Who is God, and what is He like? Language alone cannot answer these questions. However, there are many attributes to help us grasp the essence of the Supreme Creator and Sustainer.
“And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you” (Exodus 3:14 KJV). God revealed His name to Moses. It is a strange one for us to hear, but when He says His name is I AM THAT I AM, He is informing Moses that He is. God is also informing future readers that He was and He still is even in our present day. He is present, He was present, and He will be present to future generations. This name, “I AM” is not only His name, it is an attribute. He is eternal or everlasting. “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God” (Psalms 90:2 KJV).
God is often described as both transcendent and imminent, both near and far. Thorsen’s definitions of these words help us to grasp this hard-to-grasp concept. “Transcendent pertains to the degree to which God surpasses our finite human abilities to conceive and describe” (p. 73). “Imminence pertains to God being near, present, everywhere, ubiquitous, omnipresent” (p. 73).
Back when I AM sends Moses to Egypt to free the Israelites, He is showing us, He is a sending God. God is and God does. In attempting to understand the interpretation of God’s name, Thorsen states, “On the one hand, it may refer to the perfections of God’s being. On the other hand, it may refer to the presence and actions of God in historical affairs” (p. 67). He goes on to say that theologians today prefer the second reference, because they do not think God should be understood as being perfect.
I believe this way of thinking diminishes God into an entity which people can explain. The mistake here is who God is can never be explained nor understood until we are like Him. He is not meant to be brought down to our level; He is not meant to be like us; we are meant to be like Him. This is part of what we mean by God being holy. To suggest God is not perfect, suggests He can and/or has made mistakes. He has not. God does not get better as time goes by. He was perfect, is perfect and forever will be perfect.
As stated above, we cannot bring God the Father down to our level. However, He sent His Son, Jesus to our level, and now, through Jesus and what He has done on the cross, we can be brought up to His level.
Why would He do this? Here is shown the attribute love. Dunning presents the term “aseity” which, as he says, “means from itself and is used to suggest that God is the source of His own being. There is no reality beyond Him to which He owes His being, but He is being itself” (p. 192). The author goes on to reinterpret this to aseity of love, which suggests that God’s love is contained within Himself. He doesn’t get it from any other source. It is spontaneous, ever present, doesn’t depend on being reciprocated. It just is and supports the concept of Prevenient grace. So if there is prevenient grace, there is also prevenient love. Which reminds me of the verse that says, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not” (1 John 3:1 KJV).
The amazing part is this love was bestowed on us before we ever knew we needed it. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8 KJV).
The third person of the Trinity which we have not discussed yet is the Holy Spirit. God the Father sent Jesus the Son. Then, God sent the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Jesus promised this in John 14. Verses 16-17 states, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” (KJV).
“We know that God the Father created all and the Son atoned for our sins; the Holy Spirit sanctifies our lives and loved ones” (Thorsen p. 82). I think this statement is a good place to start when attempting to make the Trinity more understood.
The Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit has always been. Genesis 1:1-3 mentions all three working together in creation. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1 KJV) In verse 2 the Spirit of God moved on the waters. Verse 3 says God spoke and light was created. Father God created, Holy Spirit moved. The Word, later made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, went forth.
Perhaps instead of attempting to understand the Trinity and how everything works, we should concentrate on how we might use the doctrine to reach people. In his lecture, Reflections on the Triune Godhead, Umble says, “John Wesley described this as “a deep, an intimate, an uninterrupted union with God; a constant communion with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ, through the Spirit; a continual enjoyment of the Three-One God, and of all creatures in him.”
Speaking of Wesley, he took being sent further than few of his day thought it necessary. Rooted in the Anglican Church which believed that open air preaching was wrong, Wesley preached outdoors where all could hear. Thus, to be like Christ, we must be willing to be sent.
In conclusion, I turn back to the questions at the beginning. Who is God? He is the Supreme Creator and Sustainer, I AM THAT I AM. What is He like? He is like Jesus who wept at His friend’s tomb and who said “Father forgive them” when He was being crucified, and He is like the Holy Spirit who on the first day of creation, in spite of the darkness, moved upon the face of the waters.Works Cited
Dunning, H. Ray, Grace, Faith, & Holiness: A Wesleyan Systematic Theology, Beacon Hill Press, 1988
Thorsen, Don, An Exploration of Christian Theology, Baker Academic, 2008-2020
Umble, W. Thomas, Reflections on the Triune Godhead, Lecture
Shannon Wells 