Who Is God?
Who is God? What is He like? How can I know Him?
The Bible tells us in 1 John 4:8,
“The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
All that God does is based on His nature, because God will always be true to Himself. Everything God does is based upon love, and love is the most powerful force in the universe.
Love, Wisdom, and Power
The power of God is not measured by His ability to create and destroy. The power of God is measured by His capacity to love. Because God is love, He is all-powerful, and love will always win in the end.
God is also all-wise, because He has infinite wisdom. His plan for creation—and for you—was drawn up by His wisdom. It was a perfect plan that could not fail.
God cannot fail to accomplish any goal that He sets for Himself. That is why His purpose for creation will be fulfilled, and that is why God can make promises and vows with full assurance that He is able to perform it.
God has infinite power and infinite wisdom, but of all His characteristics, He chose to sum up all things by claiming to BE LOVE. By His power and wisdom, He DOES things, but God IS love.
For this reason, when He created all things by His infinite power, He also drew up a plan for creation by His infinite wisdom. His driving motive was love. His wisdom established a plan that would succeed. His power ensured that He was able to satisfy His love.
God is Coming to Earth
Many religions teach that our goal is to go to heaven some day and live in a spiritual state of existence. But the Bible shows that God’s plan is to come to earth so that He can live in the physical realm. His plan is to live in us, and so the Apostle Paul asks in 1 Cor. 3:16,
“Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”
The goal of history is pictured in Rev. 21:3, where a loud voice proclaims,
“Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they will be His people.”
This was the original purpose of creation. God is the Creator of all things (Gen. 1:1), and He is building a house for Himself. The Apostle Paul tells us in Rom. 11:36 that He created all things out of Himself.
“For out of Him and through Him and to Him are all things.
In other words, all things came “out of Him” (or “from Him”). All things are made out of God particles. So we also read that God “fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23). He is intimately connected to His creation, and God feels all that is done on the earth, because it is part of Himself.
Yes, God has feelings.
Before creation, God existed in a spiritual dimension called “heaven” (or the heavenly realm). The purpose of creation was to expand His Kingdom in a new way, so that He could imprint His nature in physical matter.
So the dimensions of His Kingdom are defined in Gen. 1:1, which says,
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
“The heavens and the earth” means THE UNIVERSE. God owns all that He has created, so that is His dominion. When He created the universe out of Himself, His plan was to express His nature, His love, and His will through creation.
The earth was designed to be an extension of heaven. So Jesus taught us to pray, saying,
“Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.” (Matt. 6:10)
However, when Adam and Eve sinned, their actions brought discord—a problem that had to be resolved—but sin only delayed the implementation of God’s plan for a season. We call that season “history.”
History is not careening out of control, nor will it end in disaster. It will end with God’s complete success. All evil will be eradicated, all injustice will be reconciled, and all of mankind will be saved and be brought into immortality. Those who have already died will be raised from the dead, judged where necessary, and ultimately reconciled to God at the great Jubilee at the end of time.
Who is Jesus?
In the beginning, God promised to save mankind. As time passed, He revealed how He would accomplish this and keep His promise. The most important revelation was that He would send a Savior, someone with the calling or anointing to make it possible to save His creation. Jesus was that Anointed One.
An anointed one is someone who has been christened. That is why Jesus is called “The Christ.” The Jews called Him the Messiah, which is their Hebrew term for the Anointed One.
Your Penalty for Sin was Paid in Full
Because sin is anything contrary to the nature of God, the presence of sin in the world was what had to be dealt with in a lawful manner before creation could become the expression of the Creator’s nature (love).
But sin could not simply be eradicated as if it never existed. Sin brought death to all, because death is the natural consequence of anything outside of God’s nature. It was an offence to God’s love-nature.
The penalty for sin is death, and the law could not be set aside or ignored without going contrary to God’s nature. But there was a way around the death penalty, a way that would not contradict the law of God.
By the law of God, a substitution could be made. Someone else could pay the penalty for sin. If a thief stole money, the law demanded restitution to be paid to the victim, but if someone loved the thief, he was allowed to pay that restitution.
In the same manner, if someone were guilty of death, someone else could volunteer to give his life on behalf of the guilty man. Few would do this, of course, unless they really loved the man who was worthy of death.
The Marvelous Love of God
The love of God is demonstrated in the fact that Jesus came to die to pay for all the sins ever committed. It was the greatest demonstration of love in history. The Apostle Paul describes this love in Rom. 5:7 and 8,
“For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Some people might have the courage to die for their friends. We admire such people for their love and call them heroes. Some would die for their family. Some Christians would die for Jesus. Some Muslims would die for Mohammed. Some Jews would die for Moses. But how many would die for their enemies?
John 3:16 and 17 says,
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son [Jesus] into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.”
He did not just die to save His friends (believers). He died to save the whole world. 1 John 2:2 says,
“and He Himself [Jesus] is the payment for our sins; and not for ours only [not only believers], but also for those of the whole world.”
Many are still fighting God. Many consider God to be their enemy. But Jesus died to pay the penalty for their sin too. Because He loved them, He paid the penalty for their sins even if they still resist Him and His love.
That is how the love of God is demonstrated by the life and death of Jesus Christ. And that gives us an idea of how to define the kind of love that is God’s nature.
The Purpose of Resurrection
But Jesus’ death was only the first half of the story. He rose from the dead in order to ensure that we all will receive life (immortality). When He overcame death in Himself, He established the path by which all of the dead will be raised as well. 1 Cor. 15:22 and 23 says,
“As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order.”
Not everyone will be saved at the same time. In fact, no one will be saved until they have faith in Jesus Christ. That means they must acknowledge that He came to pay the penalty for their own sins. Some do this in their lifetime on earth, but most have not done so. In fact, most people throughout history never even heard of Jesus and were unaware of what He did for them.
Nonetheless, the Bible says that there will be a day in the future when all of the dead are raised and are summoned to the great Throne. At that time, God will reveal Himself and His plan to all who ever lived. One of the biblical prophets wrote in Isaiah 45:22 and 23,
“Turn to Me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. I have sworn by Myself, the word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness and will not turn back, that to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.”
In other words, God says that He swore an oath that “every knee will bow, and every tongue will swear allegiance” to Him. This will be fulfilled when the dead are raised and brought into His presence. Then the truth will be fully known, and everyone will be glad to swear allegiance to the true God.
When Jesus paid the penalty for all sin, He ensured that in the end all who have ever lived on earth will fulfill their original purpose in God’s household.
You are part of this world, so you too will fulfill your destiny before the end of time. Jesus did not just create the possibility for you to become one with God; He ensured that all people—you included—will be His people, and that He will be your God (Rev. 21:3).
Anything less is unacceptable to God, because if any of His love-particles escaped Him, then God would always remain incomplete. All things came out of Him, and they all must return to Him, as the Apostle said.
If you believe this simple message, then it shows that God is already working in your heart to fulfill His vow. Faith in His promise is the starting point. He will then work in your life so you can come to know Him