Who Is God?

by Steve Bastin

“God is love.”  When reading this passage from a letter written by the apostle, John, many people assume that this completely describes God.  They reject any other information about God on the supposition that they already know everything that there is to know.

Suppose I were to tell you that the flower is red.  Would that give you a complete description of the flower?  Or, suppose I told you that Steve is short.  Would that give you a complete description of Steve?

So it is also with God.  To learn that God is love is not to learn all that there is to know about God.  Consider the following passage from the Bible.

“A jealous and avenging God is the Lord; the Lord is avenging and wrathful.  The Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies.  The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.”  (Nahum, chapter 1, verse 2).

This passage is not describing a different God, but simply adding to a large amount of information found throughout the Bible about our Creator.  No one passage tells us everything about God.

Another passage found in the letter to the Hebrews reads:  “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”  This is said concerning those who continue to sin.

God’s punishment of the guilty might be seen as an act of His love for those who obey Him.  The obedient will not have to endure the wicked forever.  God will deal with them and deliver the righteous from their afflictions.  That, too, is love.

When God created people, He also established right and wrong.  Morals are not a matter of personal choice.  They are not a matter to be determined by popular opinion nor a “vote” by the majority.

God has established what He considers as right and stands ready to punish all who disobey His laws.  It is not love to leave the guilty unpunished in the system that God has created.

Idolatry is the worship of the wrong god.  It is the creation of a god who is different from the God who created the world.

When one rejects any statement that God has put in the Bible about Himself, that person is guilty of idolatry.  It is idolatry because he holds a false view of God.

When the Bible says, “God is . . .” we are expected to accept that statement as a part of our definition of God.  When one decides that God will not punish a sin that is clearly set forth in the Bible, that person is guilty of idolatry.  God will do exactly what He has promised to do.

The God revealed in the Bible has a son.   Both the Muslims and the Jewish people, today, reject Jesus and claim that God has no son.  If their God has no son and the God of the Bible has a son, then they are not the same God.  That, too, is idolatry.

God has not created different religions for different people.  He is one.  He has a single standard for right and wrong.  He has a single plan for the salvation of the world.  His purpose is that all men should come to Him through His only begotten son, Jesus Christ.