HOW IS GOD?
- websiteliderescris
- 27 jun 2018
- 5 Min. de lectura
One of the hardest questions we can be faced with as Christians is “Who is God?” Oftentimes, trying to explain the power and wonder of God to those who do not believe feels like trying to explain the theory of relativity to someone who speaks a different language. And it is understandable. We serve a loving, mighty, and all powerful God. We can spend an entire lifetime in the scriptures and in prayer and still not fully grasp all of His attributes. But this does not mean that we cannot have a basic understanding of who our God is. Here are 5 foundational facts about God that every believer should know.
God is Eternal
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. -Psalm 90:2
One of the most difficult things for us to comprehend is the fact that God is eternal. As humans, we live our lives based on time. We define ourselves by when we were born and live our daily lives by hours spent at work, at home, doing activities and sleeping. Our entire lives are defined by time. However, with God there is no time (2 Peter 3:8). What may seem like an eternity to us is like the blink of an eye to God.
A God Beyond Time
“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” (Psalm 90:2). This particular passage identifies the fact that before the mountains were formed, before anything on earth was formed, or even the earth itself, God was gloriously present. Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. Before anything else was, God was. From everlasting to everlasting indicates that God’s lifetime has no beginning and can have no end. He is the eternal God, the great “I Am” (Exodus 3:14). (See also Psalm 93:2; Proverbs 8:23; Micah 5:2; Habakkuk 1:12.)
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8).
In this passage we find the words Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, indicating that the Lord God is the beginning and end of all things. (THE RYRIE STUDY BIBLE, p. 1895).
God is Infinite and Eternal
The Bible nowhere attempts to prove or argue the existence of God. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is. The existence of God is a fact taken for granted by the writers of both the Old and New Testaments. In the beginning God (Genesis 1:1). The Bible opens by announcing the sublime fact of God and His existence… (THE OPEN BIBLE, p. 1152) Since there is nothing in our human natures which corresponds to infinity (only the opposite finitude), it is difficult, if not impossible, for us to comprehend the term. Indeed, most dictionaries resort to defining it by negatives–without termination or without finitude.
Eternity is usually defined as infinity related to time. Whatever is involved in these concepts, we can see that they must mean God is not bound by the limitations of finitude and He is not bound by the succession of events, which is a necessary part of time. Also, His eternality extends backward from our viewpoint of time as well as forward forever. Nevertheless, this concept does not mean that time is unreal to God. Although He sees the past and future as clearly as the present, He sees them as including succession of events, without being Himself bound by that succession.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to ever-lasting, thou art God (Psalm 90:2). (A SURVEY OF BIBLE DOCTRINE, by Charles C. Ryrie, p. 23) In the book LECTURES IN SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY by Henry C. Thiessen, on page 122 under the subject of “The Nature of God, Eternity,” the following explanation is given with regard to the subject of the eternity of God:
By the eternity of God we mean His infinity in relation to time; we mean that He is without beginning or end; that He is free from all succession of time; and that He is the cause of time. That He is without beginning or end may be inferred from the fact of His necessary existence: He who exists by means of his nature rather than his volition must always have existed and must continue to exist forever.
God is Three Persons
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit… -Matthew 28:19 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…” -Genesis 1:26a
Not only is God one, but he is also three persons: God the father, Jesus Christ the son and the Holy Spirit. God is wholly united as one, while still being three distinguishable persons with three different roles. God’s love is also reflected all the greater by the Trinity. In the Trinity, God is completely self-fulfilled. He didn’t need to create us for companionship. Nor did he need to create us to give Himself a sense of worth. He created us simply out of love for us and his desire for us to be more like him.
So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” -Acts 17:22-25
Comentarios