Who Is God? A Bible Study
The other day I was wondering what was for dinner, I do that about every day. But then I got to thinking about questions that everyone asks at one point or another and one of those questions, is “Who is God? Perhaps, you’ve asked that question.
God is a supernatural, personal spiritual being who created and sustains the world. God describes and reveals Himself through His attributes. There are three persons in the one God: The Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. God desires to have a relationship with us, but because of our sin He cannot. So, He sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. When we trust Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes and helps us live like Christ. We can learn more about God through His word, the Bible.
Defining God
Merriam-Webster defines “god” as, “the supreme or ultimate reality.” But that’s not at all how the Bible defines God. So, what does the term “God” mean in the Bible? To answer that, let’s look at different words that are translated as God in our Bible.
Elohim
“God’ is most frequently used to translate the Hebrew word El or Elohim. Elohim can mean God, god, gods, or deity. In short Elohim can be translated as a Spiritual Being. So, Genesis 1:1 can read, “In the beginning a Spiritual Being created the land and the skies.”
Yahweh
We are left to wonder who this spiritual being is, and so we keep reading until we come across another word translated as God: Yahweh. Genesis 2:4 reads, “This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.”
The capitalized word LORD in this verse is Yahweh. It’s Yahweh, who creates and sustains everything.
Also, it’s the name God chose to use when entering into a covenant with His people. God tells Moses that this is His name in Exodus 3.
“Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—appeared to me and said: I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt. And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.’
Exodus 3:16-17
So far we’ve discovered that God is a powerful and relational spiritual being. That’s not far from the dictionary’s definition above. But it does leave out the key aspect of God being relational.
Getting Toward the Best Definition we Can
But here’s the reality of the matter: any definition of God that we can come up with to describe the God of the Bible will fall short and be incomplete of the full and complete nature of God. This includes definitions of God found in creeds, confessions, and catechisms. They are not wrong, but they fail to contain God.
Take the New City Catechism’s definition of God,
God is the creator and sustainer of everyone and everything. He is eternal, infinite, and unchangeable in his power and perfection, goodness and glory, wisdom, justice, and truth. Nothing happens except through him and by his will.
New City Catechism
That is an excellent definition of God, and it captures a lot about Him. There are things that words cannot fully capture and God is one of them.
How God defines Himself
We’ve wrestled with attempting to define God, but let’s take moment to see how He defines Himself. When God passed before Moses, God proclaimed,
“The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
Exodus 34:6-7
These are the words that God used to introduce Himself to people. But what see in both God’s description of Himself and our best definition as humans, is that God chooses to reveal Himself, and thus define Himself, by His attributes. So, let’s turn now to look at some of God’s attributes.
Attributes of God
God’s attributes are things that we attribute to God, that belong to Him, that help us define and understand God to the best of our ability. These attributes come from, how God chooses to describe Himself (like in the verse above) and how others describe God as they relate to Him.
Self-Existence
God’s self-existence means that God exists entirely independent of anyone and anything. We depend on things like food, shelter, water etc. God depends on none of these things. God created all things.
I am the Lord, and there is no other;
Isaiah 45:5-7
apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,
so that from the rising of the sun
to the place of its setting
people may know there is none besides me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other.
I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the Lord, do all these things.
The Bible presupposes the existence of God and His self-existent nature. This fact should be a great comfort to us. Why? Because is independent and always there for us.
Omniscience
Omniscience means that God is all-knowing. He is so smart that He knows everything. There is not a thing, a fact, a statistic, that God does not know.
Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
Psalm 147:5
his understanding has no limit.
and,
If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
1 John 3:20
God’s omniscience is a comfort, because when we have questions, doubts, or fears, we can go to God for answers. God has all the answers to all our questions. He has the solutions to our problems.
Omnipresence
God is omnipresent. That means that He is everywhere. God is so big that He is everywhere. The Bible says,
“Am I only a God nearby,”
declares the Lord,
“and not a God far away?
Who can hide in secret places
so that I cannot see them?”
declares the Lord.
“Do not I fill heaven and earth?”
declares the Lord.Jeremiah 23:23-24
We cannot hide from God. Thus, we have no secrets from Him. He sees all and knows all. God has been with us in the pits of despair, and through the valley of death. He has been there when we’ve rejected Him in sin. Yet, He loves us anyway. He sent Jesus to restore our relationship to Him. So, we can be there with Him in Paradise.
Omnipotent
God is all=powerful, omnipotent. He is so strong that He can do anything. God tells Abraham,
Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”
Genesis 18:14
Both Abraham and Sarah were too old to have children, yet God it is possible. When we think that something is too hard or impossible, we can take comfort in God’s omnipotence. Why? God is able to do what we are not. The miracles we are praying for can happen because God is Almighty.
Eternity
God is eternal. He is outside of time completely. He always was, always is, and always will be. Jesus says of Himself,
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
Revelation 1:8
God’s eternal nature reminds us that God is in control. Whatever we may face, whatever we are going through, God has already seen it, and will help us through it.
Infinite
To say that God is infinite is to say that He is limitless. God is not bound, or contained, or limited by the things that limit or bind us. God does not get tired, or stuck on a plane. When Solomon was dedicating the temple, he said,
“But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!
1 Kings 8:27
There is not a scarcity of God. There is not a scarcity of His love, His grace, His mercy. God abounds in love, and is rich in mercy. We can be full of God’s love and grace and there is still more of God’s love and grace.
Holiness
Holiness is a term that is used to describe someone or something as pure and special. It means to be set apart in a good way. God is holy. This means that He is pure, perfect and completely good. Isaiah has a vision of God’s throne room where there are angels that praise God saying,
And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
Isaiah 6:3
the whole earth is full of his glory.”
Because God is holy we are called to be holy. Why? Because we are made in God’s image, made to reveal Him to the world around us. So, we ought to strive to be holy.
Righteousness
To be righteous is be and do good, to do right. God is righteous. He always does what is right and good. When God created everything, He said that it was good. The Psalmist writes,
For the Lord is righteous,
Psalm 11:7
he loves justice;
the upright will see his face.
God will always do right by us. Like we are called to be holy, we are called to be righteous. Because God is righteous, He is also just.
Justice
God is just. His judgements are fair. His punishments and disciplines are appropriate for the actions committed. Deuteronomy 34:2 reads,
He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.
Deuteronomy 34:2
When we are wronged, we may want to seek revenge. But vengeance belongs to the Lord. God will see justice done even if we do not. When we trust in God’s justice, we know that He will always do what is right and fair, even if we don’t always understand why things happen the way they do.
Love
God’s love is unique in that it is unconditional and sacrificial. God’s love is most fully displayed in the gospel. John writes,
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
John 3:16-17
God’s love is so astounding that we just have to marvel at how deep and wide and high God’s love for us really is. His love ought to overflow from us into the lives of those around us, including those with whom we have a hard time relating.
Goodness
God is good and benevolent and gracious and kind. He doesn’t seek our destruction, but our salvation. God only and always wants what is best for us. God’s goodness refers to His perfect nature and character. It means that God is always good, and everything He does is good. Paul writes to the Church in Rome,
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Romans 5:28
We can see God’s goodness all around us, in the beauty of nature, the kindness of others, and the blessings in our lives. God’s goodness is also shown in the way He takes care of us and provides for us, even when we don’t deserve it.
Truth
God is truth. The Holy Spirit is described as the Spirit of Truth. It is God who is the author of all truth. Jesus said,
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 14:6
Isn’t it a great comfort that absolute truth exists and can be found in the person of Jesus Christ. God’s truth is different from our own opinions or ideas because it is unchanging and perfect. We can always trust in God’s truth because it is based on His perfect knowledge and understanding of everything.
Is the Christian God, God?
So, we’ve learned a lot about God, who He is and what He’s like. But now we ought to ask: Is the Christian God, God?
Yes. That’s the short answer.
The world makes the most sense when we hold the Bible to be true. And the God of the Bible to be real, and the one true God.
Is Jesus God?
So, the Christian God, is God. But what about Jesus? Is He God?
Well, Jesus claimed to be God (John 10:30). Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.” That is a big claim! Jesus is saying that all of His attributes, His characteristics, are identical to everything that God is, all His attributes and nature.
Jesus’ followers also claimed that He was God. In John 20:28, after the resurrected Jesus appears to His disciples, Thomas declares, “My Lord and my God.” Jesus does not correct him. Why? Because Jesus is God.
The Gospel only works to save us from our sin and restore us into a right relationship with God if Jesus is God. Humanity severed the relationship with an infinite Being bigger than themselves. That’s not something a human can repair, unless that human is also God.
Enter Jesus. God’s Son. Fully God. Fully Man. He died on the cross for our sins and rose again on the third day.
Lastly, God the Father declares Jesus to be God. The author of Hebrews writes,
But about the Son he says,
“Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever;
Hebrews 1:8
a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.
Scripture makes it abundantly clear that Jesus is God. All the attributes of God belong to Jesus as well. But what about the Holy Spirit?
Is the Holy Spirit God?
It can be easy to think of the Holy Spirit as a force or power controlled by God. But the Bible makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is both a person and God.
The Holy Spirit was there at creation (Genesis 1:2).
Paul talks about our bodies being a temple, the home of God, because the Holy Spirit resides within us (1 Corinthians 6:19).
Then we have the story of Ananias and Sapphira found in the book of Acts. The story goes,
Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.
Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”
Acts 5:1-4
Here Peter equates lying to the Holy Spirit as lying to God. So, the Holy Spirit is God.
The Gospel and God
The term gospel means good news and would typically be used as a victory announcement of a King returning from war.
God has good news for us. You see, we’ve all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. We’ve permanently severed our relationship with God. Now that doesn’t sound like good news. But this is where the King comes in.
God sent Jesus to go to war against Satan on our behalf. Jesus died on the cross, taking the punishment for our sins, and defeating sin. Then three days later He turned around and defeated death when He rose again.
So, what’s God’s good news? Through Jesus our sins can be forgiven and our relationship to God restored. All we need to do is to believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior. That’s the King’s good news. He has victory over sin and death.
When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior God sends His Spirit into our lives to help us grow deeper in faith and love toward Him, to help us grow to become more like Christ.
Living Christlike Today
Genesis 1:26-27 reads,
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created mankind in his own image,
Genesis 1:26-27
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
So what does it mean to be created in God’s image? It means we are made to reveal God’s glory to other’s in a way that the rest of creation cannot.
We are called to to live like Christ. Christ’s attributes, God’s attributes, that we can communicate to others we should. These would be the attributes like:
- Holiness
- Love
- Goodness
- Justice
- Righteousness
- Truth
- etc.
The Holy Spirit helps us to grow in these attributes to grow more like Christ. We are called to be holy because God is holy. To love with God’s love. To seek Justice. To do Right. To speak truth.
The more we learn about God, the more we can learn about these attributes, the more we can grow and be like Christ. So, how can we learn even more about God.
Learning more about God
God reveals Himself through creation and His word. So, the more time we spend in God’s word, the more we learn about Him.
It is a funny thing to learn about God. We may have a question about God. So we seek and search in His word until we find an answer. But finding that answer often results in even more questions than we had before. That’s a funny thing. But it’s also beautiful.
God is infinite, we can never know everything there is to know about God. There will always be something more to learn and encounter. That’s why finding answers leads to more questions. We get to encounter more and more of God. We’ll have all eternity to explore the mysteries of God’s nature.
But we can learn more about God now, through His word, when we read and study it. So, if you don’t know how to study the Bible, that’s okay. I know that it can feel overwhelming and you don’t know where to start. That’s why I created these free Bible study guides just for you.
These guides will help you find a Bible study method (Inductive, SOAP, or Lectio Divina) that fits your place in life right now. Then you’ll walk through a step-by-step example to show you exactly how to do the Bible study method of your choice.
