our prejudices and we may also discover new revelations of who God is.
How Great is God?
God is Spirit
When speaking to a Samaritan woman, whose people believed that worship should take place only on Mount Gerizim, Jesus brought her attention to the topic of worshipping God in spirit and a true heart.
“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24 KJV)
If God is spirit, what does that say about God’s greatness? It means that physical means of worship are of much lesser importance than what happens spiritually. Worshiping in truth has a double meaning. Worship is to lead us into God’s truth and worship ought not to be faked but engaged in truthfully, free from pretense. God knows if our hearts are sincere.
Is God a Personal Being?
Is God a personable being or just an impersonal universal force of some kind? Let’s look at some characteristics that describe the personality of God. Some of these passages describe God via the Father, while others describe God via the Son or the Holy Spirit. We will discuss the distinctions in greater depth later. Let’s also discuss what His personality traits say about God’s personal nature?
God is Gentle
In the only rest command in the New Testament, Jesus invited us to come to Him, why? Because He is gentle and humble in heart, we will find the rest for our souls that a physical Sabbath day pointed to.
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30 NIV)
The King James Bible translated this as “meek and lowly.” Paul used similar words of, “the humility and gentleness of Christ,” in writing to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 10:1).
God is Loving
What kind of love does God have for the world? How is it demonstrated? The word “so” in the following famous passage actually says, “God loved the world in this way.”
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16 KJV)
All Christians believe that God proved his love in Jesus’ death on the cross.
For the LORD is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation. (Psalm 100:5 NLT)
God is Kind
The relationship between Abraham and his oldest servant, named elsewhere as Eliezer (Genesis 15:2), has always been an inspiration. Had Abraham been childless, this servant would have inherited everything, but he wanted to bless Abraham and his son. In seeking a wife for Abraham’s son, this loyal servant spoke of God’s personality traits including “His mercy and his truth.”
Then the man bowed down his head and worshiped the Lord. And he said, “Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His mercy and His truth toward my master. As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master’s brethren.” (Genesis 24:26-27 NKJV)
As Jacob recognized his unworthiness to receive God’s blessings, he prayed to God of His kind mercies in the context “of all the truth.”
I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which You have shown Your servant; for I crossed over this Jordan with my staff, and now I have become two companies. (Genesis 32:10 NKJV)
God has been kind to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and many others throughout human history.
God is Compassionate
Though God occasionally punished the wrongdoing of humanity, just like any loving parent, in compassion God also relented and helped even when people did not deserve it.
“... If at that time you and your children return to the Lord your God, and if you obey with all your heart and all your soul all the commands I have given you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes. He will have mercy on you… (Deuteronomy 30:1-3 NLT)
But the Lord was gracious and merciful to the people of Israel, and they were not totally destroyed. He pitied them because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And to this day he still has not completely destroyed them or banished them from his presence. (2 Kings 13:23 NLT)
God is Faithful
In the context of Old Testament Temple worship, we learn a principle regarding what attitude we should have when entering a modern church service. We should enter with thanksgiving and praise for God’s faithfulness throughout human generations.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. (Psalm 100:4-5 NIV)
God is Forgiving
In a world of hurt and pain, one of the hardest things to do is forgive those who have done wrong towards us. Yet, God forgives and he expects us to as well.
And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” (Mark 11:25 ESV)
Jesus prayed for God to forgive people even before they had repented. Why?
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34 NLT)
Paul reminded the ancient church in Colossae, Greece that God expects that we also forgive just as the Lord forgave us.
Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. (Colossians 3:13 NLT)
God is Good
God is good, as the popular Thanksgiving Psalm says.
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. (Psalms 100:5 NIV)
God is Just
God does not tolerate the perversion of justice.
Fear the Lord and judge with integrity, for the Lord our God does not tolerate perverted justice, partiality, or the taking of bribes. (2 Chronicles 9:7 NLT)
All God’s ways are just. That means that he is just and fair.
He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He. (Deuteronomy 32:4 NKJV)
God is Life
God is the source of all life. Only when God breathed into the first human the breath of life did he become a living being.
Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7 NASB)
In a contrast between our mortality and God’s immortality, He is called the living God. This refers to God as the living one, the fountain of life.
For what mortal has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and survived? (Deuteronomy 5:26 NIV)
A young man once said that he used to go to church but “outgrew” God. Such a comment can only come from thinking which does not understand that our every heartbeat, our every breath is given by God. Nobody can outgrow the need for God’s life-sustaining presence. God is our life.
that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them. (Deuteronomy 30:20 NKJV)
In God is life.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. (John 1:4-5 KJV)
God Inhabits Eternity
Eternity is an incredible concept for us to grasp, yet God inhabits eternity. That is, He lives there.
For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones. (Isaiah 57:15 NKJV)
He created “the heavens and the earth,” a Hebrew term meaning everything.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1 NASB)
God’s purpose and grace towards us was planned out before the world began.
Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began (2 Timothy 1:9 KJV)
God promised the hope of eternal life before the beginning of time. We live:
in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began (Titus 1:2 NKJV)
Humanly, we struggle to fathom an eternity past, but in that eternity, God promised our hope of eternal life.
God is Unchanging
God’s word is settled. It stands firm in heaven.
Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven. (Psalm 119:89 NASB)
God does not change.
I am the Lord, and I do not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed. (Malachi 3:6 NLT)
God’s purpose is unchanging. His counsel is immutable.
Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath (Hebrews 6:17 NKJV)
There is no variableness in God. He does not change like shifting shadows.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. (James 1:17 KJV)
How Good is God?
God is Holy
We say that God is holy.
Exalt the LORD our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the LORD our God is holy! (Psalm 99:9 ESV)
This means that absolutely nothing else and nobody else is in the same category. He is different from anyone or anything in the world. He alone is worthy of our highest esteem and worship. We honor parents and heroes but we honor Him above all others. God is incomparable.
God is Righteous
Moderns often criticize God for allowing calamities and disasters, but Daniel did not see it that way. He called God’s decisions in regard to even disasters, righteous.
Therefore the Lord has kept the calamity in store and brought it on us; for the Lord our God is righteous with respect to all His deeds which He has done, but we have not obeyed His voice. (Daniel 9:14 NASB)
By righteous, Daniel meant that God is just, blameless, right. There is no injustice in him.
God is Love
When we say that God is love.
He who does not love does not know God, for God is love... And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:8, 16 KJV)
The word love in Greek means that God has good will towards us. It means that God is wholly love, and His nature is summed up in love.
God is Just
Under divine inspiration, Paul wrote to the Christians in the Greek city of Thessaloniki, that God is just.
God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you (2 Thessalonians 1:6 NIV)
The word just or justice in this context means that God is impartial in passing judgment.
God is Truthful
By accepting the testimony of God, we are saying that God is true.
Anyone who accepts his testimony can affirm that God is true. (John 3:33 NLT)
We take that from a very ancient understanding which literally means something that can’t be hidden. He cannot hide the truth through pretentiousness as we human beings do. Those who deny the existence of God are in denial of a self-evident truth. The forensic evidence is obvious.
God is Faithful
God inspired Paul to tell of His faithfulness to help the people of His Church.
The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure. (1 Corinthians 10:13 NLT)
What about those not in the Church? God is gracious and merciful and He will not turn away from us if we return to Him. It was explained to ancient Israel this way.
If you return to the LORD, then your fellow Israelites and your children will be shown compassion by their captors and will return to this land, for the LORD your God is gracious and compassionate. He will not turn his face from you if you return to him. (2 Chronicles 30:9 NIV)
This attribute of God is further revealed in the Parable of the Lost Son as the father who ran to compassionately greet his returning wayward son.
And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. (Luke 15:11-32 NKJV)
Conclusion
In the Bible, God is revealed as a personal Being who loves His children and wants to save all of us. Let’s get to know Him better.
