Who is God?

Who is God?

God's claim of Creator

The first statement in the Bible is clear as to our ultimate origin: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). God here establishes the premise for everything else that will follow.

Later, through the prophet Isaiah, He summarizes His creation of earth and everything in it: "Thus says God the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to those who walk on it" (Isaiah 42:5).

Through Isaiah God tells us to look at His handiwork in the heavens: "Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing . . . Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable" (Isaiah 40:26-28, NRSV).

On a clear night we can see about 2,000 stars with the naked eye. A century ago astronomers thought our Milky Way galaxy, with its billions of stars, was the entire universe. Now they estimate there are at least 100 billion galaxies, and possibly far more, each with billions of stars. The estimated number of galaxies continues to grow as new technological breakthroughs allow us to expand our view of the cosmos.

It would require supercomputers just to list the names or assigned numbers of a significant fraction of these stars. Yet God claims to have created every star and that He can account for each of them.

Where did God come from?

God anticipated the skeptics' often-asked question: "If God made everything, then who made God?" Notice His answer: "Before Me there was no God formed, nor shall there be after Me" (Isaiah 43:10).

God is not bound by time as we are. He is "the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity" (Isaiah 57:15). Paul tells us that God "has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see" (1 Timothy 6:16).

The name most often used to refer to God in the Old Testament, Yahweh (translated "LORD"), means "the Eternal" or "He who was, and is, and is to come" (The Companion Bible, 1990, Appendix 4).

This name conveys that God is eternal and immortal. Jesus Christ also refers to Himself as "the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End . . . who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty" (Revelation 1:8 ). The universe had a beginning, and God existed before that time. He has always existed. Nothing—and no one—brought Him into being.

The Creator comes to earth

The Bible plainly says that God created all things through Jesus Christ, who is also called the Word (John 1:1-3; see also Colossians 1:15-17; Hebrews 1:1-2). "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).

The One who actually performed the act of forming the earth, created life on it and brought the universe into being out of nothing came to earth and lived among men as a human being. He "stripped Himself of His glory, and took on Him the nature of a bondservant by becoming a man like other men" (Philippians 2:7, Weymouth Translation).


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