What is God like?

God is a Spirit, infinite, Eternal and unchangeable in His Being; full of power, holiness, justice, mercy, goodness and truth. In His natural attributes there is first His eternity. " Art Thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God?" Hab. 1:12; Inscrutability. "Even from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God." Ps. 90:2; Omnipotence. "With God all things are possible." Matt. 19:26. "The blessed and only Potentate." 1 Tim. 6:15; Omnipresence. "Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall Thy hand lead me and Thy right hand shall hold me." Ps. 139:7-10.

The moral attributes are descriptive of His nature and character and come out fully in the working out of purpose in His time ways among men. Thus Righteousness and Holiness describe His character and spring from His nature which is love. 1 John 4:8-14. This last is absolute and exists eternally as constantly reciprocated within the Godhead. He is also Light, but this is relative as standing in relation to darkness and is the exposure of sin, lawlessness and moral disorder.

Scripture reveals what God is in Himself, 'God is love' (used absolutely), 1 John 4:8; and 'God is light' (used relatively, in opposition to darkness), 1 John 1:5; and Christ is the expression of both in a Man. The principal of God's attributes and characteristics as revealed in scripture are His Eternity. Hab. 1:12; Rom. 1:20. Invisibility. Col. 1:15. Immortality. Ps. 90:2; 1 Tim. 1:17. Omnipotence. Job 24:1; Matt. 19:26; only Potentate. 1 Tim. 6:15. Omnipresence. Ps. 139:7-10; Jer. 23:23-24. Omniscience. 1 Chr. 28:9; Isa. 42:8-9; Rom. 8:29-30; Heb. 4:13. Incorruptibility. Rom. 1:23; James 1:13. Immutability. Mal. 3:6; James 1:17. Wisdom. Ps. 104:24; Rom. 11:33-36. Holiness. Ps. 47:8; Ps. 99:3, 5; Rev. 4:8. Justice. Ps. 89:14; 2 Tim. 4:8. Grace and mercy. Ps. 136; 2 Cor. 1:3; Eph. 2:4. Longsuffering. Ex. 34:6; Rom. 9:22. Faithfulness. Ps. 36:5; Heb. 10:23.

"God is light;" and "God is love." These two are His essential qualities — His very being. We know that power, dominion and authority, wisdom and riches belong to Him. But it is nowhere said in scripture, that "God is power," or that "God is wisdom," etc. We know that God is holy, righteous, and just, and that He is good, gracious, and merciful. But these divine qualities are only the manifest results of what God is in Himself, i.e., "Light," and "Love."

God inhabits eternity. He fills all things. He is everywhere. He is the uncreated, self-existent source of all things, yet knowing no source for Himself. He created all things out of nothing. Such a conception satisfies because it is beyond conception. We bow before this glorious Being with holy joy. Our hearts trust Him, for He is utterly beyond the littleness and frailty and sinfulness of men. He is in one sense unmoved by any impulse, save that which springs from Himself. He is all goodness, all love, all righteousness, all holiness, all faithfulness. Every attribute and quality that we can admire is absolute in its fulness in Him. In short, a Being who is love, who is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, satisfies the cry of our hungry hearts for omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, all serve His love, and therefore serve us. This could not be known without revelation, nor fully known apart from the Cross, where God manifested Himself fully in Christ.

12 If we take Scripture, we find there the attributes of God - the one true and only God - shine out, and in every page, with unclouded lustre. He is one, supreme, the Creator of heaven and earth, of all things; knows all things. If we go to heaven, He is there; to hades, He is there (Jer. 23:24); can do all things. His eye and presence are everywhere; He is the eternal God; He is righteous and holy ; His goodness is over all His works. The cravings of the heart of man are met with the clearest and fullest revelation of God. I refer to the Old Testament, because there God, as such - the one true God - is fully and specially revealed in contrast with idols and man's imaginations. It is its special, direct revelation, with the law of His mouth - though promises and prophecies accompany it.

So we must be careful in using the terms, first, second and third Persons in the Trinity, not to think there is any difference in importance. The Father is God; the Son is God; the Spirit is God—the Spirit equal in nature and substance to the Father and the Son. If the three Persons of the Godhead are each of them God, it does not follow that there are three Gods. That were impossible. There can be only one God, supreme and unique. Orthodox Christendom believes in three Persons in the Godhead, yet one God, indivisible and unique—the three Persons in the Godhead with one will, one purpose, each sharing to the full every thought and desire and purpose in the minds of the others. We may not, nay cannot, comprehend this. It is a mystery hidden in the Godhead, yet the Godhead is pleased to reveal Itself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

It is true that God is not in material form, but it is an all-pervading Spirit, “who only has immortality [that is inherently], dwelling in the light which no man can approach to; whom no man has seen, nor can see” (1 Tim. 6:16). But it is also true that God is not impersonal. He is a Person from whom everything proceeds, and by whom everything is sustained. But if we are to know God, it is clear that it can only be by revelation. All our knowledge of His nature comes through the Scriptures. Creation will tell us of His “eternal power and Godhead” (Rom. 1:20). But creation cannot reveal His heart. It cannot tell us that “God is love.” But revelation will tell us that God is perfect and yet will ever hear the real cry of need.

The mind of man craves for some representation of the being he worships. From the degraded savage who tries to represent the supernatural forces around him by amulets and charms, to the idolater who invests his carved or molten image with divine powers, or the devotee who vainly prostrates himself before crucifix or images of saints, all betray this instinct for a tangible representation of the object of worship. Christ is the Image of God. An image of Christ is therefore absurd, and a negation of all that He is; for if He be the Image of God, why require an image of Him? God as God is invisible. He fills heaven and earth, and no finite creature could take account of so glorious a Being whose time is eternity, whose dimension is space, whose being is Spirit. There was every necessity why He should be adequately represented to our ken. But who among created beings could be the embodiment of the Uncreate? Our marvel is that all that God is in His own being is adequately set forth in Christ. There was no deficiency in Him; He brought down here the entire fullness of the Godhead — setting it forth without flaw from the stable of Bethlehem, the waters of Jordan, and the synagogue of Nazareth, right on to the grave of Lazarus, the garden of Gethsemane, the cross of Golgotha, the emptied tomb, and the throne of glory. There is no one else capable of compassing in his own person all the majesty and the nature of God. Jesus is the Son; there is therefore, no disparity between Him and God, in Him was most perfectly expressed every element in the divine nature. Renewed by grace, we draw near to our Saviour with unshod feet and gaze into His face; and in Him is the absolute, complete, final revelation of God. Never, in any religion or philosophy before, has it been written "GOD IS LOVE." But the truth is out now — in Jesus. God's nature is disclosed, set before men and celestial beings, revealed in the Man who is also, and must be, eternal Son.

Now God tells us this plainly in order to act upon our consciences; He tells us He is light, and that darkness can have no communion with Him; that nothing defiled can enter into the heavenly Jerusalem as it is called. He warns us that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness. He says there is oppression and wrong, but encourages the Christian to the patience which Christ Himself shewed. And how? By the solemn word, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord" (Rom. 12:19). He is a righteous Judge, as well as a God of love. He takes notice of good and evil, and hence necessarily judges. Yet we are sinners, and, as regards such, what can righteousness do? But He is love. Does His love destroy His judgment against sin? does it put an end to His righteousness? No: that would not be grace and love, but indifference to evil; and would lead our hearts alas! to be indifferent to it too. Why should not we be, if God were? But it would be a real curse to us, and He would not be really the true and holy God.

He says, "The Godhead as such is incomprehensible by creatures; dwelling in light unapproachable, Whom no man hath seen nor is able to see" (1 Tim. 6:16), to which He adds) … "The essence or being of God is not a subject of revelation, and I think we may say with all reverence it could not be."