WHAT GOD IS
Hebrews 11:6; 1 John 1:5; 4:16
I was encouraged by what our brother has said about Abraham, because the verse that I had in mind, in relation to these scriptures was, “Before Abraham was, I am”, John 8:58. The first scripture I read speaks about the fact that “he is” – that God “is” – then the next is that “God is light”, and then that “God is love”.
In the preaching we had just over a week ago, the preacher referred to the fact that God is love, and the three things that these verses say about God impressed me at that point. There is a lot in Scripture about what God is; for example, God “is preserver of all men, specially of those that believe”, 1 Tim.4:10. There are other scriptures referring to what God is, but these three that we have read are quite special. The fact that God “is” brings stability to our souls, and it is good to be reminded of it. The statements I have read are very straight-forward yet profound; the first, that “God is”, is similar to “I AM”. At the present time, it is good to lay hold of the fact that “God is”; it is a simple statement but should have the effect of stabilising us. God has no beginning and no end; He is the One who inhabits eternity (Isa.57:15). There is no variation or change with God – it says as to the Father that with Him there “is no variation nor shadow of turning”, Jas.1:17. God is unchangeable and always what He is. It is something that is hard for us to take in because we change all the time. Our feelings can change, our thoughts can change, or our circumstances can change; everything around us is changing. It is hard to take in this matter that God “is”, and that He does not change, but I think we prove it in our experience with Him.
These scriptures help us to see how Christ, when He came into His public service, made God known, because we can see in Christ what these three passages speak of as to God. “Before Abraham was, I am”. When the Lord came into this world and took a bondman’s form, He took up all that was in God’s will for Him as Son of man and He took up our case. But as to His Person, He is Son of God; it says that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and to the ages to come”, Heb.13:8. It was a real Man who was here, and yet it says that of Him. It brings His manhood and His deity before us. It is a tremendous thing to think that such a One is our Saviour and was prepared to come in as a lowly Babe, to come in as the One who served and would take up our case, if we believe in Him. How great is the truth of His Person and yet He was prepared to do that, and that is the One whom we have to do with now. It has been said many times that everything that we know or ever will know of God, we know in Christ. The fact that God “is” underlies the truth of Scripture, and we cannot separate our Lord Jesus Christ from that thought. That should stabilise us. The book of Revelation draws attention to the fact that He is in control of everything that proceeds at the present time. He was the One by whom the worlds were made, and He is the One who will sustain everything for the pleasure of God eternally. Yet we can draw near to God through Christ: “But without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that draws near to God must believe that he is”. We must come to it that God “is”.
He is also “a rewarder of them who seek him out”. I thought that this would link with the fact that “God is love”. He desires to bless. You might say that “God is love” refers to His nature – that is true and has been said many times – but the way in which He has operated is consistent with that. God’s nature lies behind His desire to bless us, and He is the “rewarder of them who seek him out”.
In 1 John 1, we have “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all”. You could never think of there being darkness with God, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. It would help us to understand that “God is light”, and also that He dwells “in unapproachable light”, 1 Tim.6:16. That is related to His absolute deity: there is that about God which we cannot know. He is beyond us, His thoughts are far above ours and He is beyond our comprehension, although we can draw near to God and know about God in the way in which God has revealed Himself. Yet we are creatures, and He is God. We see how the Lord Jesus came in, and it says in John 1 that “In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (v.4), and then it says “The true light was that which, coming into the world, lightens every man. He was in the world, and the world had its being through him, and the world knew him not. He came to his own, and his own received him not” (vv.9-11), but of the Lord making God known, John says “he hath declared him” (v.18). The Lord Jesus thus made the knowledge of God available to all, and in His death, all the attributes of God were made known. We would never have known these truths about God had the Lord Jesus not come and made them known.
He did not only make these truths known through what He said, although I think that would be true, but He also made them known in what He was and how He was in this scene. I was thinking of John 4, and the way in which the woman’s history was exposed to herself, but He also blessed her. That was the light making known what was there; it was not to expose her in order to condemn her, but so that she could be adjusted and come into blessing. That is what this light would do in us. It would expose what is there in us that may need to be judged. That is one of the benefits of being in the presence of God – things can be seen for what they are, whether that is positive or negative. The light would do that.
Then in chapter 4, “God is love” is God’s nature. Especially in the present time of grace, God has made Himself known and revealed Himself in ways which show very clearly that He wants to have a relationship with us and that He wants to bless us. “For God so loved the world”, (John 3:16); that was His love operating. He “so loved” that He “gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”. It is God’s nature; God has operated in love, and that has often been described as grace.
I was thinking too of the love of the Lord Jesus. There is so much we could say about that – how many scriptures we could refer to. I was thinking of Revelation 1: “To him who loves us, and has washed us from our sins in his blood” (v.5); that would be a stabilising and assuring thought. The personal love of the Lord Jesus was seen and demonstrated while He was here, but it is not only an historic love. There is that side, of course; “the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for me”, Gal.2:20. The Lord Jesus loved us when He died for us. But He loves us now and He will love us for ever! I was looking at some of the references in John’s gospel. It is very profitable to go over the many references in it to the fact that the Lord Jesus loved His own. It says; “As the Father has loved me, I also have loved you: abide in my love”, John 15:9. Then it says “This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, that one should lay down his life for his friends” (vv.12,13). There are many other references directly to the Lord’s love, either His own words or in other scriptures in the New Testament. We can also think of all the types in the Old Testament, for example the ram caught in the thicket by its horns (Gen.22:13).
There are so many references to the love of the Lord Jesus, and the fact that “God is love” would be the greatest of them to us, for that is the way in which God has made Himself known to us – as a God of love. Think of how in Romans 5 Paul writes about how “God commends his love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died for us” (v.8). The grace in which God commends His love to us while we were yet sinners always amazes me, and it does not stop. It is not only to save us that He makes His love known, but for those who put their faith and trust in Jesus, the love of God can be known in a nearer and more intimate way in our experience, even at the present time. We have been given the Holy Spirit who sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts (Rom.5:5), and it says too that we have been made “partakers of the divine nature”, 2 Pet.1:4. So the fact that God’s love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit should affect us and form us in accord with the divine nature.
I was impressed by these three references to what God is, and I trust that they will be for our encouragement.
Mark Grant