5-Minute Christianity

Last time I mentioned that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have eternally demonstrated love. The really good news for us is that God chose to direct his love toward us as well. When John was helping us understand what it means to love, he said this in 1John 4:10 “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” I’ll need to look at the word “propitiation” in a future episode. But for now, the key truth is that God decided to take this eternal quality that he possesses - love - and direct that love it toward his children. If you are the child of God, you are the everlasting recipient of God’s love.

One of the Bible’s famous verses is 1John 4:8 which tells us that “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” In answer to the question, “Who is God?” or “What is God?”, I’ve heard Christians reply by simply saying “God is Love!” The theological truth behind the concept of God being love is that for all eternity, God has been actively giving of himself for the good of others. When I say “all of eternity” I mean that literally. For example, in John 17:24, Jesus was speaking to God the Father and he said: “you loved me before the foundation of the world.” Even before the universe began, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all demonstrated love for each other.

The last two episodes have focused on the fact that God knows everything. He knows everything that has or will happen, and he knows the infinite number of things that could have happened but didn’t. I want to pause today and comment on the fact that God’s omniscience should be a source of comfort for the Christian. As you experience the events of your life, you likely have times of joy and times of sorrow and distress. While those times might take you by surprise, they are never a surprise to God. Before he created the universe, he knew you, and he knew all the events that would transpire in your life. You can take comfort that no matter what happens, God was not surprised and he is in control.

Last time I said that God knows everything, but that he didn’t learn what he knows. There’s never a time when God doesn’t know something and comes to know it later. God knows everything there is to know about himself, and everything there is to know about the universe. To take God’s omniscience even further, he doesn’t just know all that there is. He also knows all that there could have been. For example, when he created the universe, he could have created different kinds of creatures. If you had made different choices yesterday, things might be different for you today. The weather where you live could have been different today. There’s an infinite number ways things could have been, and God knows them all.

What does God know? One of the core attributes of God is that he is omniscient. What that means is that God knows everything. In 1 John, John wrote about love being the mark of the Christian and how the presence of love can reassure us that we are really saved. Then he said this: “For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. But God doesn’t know things the way you and I know things. Everything that you know, there was a time when you didn’t know it. You learned it. Someone taught you, or you observed it or you figured it out. God doesn’t learn. There’s never a time when God doesn’t know something and comes to know it. He simply knows everything.

If God is invisible, how is it that some authors of the Bible say that they saw him? Even though God is a spirit being and is not confined to a body, there are times when God revealed himself by taking on a form that could be seen. One example of that is something Abraham experienced. Genesis 18:1 says this: “And the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day.” God took on some sort of a visible form that Abraham was able to see and have a conversation with. Of course, God was seen clearly in the person of Jesus. The incarnation involved Jesus taking on a human body.

The last two podcasts looked at the idea of God being omnipresent. The reason that’s possible is because God is not confined to a body. God is a spirit, and therefore, we would also affirm that God is invisible. Even though God is present, with you, wherever you are listening to this, you can’t see him. The nature of his being is spirit, and we are beings who have bodies. We can see and touch and feel the physical world, but not the spirit world. The Apostle John put it like this in John 1:18: “No one has ever seen God.” We will see God in heaven when we have a different kind of body, but for now, God is invisible to us.

Last time, I said that God is everywhere at the same time. Someone asked me if that means God is in hell. The answer has to be yes. Hell is part of God’s creation and if God is omnipresent, He is present in hell. The way to think about this is to remember that even though God is everywhere, he acts differently in different places. For the believer, both now and in heaven, God’s presence will bring blessing. David said this in Psalm 16:11: “In your presence, there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” But for God’s enemies, His presence will bring punishment as he displays his justice. It’s God, not Satan, who created and rules over hell. So yes, he is present there.

Where is God? Well, that’s sort of a trick question. Many people might say God is in heaven. The truth is that God is everywhere. The word we use to describe that is omnipresent. The prefix omni means all. So the word omnipresent means that God is present everywhere. There are no limits on God regarding where he is or where he can be. You have a body, and your body can only be in one place. If you’re in Singapore right now, you can’t also be in India. God doesn’t have size dimensions or an amount of space that he takes up. He is present in every point of the universe at the same time. This does not mean that everything is God. That would be pantheism. But it means there is no place where God is not present.

I’ve been looking lately at the truth that God is eternal. I said that God doesn’t experience time as we do. The events that we experienced as our past, or the things that we have not yet experienced, and are our future, are all in the present to God. However, sometimes the authors of the Bible explain this by using time references. Peter wrote that “with the Lord, a thousand years is as one day.” He also turned that around and said “one day is as a thousand years.” Peter’s reference to time doesn’t contradict the truth that God is eternal. He wasn’t teaching that God experiences time at a different pace from us. He was illustrating the truth that God is eternal with the contrast between 1 year and 1000 years.