Who is God?

What the Bible says

Nobody can draw God from imagination. The Bible starts with what he has said of himself. When Moses stood at the burning bush and asked for a name, God replied.

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

Exod 3:14

God declares that he simply is, depending on nothing else. In the same scene he calls this "My name forever" and introduces himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Exod 3:15). The one who exists forever steps into the story of one family.

On Sinai, when he proclaims his name to Moses, God explains his own character.

The LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness

Exod 34:6

These words echo throughout the Old Testament. But in the same breath God adds that "He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished" (Exod 34:7). Mercy and justice are both God's face. Scripture does not make him simpler by erasing one of them.

Isaiah saw God's throne. The seraphim cried out.

Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Hosts; all the earth is full of His glory.

Isa 6:3

The word "holy" is said three times. God is other than his creatures and cannot be compared with anything we have made. The Psalms also sing that he is not bound by time: "from everlasting to everlasting You are God" (Ps 90:2). Malachi speaks of his faithfulness: "I, the LORD, do not change" (Mal 3:6).

Jesus tells the Samaritan woman in one sentence what kind of being God is.

God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

John 4:24

God has no body, so no single mountain or temple can hold him. And John gives the deepest description of his character.

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 4:8

Where, then, can we see this God most clearly? John answers.

No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.

John 1:18

Jesus says to Philip, "Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). Christians say that to learn what God is like, we look at Jesus. His mercy, his holy anger, and the love he showed on the cross are God's character exactly. This God is also the Creator (Gen 1:1) and the one whom believers are allowed to call "Father."

The church's witness

The church has long found depth in the name "I AM." Matthew Henry, on Exodus 3:14, lists what the name signifies. God "is self-existent: he has his being of himself." He is "eternal and unchangeable." And he "is incomprehensible; we cannot by searching find him out: this name checks all bold and curious inquiries concerning God" Matthew Henry. To know God is not to have exhausted him.

The Fathers explained "God is a Spirit" in John 4:24 this way. Chrysostom says it "signifies that God is incorporeal," and so he ought to be worshipped "not with the body, but with the soul" Chrysostom. Origen puts it differently: God is Spirit, "i.e. He constitutes our real life, just as our breath (spirit) constitutes our bodily life" Origen.

Augustine explains with care what it means to see God in Jesus. When two persons are very alike, we say that if you have seen the one you have seen the other. So "He that has seen Me, has seen the Father" does not mean that Father and Son are the same, but "that the Son is an absolute likeness of the Father" Augustine. On love, Matthew Henry writes: "Search we the whole universe for love in its most glorious displays? It is to be found in the person and the cross of Christ" Matthew Henry.

The early church's creed confesses this God: "I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth" The Apostles' Creed. The Westminster Shorter Catechism teaches that God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth Westminster Shorter Catechism Q4.

In the original languages

God's name in the Old Testament is YHWH (יְהֹוָה). Written with four consonants, it is thought to be related to the verb "to be," hayah (הָיָה), and so to the "I AM" of Exodus 3:14. In time Jewish readers avoided pronouncing the name and read "Lord" instead, which is why many English Bibles print LORD in capitals for it. The name says that God is not merely a powerful god but one who makes promises and keeps them.

Another word is elohim (אֱלֹהִים). It is plural in form, yet when it means the God of Israel it normally takes a singular verb. Some read this as a plural of majesty. Some Fathers and later theologians saw in it a hint of the richness of God's triune life. Interpreters differ, and that is worth knowing. What is certain is that the Bible uses the word to say that God is not one god among many but the only one (Isa 45:5).

The New Testament's theos (θεός) is the word the Greek Old Testament used for elohim; the name YHWH it usually rendered "Lord." What stands out is that New Testament writers use it of Jesus as well as the Father (John 1:1). We take that up in What is the Trinity?

Common objections

"God is a projection of human wishes." This objection deserves thought. People really have made gods in their own image and to suit their desires. Some theories trace belief in God to fear, or to a longing for a father. Scripture knows the danger, which is why it condemns idols so fiercely. Yet the objection has limits. Explaining where an idea came from does not settle whether it is true. By the same reasoning, the wish that there be no God also has roots. And the God of the Bible differs from the God one would wish for in several ways. He judges us, he will not be fitted to our terms, and he says that his ways are as much higher than ours as the heavens are higher than the earth (Isa 55:8-9). Fear can project a stern god too, so this proves nothing; but it is fair to ask whether this God fits our wishes as neatly as the theory needs.

"God is an angry God." Many who read the Old Testament feel this. The stories of conquest and judgment are hard to read, and Christians struggle with them too. They should not be brushed aside. But look at the order in which the Bible introduces him. In Exodus 34 God first says, "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger." The Psalms repeat it: "He will not always accuse us, nor harbor His anger forever" (Ps 103:9). The Bible's wrath is not a mood swing but the response of love to evil and injustice that harm people. A God who was unmoved by evil could hardly be said to love. These matters are taken further in Is the God of the Old Testament different from the God of the New? and Why did Jesus have to die?

Going further

Who God is is first a matter of relationship, and only then of knowledge. The Bible presents him as the Holy One, and also as one who comes near through the Son who is "at the Father's side." His holiness may make you afraid, and his love may be hard to believe. Both are honest responses.

You might ask yourself some questions. Where does the God I picture differ from the God the Bible describes, and where does he match? Which is more foreign to me, God's holiness or his mercy? If I look at Jesus to see God, what looks newest?

To read further, see Who is Jesus? Reading Exodus 33-34 and then John 1 is also a good way in.