A Brief Bible Study |
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Your Bible Lesson For The Day
What Is God Like?
People like to try to figure things out, even the impossible. They would like to know the unknowable. Trying to understand what God is like is like trying to figure out the impossible and to know the unknowable.
I cannot tell you everything there is to know about what God is like, because God is unique. He is one of a kind. No one is like him. Exodus 8:10 tells us, “There is no one like the Lord our God.” This being true, no one can know everything about God and what he is like. He is incomprehensible. We would have to be God ourselves to understand everything about him.
From Exodus 3:14 we learn God told Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. Thus you will say to the sons of Israel; ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” Only God can say his name is “I am,” for he alone is fully self-sufficient, which means he is not dependent on anyone or anything for his existence. He is fully independent. And so he can do as he pleases. This means, then, he is also almighty. What is more, his name “I am” tells us he is the ever existing, eternal God, who always was, and is, and is to come. There never was a time when he was not, and there never will be a time when he will not be.
What is God like? Jesus tells us in John 4:24, “God is spirit.” As Jesus explained in Luke 24:39 a spirit does not have flesh and bones. This being true, John 1:18 says no one has ever seen God. No one has seen him because he is an invisible, immaterial, non-physical, living spirit.
No one is like God. And the biggest truth about him that we cannot understand is how he can be one God and yet three separate persons at the same time. We know he is one God, because Deuteronomy 6:4 tells us, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord, our God, the Lord is one.” And 1 Corinthians 8:4 says, “. . . there is no God except one.” God is one. There are not many Gods, only one God. And yet Matthew 28:19 tells us that God is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. He is three separate, distinct persons while being at the same time just one God. And so the Christian Church has always confessed that God is one God in three Persons. He is Triune, the God who is three in one and one in three.
Our human mind cannot figure this out. And we don’t have to figure everything out about what God is like. We don’t have to try to know the unknowable. God does not tell us to figure him out and know everything about him. He tells us simply to accept what he tells us about himself and believe it.
I cannot tell you everything there is to know about what God is like, because God is unique. He is one of a kind. No one is like him. Exodus 8:10 tells us, “There is no one like the Lord our God.” This being true, no one can know everything about God and what he is like. He is incomprehensible. We would have to be God ourselves to understand everything about him.
From Exodus 3:14 we learn God told Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. Thus you will say to the sons of Israel; ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” Only God can say his name is “I am,” for he alone is fully self-sufficient, which means he is not dependent on anyone or anything for his existence. He is fully independent. And so he can do as he pleases. This means, then, he is also almighty. What is more, his name “I am” tells us he is the ever existing, eternal God, who always was, and is, and is to come. There never was a time when he was not, and there never will be a time when he will not be.
What is God like? Jesus tells us in John 4:24, “God is spirit.” As Jesus explained in Luke 24:39 a spirit does not have flesh and bones. This being true, John 1:18 says no one has ever seen God. No one has seen him because he is an invisible, immaterial, non-physical, living spirit.
No one is like God. And the biggest truth about him that we cannot understand is how he can be one God and yet three separate persons at the same time. We know he is one God, because Deuteronomy 6:4 tells us, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord, our God, the Lord is one.” And 1 Corinthians 8:4 says, “. . . there is no God except one.” God is one. There are not many Gods, only one God. And yet Matthew 28:19 tells us that God is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. He is three separate, distinct persons while being at the same time just one God. And so the Christian Church has always confessed that God is one God in three Persons. He is Triune, the God who is three in one and one in three.
Our human mind cannot figure this out. And we don’t have to figure everything out about what God is like. We don’t have to try to know the unknowable. God does not tell us to figure him out and know everything about him. He tells us simply to accept what he tells us about himself and believe it.
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