Hello Beloved,

As we enter our second article on the doctrine of God, also known as Theology Proper, we are going to move past the various proofs of God and move directly into “God’s Essence.” God has revealed Himself to us generally through our conscience and the nature that He created, but, in a more specific manner, He has revealed Himself to us through His Word, the Bible. When I speak of the essence of God, I am referring to that which underlies the outward manifestation, the reality itself, and the qualities or attributes that make up God as we know Him. It is important to note that God has a real substantive existence.

First, let us consider that God is spirit. Jesus told the woman at the well in the fourth chapter of John that “God is spirit” [John 4:24 (ESV)]. The original language does not communicate an article like “a spirit” but clearly communicates that God is spirit in essence. It is important at this point to emphasize that God’s being “spirit” does not mean He is a phantom or a construction of the mind but a real being with real existence. God is not made of material. This is a major reason that we are commanded not to make any graven image and worship it in the likeness of God. Deuteronomy 4 states:

15 “Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16 beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, 18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. 19 And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. Deuteronomy 4:15-19 (ESV)

There is no image or earthly being that could compare with God in His glory.

Though God is spirit, there are times when He uses language to describe Himself that accommodates our weakness in understanding. We call these descriptions “anthropomorphic expressions,” which means that God describes himself in terms as if he had a body like a man. God is said to have arms in Deuteronomy 33:27, hands in John 10:29, eyes in 2 Chronicles 16:9, a mouth in Isaiah 58:14, a face in Exodus 33:11, nostrils in 2 Samuel 22:9, feet in Psalm 8:6, and ears in Isaiah 59:1.

As Spirit, God is invisible (John 1:18), alive (1 Samuel 17:26), and yet a person. Personality involves both self-consciousness and self-determination. This means that God can be aware of and interact with those around him and He has the ability to look to the future and prepare an intelligent course of action in accordance with His own choice. We might simply state that God’s personality includes intellect, emotion, and will (these will be the headings for our discussion of God’s attributes or perfections).

God is self-existent. When Moses asked Pharaoh the name of God, so he could give it when asked; God responded with his covenant name “YHWH,” which means “I am” (Exodus 3:14). God’s self-existence means that He does not depend on anybody or anything outside Himself for His existence. He is, as some philosophers have put it, the First Cause. God does not depend on anything or anybody for His thoughts (Romans 11:33,34), His will (Romans 9:19; Ephesians 1:5), His power (Psalms 115:3) or His counsel (Psalms 33:10,11). God is also infinite, which means that he does not possess any limitations and is bound only by His own nature. As relates to time, God’s infinity is called eternality (Psalm 90:2).

God is immutable, which means he is free from all change as relates to His essence, attributes, purposes, and promises (Malachi 3:6). This does not mean that God always acts the same way in relation to various personalities and fluctuating characteristics of men, but He always acts in the right way (Psalm 33:11). God is united in essence, which means that He is indivisible. He is one (Deuteronomy 6:4). At the same time, God has revealed Himself as the Trinity, which was the subject of our first newsletter on this topic. Next week, we will begin to describe God’s attributes. Until then, this is Pastor Daniel writing, “may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.”

The content of this newsletter was taken from the notes by Jim Smith (Professor of Brookes Bible College in St. Louis MO)