How would you answer the question, “What is God like?” Here’s the answer we’ll explore in this article:
“The God of the Bible is perfectly loving and good, knows all things, has unlimited power, and is the uncreated Creator of all things.”
Let’s walk through this answer:
“The God of the Bible . . .”
When you say the word “God,” different people think of different things. One might think of “God” as a bearded person living somewhere in the sky. Others think of “God” as more of a life force than a person, like the Force in Star Wars. But the Bible reveals a different concept of God—one who is perfect and is unique among the world’s religions. The Bible is God’s Word; it’s made up of many books written by different people, but they all fit together to tell one big story that God guided. These writings reveal what God is actually like by telling us things that God has said and done.
But how can we know what God is like? After all, over and over again, the Bible says that God is “holy” (meaning “set apart”). This means God is not like anyone or anything else. In so many ways, he’s not like us. For example, we humans were born and will someday die—but not so with God. We are stuck in moment-by-moment time; God isn’t. We humans change a lot over time; God doesn’t. So, it might seem that God would be hard to understand since he is so great and we are so limited.
“These writings reveal what God is actually like by telling us things that God has said and done.”
But the good news is that God tells us a lot about what he’s like. And he does this first and foremost by making things. By making a massive universe, he tells us that he’s really powerful. By making a physical world that runs according to scientific laws, he tells us that he’s really intelligent. By putting a sense of right and wrong in our hearts, he’s telling us that he cares about what’s good. So, even though we will never know everything about God in this life, God has told us a lot about what he’s like–enough for us to love him and relate to him.
“. . . is perfectly loving and good . . .”
The Bible often calls God our Father. As our Father, he loves us and wants us to treat each other well. One of the things God does in the Bible is give us rules which help us keep from hurting each other. For example, he gives us rules against stealing from each other, abusing each other, and telling lies about each other. When we follow his rules, life is way better for us and for the people we’re around. Our Father isn’t just someone who loves a lot; his very nature is love. As 1 John 4:8 says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”[1] First John 3:1a says, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
Although God is described in the Bible as a father, he’s also described as a judge. In Genesis 18:25, God is called “the Judge of all the earth.” He is perfectly good and is the ultimate standard of goodness. As Psalm 119:68a puts it, “You are good, and what you do is good.” Now, let’s think about what a judge does. In a courtroom, the judge hears an accusation against somebody; then he hears the evidence for and against them, and he makes the decision. And the Bible says that, at the end of time, God the perfect judge “will repay each person according to what they have done” (Romans 2:6). This is good news because it means that, in the end, God will bring justice where there has been a lot of injustice and unfair suffering. He will punish evil and rescue his creation.
“In the end, God will bring justice where there has been a lot of injustice and unfair suffering.”
At the same time, it’s not great news for us, because we ourselves have done lots of things we know were wrong and hurtful. In our sin, we have become part of the problem. But here’s the really amazing news: God is a judge who offers forgiveness to those who repent and turn to him for mercy. First John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
What are some types of injustice and suffering in this world you are looking forward to God bringing to an end?
“. . . knows all things . . .”
It’s easy to think about the Bible as a collection of stories about amazing people who followed God and left us good examples to follow. But if we’re honest, it’s more like a single story in which there’s one true Hero, God, and a bunch of people who sometimes follow him but often don’t. These followers tend to make a huge mess of things. For example, although Abraham and Sarah were amazing in that they followed God to an unknown land and kept their faith in God through uncertain times, it’s also true that they did weird and immoral things like this: Sarah had a slave named Hagar, and when Sarah was unable to get pregnant, she offered her female slave to Abraham so that he could get her pregnant. Abraham did go on to have a son with Hagar, but this only made Sarah jealous. Sarah then mistreated Hagar so badly that Hagar ran away to the desert (see Genesis, chapters 16 and 21).
Someone saw Hagar by a spring in the desert and struck up a conversation with her. “Where have you come from, and where are you going?” the person asked her. She explained that she was running away from her master who was treating her cruelly. At this point, this mysterious person started describing her future.
“You are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son,” he said. “You shall name him Ishmael [a word that means “God hears”], for the Lord has heard of your misery.”
“The Lord has heard of your misery.”
He encouraged her to go back to Sarah and Abraham, explaining, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.” When she realized who it was who was talking with her, Hagar told him, “You are the God who sees me. I have now seen the One who sees me.” Hagar went back, and God indeed blessed her son, Ishmael, and went on to make him into a great nation.
What are some things we learn about God from his interaction with Hagar in the desert? We learn that God sees people when they’re alone and mistreated. We learn that God sees their suffering. We learn that God even sees their future and knows what he will do to bless their future. As Hagar said, God is the God who sees.
Throughout the Bible, we see that God sees and hears everything, whether past, present, or future. In other words, God literally knows everything. That includes everything about us. In Psalm 139:3-4, the psalmist prays, “You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely.” This also includes everything about the future. In Isaiah 46:10-11 God says,
“I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’ From the east I summon a bird of prey; from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose. What I have said, that I will bring about; what I have planned, that I will do.”
“What I have said, that I will bring about; what I have planned, that I will do.”
When Jesus came to earth, he showed that he was able to know the future with startling specificity; for example, he accurately predicted that his disciple Peter would deny Jesus three times before the rooster crowed twice (Mark 14:30).
And yet, even though God knows everything (including everything about us), he still loves us and meets us where we are. As we saw in the story of Hagar, he walks with us and gently guides us toward his better future.
Think of times of loneliness or sadness you have experienced, such as Hagar experienced in the desert. In those times, is it hard to feel like God knows all about you and sees you?
“. . . has unlimited power . . .”
God is all-powerful. In other words, there is no to-do list too long or task too big that he can’t do it. After all, God created everything. He created the lightning bugs and lightning storms, the molecules and the galaxies. And if we can believe the first words of the Bible—“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”—then all the miracles that follow are easy for him. If he created eyes, he can easily restore sight to a blind person. If he created life, he can easily raise a dead person back to life. Miracles are totally possible because the greatest miracle of all has already happened—creating this universe out of nothing (something we’ll discuss next in Conversation #2).
But if God is all-powerful, then that means he can do anything, right? And wouldn’t that create a problem? Like, if God can literally do anything, then wouldn’t he be able to create a stone so heavy that even he himself couldn’t lift it? But then, if he can’t lift the stone he created, isn’t that something he can’t actually do?
Well, the truth is, being all-powerful doesn’t mean that God can do things that aren’t actually real things. For example, a married bachelor isn’t an actual thing; that’s because a bachelor is an unmarried man, which means he can’t be married. The idea of a “married bachelor” is just nonsense—just a contradiction. Likewise, an “odd-numbered even number” is just a contradiction and not something that could possibly exist.
“Being all-powerful doesn’t mean that God can do things that aren’t actually real things.”
In the same way, the concept of a stone that is so big that an all-powerful being can’t lift it may sound clever, but it isn’t a thing that could actually exist—it’s just a contradiction. Think about it: How could there be a stone (which, by definition, is a physical object with a finite size) that is too heavy for a Being of infinite power to lift? So, no, God cannot create such a stone; but that isn’t a limitation on God’s power because a “stone that an infinite being can’t lift” is simply a contradictory concept that cannot exist (like a married bachelor). As C. S. Lewis said about God, “You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense.”[1]
The Bible actually mentions a handful of things that God cannot (or will not) do, even though he is all-powerful. For example, he cannot be tempted by sin, nor can he tempt others to sin (James 1:13). He cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18). He cannot swear by anyone greater than himself because there is no one greater than himself (Hebrews 6:13). Why can’t he do these things? It’s not because God lacks power; rather it’s because they go against his perfect nature. And a God who won’t sin or lie because of his perfect nature is a whole lot more impressive than the so-called gods of mythology who were greedy and lustful and were basically humans on steroids. The all-powerful God of the Bible is not only someone we can look up to, but he’s someone we can trust.
Imagine your friend says to you, “I don’t think God is really all-powerful. The Bible says God can’t lie, but even I can do that. So doesn’t that mean I’m more powerful than God? . . .” How would you respond?
“. . . and is the uncreated Creator of all things.” 
God is also the uncreated Creator; that is, God made everything but nothing made God. Does it seem a little strange to believe in something that is uncreated—something that was just already there? It might seem strange, but it makes sense given our options. Modern science tells us that the universe hasn’t always been here; rather, it came into existence at some point in the past.
So, we really have only two options: Either there was nothing there before the universe came into existence, or there was something that was already there. Does it make more sense to believe that nothing existed before the universe (so there was nothing there to create it), or that something existed before the universe and was already there to create it? Let’s pause and consider the Bible’s answer that God was already there—and has always been there. Psalm 90:2 says to God, “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” While that may be difficult to imagine, we’ll see that it actually makes a lot of sense.
Besides being uncreated, does it make sense for God to be the Creator of all things? Wouldn’t that mean that God created evil too—things like murder, theft, and pride? One important thing to know about evil is that, even though evil is real, evil isn’t so much a thing as it is a corruption of a good thing. For instance, think of an arm that gets broken. Evil is like the break in the arm. There first needs to be an arm before there is a break in the arm.
“Evil is like the break in the arm. There first needs to be an arm before there is a break in the arm.”
In the same way, God created a good world which evil breaks apart. God gave us the freedom to do evil and corrupt his good creation. Our freedom is good because it means we can choose to love God and each other, but it also means we can misuse our freedom and corrupt things. So evil is really more of a corruption of a good thing than a thing itself.
So, again, God is the uncreated Creator of all things. And that’s where the Bible starts. The Bible tells one grand story which begins with God creating the heavens and earth. He then created humans in his own image to rule over the earth. Yet the humans chose to be their own gods, and soon the world had spiraled into sin and corruption. In response, God did a lot to draw people back to him. For example, he did miracles to show people that he was still there. He sent important messages through his prophets, messages that reminded the people to repent. And yet, the sin problem just kept getting worse. However, all great stories have chapters which are tough to read, and it’s just when this story was getting darkest that God did something unexpected: he wrote himself into the story. God entered the story as a man, Jesus, who would rescue us from our sins and begin restoring us to our original good purpose.
What do you think people miss out on when they reject the idea of a Creator and believe everything came from nothing, by accident?
[1] All scripture quotes are in NIV.
[2] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2001), 18.
