Questions about God: 4. What is God like?

4. What is God like?

My thoughts about God are no more valuable than anyone else’s. All anyone can really know about God is what He Himself has revealed to us.

The Bible claims to be the written revelation of God. In it we read that there is only one God, and yet there are three Persons in the Godhead: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. ‘God is a spirit,’[1] and so cannot be touched or seen, but ‘He appeared in a body….’[2] as God became a man and made His dwelling with us in the person of Jesus Christ.

Despite popular caricatures, we know that God is not like a genie who appears when an Aladdin’s lamp is rubbed, nor a Santa Claus character, nor even an old man in the sky floating on a cloud! God is not human, and His thoughts are far higher than any of ours. The mediaeval scholar Anselm said, ‘God is that, the greater than which cannot be conceived.’

The Bible also tells us that God is creative. We read how He conceived the world and brought it into being. All that He made was absolutely perfect.

We have all heard some news or received something in the post that has taken us by surprise. It came out of the blue; we weren’t expecting it at all. This is an experience that God has never had. He has never exclaimed, “I didn’t expect that!” The past, present and future are all in God’s hand and control. Billions of human hours have been spent trying to understand the laws by which our world operates, yet God created and knows them all.

He is not only a creative God, but He is an all powerful (or omnipotent) God. He never grows tired, bored or disinterested. His power is infinite and He never runs out of it. God is omnipresent, so that it is impossible to escape from His presence. God is all knowing (omniscient). God never changes (immutable) and therefore is completely reliable. He is not affected by moods or impulses. He is eternal, with no beginning or end. He is beyond time.

God is absolutely holy and pure. He is more holy than we can ever even imagine or dream. He is so pure He cannot even look on sinfulness. God’s holiness is not only that He has not sinned, but that He cannot sin. Naturally we would never be able to approach Him because of our sinfulness. God is absolutely just. He must punish sin. He cannot simply sweep our sin under the carpet or hide it away like a boy tidying up his room. If I were to burgle your house, and the police caught me, they shouldn’t simply let me go saying, ‘Naughty. Don’t do that again.’ This is neither fair nor right. The fact that most of us believe that crimes deserve punishment is in itself a reflection of the truth that God is just who must deal justly with our sin and rebellion. There is no injustice with God.

While this may seem very depressing for people who are sinful (which the Bible says is all of us) there is good news. As God is absolutely just, so He is also infinitely loving. In Jesus (God in human form) He has provided a way whereby we can have forgiveness. God’s love and justice met together at the cross when Jesus died. God’s love was demonstrated in that He (Jesus) died for us. Jesus paid the punishment for our sin, so that we might be forgiven and declared righteous in God’s sight. Speaking in the Bible God says, ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.’[3] God is consistent in His judgements, as well as in other actions, thoughts and commands. Therefore He cannot contradict Himself. Neither can He act in a way that is contrary to His character. He cannot sin.

God is altogether awesome, yet it is possible for you and me to come to know God and for Him, through His Holy Spirit, to live within us and bring us to know Him forever.

Go to: 5. What is meant by ‘the Trinity’?

[1] John 4 v.24

[2] 1 Timothy 3 v. 16

[3] Isaiah 1 v. 18 NLT