What is the true God?

In connection with this, will you look at the First Epistle of John — "We know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding. that we may know him that is true: and we are in him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:20-21). What were these idols? The old Highland minister said they were little idols with white dresses and gaily coloured cloaks. Nay, it is not a question of an idol down here at all, but of having a thought of God that has not its perfect counterpart in Christ. Where is the true God seen? In the Man Christ Jesus. There are plenty of people who have idols — that is, who have not right thoughts of God. They have notions and thoughts about God for which there is no counterpart in Christ, and such have idols. Christ is the image of the invisible God, and whatever represents God falsely has no counterpart in Christ, and is therefore an idol.

Here we have an answer divinely simple, divinely sure. Jesus reveals God to the soul — reveals the Father to the heart. Precious fact! We are not sent to creation, to learn who God is — though we see His power, wisdom and goodness there. We are not sent to the Law — though we see His justice there. We are not sent to providence — though we see the profound mysteries of His government there. No; if we want to know who and what God is, we are to look in the face of Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, who dwelt in His bosom before the worlds, who was His eternal delight, the object of His affections, the centre of His counsels. He it is who reveals God to the soul. We cannot have the slightest idea of what God is apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. "In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead [Theotes] bodily." "God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ."

It was on this very ground that, of old, God sought to be known as God by the Jews. He claimed to be worshipped by them as the one only God, because He had shown Himself their Redeemer. "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." In this action He had made Himself known as God, full of grace and power for captive sinners; and if we know Him not as such we know Him not rightly. Any thought about God at variance with this is but the act of the mind of a darkened creature busying itself about its own idolatry. The true God is He Who reveals Himself in redeeming grace and power; and, blessed truth, to know God is, accordingly, to know myself a sinner saved by grace.

I learn from the scriptures that there is one living God,1 fully revealed to us in Christ,2 and known through Him as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,3 in the unity of the Godhead, but revealed as distinctively willing,5 acting,6 sending, sent,7 coming,8 distributing,9 and other actings; or, as habitually expressed amongst Christians, three persons in one God, or Trinity in Unity. God is the Creator of all things; but the act of creating is personally attributed to the Word and the Son, and the operation of the Spirit of God.10

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.

1914 122 "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." In vain would men pretend to the knowledge of God apart from the Scriptures. They have tried long and hard to attain to it by their own means, science, philosophy, etc., but only to end with this confession of their ignorance, "To the unknown God." Such was the boasted wisdom of the Greeks nothing indeed to be proud of. God can only be known by the revelation of Himself, and a revelation of Himself He has given nowhere but in the Scriptures. He has given, in creation, visible proofs of His eternal power and divinity; but these proofs, if sufficient to condemn the fool who hath said in his heart, "There is no God," do not reveal Him in His nature and character. The Scriptures only, because God-breathed, can do that. Therein alone is God manifested in His holiness, righteousness and love. "God is light" and "God is love" is what we learn and see both in His written Word and in the incarnate Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, "the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person," or, as it may be translated, "the resplendence of His glory and the imprint of His substance."

Creation declares "His eternal power and divinity" (theiotes); the law, that He is Jehovah, the God of a people brought out of Egypt to be in manifest relationship and responsibility to Him above all other peoples. But it is the Son, the only Begotten, who reveals the one true God, and Himself the Sent One of the Father, the true God and eternal life. "He that cometh to God must believe that He is" (not, must be). Man needs a divine revelation, and this God has given in His word — but more, He has revealed Himself in a Man walking this earth in perfect dependence on and pleasing His Father in all things — the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

God's eternal power and divinity may be known in creation, Rom. 1:20; but He has revealed Himself in the person of Christ, the Son, the eternal Word. God has been pleased also to reveal Himself in His written word. His purposes, His ways, and what He has done for sinful man, all demand universal reverence, adoration, and worship.

We are speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ as “the Son,” and not of His distinctive glories as “the Son of David,” “the Son of Man” and “the Son of God,” nor even of Him as “the Son of the Father,” but rather of His deity as God the Son. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; yet there are not three Gods, but one God, “God is one” (Gal. 3:20; 1 Tim. 2:5, N.Tr.). Baptism is to the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” we are told in Matthew 28:19. This indicates for us the trinity of Persons in the Godhead, all of whom share in that supreme glory.

Creation should, indeed, speak, and its voice be heard. What is invisible in the Creator should be and is seen, and seen clearly, being understood by the things that are made—even His eternal power and Godhead—not, indeed, His grace, or truth, or love, but infinite power and design, so much so that people are left thus without excuse. (See Romans 1:20.) Creation declares the power of God. It does not reveal what He is in Himself—His nature—but to any, except those wilfully blind, it is evidence sufficient of the existence of a Creator-God!