| GOD: WHO HE IS,
AND WHAT HE IS
Section
1 - Introduction
God is Spirit
He is Unknowable Apart From his Revelation
Introduction
The world's religions are
each based on some human concept of God. There can be as many ideas and
postulations, on Who and What God is, as there are people on this earth.
Each 'faith' attempts to qualify and quantify an Invisible and Unknowable
Deity.
Job.11:7,8
Can you find out the fathoming of Eloah?
Could you find out
the perfection of Him Who-Suffices?
These are loftier than the
heavens; what can you contrive?
Deeper than the unseen;
what can you know?
We, members of the body of Christ,
have the privilege of believing in the One Who reveals Himself in the Christian
Scriptures, the Bible. We also believe that this faith that we have - that
He is the One, Only, and True God - is not dependent on proofs of some
sort or other, but only on His graciously enabling us to
believe His declarations. As such, all our knowledge, understanding and
realisation of God can come only from a study of the Scriptures and quite
apart from contradictory and confusing concepts of the Deity that may be
gleaned from other sources.
To begin with, Scripture
declares that ‘the fool says in his heart, 'There is no God' (Ps.14:1;
53:1 NIV). It also asserts that mere believing that there is a God is entirely
different from actually being able to identify Him! And there is the further
difference between a belief in God and believing Him!
Jas.2:19
You are believing that God is one. Ideally are you doing.
The demons also are believing
and are shuddering.
Act.17:23
For, passing through and contemplating the objects of your veneration,
I found a pedestal also,
on which had been inscribed, `To an Unknowable God.'
To Whom then, you are ignorantly
devout, This One am I announcing to you.
Rom.4:20-24
yet the promise of God was not doubted in unbelief,
but he was invigorated
by faith, giving glory to God,
being fully assured also,
that, what He has promised, He is able to do also.
Wherefore, also, it is reckoned
to him for righteousness.
Now it was not written because
of him only, that it is reckoned to him,
but because of us
also, to whom it is about to be reckoned,
who are believing
on Him Who rouses Jesus our Lord from among the dead.
Heb.11:1,2 Now
faith is an assumption of what is being expected,
a conviction concerning
matters which are not being observed;
for in this the elders were
testified to.
Scripture directs our worship,
and therefore our prayers, to God. Direct access has been graciously given
to us through the work of Jesus Christ. Would it not be plain effrontery
on our part to push aside this special privilege and honour and attempt
to approach Him through devious channels of our own?
Mt.4:10 …it is
written, The Lord your God shall
you be worshiping,
And to Him only shall
you be offering divine service.
Rom.5:1,2 …justified
by faith,
we may be having peace
toward God, through our Lord, Jesus Christ,
through Whom we have
the access also, by faith, into this grace in which we stand,
and we may be glorying in
expectation of the glory of God.
Eph.2:18
for through Him we both have had access, in one spirit, to the Father.
Eph.3:11,12 …Christ
Jesus, our Lord;
in Whom we have boldness
and access with confidence, through HIS faith.
God
is Spirit
In order better to know WHO
God is, it makes sense to, first, come to know WHAT He is. Thus will we
be able to appreciate Him more fully and give Him the glory and reverence
that becomes His Being. Scripture says that God is light…is love…is
spirit.
But these statements do not carry the same weight.
1Jn.1:5
…God is light, …
hó
Theos phös estin the God light is
1Jn.4:8,16 … for God
is love…. God is love…
hó
Theos agapê estin the God love
is
The presence of the verb to
be (estin = is) in the examples above indicates that each statement
is to be taken as a figure of speech.
Light is not God; love
is not God. God is like light and God is
like love. However,
Scripture declares that,
Jn.4:24
God is spirit,…
pneuma
hó Theos spirit the God
The absence of any verb to be
in this statement indicates that it is to be taken literally. God is
spirit.
God is not a spirit
(as the KJV suggests) occupying a specific volume of space and, therefore,
limited to shape and form, and subject to the laws that determine these.
He is spirit. Having no limits, He permeates space. At no time,
therefore, can anyone or anything be outside of Him.
Isa.45:6
That they may know,… that there is a limit apart from Me.
Jer.23:24 Is
any one hidden in secret places, And I see him not?...
Do not I fill the heavens
and the earth? An affirmation of Yahweh.
Ps.139:7-12 Whither
could I go from Your spirit,
And whither could I run
away from Your presence?
If I should climb to the
heavens, You are there,
And should I make my berth
in the unseen, behold, You are there.
Should I wear the wings
of dawn, Should I tabernacle in the hindmost sea,
Even there Your hand would
guide me, …Your right hand, it would hold me.
If I said, Surely darkness,
it snuffed me up, And night is belted about me,
Even darkness, it is not
darkening to You,
And the night, as the day,
is giving light; Darkness is as light.
Act.7:48,49
But the Most High is not dwelling in what is made by hands,…
"Heaven is My throne,
yet the earth is a footstool for My feet.
What kind of house shall
be built for Me?" the Lord is saying…
Act.17:24-28
The God Who makes the world and all that is in it,
He, the Lord inherent
of heaven and earth,
is not dwelling in temples
made by hands,
neither is He attended by
human hands, as if requiring anything,
since He Himself gives to
all life and breath and all.
Besides, He makes out of
one every nation of mankind,
to be dwelling on all the
surface of the earth,
specifying the setting of
the seasons and the bounds of their dwelling,
for them to be seeking God,
if, consequently,
they may surely grope for
Him and may be finding Him,
though to be sure, not
far from each one of us is He inherent,
for in
Him we are living and moving and are,…
An angel, by contrast, is a
spirit
(Ps.104:4 KJV). Each is a created being and finite (Jn.1:3; Col.1:16).
There are thousands upon thousands of angels (Mt.26:53; Heb.12:22; Rev.5:11).
Though they are normally invisible, Scripture records many appearances
of some of them to human beings (cf.Lk.1:26-29, etc.).
Scripture insists that the
true God, however, has never been seen by anyone!
1Tim.6:16
… light inaccessible,
Whom not one of mankind
perceived nor can be perceiving,
Jn.1:18 God
no
one has ever seen. The only-begotten God, …unfolds Him.
1Jn.4:12 No one
has ever gazed uponGod….
Jn.6:46 Not
that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God,
he hath seen the Father.
There are instances that seem
to indicate that God was seen and touched by certain people. Caution should
be exercised here. Scripture will not contradict itself, and its statements,
taken in proper context, will hold true.
Let us bear in mind that
Scripture is quite explicit on this point. It asserts that the God we worship
is invisible (cf. 2Cor.4:4; Col.1:15; 1Tim.1:17)!
He
is Unknowable Apart From His Revelation
Being spirit and, therefore,
intangible, He cannot be searched out, or sensed, by our natural human
faculties. Spirit is likened to wind - which no one can see, but the presence
of which is evidenced by its effects around us (cf.Jn.3:8). By ourselves,
therefore, we cannot even begin to know God. He will ever be beyond our
grasp.
Job.11:7
RSV Can you find out the deep things of God?
Can you find out
the limit of the Almighty?
1Cor.2:14 the
soulish man is not receiving those things which are of the spirit
of God,
for they are stupidity
to him,
and he is not able
to know them, seeing that they are spiritually examined.
Through nature, through the
evidence of His stupendous creation in its design and beauty and precision,
we can only know about Him. ‘Natural revelation’ tells us that some superior
Being, God, must exist. It gives evidence of His surpassing intelligence
and of His tremendous power - but it cannot reveal His character
and motives; it cannot really identify Him.
Rom.1:19,20
that which is known of God is apparent among them,
for God manifests it to
them.
For His invisible attributes
are descried from the creation of the world,
being apprehended by His
achievements, besides His imperceptible power and divinity,
Ps.19:1-4 The
heavens are recounting the glory of El,
And the atmosphere is telling
the work of His hands.
Day after day is uttering
a saying, And night after night is disclosing knowledge.
There is no audible saying,
and there are no words;
Their voice is unheard.
Yet into the entire earth their voice goes forth,
And into the ends of the
habitance their declarations….
It seems to be in man’s make-up
to want to worship this superior Being. But, being unable to perceive Him,
man has come up with his own concepts of ‘God’. Man imagines
what a ‘God’ should be like in shape and form, and how a ‘God’ would
behave in ‘His’ position. Unable to know God, and to answer the enigma
of the presence of good and evil, man has even conceived of a pantheon
of gods, some good and some evil, whose interactions influence man’s lot
in life. Some, for example, conceive of one superior ‘Cosmic Being’ manifesting
itself in a myriad of lesser gods, good and evil, which the unenlightened
masses worship. Others hold that all the ‘great religious teachers’ in
history are actually various manifestations of that God.
In certain divisions of Christianity,
too, ‘saints’ and ‘guardian angels’ are invoked in prayer for intercession
and mediation. They even ‘venerate’ Mary as the ‘Mother of God’ (cp.1Cor.8:6)
who is their ‘Queen of Heaven’ (cp.Jer.7:18; 44:17-19,25) and who exercises
such influence in salvation that she is audaciously titled ‘Co-Mediatrix’
(cp.1Tim.2:5) in spite of the declarations in Scripture! Scripture shows
that man has this tendency of honouring and serving the creature rather
than the Creator
Gal.4:8,9 …having
no perception of God,
you were slaves of those
who, by nature, are not gods
Rom.1:25 who
alter the truth of God into the lie, …
and offer divine service
to the creature rather than the Creator
Act.7:42
Now God turns
and gives them up to be
offering divine service to the host of heaven,
Col.2:18
in humility and the ritual of the messengers,
to parade what he has seen,
feignedly, puffed up by his fleshly mind,
Man has an innate desire to
qualify and quantify this ‘ephemeral’ God, to bring Him within the domain
of his senses. He wants to ‘visualise’ what he worships. He ‘needs’ something
tangible to focus his mind on. He wants to have something ‘to relate to’
physically. So he represents this invisible and un-sense-able God by images
- by paintings and statues and symbols. Man, therefore, is naturally drawn
to idolatry.
1Cor.12:2 …when
you were of the nations, you were led away to the voiceless idols,….
Rom.1:23 …they change
the glory of the incorruptible God
into the likeness of an
image of a corruptible human being
and flying creatures and
quadrupeds and reptiles.
2Ki.17:16 make
to them a molten image …
and bow themselves to all
the host of the heavens,
Isa.44:9-20 …To a
decaying tree, to it is he falling on his knees and face.
And he is worshiping, and
praying to it,…
Isa.46:5-7 …They will
hire a refiner and he will make of it an el.
And they will fall on their
knees and face. Indeed, they will worship!
Scripture asserts God’s divine
displeasure over this affront to His Being, to His name, and to His integrity.
He castigates man’s audacity to water down His glory to the level of His
creatures and even to the likeness of
man’s creations! He condemns
idolatry for it presents Him as a mere product of man’s unenlightened imagination!
Isa.42:8
… I will not give My glory to another,
Ex.20:3
You shall not come to have other elohim in preference to Me.
Isa.40:18-21
Then to whom will you liken El?
And what likeness will you
arrange for Him? A carving?
Isa.40:25,26
"Then to whom will you liken Me, and whose equal will I be?"…
Who created all these?...
Isa.46:5
To whom will you liken Me, and make Me equal,
and compare Me, and we shall
be alike?
Ex.20:4,5 You
shall not make for yourself a carving nor any representation
of that in the heavens above
or that on the earth beneath,
or that in the waters beneath
the earth.
You shall not bow yourself
down to them, nor be made to serve them,
Act.17:29 not
inferring the Divine is like gold, silver, stone,
a sculpture of art and human
sentiment.
The Athenians of Paul’s day
conceptualised identities and characters to their plethora of gods whom
they ‘knew’ but also acknowledged the presence of ‘an Unknowable
God’ by an empty pedestal (Act.17:22,23). To those whom God has not revealed
Himself as yet, Jesus Christ declares, in truth:
Jn.4:22
You are worshiping that of which you are not aware; …
Except for the people of Abraham’s
seed, who had to be constantly disciplined to keep them in line, mankind
has drifted ever further from God. In their pride and ignorance, some have
even blinded themselves to the fact of God. They have become their own
gods - in their ‘wisdom’ deciding for themselves the rights and wrongs
and the way things should be. Postulated theories, such as that of ‘evolution’,
have been accepted as facts in their minds - and the resulting conclusions
drive them even further into error. Millions of dollars are spent in projects
to ‘discover the origins of the universe’ and to establish that life appeared
spontaneously. To admit the fact of creation is to confess that God IS
- something they are not overly enthusiastic to concede!
Eph.2:12
...you were… apart from Christ,
being alienated from
the citizenship of Israel, and guests of the promise covenants,
having no expectation,
and without God in the world.
Eph.4:17-19 …
as those of the nations also are walking, in the vanity of their mind,
their comprehension being
darkened, being estranged from the life of God
because of the ignorance
that is in them, because of the callousness of their hearts,
who, being past feeling,
in greed give themselves up with wantonness …
Col.1:21
And you, being once estranged and enemies in comprehension…
1Tim.6:20,21
turning aside from the profane prattlings
and antipathies of falsely
named "knowledge," which some are professing.
As to the faith, they swerve.
* KJV …oppositions
of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred
1Cor.1:20
Where is the wise? Where is the scribe?
Where is the discusser of
this eon?
Does not God make stupid
the wisdom of this world?
Amidst all this confusion Scripture
reveals a secret, known only to its students. There is one way, and only
one way to even begin to know God. He must reveal Himself to humanity.
Unless this is effected, He will continue to be an Unknowable Entity (Act.17:23).
And this He does - His revelation being embodied in the Scriptures. And
for us, the members of the body of Christ, who had been without God just
like all the others (Eph.2:1-7), this is our only source of such information.
And what these sacred writings tell us is that God is not revealing Himself
to everyone at the same time! He reserves the right to select certain people
at certain times, according to His wisdom and purpose (Rom.8:28-30; 9:11;
2Tim.1:9) and according to His pre-determined schedule (1Tim.2:6; 2Tim.1:9),
to be given the gift of faith to recognise and to accept the declarations
in Scripture as His truth (Eph.2:8-10)!
Therefore, to those who are
not yet being called, our God is, and will continue to be, an UNKNOWABLE
God (Act.17:23) and His ways above and beyond their ability to find out
(Rom.11:33)! All that they CAN do is to worship the god they create out
of their own fertile imaginations (Rom.1:21-23)! So, they wallow in idolatry
(Gal.4:8; 1Cor.12:2; Act.17:23).
But, to those who ARE being
called now, He not only reveals His identity (Eph.1:3) and His plan for
creation (Col.1:15-20), He also reveals their privileged places and glorious
destiny within His plan (Rom.8:28-30; Phil.3:20,21; 1Cor.6:3)! These facts
can be found ONLY through revelation, and only through Scripture.
Jn.6:44
No one can come to Me
if ever the Father Who
sends Me should not be drawing him….
Jn.6:65 … declared
to you that no one can be coming to Me
if it should not be given
him of the Father.
Mt.11:27 And
no one is recognizing the Son except the Father;
neither is anyone recognizing
the Father except the Son
and he to whom the Son
should be intending to unveil Him.
Jn.14:6 "I am
the Way and the Truth and the Life.
No one is coming to the
Father except through Me.
April 2001
Back to:
....Main
menu of Articles
Proceed to:
....Section
2 - God's
Titles and Offices
......................His
Name
....Section
3 - Yahweh:
Only He is God
......................He
is the Only Source
....Section
4 - The
Creator
......................The
Supreme Subjector & Placer
....Section
5 - Constant
and Reliable
......................The
God and Father of Jesus Christ
....Section
6 - The
God and Father of Believers
......................Conclusion |
