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He is not distant. He is here. The God of Scripture is closer to you than you are to yourself. |
This
picture of God is not entirely wrong. He is indeed immensely powerful. He does
reign from the heavens. But it is so drastically incomplete that it functions
as a lie. Because the God of Scripture is not a distant spectator. He is
present, active, intimate and near. Closer to you, in fact, than you are to
yourself.
I
want to say something carefully here, because it matters practically and not
just theologically. The distance people place between themselves and God is
almost never geographical. It is perceptual. They believe He is far and so they
live as if He is far. They pray as if sending a message to a distant planet,
unsure if it will arrive. They make choices in the dark corners of their
private lives as if the great distance between earth and heaven means He
probably cannot see what is happening down here. Nobody will admit to thinking
this. But the way millions of people actually live gives it away. If you
genuinely believed God was present with you right now, in this room, seeing
every thought behind your eyes and hearing every word before you speak it, you
would not live the way most people live.
The
doctrine of God is not a dry academic subject for theologians. It is the most
practically urgent topic in all of Christian thought. Because you will never
live right before a God you do not know. You will never trust a God you have
misunderstood. And you will never seek a God you believe is too far to be
found.
So
let us go back to the text and find out who God actually is.
Does God Actually Exist? The Question We Must Answer First
Before
we can explore who God is, we must briefly but firmly address the foundational
question that much of the modern world insists on asking: does God exist at
all?
We
will address this question in full depth in BereanLook's Apologetics series.
But it cannot be bypassed here entirely, because the doctrine of God begins
with His existence. And on that question, the Bible does not argue. It
declares.
"In
the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
— Genesis 1:1 (KJV)
Four
words into the entire Bible and God is already acting. Not being introduced.
Not being proven. Acting. The Scripture does not open with a philosophical
argument for the existence of God. It opens with the assumption that God exists
and the immediate evidence of what He does. The existence of God in Scripture
is the starting premise from which everything else flows, not a conclusion to
be arrived at after sufficient investigation.
"In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God." — John 1:1 (KJV)
John
deliberately echoes Genesis. In the beginning is not accidental. He is
saying that before time, before creation, before anything that can be measured
or observed, God was. The Word, who would later become flesh in the person of
Jesus Christ, was with God and was God. Existence did not produce God. God
preceded existence. He is its source.
The
created world itself bears testimony to this. Romans 1:20 states it plainly:
"For
the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen,
being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and
Godhead; so that they are without excuse."
— Romans 1:20 (KJV)
The
universe is not an accident. The staggering complexity of a single human cell,
the precise calibration of physical constants that make life possible, the
existence of conscience and moral intuition in human beings across every
culture in history, all of these point insistently toward an intelligent,
moral, personal Creator. The arguments from cosmology, design and morality are
compelling and we will pursue them fully in their proper place. For now, this
much must be said without apology: God exists. The Bible asserts it, creation
confirms it and the human heart, however deeply it tries to suppress it, knows
it.
Psalm
14:1 does not call the atheist stupid. But it calls their conclusion foolish:
"The
fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done
abominable works, there is none that doeth good."
— Psalm 14:1 (KJV)
Foolishness
in the biblical sense is not low intelligence. It is a practical, moral
orientation away from truth. The rejection of God is not primarily an
intellectual conclusion. It is a heart posture. And the Bible addresses it as
such.
God
exists. That is our starting point. Now let us find out who He is.
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he heavens declare the glory of God. Creation is not silent about its Creator. (Psalm 19:1) |
The Names of God: What God Calls Himself
One
of the most revealing ways to understand who God is is to study what He calls
Himself. In the ancient world, a name was not merely a label. It was a
declaration of nature, character and identity. This is especially true of the
names of God in Scripture. Every major name God uses for Himself is a window
into who He is and how He relates to His creation.
Elohim:
The Almighty Creator
The
very first name used for God in Scripture is Elohim (אֱלֹהִים). It
appears in Genesis 1:1: In the beginning God (Elohim) created the heaven and
the earth. Elohim is a plural noun used with singular verbs, a grammatical
construction in Hebrew that has fascinated scholars for centuries and which
many theologians see as an early hint of the trinitarian nature of God. Its
root carries the meaning of power, might and strength. Elohim is the God of
absolute creative power. The One before whom all things owe their existence.
Elohim
appears over 2,500 times in the Old Testament. It is the name of God in His
role as Creator and Sovereign over all creation. When you feel small before the
vastness of the universe or overwhelmed by the scale of your circumstances,
Elohim is the name that reminds you that the One you are relating to made all
of that with the breath of His mouth.
Yahweh:
The Personal, Covenant God
The
most sacred name of God in the Hebrew scriptures is YHWH (יהוה), often
rendered as Yahweh or Jehovah in English translations and translated as LORD in
small capitals in most English Bibles. This name comes from the Hebrew verb hayah,
meaning to be or to exist, and is connected to God's self-revelation to Moses
in Exodus 3:14:
"And
God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the
children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."
— Exodus 3:14 (KJV)
I AM
THAT I AM. This is not a philosophical abstraction. It is a declaration of
self-sufficient, eternal, uncaused existence. God does not derive His being
from anything outside Himself. He simply and eternally is. He was not created.
He cannot cease to exist. He is not dependent on the universe for His
existence. He is the ground of all being.
But
Yahweh is not only the name of God's eternal self-existence. It is also His
covenant name, the name by which He enters into personal, binding relationship
with His people. Everywhere in the Old Testament where you see God making
promises, keeping commitments, being faithful to those He loves, the name used
is Yahweh. It is the name that says: I am not just the God of the universe in
the abstract. I am your God specifically. And I will be faithful to you.
El
Shaddai: God Almighty, the All-Sufficient One
El
Shaddai (אֵל שַׁדַּי) is translated God Almighty and appears first in Genesis
17:1 when God reveals Himself to Abraham. The root of Shaddai is debated among
scholars but the most widely supported meaning connects it to the idea of
sufficiency and nurturing power. God is not just powerful in an abstract sense.
He is sufficient for every need. Whatever you are facing, whatever you lack,
whatever has been stripped from you, El Shaddai is enough.
El Roi:
The God Who Sees
This
name appears only once in Scripture but its impact is enormous. In Genesis 16,
Hagar, a slave woman, has been mistreated and has fled into the desert alone
and desperate. There, in a place where no one could see her and no one cared,
God found her. And when He spoke to her, she gave Him a name nobody had ever
used before:
"And
she called the name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she
said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?"
— Genesis 16:13 (KJV)
El
Roi. The God who sees. Not just in the sense that His vision is omnipresent and
He observes everything. But in the sense that He sees you, specifically,
personally, in your desert, in your abandonment, in the places where no human
eye can find you. The fact that Hagar named God this way, a foreign slave woman
with no theological training, tells us something profound. God's nearness and
visibility are not reserved for the religious elite. He sees the forgotten. He
finds the abandoned. He is present in the deserts people end up in.
Jehovah
Jireh: The God Who Provides
In
Genesis 22, Abraham is on Mount Moriah, his knife raised over his son Isaac,
fully prepared to obey God at the ultimate cost. And then God intervenes. A ram
caught in the thicket. The sacrifice provided. And Abraham names the place
Jehovah Jireh, which means the LORD will provide, or more literally, the LORD
will see to it.
Jehovah Jireh is not a name that means God gives you everything you want. It means God sees the need before you do and has already made provision. Long before Abraham climbed that mountain, the ram was in the thicket. Before your crisis arrived, God had already seen it and prepared a way through it.
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Every name of God is a revelation of His character and a promise to His people. |
The Dimensions of God: Knowing Him in His Fullness
One
of the reasons so many believers have a stunted relationship with God is that
they only know one dimension of who He is. Some know only the God of judgment
and live in perpetual fear and religious performance. Others know only the God
of love and have constructed a version of Him that cannot say no to anything,
has no standards and will never hold anyone accountable for anything. Both of
these are broken pictures. The God of Scripture is not one-dimensional. He is
magnificently, simultaneously and consistently multi-dimensional. And knowing
Him in His fullness is what produces a healthy, grounded and genuine
relationship with Him.
Here
are the major dimensions of God as Scripture reveals them:
God as
King
The
sovereignty of God is one of the most foundational realities in all of
Scripture. God is not a constitutional monarch who reigns by the consent of His
subjects. He is the absolute Sovereign over all creation, all history and all
of eternity. Psalm 103:19 declares:
"The
LORD hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over
all." — Psalm 103:19 (KJV)
His
kingdom ruleth over ALL. Not most things. Not religious things. Not the things
people willingly submit to Him. Everything. Every government, every empire,
every molecule in the universe, every human decision and every historical event
falls within the sovereign reign of God. Daniel 4:35 captures it with
staggering clarity:
"And
all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according
to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and
none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?"
— Daniel 4:35 (KJV)
Understanding
God as King does not produce fatalism. It produces rest. When you know that the
One you are in relationship with is the absolute Sovereign of the universe, the
anxieties that consume most people, the fear of what governments will do, the
terror of what enemies might attempt, the panic over what tomorrow might bring,
begin to lose their grip. Your King has already seen tomorrow.
God as
Judge
This
is perhaps the most uncomfortable dimension of God for the modern church to sit
with. The contemporary tendency is to so heavily emphasise God's love and grace
that His role as Judge is either minimised into irrelevance or quietly dropped
from the conversation altogether. This is a serious error and a dangerous
pastoral failure.
God
is a righteous Judge. This is not a harsh Old Testament characteristic that
Jesus replaced with something softer. Jesus Himself said in John 5:22 that the
Father has committed all judgment to the Son. The New Testament is, if
anything, more explicit about divine judgment than the Old. Hebrews 10:31 gives
us one of the most sobering statements in all of Scripture:
"It
is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."
— Hebrews 10:31 (KJV)
The
same God who is a loving Father is also a perfectly just Judge. These two
realities do not contradict each other. They complete each other. A God who
loves without the capacity to judge is not loving at all. He is sentimental. He
is the indulgent parent who watches his children harm themselves and others and
does nothing because he cannot bear to intervene. That is not love. Real love
has standards. Real love has consequences. Real love refuses to look the other
way when injustice is done.
The
modern church's reluctance to preach God as Judge has produced exactly what you
would expect: a generation of professing believers who do not take sin
seriously because they do not take judgment seriously. They have been given a
God who is all embrace and no expectation. And that God cannot save anyone,
because he has no standard from which to save them.
God
is a Judge. Preach it. Believe it. Let it shape the way you live.
God as
Father
And
now we arrive at the dimension of God that is perhaps the most personal, the
most life-changing and the most needed in the world today.
God
is Father. Not metaphorically. Not poetically. But genuinely, actually,
personally Father. Jesus taught His disciples to begin their prayer with two
words that would have been startling to Jewish ears: Our Father. In
Matthew 6:9, He was not giving them a polite religious opening. He was
redefining their entire relationship with God. He was saying: the God before
whom you stand is not a distant magistrate you approach with terror. He is your
Father.
I
need to tell you something personal here. Between 2014 and 2016, I went through
the hardest season of my life. My faith was new and untested and suddenly
everything that could shake began to shake. The persecution that came was not
from strangers. It came from home. My own earthly father, a man whose approval
I had sought my whole life, turned against me because of my newfound faith in
Jesus. Friends disappeared. The people who had known me before mocked what I
had become. I was young in the faith, I was standing on convictions I had only
recently found, and the most foundational human relationship that was supposed
to be a source of safety had become a source of pain.
Those
nights were long. I did what I knew to do. I read my Bible. I prayed. I sang to
God in that small room, sometimes with tears and sometimes with a stubborn
determination that had nothing to do with how I felt. And one of those nights,
something happened that I have never forgotten and will never forget.
As I
prayed and read and poured myself out to God, He took me up in His arms. I am
not speaking in metaphor. I am telling you what I experienced as literally as I
know how to say it. I felt it. I knew with a certainty that went beyond my five
senses that I was in the arms of God. In the season when my earthly father had
withdrawn his arms, my heavenly Father wrapped His around me and held me. And I
knew, in a way that no sermon and no book had been able to teach me, that He is
real, He is near and He is my Father.
I am
sharing this not to draw attention to a personal experience but to tell you something
the text teaches and my life confirmed: God is not far. He is searingly,
unmistakably near. And He is a Father who finds His children in their darkest
nights.
"A
father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy
habitation." — Psalm 68:5 (KJV)
He
is also Father in a universal sense. Jesus made this clear in Matthew 5:45:
"That
ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun
to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the
unjust." — Matthew 5:45 (KJV)
God's
fatherly provision is not restricted to those who acknowledge Him. He causes
the sun to rise on the wicked and the righteous alike. He sends rain on those
who curse His name and on those who worship it. This is not because He is
indifferent to the difference between them. It is because His generosity flows
from His nature, not from human deserving. He is Father by character. The
invitation is for every person to move from experiencing His general fatherly
provision to entering into the specific covenant relationship of being His
child through Jesus Christ.
God as
Shepherd
Psalm
23 may be the most quoted passage in all of Scripture and yet its meaning is
routinely underestimated. David was not writing poetry. He was writing
theology. The LORD is my shepherd. Not a shepherd in the abstract. My shepherd.
Personal. Attentive. Responsible for me specifically.
A
shepherd in the ancient Near East was not a distant administrator of a flock.
He slept with his sheep. He knew each one by name. He went after the one that
wandered. He placed himself between the flock and predators. When David says
the LORD is my shepherd, he is drawing on a lifetime of shepherding experience
and saying: everything I did for my sheep, God does for me. I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures. He restores my soul. He walks with me
through the valley of the shadow of death and does not let me face it alone.
"I
am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep."
— John 10:11 (KJV)
Jesus
claimed this dimension of God for Himself. He is the good shepherd who does not
run when the wolf comes. Who gives His own life for the sheep. The shepherd
dimension of God speaks directly to the nearness we established at the
beginning of this post. Shepherds do not watch their flocks from a distance.
They are present, protective and personally engaged.
God as
Lawgiver
God
is the ultimate source of all moral law. Not because He is arbitrary and simply
decided to make certain things right and wrong. But because His own nature is
the standard of righteousness. What God commands is right because He is right.
What He forbids is wrong because it is contrary to His nature.
James
4:12 says: There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. The same God
who gives the law is the God who enforces it. His laws are not suggestions.
They are not cultural guidelines that evolve with the times. They are the
permanent expression of His moral nature, which does not change. Malachi 3:6
makes this clear: For I am the LORD, I change not.
Understanding
God as Lawgiver is actually liberating rather than restrictive. His law is not
designed to make life miserable. It is designed to protect life, to define what
human flourishing looks like when lived in alignment with the nature of the One
who made us. When we break God's law, we are not primarily offending a set of
rules. We are moving against the grain of our own design.
God as
Redeemer
This
dimension of God brings together everything else. God as Redeemer is God acting
to buy back what sin stole and to restore what rebellion destroyed. The Hebrew
word is goel (גֹּואֵל), the kinsman redeemer, the one who has both the
right and the responsibility to step in and recover what was lost. Isaiah 44:22
captures the heart of it:
"I
have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy
sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee."
— Isaiah 44:22 (KJV)
God
does not stand at a distance watching humanity flounder in the wreckage of sin
and say: what a shame. He enters the wreckage. He pays the price of redemption.
He sends His own Son to be the kinsman redeemer who takes the debt, absorbs the
judgment and makes restoration possible. The God who is King, Judge, Father,
Shepherd and Lawgiver is also the God who gets His hands into the mess of human
sin and pulls people out of it. That is the Redeemer.
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God is not one-dimensional. He is all of these simultaneously and consistently. |
He Is Closer Than You Think
Let
me return to where we began. The most practical and most dangerous
misconception people carry about God is that He is far. That He is up there
somewhere and you are down here somewhere and the distance between you is vast
enough that your daily life, your private thoughts, your quiet sins and your
desperate prayers all sort of filter upward into a great uncertain silence.
The
Bible does not know this God. The God of Scripture is not maintaining a safe
distance. He is the One in whom, as Paul declared to the Athenians in Acts 17:27-28:
"That
they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him,
though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and
have our being." — Acts 17:27-28 (KJV)
In
Him we live and move and have our being. Your next breath is inside God. Your
heartbeat happens within His presence. The space between you and God is not
measured in light years. It is measured in willingness. He is near. He has
always been near. And every person who has genuinely sought Him with an honest
and open heart has discovered exactly what I discovered on that night between
2014 and 2016: He is not a doctrine to be studied from a distance. He is a
Father who holds His children close, especially in the seasons when everything
else has let them go.
Jeremiah
29:13 is not a promise made to the spiritually elite. It is a promise made to
seekers:
"And
ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your
heart." — Jeremiah 29:13 (KJV)
All
your heart. Not perfect theology. Not impeccable doctrine. Not a spotless
record. Just a whole-hearted turning toward Him. The God who is King, Judge,
Father, Shepherd, Lawgiver and Redeemer has made Himself findable. He has, in
fact, made the ultimate provision for relationship with Himself through the
person of Jesus Christ. The doctrine of God does not end with knowing about
Him. It ends with knowing Him. And the way into that knowledge is through the
One He sent.
"And
this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom thou hast sent." — John 17:3 (KJV)
This
is eternal life. Not just going to heaven when you die. But knowing God.
Personally. Actually. In the kind of relationship where, on a dark night when
your earthly father's arms are withdrawn, your heavenly Father's arms are right
there.
What Is Coming in Part 2
We
have covered the existence of God, His names, and the major dimensions of His
character in this first study. In Part 2, we will go deeper into the attributes
of God, both those that belong to Him alone and those He shares with us, and
explore how a correct understanding of God's attributes transforms the way we
pray, the way we live, and the way we face suffering and unanswered questions.
If this first study has opened a hunger in you to know God more accurately and more personally, that is exactly the right response. Do not let it be merely intellectual. Turn it into a pursuit. He rewards those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6)
Back to the Text. Every Time.
BereanLook | bereanlook.com
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Conversation
Which
dimension of God has been most absent from your understanding of Him? Which one
do you most need right now? Share your thoughts in the comments below. This is
a conversation worth having openly.
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How Can a Loving God Send
People to Hell? The Question Every Honest Believer Must Confront
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Can a Born-Again Believer
Lose Salvation? The Debate That Has Divided the Church for Centuries
