God is both transcendent and immanent: he is infinitely greater than us, yet close enough to know us personally. The Bible describes some qualities only God has, like being infinite, eternal, and present everywhere. Others he shares with us in a limited way, like love, wisdom, and holiness. And God is one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
A Personal God
The Bible never tries to prove that God exists. It simply assumes it from the first verse: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). In Lesson 2, we saw that God has revealed himself. Now let’s look more closely at what he has shown us. In the Bible, God reveals himself as a personal, relational being, unlike anyone or anything else.
Immanence and Transcendence
God is both immanent (near to us) and transcendent (far above and beyond us). Isaiah holds both together in a single verse.
Isaiah 57:15 For this is what the high and exalted One says—he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.”
God is distinct from his creation, but he remains present and involved in it, sustaining and directing it for his purposes. One of Jesus’ names is Immanuel, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). God can be known, and he interacts with people (Exodus 3:11-12). Yet he is beyond our full understanding. His thoughts and ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9).
If we only think of God as transcendent, he seems cold and distant. If we only think of him as immanent, he becomes small, like a buddy we can manage. The Bible holds both together.
What Only God Is: Incommunicable Attributes
Theologians describe God’s attributes in two categories. Incommunicable attributes are qualities completely unique to God. He doesn’t share (or “communicate”) them with us. As you consider them, you’ll see why there can be no other god beside him.
Infinitude
God is free from limits. He is limited only by his own character; for example, he cannot do evil. But he isn’t subject to any of the limits of his creation, which means all his attributes are infinite too.
Independence
God doesn’t depend on anyone for his existence. We depend on God for our life, but God has no origin (Revelation 4:8). He has life in himself and answers to no one outside himself.
Self-Sufficiency
God has no needs. He didn’t create the world to fill something missing in himself. He created because he chose to. He doesn’t need our worship, our money, or our help.
Acts 17:24-25 The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
Unchangeableness
God responds to different situations in different ways, but his being, character, purposes, and promises never change (Psalm 102:25-27; Numbers 23:19). He will never become more powerful or more loving than he is, and evil will never become good. That means we can trust him to always be the God he has revealed himself to be.
Malachi 3:6 “I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.”
Eternity
God has no beginning and no end. He isn’t bound by time. He created time and sees all of history at once (Isaiah 46:9-10).
Psalm 90:2 Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Omnipresence
God isn’t limited to one place at a time. He is present everywhere with his whole being (Jeremiah 23:23-24; Psalm 139:7-12). God is spirit and doesn’t have a physical body. When the Bible describes God’s eyes, mouth, or arms, it’s using human comparisons to tell us that God perceives, communicates, and acts.
Unity
God isn’t divided into parts. Every attribute applies fully to all of God, and his attributes never conflict. Because God is holy, his love is a holy love. Because God is merciful, his justice is a merciful justice.
What God Shares With Us: Communicable Attributes
Communicable attributes are aspects of God’s nature that are reflected in people, though in a limited way. Here are several examples.
- Spirituality. God is spirit (John 4:24). Humans also have a spirit, and God interacts with us at that level (Romans 8:16). God is invisible to the human eye (1 Timothy 6:16).
- Knowledge. We know a little. God knows everything perfectly: past, present, and future, visible and invisible, actual and possible (1 John 3:20).
- Power. God is all-powerful (Jeremiah 32:17). That doesn’t mean he can act against his character (Titus 1:2), but he can do anything he chooses to do.
- Wisdom. God always chooses the best goals and the best way to reach them (Romans 16:27; Romans 8:28).
- Truthfulness. God is the true God (Jeremiah 10:10). He is the final standard of truth, and he is always faithful to his promises (Deuteronomy 32:4).
- Goodness. God is the final standard of what is good, and everything he does is good (Psalm 106:1; James 1:17).
- Love. God eternally gives himself to others, as seen in the love shared within the Trinity (John 17:24). Our love is tainted by self-interest, but God loves even sinful people at great cost to himself (Romans 5:8). His love shows up as grace, patience, mercy, and compassion.
- Holiness. The root idea of holiness is separation. God is separate from all sin and calls us to be holy too (1 Peter 1:15-16). In an even greater sense, he is completely set apart from everything he has made (Isaiah 6:3).
- Righteousness. God always does what is right (Genesis 18:25). He isn’t measured by an outside standard. He is the standard.
- Wrath. God’s wrath is his settled opposition to sin (Romans 1:18). Human anger is often misdirected, but hating evil is a virtue. God’s wrath expresses his holiness and is never at odds with his love.
1 John 4:8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
The Triune God
When we put together everything the Bible reveals, the only possible conclusion is that God exists eternally as three persons in one being. Christians call this the Trinity. It rests on three biblical truths:
- God is three persons. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct (Matthew 28:19). They interact with each other (Matthew 3:16-17) and have different roles, but they work in perfect unity as equals.
- Each person is fully God. The Father is God. The Son is God (John 1:1-3; see Lesson 5). The Spirit has attributes only God has and does things only God can do (Acts 5:3-4; see Lesson 6). All three are worthy of worship.
- There is only one God (Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 44:6-8).
Matthew 28:19-20 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
The careful distinction between “person” and “being” helps us avoid two errors. First, we must not confuse the persons. The Father is not the Son, and neither is the Holy Spirit. Second, we must not divide God’s being. The Father, Son, and Spirit are not three separate gods.
We don’t have to fully understand how God can be three persons in one being. Why would finite creatures expect to fully grasp an infinite God (Job 11:7)? But we can explain why we believe it: it’s the only view of God that accounts for everything the Bible teaches. For more, see the series The Trinity.
The Takeaway
God is both high above us and near to us. Some of his attributes belong to him alone, while others he shares with us so we can reflect his character. And he is one God in three persons, eternally loving. The more clearly we see God, the more fully we can trust and worship him. In Lesson 4, we’ll see how this God interacts with his world.
