Wendy realized at the first service she attended with her fiancé at his church how differently the people there thought and spoke about God. Wendy had grown up with her family in a mainline denomination that had a highly formal liturgy. People there didn’t speak about God with any familiarity. If God was present at all in and around that church, in the hearts of its members, he was either very stern or a long way off. Wendy stopped going to church when she went to college and never took it up again when graduating from college and getting a job. Only when she got engaged did she agree to go with her fiancé to his church to check it out as a wedding site. And among the first things she noticed was how familiar everyone seemed with an intimate, very near, and deeply caring God.
Person
The question is indeed who is God, not what is God. God is first of all a being, the supreme living entity, and indeed the divine person of whom we are images. God not only says that we are his image or likeness, but he also took on our image and likeness, proving himself not only fully divine but also fully human, both at once. God is thus the divine person after whom he made us. We could be no farther in kind from God than that he was our own father or brother, fully human like us. Yet he is simultaneously so superior in divine nature to us to be not only the ideal human but the ideal itself. God is the highest to which all else submits and points, and from which all else draws its nature and life. If you had any doubt of humanity’s place and value in God’s creation, doubt no more, in the realization that we are likenesses of God whom he made to be like him. He describes us as his sons and daughters, with a standing above the very divine entities among whom he resides.
Faces
Witnesses who have experienced the presence of God, whether ancient scripture witnesses or other witnesses down through the ages, will share who God is. You may hear them give varying accounts. The variances address the visages, facets, or faces of God. You may encounter him differently than others, depending on the face he shows you, whether as Father, Son, or Spirit, with the courage of a lion, strength of an ox, sight of an eagle, or fellowship of a man. You may experience him as a righteous judge, desert guide, rescuing shepherd, kindly friend, or wise parent. Why, as the divine person, would God be any other way than multifaceted, presenting himself to each of us exactly as we need? God’s faces enable us to receive from him whatever gift, guidance, comfort, reassurance, admonition, or command that best fits his loving desire for us. To see God as any one way or limited number of ways is to deny him his divine personhood through which he reveals himself and through which he loves, directs, sustains, and commands. Don’t look for a single face of God of your own design, for he will always have something different and better to reveal to you of himself. God reveals himself to each of us in different stances or faces, depending on our own character, disposition, and circumstances.
Attributes
We can nonetheless know God by his attributes or characteristics. God reveals his attributes in his actions. He also reveals his attributes in his own words, discovered in the scriptures. God also reveals his attributes as he authorizes those who know him best, called his prophets, to do so, again in the scriptures. While God shrouds his person in mystery, he reveals himself in his character, on which he invites us to rely. The following paragraphs explore some of God’s primary attributes. You don’t need a visual face of God on which to reflect to draw close to him. You may alternatively dwell in his attributes. You may find that his attributes draw you nearer to him than any visage could. You may feel that a visual image is only a surface thing, while the attributes of God take you deeper within him and thus closer to him.
Beyond
A first attribute of God is that he is beyond his creation, transcendent, outside of time and space, unconstrained by either. He existed before his creation, which he brought into being. He is not in the tree or in the river, not immanent in creation or manifested as creation, and not the totality of creation, but rather a separate being transcending his creation. The consequence of his transcendence is that we do not experience God as a divine enervating force. He is neither the bright rays of the sun nor the rush of river waters. Rather, we know God as the maker and shaper of created things, much as we are not the river or the woods but the steward of the river and woods as God commands us. God is not in the water or the trees, but we see his hand and a reflection of his attributes in their design.
Above
God is also above his creation, meaning of the highest order in creation’s hierarchy, with all creation subject to his rule and beneath him. No entity can draw itself up to God. He dwells at a point so high, with a power so strong and vision so pure, as to author, organize, and direct all creation beneath him. From above, as the supreme being and ideal, God gives creation its order, purpose, and meaning. All intelligible categories and structures descend from the reason and rationality he instills. Without God’s mind, word, breath, and spirit coming down to us from above, all would be chaotic and disordered. All would be senseless and unreasoning. We depend on the breath of God, which he breathed into us at creation and again on the evening of his resurrection, for our own rationality, sensibility, and reason, without which we would be brutes. God sent his breath from above after his resurrection for all who follow him to receive, to know him and his desires. Because God is above, we look up out of our disorder to see him, and we move up out of our mire to approach him. We reach up to grasp what he has to offer us for our good.
Knowing
God also knows all that occurs within his creation. He is at once all seeing and all knowing. When one thing occupies him, another thing does not escape his notice. As a consequence, no one can hide from him, neither their person, actions, thoughts, or intentions. God knows your thoughts before you form them. You cannot hide your shame from him and so must instead promptly confess your intentions and actions of which he disapproves. God’s sight and knowledge of all that occurs makes you fully accountable to him at all moments. You may as well submit to his loving presence and beneficent rule because you cannot escape his knowledge and authority in anything you think, say, or do.
Rescuing
You can account to the all-knowing God for everything you do, even the wrong thoughts and actions you pursue, because he is merciful, too. God does not forever hold your corruptions, bad thoughts, bad acts, and errors of heart and reason against you. Although he sees and knows all you do, he does not condemn you forever for what you’ve done of which he disapproves. You receive his full mercy when you accept God’s authority, admit your need for his forgiveness, and acknowledge that he forgave you by having his Son Jesus stand in your place of punishment for you. God rescues you. He pulls you out of your corruption, cleansing you in a way that you could never cleanse yourself. God gives you the desire and strength to no longer pursue your corruptions but to do good and be pure, as he is good and pure. God rescues you not with laws and rules but with a new heart to know and obey him and his desires, from which moral order itself proceeds. Once you accept God’s offer of rescue, you no longer carry the weight of your condemnation but are instead new.
Loving
God is in that respect supremely loving toward us. Indeed, God is love itself. God demonstrated the complete extent of his love by giving himself, in the person of his Son Jesus, in sacrifice on the cross. No love could be greater than to give your own life for another’s life, which God did through Jesus on the cross. God’s merciful love pulls us out of our death sentence, offering us eternal life with him, his Son Jesus having served our sentence and rescued us from death. God’s gift of his own Son is his supremely loving and merciful gift to us of eternal life. No one could give you a greater gift than to remove your sentence of death and give you eternal life, which God has done. And no one could pay a greater price for that gift than to give their own life, which God has also done. God’s love redeems you from everything you might regret and fear in life.
Involved
God is in that respect and other respects supremely involved and invested in your life and in the lives of others. God did not set his creation in motion like a mechanical clock and then step back to watch. He instead remains intimately involved in his creation. Soon after creation, he called forth his own people to prepare the way for his own Son Jesus Christ. God then entered his own creation in the person of his Son Jesus Christ. God remains intimately involved in creation, having sent himself to us again after Christ’s resurrection in the person of his Spirit. God guides us through the person of his Spirit, so that we can know God’s desires for us and his creation. With his Spirit’s help, we are to do good and tend his creation until his return, when he will redeem all creation and restore heaven on earth. God is deeply involved in his creation through you, not absent or distant.
Unlimited
God is also unlimited, unconstrained by anything other than his own attributes. No one tells God what to do or how to do it. He submits to no greater authority, there being no greater authority. He chooses and directs what is good for his creation, according to his sovereign plan and no one else’s plan. God is never subject to coercion or duress, to pressure or manipulation. God is also never deceived, never fooled. No one can hide their plans and intentions from God, and so God always proceeds in full view of conditions and outcomes, never duped, deceived, or uninformed. Every other authority is under God. Situations and circumstances do not determine God’s rule. If you change your heart toward God and your actions toward others, God accounts for your change according to his unlimited rule.
Good
God is also good, desiring nothing other than the best for his creation including you. God is not both good and evil. He has no malice, distortion, error, or corruption within him or about him. He does not sometimes do good and other times destroy good and do evil. No one is more pure, perfect, righteous, or holy than God. For us to presume to know better or do better than God is to have the completely wrong view of who God is and who we are in relationship to him. God knows what is good for you, even when you think you know better, and God desires good for you, even when you believe he is doing things he should not do to you or not doing things he should do for you. The bad that others do to you is not from God. Anything evil in the world is not from God, who instead turns the evil in the world to good. These are but a few of the primary attributes of God.
Reflection
How do you think of God, as a person, force, or presence? With what face or in what role does God approach and attract you, whether as a judge, guide, shepherd, king, priest, comforter, father, brother, or friend? Do you look up for God to see who he would have you be and what he would have you do? Do you move up toward God, elevating your vision, purifying your heart, and raising the standard for your actions? Do you think and act consistent with God’s all-knowing character, as if he continually sees and knows you? How has comprehending God’s love, in giving his life for you, changed what you think, who you are, and what you do? Are you fully accepting God’s rescue? Do you see God as intimately involved in your life, rather than distant and apart? How are you trying to limit or constrain God? Do you attribute to God anything less than the best desires for you?
Key Points
God is the supreme being and a person, in whose image we are.
God shows us his full character through his many facets or faces.
God’s many faces reflect his attributes or character.
God is beyond and apart from his creation, not immanent within it.
God is above creation, the supreme entity reflecting the highest ideal.
God knows everything at once, including your thoughts.
God is so loving as to be love itself, having given his life for you.
God rescues us from our fallen and broken condition with his own love.
God has been involved and remains intimately involved in his creation.
No one limits or controls God who has authority over all.
God is good, without any hint of evil, and can even turn evil to good.