The Olive Branch
Church at Woodforest
QUESTIONS ON GOD’S NATURE AND OUR SALVATION
Theologians have tried to
describe God in many ways. He is the substance
of all human virtues. He is all-wise and all-knowing. He can do anything and
everything we cannot do, and He is everything good that we would like to
be. So we say that He is omnipotent
(all powerful), or omniscient (all knowing), or omnipresent (present
everywhere).
On the other hand, we can describe God by contrasting him with our
human limitations. For example, we are
mortal, but God is immortal. We are
fallible, but God is infallible.
God is a spirit: eternal and
ever living. He has no beginning or
end. He is a Person who is totally
self-aware—“I Am”; totally moral – “I
ought”; and totally self-assertive –“ I will.”
He is the essence of love and He is loving. He is also a righteous judge – totally fair and just.
God is the Father of all
creation, the Creator of all. He is
all-powerful and sustains the universe.
He exists outside the universe (theologians call this transcendence),
yet He is present throughout the universe (theologians say He is imminent) and
is its ruler. He exists in nature, but
He is not nature, nor is he bound by the laws of nature as the pantheists
asserts. He is the source of all life
and everything that is.
The best description of God
is the name that He gave for Himself to the early Israelites, Yahweh. Yahweh is usually translated “Jehovah” or “Lord.”
Scholars believe that this
is the hiphil tense of the Hebrew verb “to be” and literally means “He
who causes (everything else) to be .”