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by Katie Erickson

First of all, Merry Christmas from all of us at Worldview Warriors! I’m honored to be able to write a post for today, and today’s topic is a fitting one: what does the Bible say about who God is?

When I first began pondering this topic, I wanted to simply write, “See entire Bible.” That’s true, you know? The whole of the Bible is God revealing Himself and His character to us as His creation. We cannot understand Him fully, but we have 66 books that give us a really good idea of who He is. So, the entire Bible - all the way from Genesis to Revelation - tells us something about God’s character.

But to summarize it a bit more for you, let’s start at the beginning. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” God is the creator; He is the one who made us and everything that we see. He created life out of nothing! For more on that, check out any blog posts by Steve Risner, as he continually refutes evolutionary theory with creation as described in the Bible.

God further reveals His identity in the story of Moses. (For more back story on Moses, check out this post by Logan Ames.) When God was calling Moses to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt, Moses asked for God’s name to tell Pharaoh. In Exodus 3:14, “God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’’” Knowing a person’s name tell us a part of their identity; the same goes with God. God is the I AM - He has no beginning and no end, He just is.

When Jesus came down to this world in human form (which we celebrate today on this Christmas holiday), in His earthly ministry, He closely linked Himself with the Father. In the gospel of John, there are seven “I am” statements that Jesus made:

• John 6:35: “Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’”
• John 8:12: “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’”
• John 10:9: “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture.”
• John 10:11: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
• John 11:25: “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.’”
• John 14:6: “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.’”
• John 15:1: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.”

I encourage you to read the context around each of those passages to get a better idea of who Jesus is. In using the phrase “I am” in the way that He did, Jesus was linking Himself with God the Father and proving that He, too, was God in the flesh. For more on who Jesus is and why He is so significant, check out these posts on Who Is Jesus and Why Does Jesus Matter.

We see who God is further in the passage of John 1:1-18. The Word referred to in that passage is Jesus. In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God. He was with God in the beginning. God is eternal; He is eternal as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

More about who God is can be found in studying the attributes of God. My fellow blog writer Charlie Wolcott did a great series on that a couple years ago, starting here, so I’d encourage you to check those out as well.

The Bible is the primary way we know who God is, how He relates to us, and how we should relate to Him. These passages I mentioned are just a very small sampling of the entire Scripture, that as a whole give us the best description of a God who is both knowable and unknowable, personal and unimaginable.

That right there is the best Christmas gift we could ever receive!

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