What is God like according to the Bible?

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.

This chapter properly expresses the circumstances of the remnant; and though it may not apply directly to ourselves, yet the moral principles of it are true with us. It is very blessed to see how all comes out from God's side. It was the stay of the heart then; it is equally so now. Every child of God is in circumstances of trial and pressure, because we are still in the wilderness. Our comfort is, "The Lord is good." This is His nature. His power, omnipotence, omniscience, are His attributes; but He Himself is good. When we get the light of the New Testament shining upon it, what do we find? He gave His Son - He gave His Spirit. It is only as we know the heart of God that we know the purpose of His ways; judging of God by our feeble sense leads to infidelity. His ways are no interpretation of Him. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." God manifest in the flesh, is God's revelation of Himself.

Who could have conceived a Being of such majesty and power, and yet such condescension and grace? Who would have thought that the One who is so great as to know by name the uncountable stars, could be so deeply interested in His weak and failing children as to number the very hairs of their heads? The vast, illimitable universe is subject to His will and yet He is particularly interested in the smallest detail of the lives of those who put their trust in Him. Who would have dared to hope that the One whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, would dwell with the poor and needy, to revive their contrite hearts and uphold them in their trials? And what angel or man could have invented a gospel that presents the Holy God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, loving, pardoning, justifying and blessing ungodly sinners? It is thus that the Bible, His own Word, shows Him to our wondering eyes, and those who are wise will believe and worship. How great is the blessing of those who believe His testimony, who find their refuge from every ill in Him, and can call the God of the Bible their God.

Coming now to the attributes more directly connected with the moral nature of God, we meet with holiness and justice, out of which necessarily arise all those rich elements, which come out in His moral government. In His activities among men, we see sovereignty, goodness, truth, mercy and compassion, but all characterised by the moral purity of His holiness, and the rectitude of His justice. Holiness is His intrinsic moral purity. "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity" (Hab. 1:13). It has been defined as God's perfect satisfaction with Himself in the power of all-satisfying good; and may be said to inhere in His nature. Justice or righteousness is more external, as being characteristic of God in all He says and does. It is His perfect consistency with Himself in both word and act. It brings us to the great scope of His moral government. Holiness may be said to be the standard to which all must be brought, and justice the mode of action which leads to that standard.

The holiness of God, in the very nature of things, is bound to call forth punishment for sin. "Our God is a consuming fire" (Heb. 12:29). "Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hand from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil" (Isa. 33:14-15). See the attitude and language of the Seraphim as they stand round the Throne of the majesty representative of creation. "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory" (Isa. 6:3). In His mercy sinners are forgiven, but sin is not condoned. "Thou answeredst them, O LORD our God, Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though Thou tookest vengeance of their inventions. Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His holy hill; for the Lord our God is holy!" (Psalm 99:8-9).

We learn that man is the same in every age: in Eden, in Canaan, in the Church, in millennial glory, he is proved to be made of the same humbling materials; but we learn also, for our joy and encouragement, that God is the same — "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever" — "Patient, gracious, powerful, holy" — patient, to bear with our grievous and manifold provocations; gracious, to blot out our oft-repeated sins, and restore our wandering souls; powerful, to deliver us out of Satan's entangling snares, and from the energy of nature and the world; holy, to execute judgement in His house, and to chasten His sons, that they may be partakers of His holiness. Such is the God with whom we have to do; and we see the wondrous unfoldings of His character in the deeply-interesting sketches with which the Old Testament history abounds, and in none, perhaps, more than in that now before us.

1st. God is owned as unchanging and eternal. "Thou art the Same, thou alone Jehovah" (6, N. Tr.). Amidst all changes in times, seasons, circumstances, and men, we have in the Lord One who knows no change and will never pass away. As we read in another scripture, "Thou remainest" and "Thou art the Same" (Heb. 1). 2nd. God is owned as the Creator of all. The heaven of heavens and all their host, the earth too and all things that are therein, the seas and all that is therein, are the work of His hands. 3rd. God is owned as the Sustainer of all. All creation is preserved by God and dependent upon God (6). 4th. God is owned as Sovereign. He chooses whom He will. He calls Abram out of Ur, and He changes his name (7). 5th. God is owned as the Giver of unconditional promises to those whom He has called according to His sovereign choice (8). 6th. God is owned as faithful to His word. He performs that which He has promised (8). 7th. God is owned in His ways of grace and power by which He delivered His people from Egypt, brought them through the wilderness and established them in the Land (9-15).

Scripture acquaints us with God, not by descriptions of Him, but through His own actings. What a different thing we should have had, if He had employed Prophets to describe Him — but what a precious thing we have in seeing God Himself in action!

Nor has this revelation come to us in writing only, as in the letter of our illustration, though the Bible, inspired of God from Genesis to Revelation, is indeed the perfect written revelation from Himself, a treasure of priceless value, to be prized and studied prayerfully and carefully by all the redeemed; but the final and supreme revelation of God Himself is made in a living Person of whom the written Word tells, in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word who was God, who became flesh so that He might be fully made known. In His ways, in His works, His walk and His words, in all that incomparable life and death recorded for our hearts’ meditation and adoration in the four Spirit-given gospels, we behold God manifest in the flesh, God revealed in infinite perfection. The works of God in creation, in providence, or in government could but show some of His glorious attributes, but His Son, a real Man amongst men, seen in moral, spiritual and Divine perfectness and power always, revealed the invisible God Himself to us. The Holy Spirit the Comforter, who has been given from our exalted Lord to dwell in us, brings us the written Word, where we behold the wondrous glories of this revelation, which is declared to us in the Son of the Father’s love, to whom we sing, “Thou wast the Image, in man’s lowly guise, Of the Invisible to mortal eyes, Son of His bosom, come from heaven above, We see in Thee incarnate, ‘God is love.’”

"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."

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.