Who and What is God

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There is the scientific nature of something (what it is), and there is the nature of how it relates to us, to our experience (“who” it is).  Water is H2O.  Two parts Hydrogen and one part Oxygen.  That’s true, and important to a chemist,  but that is not what water is to me.  To me water is wet and refreshing to drink.  Sometimes water is buoyant to me, fun to boat in and swim in.  Sometimes water has helped me grow things … trees and bushes in my yard, vegetables and flowers in my garden and landscaping.  Sometimes water is annoying, as when it begins to rain and I’m out in the open.  Water has a few times meant danger, as when my child almost drowned in a pool when she was young, or when I was in my car which got trapped in a flood.  I’ve caught fish in water, skied on water, snorkeled in water, dove into water, cleaned my kitchen counter with water, used frozen water to cool my drink, driven in dangerous conditions when evaporated water formed dense fog which covered the highway I was driving on.

The fact that water is H2O has nothing to do with all my experiences with water (except for a semester of chemistry in high school).  So if you ask me what water is, that’s not an easy answer.  Do you want to know what water feels like?  Smells like?  Tastes like?  Sounds like?  Do you want to know how water can benefit you?  How it can be annoying and even dangerous?  How it is necessary in order for life to continue?  Like water, so is God.  I can dryly define Him, according to the Scriptures, but that definition will not necessarily be a benefit to your life.  I’d rather focus on how you can interact with God to your benefit, and also caution you how He can be “dangerous.”

Even God Himself does not easily define Himself to people.  When communicating to Moses via a burning bush which was not consumed by the flames, after Moses asked Him what he should tell Israel His name was, God responded:

And Moses said unto God, Behold , when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers has sent me unto you, and they shall say to me, What is his name?  What shall I say unto them?  And God said unto Moses, I am that I am: and He said, Thus shall you say unto the children of Israel, I am has sent me unto you.  And God said moreover unto Moses.  Thus shall you say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me unto you; this is My name forever, and this is My memorial unto all generations.  Exodus 3:13-15

What Moses saw was an angel in the midst of a bush which was burning but which was not burning up!  He never saw God.  (Exodus 3:2) He never spoke directly to God, except by means of speaking to “the angel of the Lord.”  God never spoke directly to Moses, except by means of this same angel.  Why?  Because Moses did not have God’s spirit born within him, and thus could not hear from and communicate with God directly.  Moses did not have the nature of God and so could not directly and intimately communicate with Him.

I have two cats.  I love them, but we never have intimate conversations about what is really important in life, like I do with my actual children.  We communicate, but only on a very superficial level.  They are creatures of habit, and the best I can hope is that they stay away from things which would be harmful to them (ie:  playing in the street, eating poison), and that I enjoy them enjoying their little cat lives, including jumping up on my lap when I’m trying to read my Bible!  They have some annoying habits, which I endure because I love them.  So is God with man in whom is no spirit of God.

In the Old Testament, God could only communicate with man via sensory “intermediaries.”  (angels which appeared, a burning bush, a donkey, a disembodied voice, etc).  He could not have intimate conversations with man, because man was dead to God, having lost His life in the Garden of Eden.  In the Garden, man gave up God’s life in order to be god to himself.  Man literally took the place of God in his own life, which is why death came into the world.  This perfectly describes the vanity which today rules men’s minds.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold down (stand against, repress) the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which is known (gnosko – known by experience) of God is manifest in them (in their understanding), For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the cosmos are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made (man-in-God’s-image), His eternal power and deity (theotes – Godness, divinity), so that they are without excuse; Because that, having known (gnosko) God, they glorified Him not as God (did not allow God to express Himself in and through their lives), neither were thankful (acknowledge themselves as recipients of God’s generosity); but became vain in their logical reasonings, and their foolish heart was darkened.  Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,  Romans 1:18-23

And so it is today.  Fools, taken with their own importance, seated on the throne of their own minds, spouting the foolish vanity  which proceeds from that throne, as from the very throne of God as if it were truth, as if what they think has some Godly eternal value simply because they think it.  When a two year old acts all important and grown up, as if who he is and what he thinks is important, we tend to think he’s cute.  But that same behavior in an adult isn’t so cute, is it?

God is spirit; and they who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.  John 4:24

God is powerful, but not in the way which man usually thinks of power.  God is like water.  Who can stop the rain?  Who can determine where a specific drop of water will go (evaporate, into a stream, into a plant, etc.)?   It goes where it goes (I am what I am).  You can not stop it, you can only affect it’s “will” temporarily, for example by diverting a stream.  You can benefit from water, but you do not “own” it.  God is like the wind.  You don’t know where it came from, when exactly it’s coming, or with what exact force, yet it produces electrical power, waves, drives men’s sailboats all over the world, helps melt snow, cool us on hot days, provide delightful sights and sounds via trees, plants, flowers and grass.  Wind is a part of our very breath.  We can benefit from it, but we do not control its nature.

The wind blows where it will, and you hear the sound of it, but can  not tell where it came from and where it’s going; so is everyone who is born of the spirit.  John 3:8

There are four things I know for sure about God, always.
God is spirit. (invisible, durable, powerful, unknowable by the human mind)  (John 4:24)
God is love. (invests, builds, operates beneficially for lasting growth)  (I John 4:8)
God is light. (reveals the truth of what is)  (I John 1:5)
God is faithful. (He never changes, is always Who and What He is; as regards us He operates only in the realm of faith).  (I Corinthians 1:9)

There are things I know for sure God is not, ever.
God is not darkness.  (keeps things hidden in order to lie, steal or destroy)
God is not a man.  (human, thinks like a human, has emotions)
God is not a trinity of different spirits.  (He is one, with many expressions)
God is not a destroyer of life.  (any more than a fountain can destroy water)

Now let’s read Genesis, where God makes man.  It should make so much more sense.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness;  So God created man in His image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.  Genesis 1:26a, 27

God’s image is spirit.  His likeness is love, light and faithfulness.  He made man in His image and likeness; that is, man was made a spiritual being with a nature,  character and “personality” which matched God’s.  Man’s life was designed to invest, build and beneficially operate in tune with the truth of creation for all eternity.

This is what man lost in the Garden.  What Jesus Christ gained back for us is that once again man becomes the image and likeness of God.  Not God as lord and taskmaster, as He was to Moses and Israel, but God as father.  Without God’s nature, man must be cautious of God, for God can be harmful to him, as light is harmful to darkness.  But sons of God have no need to fear God, for they are born of God; spiritually generated as beings having the exact qualities of their spiritual (heavenly) Father.  When we believe unto the man Jesus as being the Christ, raised up from the dead, we receive his same spirit – the spirit of the son of God, making us also sons of God.

Since God is unknowable by the human mind, the only way we can know God is in the experiencing of Him.  Without spirit, we can only know Him by His acts, how and when He affects the physical world (ie: raising Jesus from the dead, parting the Red Sea).  With the spirit of the son, Christ, within us, we experience Him as an integral part of our being and makeup.  As a puddle could understand a lake (if it had a mind), at least in part, having its same nature, so we can understand God as being God, once we are born of His image and likeness.

There is so much more I could get into in this exploration of who and what God is.  I hope this study is a starting point in you coming into a deeper understanding and appreciation of God and of His nature and desire in and for you.  Sufficed to say for now, having received the benefit of the spirit of God’s son, Jesus the Christ, we can look forward to an eternity of growing in a knowing of God, as we grow more and more like Him with every experience of Christ.

But if the spirit of Him Who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His spirit which dwells in you.  Romans 8:11

The spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.  And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we endure with him, that we may be also glorified together (with him).  Romans 8:16, 17

For the earnest expectation of the creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God.  Because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.  Romans 8:19, 21

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Related Studies

If you enjoyed how this study challenged your thinking and opened up your understanding of Christ, click on one of the related studies below:

On Becoming Perfect
To Walk Worthy of God
HOW to Walk by the Spirit

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