Who is God?

Bible Study and Teaching on God

The Bible answers this ancestral question extensively. The answer is found in Scripture, correctly translated and interpreted, which not only offers a definition of God, but also shows us His characteristics, answering the question "Who is God?" exhaustively.

Etymology of the name of God

In the Old Testament, YHWH is the personal name of God of Israel, occurring over 6,800 times; it is usually translated as LORD in the English versions of the Bible. YHWH is also referred to as the "Tetragrammaton" because it is composed from four Hebrew consonants.

The four letters derive from the Biblical Hebrew tri-consonantal root/verb h-y-h (hayah), meaning "to be". The name YHWH is a compound word made up of 3 verbs: "hayah hoveh yi'yeh", meaning "He was, He is, He will be".

In Exodus 3:13-15, when Moses asked for God's name in order to prove to the children of Israel that it was the God of their father Abraham that was sending him to them, God simply answered "ehyeh-asher-ehyeh". This phrase, rendered as "I AM THAT I AM" in the KJV and "I AM WHO I AM" in the NKJV, derives from the Qal imperfect 1st person form of the verb "havah": "I will be/I will become" and clearly indicates a connection with the personal name of God YHWH.

The letters, properly read from right to left (in Biblical Hebrew), are:

Hebrew	Letter name	Pronunciation
י	Yodh	[j]
ה	He	[h]
ו	Waw	[w], or placeholder for "O"/"U" vowel
ה	He	[h] (or often a silent letter at the end of a word)

The actual pronunciation of YHWH is not known since ancient Hebrew did not use any vowel markings; for this reason any attempt of speaking the Hebrew personal name of God would fail.

Although today the original pronunciation is lost, God has managed to preserve the concept of the meaning of His name and we find it in Revelation 1:8 - "I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, says the Lord, 'who is and who was and who is to come', the Almighty."

There are also many titles that are used in the Bible when referring to God. The most common recurring Old Testament titles are "Adonai" translated with "Lord" and "Elohiym", "Elowahh", "El" all translated with "God" and deriving from the same Hebrew root meaning "strength, power, might, prominence, nobility".

The New Testament Greek rendering for God is "Theos".

SO, WHO IS GOD? WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD THE FATHER?

Let's analyze the Scriptures:

GOD IS LOVE

1 John 4:8 - "He who does not love does not know God, for GOD IS LOVE."

...But what is Love? The Biblical definition and meaning of Love is found in:

2 John 1:6 (NKJV) - "This is love, that we walk according to His (God's) Commandments..."

This means that living a holy life, according to God's Law and the Principles of His Kingdom, is Love; therefore God is Love because He is holy and righteous, as sin and unrighteousness are not found in Him.

GOD IS RIGHTEOUS

Psalm 119:137 (NKJV) - "Righteous are You, O Lord, and upright are Your judgments."

God is righteous because He is holy; evil and the things of this world are not found in Him. He is not bias in His judgments, He has no prejudices, He does not change opinions based on "His mood"; He is righteous and upright in His judgments, because His judgments are based on His Law, and His Law is sinlessness.

God is Father

Isaiah 64:8 (NKJV) - "But now, O Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You our potter; and all we are the work of Your hand."

Matthew 11:25 (NKJV) - "At that time Jesus answered and said, "I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth..."

Romans 8:14-17 (NKJV) - "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, 'Abba, Father'. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs - heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ..."

Romans 8:29 - "Whom He (God the Father) foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He (Jesus) might be the firstborn among many brethren."

God is compassionate and He nurtures and nourishes His children with the same love of a father

Psalm 103:13 - "As a father is compassionate and loving towards his children, so is the Lord towards those who fear Him."

Hosea 11:1,3,4 (NKJV) - "When Israel was a child, I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son. I taught Ephraim (Israel) to walk, taking them by their arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I drew them with gentle cords, with bands of love, and I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck. I stooped and fed them."

God is a protective father who is jealous and possessive with His children, as He does not want to lose them, and who is always there for them

Exodus 20:5 (NKJV) - "...For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God..."

Psalm 27:10 - "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me."

God loves us

Many people cringe at hearing that God is our Father and that He loves us because of their Broken Heart and find it difficult to relate to Him and trust Him. But nonetheless God loves us and wants us to heal our relationship with Him and He has already taken the first step toward us:

1 John 4:9-10 - "In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

Romans 8:39 (NKJV) - "Nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the Love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

God's Love is described in:

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NKJV) - "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails." (For an in-depth study on this Scripture, see What is Love)

God is trustworthy; He is faithful to His word and to the covenant that He has established with His people

Deuteronomy 4:31 (NKJV) - "(For the Lord your God is a merciful God) He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them."

2 Samuel 22:32-33 (NKJV) - "For who is God, except the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God? God is my strength and power, and He makes my way perfect."

2 Chronicles 30:9 (NKJV) - "...The Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn His face from you if you return to Him."

God is the Creator of all things through Jesus

Deuteronomy 32:6 (NKJV) - "...Has He (God) not made you and established you?"

Hebrews 1:2 (NKJV) - "God has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds."

God wills ALL Things

Matthew 6:10 - "Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

John 5:19 - "Then Jesus answered and said to them 'Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner'."

John 12:49 - "For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak."

God is powerful, He is a Just Judge and He is the God of the living, as He has created us

Job 33:12 (NKJV) - "God is greater than man."

Psalm 7:11 (NKJV) - "God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day."

Luke 20:38 (NKJV) - "He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him."

God is not a man, God is Spirit and Truth

Numbers 23:19 (NKJV) - "God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?"

John 4:23-24 (NKJV) - "But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

HOW CAN WE KNOW GOD THE FATHER?

The Bible says that the invisible attributes of God are clearly seen and understood since the creation of the world by the things that are made and anyone deep down has a general knowledge of God.

Romans 1:19-20 (NKJV) - "... What may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse."

We know God the Father through Jesus, as this is one of the purposes for which Jesus was sent to Earth: to show us God the Father, His Law and His Love for all His children. Jesus never spoke a word that He did not hear the Father speak.

John 12:49-50 (NKJV) - "For I (Jesus) have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak."

John 14:10 (NKJV) - "Do you not believe that I (Jesus) am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works."

And we find the same protective characteristics of Father God in Jesus in Scriptures like Matthew 23:37 (NKJV) where Jesus says: - "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!"

And in the following Scripture we notice how Jesus weeps and suffers for Jerusalem that, since time immemorial, has transgressed the Law of God, killed the prophets and failed to recognize who Jesus was, the promised Messiah, the only one who could have delivered them from their sins and saved them from the very consequences of such sins. This same way God suffers for one of His children or for all His people, when they transgress His Law.

Luke 19:40-43 (NKJV) - "But He answered and said to them, 'I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.' Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, 'If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes."

Luke 19:43-44 (NKJV) - "For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation'."

Jeremiah 9:1 (NKJV) - Here is God Himself speaking: - "Oh, that my head were waters, And my eyes a fountain of tears, That I might weep day and night For the slain of the daughter (Jerusalem/Israel) of my people!"

Many other Scriptures describe us who God is and what God is like, we are only mentioning a few.

We also have to keep in mind that if we get to know Jesus, we get to know God the Father! As we read the Bible, we need to keep in mind that Jesus is revealing the Father to us. He shows us His love, His compassion, His mercy, His grace and how He has prepared a way for us to come to our Father and be at peace. Through Jesus we can know that our Father loves us and that we can trust Him with our life.

Let's recap: Who is God? What is God like? What characteristics does God have?

From Scriptures we have seen, first and foremost, that GOD IS LOVE, therefore:

God is holy and righteous;
God is a protective Father, who loves and nurtures His children;
God is the Creator of all things;
God is not a man, God is Spirit and Truth and in order to know and love God we must know and love Jesus who is His Word;
God is the Truth that makes us free;
God is powerful, He is a Just Judge;
God loves His Children and has the same feelings that a father would have in seeing their children transgress the Law: He is hurt and suffers for them;
God is trustworthy and faithful: we can find a refuge with Him and He always keeps His word and the Covenant that He has established with His children.

And we could go on and on and quote many other Scriptures and make reference to other characteristics of God that we find in the Bible when we read it carefully and without religious pre-conceptions and without the deceptions of the world, but we will stop here and we encourage you to watch our video teaching to learn more about this subject.