Who Is God? Part 1

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.