Who is God?

God is the name the Bible gives to the great and wonderful Creator, the one who made the whole universe (Genesis 1:1). We live in time, so we have a beginning and an end. But God is different. God has no beginning and no end (Psalm 90:2). We live in a world of change, but God never changes. His love and care never change.

Christians believe in one God. The key verse of the Torah is: “Hear, o Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your soul and with all your strength (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). It is the will of God that He becomes the focus of our entire life (Mark 12:28-30).

God has the right to command our ultimate loyalty because of who He is. In order to understand God as revealed in the Bible, we must ask: “What is not true about God?”

First, God is not the invention of the human mind. The Bible calls all man-made gods false gods or images (Hosea 13:2-3).

Second, God is not in any way part of nature. No aspect of the universe is worthy of worship (Exodus 20:4-6).

Third, God is known, not through human philosophy, but rather by what He has done. It is God Who takes the initiative to reveal Himself to mankind.

If God is known by what He does, the question then arises, what has He done?

First, God has acted as Creator (Genesis 1; Romans 1:20). One way in which the Bible refers to God as the Creator of mankind is “Father” (Matthew 6:9). God as Father cares for His creation and especially for mankind.

Second, God has acted by revealing Himself. God guided the prophets or their disciples to write the revelations which the prophets received from God (Hebrews 1:1). It is in this way that the Holy Scriptures have been formed. The Bible often refers to God Who reveals Himself through the words of the prophets (Zechariah 7:12).

Third, God has also acted in history. His acts in history were especially evident to the people of faith who participated in the Biblical covenant community (Psalm 78:1-72).

The most dramatic and definite act of God in human history is the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Through the Messiah, God has revealed Himself in a special way as Saviour (Matthew 1:21; Hebrews 1:1-3). The coming of Jesus Christ from heaven to this earth is crucial to the Christian understanding of God. Christians believe that through God’s revelation in Jesus the Messiah, all the dimensions of God’s revelation through nature, prophets or history are fulfilled and enlightened. Through Jesus we recognize in a special way that God’s revelation to mankind is one of self-giving love. That is the key to understanding God as the Father who is the Creator, God as the Spirit Who reveals Himself through the words of prophets, God as the Saviour Who acts in history (Luke 5:32). The love of God is the fountain out of which the Christian witness concerning God proceeds (1 John 4:16).

When the New Testament calls Jesus “the Son of God,” this does not for a moment mean that God begot a child through a woman, as men beget their children. The title must be understood along with all the other names given to Jesus in the Bible. The title indicates, above all, the extremely close relationship between Jesus and God. He is not merely someone “sent by God”; He has a unique knowledge of God, there is between Him and God an intimacy so profound that it becomes an actual identity of thought and action. Therefore, according to the New Testament, to obey Jesus is to obey the One who sent Him; to reject Jesus is to reject the One who sent Him; to believe in Jesus is not to believe in another Lord besides God ö it is to believe in God through Jesus (John 5:23, 10:30; 12:44).

According to the Bible, there can be no true knowledge of God outside Jesus Christ.

The one true God Who reveals Himself as Creator, Spirit, Saviour is a perfect unity of self-giving love (John 17:22). Although the Bible does not use the term, later in the history of the Christian church Christians began to use the word Trinity to try to express in human language the mystery of God’s perfect unity and perfect love. The concept of Trinity was not intended to convey that there are three gods. Never! The term is now used throughout the Christian Church in an attempt to express in human language the Biblical witness that there is only one God whose very essence is redemptive love. Christians recognize that it is unwise to attempt to explain God. Our attempts to explain God are never adequate. The term Trinity is an example of the inability of human language to adequately express the mystery of God.

Although God is a mystery, He is not unknown. The Biblical witness is that God has chosen to make Himself known to us. We have already noted that through Jesus, God has revealed Himself in a special way as Saviour (Matthew 1:21). Jesus was unique in His virgin-birth, His titles, sinlessness, His ascension to heaven. Jesus gave His life for our redemption from sin. He is the perfect Lamb of God, and through His sacrificial death and resurrection, we are forgiven and redeemed (Revelation 5:9).

The willingness of Abraham to offer his son to God (Genesis 22) was the highest proof of love that any man could show for God, so the grace of God in giving His Son for us must be the greatest manifestation of God’s Love for men. By giving His life on the cross, Jesus gave Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sins (Hebrews 8:10). The return of Jesus from heaven will be the climax of history. He will return to judge the living and the dead, awarding eternal life to those who love and obey Him, while casting the rest into outer darkness where they will remain for ever as objects of God’s wrath.

It should be clear by now that it is very important for you to know this wonderful God personally. You can. You can talk to Him in prayer right now. If your need any further help, please contact us by email.