Project Description
2013/11
GOD ‘IS’
“God unchangeably exists while time is in progression. God was yesterday, is today and will be tomorrow… do not elevate yourself beyond the reach of your comprehension, and do not limit God by your human conceptions. Acknowledge and believe God to be the One who dwells in incomprehensible eternity; lose yourself in this eternity; worship that which you cannot comprehend; and with Abraham call upon the name of the eternal God” (The Christian’s Reasonable Service, Volume 1, Chapter 3. Wilhelmus à Brakel 1700)
English grammar is well down the list for most of us when we think of favourite school subjects. A pupil may begin to accept that a verb is a ‘doing’ word; only to be told it’s also a ‘being’ word – that is, it can convey a state of being. So we have the dreaded verb ‘to be.’ Remembering that words such as be, am and was were verbs always proved a challenge to someone looking for a doing word!
God’s use of the verb ‘to be’ with respect to His existence is very important. He appeared to Moses in the Bush and told Moses that He is the ‘I am.’ (Exodus 3:14) By using the present tense God taught Moses a vital lesson about who He is. The God of the Bible, the only true and living God, is the God who simply is. He is the eternal, self-existing, self-sufficient God. God reveals Himself not as a God who was or who will be but as the God who is. He was and is and always will be. There was never a time when God wasn’t, and there never will be such a time. God reveals Himself in terms of His independence.
Theologian Louis Berkhof states: ‘God has the ground of His existence in Himself, and unlike man, does not depend on anything outside of Himself.’ The prophet asked: ‘Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? …’ (Isa 40:28) Christ said: ‘…the Father hath life in himself…’ (John 5:26)
This Biblical view of God is not something theoretical and remote but something that has a huge impact on our thinking and conduct. God is the self-sufficient Creator of all things. We are His creatures. Thus we are called:
To worship Him. He is distinct from us. He is God, we are His creatures – He alone is worthy of all the praise and adoration of our hearts.
To depend fully upon Him. He doesn’t need us; we need Him (Acts 17:25). God doesn’t need man to fulfil His existence. God was fully existent in eternity before the world was made. God chose to create this world to display His glory. What is more, God did not need to save fallen man. He saves us because He chose to, and all for His glory.
To submit to Him. He is the God who was always there and thus knows all things. His existence spans all of time, so He knows the end from the beginning. He alone can ultimately explain our world. He alone knows how time began, for He alone was there. He alone knows our future for in a real sense He is already there. Such a fact ought to cause us to never question His rule in our lives.
When we think about God, let’s not despise the significance of the verb ‘to be.’
Dr Stephen Pollock
