One of the best questions a child can ask is, “Who made God?”
Or how about this one:
“Where did God come from?”
Or “How old is God?”
These are great questions that a person of any age can ask, don’t you think?
Fortunately, the Bible provides an answer that theologians call the self-existence of God.
The wonder of God’s greatness is beyond the limits of our finite minds. Yet God wants us to know Him to the extent we are able. He desires that we “Be still, and know that I am God “(Psalm 46:10). This is why the Bible is filled with profound statements that tell us who God is and what He is like. So let’s take a closer look at one of my favorite truths about God: His eternal self-existence.
The Reality of God’s Self-Existence
God has always existed. He is eternal, and His eternality extends into the past as well as the future. I think we have an easier time thinking about the never-ending future existence of God, mainly because “God has given us eternal life” (1 John 5:11). We will live with God forever because God lives forever. Of course, even this future aspect of eternal life is mind-boggling and way beyond our mental ability to comprehend. But even more difficult to grasp is the truth that God has always existed in the past.
Please join me in this brain-bending exercise: meditate on the fact that God has no beginning. He is uncreated. No one or no thing made God because God always was. We don’t have a category for this. Everything and everyone in the world has a beginning, a point in time when it came into existence. But not God. He has always been.
A.W. Tozer comments on the mystery of God’s eternality and the challenge we face in our attempt to understand it: “To think steadily of that to which the idea of origin cannot apply is not easy, if indeed it is possible at all . . . The human mind, being created, has an understandable uneasiness about the Uncreated. We do not find it comfortable to allow for the presence of One who is wholly outside of the circle of our familiar knowledge. We tend to be disquieted by the thought of One who does not account to us for His being, who is responsible to no one, who is self-existent, self-dependent and self-sufficient” (The Knowledge of the Holy).
We know God has no origin because this is what Scripture teaches. Moses begins Psalm 90 with these words:
1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
It’s that last part of verse 2 that makes our heads spin. “From everlasting” God has been God. The Common English Bible translates this as “from forever in the past to forever in the future, you are God.” Psalm 93:2 is equally clear: “Your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting.” Or as the NIV puts it, “you are from all eternity.”
The Reason for God’s Self-Existence
God has always existed because God is life. This amazing truth is also revealed in the Bible. When God spoke to Moses in the burning bush He told him, “I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go, I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:9-10).
Moses’ response to God’s command was less than enthusiastic, so he said, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” (Exodus 3:13).
God then 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.’ God also said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you. This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation” (Exodus 3:14-15).
The Hebrew word for “LORD” (in all capital letters) is Yahweh, and it means “I am.” This is the most common word for God in the Bible, used over 6,800 times in the Old Testament! We must not miss the significance of this – God has a name (just like you have a name), and His name is based on the truth of His eternal self-existence. Every time we read the word “LORD” in the Old Testament, we should be reminded that our God is the source and fountain of life because He is life itself. He is the only self-sufficient, self-sustaining being in the universe, dependent on no one else and therefore the only truly independent Person.
The Gospel of John makes this truth about God’s self-existence abundantly clear:
In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind (1:4);
For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in Himself (5:26);
I am the resurrection and the life (11:25);
I am the way, the truth and the life (14:6).
The Overflow of God’s Self-Existence
The implications of God’s self-existence should humble us. The only reason we exist is because God exists. He is life itself and has chosen to give life to us. Every breath we take and every move we make is because of His sustaining power. We would not be here if God had not brought us into being. And we would not continue to live another second were it not for the grace of God.
He made us, and He upholds us. God is the only reason we are alive today. And only because of His mercy will you wake up again tomorrow. Let the goodness of God, as manifested in the provision of our daily existence, take your breath away. “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
Our Response to God’s Self-Existence
In light of this amazing truth, how do we then live? What effect should the self-existence of God have on us? It should bring us to our knees in worship of the living God. This is the only appropriate response!
John had a vision of God on His throne in heaven. Angels are worshipping Him, and this is what they are proclaiming day and night: “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” (Revelation 4:8). God was. He “was” in the sense that He always was. There has never been a time when God was not God. This should evoke endless praise and adoration of the great I AM.
While these angelic beings “give glory, honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne and who lives forever and ever,” the 24 elders, representative of God’s people, join the celebration and “fall down before Him . . . and worship Him who lives forever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say, ‘You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being’” (Revelation 4:9-11).
Looking for a reason to glorify God today? Look no further than the beating heart in your chest. If you are alive and can read these words, you have every reason to worship King Jesus, “the author of life” (Acts 3:15) and the lover of your soul.
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