Reality Check 101

This may sound strange, but what does it take for God to be God? This has to be the most important question to deal with because if you want to have a true knowledge about God or you want to look forward to knowing Him in some way, you have to make sure that you’re actually dealing with the real Person.

 In ancient times, almost all the religions except the Jews, and even they, sometimes as an act of rebellion, worshipped some part of nature or idols they made out of stone, wood, metal, or clay. Even if they had thought about it and claimed that they were just using the idol as a way to get to their god, in the end, they were still focusing on the thing.

So, it’s important to know whether God can be a thing or whether He has to be more than that. And even if He can’t be a man-made object of this world or something from nature, we have to know whether it’s possible for God to be the only one. The only way for God to actually be THE God is for Him to be the most powerful, knowledgeable, complicated, eternal, etc. etc. If there is anyone or anything better than Him, it or they have to be God instead.

God is Spirit

It seems odd to have to make the statement that God is spirit, but even now there are groups who still claim to be Christian that teach their members that God is actually fleshly. To be blunt, it is impossible for that to be true if God is really going to have all the abilities, power, and character that, as we will see shortly, are required of Him. 

There is something else too. Everything about how we live is tied to the spiritual part of us. The quality of our lives – the focus, the wisdom we need for living, the quality of our character, the way we see the future, and the way we think about life after death, are all tied to our spirits. The fact that God is spirit, opens the door for God to work with us.

God Exists on His Own – Without Need of Anyone or Anything

Another important thing to realize, is that for God to be God, He has to be completely independent, living by His own power. He can in no way depend on anything or anyone because to do so would make him less than them or it and therefore not God. It’s interesting that in the Bible’s Old Testament, when God revealed Himself to Moses and Moses asked him for a name, God gave him a name that simply means to be or exist.

That is important for us. I don’t know of anyone who isn’t willing to admit that at times this life makes us realize how frail or weak or inadequate we are. The fact that God is above any of that and is willing to “carry” us, is extremely important. The only way He can do that is to be the only one in the universe who is totally and completely living by His own power and is therefore 110% reliable –  the ultimate place for us to rest.

It also means that when it comes to life itself, because none of us have the ability to create our own power of life, the independence of God makes Him the only one in the end who has the power to give life and to sustain it. That has to be one of the most important anchors that humankind can have. What greater security is there than to know that such a God cannot be bullied or coerced or overpowered but always behaves simply out of his own pure character.

God Has No Parts

For the same reasons that God has to exist on his own to really be God, He also has to be one God without pieces or parts inside Him. This means He can’t be divided or made to have one part conflict with or contradict another. Think of it this way, in order for Him to truly be God, He must feel and think and do things as a whole. Any division inside Him would weaken or interfere with who He is. God has to be whole, nothing less.

When we think about God this way, it leaves us with some interesting things to think about. For one thing, this means that there is just one supreme Divine source for supernatural love, and it comes from all of who God is. It also means that when it comes to being saved from ourselves or the bad influences around us, there is only one God to save us. That’s the only possibility. And of course, if that is true, that means that there is no one else that deserves worship aside from Him.

Unity With Perfect Diversity

At this point we find ourselves grappling with one of the most important characteristics of God, if not the most important one – that He exists in a perfect oneness of three persons. This understanding of God separates Christianity from absolutely every other religion and cult in the world. There are clues about this mystery all through the historical records of the Bible’s Old Testament. Jesus rounded out the record and explained it during his ministry. We will come back to this later when we look at Jesus and also the Holy Spirit.

Right now, for the sake of a kind of summary of this part of God’s existence, just take note of a few things. When Jesus began his ministry, the testimony of the apostle Matthew was that when  Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, God showed Himself in the Holy Spirit and verbally for everyone in the crowd to hear. At the end of Jesus time on earth, in His last instructions to His followers, He commanded them to go out and make more followers “…in the name (singular-one God) of Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”. When the religious leaders in Jerusalem challenged Jesus about His right to do miracles and have power over demons, He took them back to their own Old Testament prophecy to see that He was equal with God. Because of that, they wanted to stone Him for speaking blasphemy. Final example: King David who wrote most of the book of Psalms, refers to the Messiah that he was looking forward to as God.

Think about the wonder of the Three-in-One!  Millions and millions of people want to know what real love is and how to live it. God loves perfectly between those three persons of one. And later, we’ll see that each of those persons are the God who reaches out to people when they need it most, and sometimes when they aren’t even interested yet. In the same way, when all of us look into life after we die, God is also there in those three persons in one.

All of that is a lot to take in and sounds really complicated and controversial but it will start to come together later as we keep going in this investigation of exactly who God is. In the next chapter, we will look at some of the things God can do and how He is related to time and everything that has been made.