Considering God as a Whole

In spite of the fact that Christians believe God’s the greatest being in existence, he remains the most elusive personality to grasp. If you ask a passerby who God is, chances are you get some really interesting answers. To some, he’s the Man Upstairs. To others, the Eye in the Sky. And to the rest, he’s simply “God.” Everyone has some way of trying to express the inexpressible. 

Although God is and will always remain mysterious, Christians find that he actually provides many insights into who he is inside of the Bible. You can divide these qualities into three groups: 

Qualities that are hard for us to grasp

Qualities that humans display to a limited degree

Qualities that show God’s intimate relation to humanity

 

I explain the qualities that fall under these groupings in this section.

 

Qualities of God that’ll make your head spin

My family loves to quiz each other with those “mind-bender” puzzles – you know, those puzzlers that brainiacs can figure out in seconds, but that give folks like me headaches. When my wife reads one to all of us, I sit there staring expressionlessly at the wall, while one of my kids blurts out the answer faster than you can say “Rubik’s cube.” 

When I think about the first set of qualities, known in theological speak as incommunicable attributes, my eyes get that same “mind-bender” stare in them. These are the qualities of God that Christians believe humans don’t have at all, so they become pretty difficult to grasp: 

God is eternal. Although the human race had a Day One of its existence, God never did. He’s always existed and always will, being independent of time itself. Refer to Isaiah 57:15, Jude 25, and 1 Kings 8:27. 

God is independent and exists apart from his creation. God is totally independent from everything, including his creation. He is self-existent, self-sufficient, and has no causes or needs; he just is. Even the name that God indentifies himself with in the Old Testament – “I am who I am” – suggests his independence. Check out Isaiah 45. Similarly, God is also transcendent, meaning that he exists apart from his creation. Therefore, although the universe that he created is huge, far larger than any human can grasp, God exists apart from it. See Isaiah 40:22. 

God is involved with all of his creation. Although God does exist apart from the world, he’s immanent, meaning that he’s near to you and I. As a result, God isn’t a mere spectator to events on earth, but is an active participant (which is why Christians believe prayer is so important – see Chapter 13 for more). Although he doesn’t dictate every little thing that happens, he can and does engineer circumstances in this world. Refer to Isaiah 57:15 and check out Chapter 16 to find out why bad things happen even though God’s involved. 

God is everywhere at the same time. God is also omnipresent, not bound to space, enabling him to be everywhere at the same time. The good news is that you’re never alone because he’s always by your side. The bad news is that, even if you want to, you can’t run from him. The prophet Jonah was one guy who testified firsthand about this fact in his self-named Book of the Bible. See Jeremiah 23:23-24 for more on this quality of God. 

God is in control. If God’s all-powerful, then it follows that he’s also sovereign, that is, in control of everything. Therefore, his will is going to be accomplished. No questions asked. As I discuss in Chapter 16, this doesn’t mean that everything that happens is always his deliberate will, but it does mean that he allows it to happen. Check out Psalm 135:6. 

God doesn’t change. God’s creation may change constantly, but God never does. He’s unchangeable (or immutable). Christians take great confidence in that, because it means he’ll never go back on his promises or change his mind. See Malachi 3:6.

God is not understandable. Although it may be possible to gain some understanding of who God is, humans on this earth will never be able to fully understand him. Refer to Romans 11:33.