“Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O Lord, and You exalt Yourself as head over all.” (1 Chronicles 29:11)
by Pastor Patrick Cho
Every once in a while, someone will ask me how I read through the Bible. Most of the time, I just enjoy reading the Bible to understand the general overall story as it unfolds. But sometimes I read the Bible looking to study a particular theme, and one of my favorite themes to focus on is the character of God. It is always impactful and eye-opening to examine what the Scriptures say about God. And it is humbling to consider that God would condescend to us and reveal Himself in the pages of Scripture. Though we cannot know Him comprehensively since He is infinite and we are finite, we can still know Him truly because whatever the Bible says about God is true. Chapter 3 of Fundamentals of the Faith covers the topic of God.
If you walk around and ask random people if they believe in God, many might tell you they do. I had a chance to do this while attending UCSD as a student. All sorts of people would tell me that they believed in God, some higher being, or a cosmic force. Each person had their own opinions and ideas about what God was like. For some, God was a good being who was the source of everything good. For others, God was a cosmic energy that gave life and sustained all that is. Some people shared that they didn’t know or that we couldn’t know what God is like. Others had come to very strong conclusions about Him.
Thankfully, we are not left to our own speculation to guess at what God is like. He is not simply defined by what we want Him to be. He has clearly revealed Himself in the pages of Scripture. When God met with Moses, He gave a description of Himself by proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Exod. 34:6-7). The pages of God’s Word help us to understand who God is, what He is like, and how He acts.
There are many various attributes of God that are revealed in Scripture. God is found to be eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing, never changing, righteous, merciful, good, and gracious. The Bible tells us that God is one (Deut. 6:4), He is love (1 John 4:16), and He is light (1 John 1:5). God is spirit (John 4:24) and is not a man (Num. 23:19; except in the Person of Jesus, which will be the focus of the next chapter!). God is all these things and more, and it is incredibly exciting to be able to know Him and to study what He is like.
This is an exercise you might want to try as you read your Bible. Keep a journal and pen handy (or a laptop open) and jot down observations you make about God as you read. Write notes on what passages tell you what God is like. Also keep note of the passages that tell you how God acts or what He requires of His people. These sorts of things can help us understand more clearly who He is. As you read His Word, hopefully your view of God will increase so that you will come to love Him more and live for Him more faithfully.