WHO MADE GOD???

BEING SELF-EXISTENT: THE LIVING GOD HAS LIFE IN HIMSELF

            In this article we are turning to another great class of the attributes of God. These deal with the greatness of God, and contain nine different elements: self-existence, eternity, unchangeableness, omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, perfection, infinity, and incomprehensibility. There is a wealth of blessing in each one of these for the believer, but time will not permit us to deal with more than the first.

            I am continually impressed with the fact that the human mind yearns to know of all these things, and the human heart is not satisfied with a god that falls short in any one of them. Our God is a great God, incorporating within Himself every one of these attributes, and that is why He satisfies the human heart so fully. Once the searcher after God has found Him in the person of Christ, he never desires to look further. He is quite content to rest in Him.

            Perhaps one of the earliest evidences of thought in a growing child is a question which I doubtless asked my parents and which has been asked over and over again by children  The reason I mention this is because there will be some who will insist that the subject of this article is too deep for preaching to the average person. But that is not the case. Any question of theology which persists in confronting the human mind is worthy of an answer. The question to which I refer is this one - Who made God?

            The child is not ready to ask this question until he reaches that stage in life that he realizes that he is a creator. Once he becomes conscious of the fact that he is able to make things, he observes that others also make things. This produces a whole series of questions that will ultimately be directed to someone. Mother or fathers are usually the ones who hear them first. Some day when he is in a reflective mood he will start in. Where he begins will differ with the child and the circumstances. But it will be sure to end something like this; “Well who made the world?" The answer will be God. But the child will not stop there. Then or later he will come back with the question, "Well, who made God?”

            I venture to say that there are few reading this article who have not experienced the thing I am talking about. And it is very possible that most of you had no sufficient answer for the question. Maybe you were a little embarrassed to be without a satisfactory answer. Perhaps you stalled, or avoided a direct answer, or even admitted that you had no answer. Or perhaps you declared boldly that there was no answer. But there is an answer, and it is a satisfactory answer. It is not fully comprehensible to the human mind. But it satisfies both the mind and the heart. It is this. Nobody made God. God is self-existent.

I. THE STATEMENT OF THE DOCTRINE OF SELF-EXISTENCE.

            The course of God’s life and existence is wholly within Himself, and depends upon nothing external to Himself. This stands in bold contrast to everything else. While this fact is a logical inference, men are so much like children, and so much the creatures of their own environment, that they, would never have known this were it not a special element of divine revelation. Witness the philosophers or wise men of Athens. They were just as other men on this point, wholly ignorant.

            Then the apostle Paul came to the city in the course of his second missionary journey, he was incensed at the wholesale idolatry. Thirty thousand statues, altars, and images within the city, all of them devoted to idolatrous worship confronting him. After bearing his testimony to the Jews in the synagogue, he went out into the streets. It was not long until he faced Stoic and Epicurean philosophers. They listened to him with interest, not because he had the true message from heaven but because he was voicing something new.

            He seemed to be a setter forth of strong gods when he spoke to them of Jesus and the resurrection. They desired to hear more so they invited him to Mars Hill where he addressed a whole conclave of the wise men of the city.  An altar to an unknown god provided him with the occasion for his message. This altar was the symbol of their ignorance. A legend explains how this altar came about. A great plague spread over the islands of the Aegean sea. Sacrifice was made to all the gods they knew, but with no success, and the plague decimated the population. Someone finally conceived the idea that some god had been missed, and so they decided to turn a flock of sheep into the Areopagus, and wherever they laid down, to the god whose altar was nearest, to that god the sheep would be offered. But one sheep lay down in a place near no altar. So they concluded that there was a god, of whom they knew nothing, and so an altar to an unknown god was erected, and the sheep offered. The plague abated, so the custom of erecting altars to the unknown god spread throughout the Greek civilization. The Athenians too had such an altar, the symbol of their ignorance, and Paul used it as his opportunity to preach unto them the truth about the true God. Let us read the account in the seventeenth chapter of Acts and note how clearly he sets forth the self-existence of God in contrast with the dependent existence of man upon God (Acts 17:22-23).

II. THE SUPPORT FOR THE DOCTRINE OF SELF-EXISTENCE.

            While the Biblical account is replete with evidence for this attribute of the clear teaching begins in Exodus, and is associated with Moses. This man had grown up in a Hebrew home with all the benefits of the Egyptian royal family at his disposal. In early manhood he felt the desire to deliver his people from bondage, and attempted in a small way to befriend his people. Not being properly authorized he met opposition from his own people as well as the Egyptians, and fled to the wilderness, where he spent the next 40 years of his life.

            While tending the sheep of his father-in-law out on the back side of the desert, an unusual sight, met his eyes. A bush, by the way, burst into flame, and was not consumed. He turned aside to see it. A voice out of the bush spoke to him and ordered him to put off his shoes for the ground upon which he was standing was holy ground. He complied, and there followed a conversation. The essence of which constituted his call to become the deliverer of his people. When the common agreement was reached, there was one matter Moses wanted settled. He wanted proof that he was properly authorized for his task.

            "And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children Israel, and shall say unto them, the God of your fathers has sent me unto you: and they shall say unto me, what is his name? What shall I say onto them?" (Exodus 3:13). The answer to Moses' question is the point which bears upon our discussion in this article. "And God said unto Moses, “I AM THAT I AM” and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, “I AM hath sent me unto you.” (Exod. 3:14). The name in this case sets forth the nature of God. “I AM THAT I AM” means the one who exists by virtue of Himself. Later, when Moses was about to deliver the people, the Lord spoke again to him, "And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them" (Exod. 6:3). This is significant because the name Jehovah is made on the same root as "I AM.”

            It was the task of the Lord to teach Israel that the true God was unlike the gods of the pagan nations. The true God is self-existent, while the pagan gods were dependent upon things external for existence. But for all the efforts of the Lord, after 1000 years, only a few had learned this lesson. Jeremiah prophesied with tears to a people who were utterly devoid of wisdom in their idolatry. "For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe: they deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers that it move not. They are upright. As the palm tree, but speak not; they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also, is it in them to do good. For as much as there is none like unto them, O Lord; thou art great, and thy name is great in might” (Jer. 10:3-6)

            It is not surprising that Jeremiah cried out: “For my people have committed two evils; they have forgotten me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jer. 2:13).

            While Jeremiah referred to Jehovah as the fountain of living waters, the psalmist declared that God is the fountain of life (Psa. 36:9).

             It was left to Jesus to make a specific statement of this great truth. "For as the Father hath life in himself so hath he given to the son to have life in himself" (John 5:26).

III. THIS DOCTRINE UNDERLIES THE GREAT BODY OF SCRIPTURE

            From the opening words of Genesis to the close of Revelation, the message of the Bible would be meaningless if it were not for the fact that this doctrine is assumed. It is taken for granted in the opening words of Genesis. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth". There could be no creation if there were not a God who is in Himself self-existent.

            It is assumed again when God assuaged the waters of the flood, and brought the ark to rest on dry land. "And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth; and the waters assuaged" (Gen. 8:1).

            It is assumed in the statement of John concerning Christ. "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God" (Jn. 1:1).

            It is assumed again in the statements recorded in the book of Revelation: "Grace to you and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come" (Rev. 1:4).

            “I am the alpha, and the Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is,

and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty” (Rev. 1:3).

            “And the four beasts saying …. Holy, Holy, Holy, the, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come" (Rev. 14:6).

            "And the four and twenty elders...worshipped God, saying  We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come" (Rev. 11:16-17).

            “And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judge thus” (Rev. 16:5).

            One might greatly multiply the passages on this point. But it is enough to say, that the doctrine underlies all the Scripture, or else the God of the Bible is a mere figment of the imagination.

IV. THE PRACTTCAL VALUE OF THIS DOCTRINE

            The practical value of this doctrine lies in the fact that the searcher after once having come to God is sure that he has reached the ultimate source of everything. One need never go any further.

            This God is the source and supply for all material needs. This explains why Paul could rest so peacefully in prison with real assurance he could write to the Philippian believers and pass on to them the confidence which was his (Phil. 4:10-19). This God is the source of spiritual life and sustenance as manifested through Christ. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is cming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the son to have life in himself" (John 5:25-20. This God is the source of physical resurrection from the dead. "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and they shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life: and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation" (John 5:28-29). This God is the source of final judgment and perdition. "For the Father judges no men, but hath committed all judgment to the Son...and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man" (John 5:22-27).

            This God, in the person of Christ, is the source cf all the blessing in the eternal state. Christ is the Temple of the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:22), and the light of the city (Rev. 21:23); the citizens gather about His throne (Rev. 22:3), and they behold his face and the glory of it throughout all eternity (Rev. 22:4; John 17:24).