Part 1 | The Only True God – The Existence and Knowability of God

By Vic Gill

Introduction

Imagine you’re off on a mountain trekking expedition to the Swiss Alps. You leave London at 6am and arrive at the foot of the mountain at 3pm. In your excitement and zeal for the trek you hurriedly begin the mammoth task ahead of you. During the trek you take a few breaks to take in the views and snap a few pictures of the glorious scenes. You soon realise that you’ve covered quite a distance and the clock has just gone past seven. You realise the sun is fast setting and it is getting dark. You reach out to your bag and realise that in your excitement and hurry, you left your compass, map, torch and food supplies in the car. It’s getting darker and darker as the minutes tick by and soon panic sets in. Ten it hits you. You didn’t assess, prepare, understand, evaluate or count the cost before setting out. You launched straight into the task ahead with an excitement and zeal. Instead of being sober in mind and laying some foundations, you began climbing.

This series of Bible studies would be similar to the trekker if it launched straight out into the majestic awesomeness of God’s attributes without lay some foundations. In other words, there are some things which need to be said and clarified before we can begin climbing the mountain of God’s attributes. Too often in ministry, people filled with sincerity set off to do something for God and never count the cost. I tremble before God at the thought of speaking and writing about God. We cannot afford to play games nor speak about God’s truth with such casualness. God will not bless such a work. But this I will be quick to say, that there aren’t many things which I know of which can bring joy to the soul of man, than learning about the truths of God’s character. It has been the most liberating and soul enriching study I have ever done. My love for God has intensified and become so much more intimate and consistent.

Let me save you some time. This series of Bible studies assumes the existence of God. It is not intended to debate His existence or try to prove to anyone that He exists. If you are seeking to be convinced of whether He exists or not, then I am afraid you will be quite disappointed. Instead, God has called me to proclaim to you what He is like. The Bible is not a book which seeks to prove the existence of God – though there is evidence – it unquestionably and undeniably proclaims Him as the author and source of everything. Genesis starts off not with trying to prove that God exists, but the theory smashing, life changing, evolution bashing proclamation that:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1)

The very first verse in the Bible not only establishes His existence, but at the same time launches straight into the deep ocean of His character and works. He is the creator God. We must be humble enough to acknowledge that the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved. The Bible says that we must accept by faith the fact that God exists.

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him (Hebrews 11:6)

If God desired to prove Himself, He could do this very easily and prove His existence to the whole world. But if He did that there would be no need for faith and trust. Therefore Jesus said:

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed (John 20:29)

But for the sake of those who sincerely have questions in regards to the existence of God, I will take a few minutes to point to the evidence for the existence of God. God is not proven in the same way as one would prove a scientific experiment, but we can point to tremendous evidence for the existence of God. But be warned, that if the evidence clearly points toward His existence, then the next question which follows you is ‘what then is He like and what must I do?’

This introductory Bible study seeks to therefore lay three essential foundations: the overwhelming evidence for the existence of God; His knowability and the necessity of the study. In the following 25 weeks, we will look at the attributes of God in greater depth. This is not an exhaustive study because God is inexhaustive, but a humble approach towards God.

1) So what are the evidences for the existence of God?

Wayne Grudem lays out three sources of evidence which point to the existence of God. I will seek to elaborate on these.

• A) Humanities inner sense points to God – children’s questions, yearning, a heart which is never satisfied, a sense of awe when you look beautiful things, the need for relationships, purpose, meaning, questions, communists, Khmer Rouge. God has made us for Himself and we are not content or satisfied until we come to God. For the Christian, this inner sense and reality of God’s existence grows stronger each day. For those who chose to reject this inner sense, it is like running a hot iron over your conscience, or taking a pillow and covering the sound of the smoke detector or even pressing the snooze button on your alarm clock each morning. An unknown author wrote “The atheist can’t find God for the same reason that a thief can’t find a policeman”.
• B) The evidence in Scripture testifies that God exists – As well as having an inner sense of the existence of God; the Scriptures clearly reveal His existence. We can chose to reject the Bible but it is yet another source for the evidence that God really does exist. The next question that follows is ‘is the Bible trustworthy?’ Let me answer that by quoting Ravi Zacharias ‘for hundreds of years, many have tried to bury the Bible, but it has a funny way of turning up at its own funeral.’ Even Voltaire pronounced the Bible will be a museum piece in 100 hundred years. The irony being, his own home was later used to print Bibles.
• C) Nature testifies that God exists – How many of you have stood on top of a mountain? What do you normally say when you look at the grandeur or what lies before your eyes? Wow, amazing, awesome, this is beyond imagination. A new born baby, the stars at night, the intricate patters of a snowflake, your unique fingerprint, a seed turning into a strawberry, a caterpillar turning into a butterfly and every other wonderful part of creation simultaneously cry out, ‘God made me!’ Words are not enough to describe the wonder of creation. David expressed his feeling when he looked at creation:

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the skies proclaim His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech and night unto night reveals knowledge. (Psalm 19:1-2)

Traditional (logical) Proofs for the Existence of God

1. Ontological argument – Did you hear about the 4 sided triangle? Or what about the man who was 6 feet tall but less than 5? Or how about the 2 sided circle? You don’t need evidence or research to tell you this is false. You know this to be wrong. The ontological argument simply states that if we can conceive of the greatest possible being, then it must exist. In other words, the idea that God doesn’t exist is as absurd and barmy as the idea of a four-sided triangle. Your mind cannot conceive of it.
2. Teleological argument – A single strand of DNA equates to one volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The human brain is approximately 10 billion gigabytes in capacity. God must exist because the universe is too perfectly fine tuned, designed and ordered for there not to be a God. It is plain to see that there is intelligent design and purpose and therefore there must be an intelligent designer who is purposeful. God gives meaning to everything, even matter. This is often called the intelligent design argument. One of the world’s most well known atheist, Anthony Flew became convinced of the existence of God through this argument.
3. Cosmological argument – God must exist because everything (effect) in the universe has a cause (reason) and the first cause of everything must be God. In others words, something caused everything (universe, trees, birds, humans, metals, plants) to come into being and that something is a some one, God. This paper you are reading didn’t just appear out of thin air.
4. Moral argument – Every human is born with a sense of law, to judge between right and wrong behaviour. Murder, lying and stealing is universally regarded as being wrong. We all like to see justice executed when wrong has been done. From where did this sense of right, wrong and justice come from? God must exist because this morality can only come from a holy God. When C. S. Lewis was an atheist, he rejected the idea of a divine Being because of all the injustice in the world. But when he asked himself where he got the idea of justice in the first place, he had a problem. He wrote, “Man doesn’t call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”

The Bible teaches in Romans 1:18 that it is not the lack of evidence for the existence of God, but the suppression of evidence and truth. Men hate God and don’t want Him to exist. They reject Him by denying Him and in order to live in the pleasure of sin. Aldous Huxley acknowledged this when he wrote his book Ends and Means: “We objected to morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.”

2) The Knowability of God

If He does exist, what then is He like?

As mentioned in the introduction, this Bible study series assumes the existence of God. I am also assuming you are here because you want to know more about the God of the Bible. The premise of these studies therefore goes something like this: ‘If God does exist and all these evidences are true, then the natural question follows, what then is He like?’ Theology proper is concerned with the study of God and His attributes. It is not primarily concerned with everything pertaining to God such as creation, salvation, the Church, the fall, the second coming or predestination. It is primarily concerned with God: the person of God; the Character of God; the nature of God; the attributes of God. Charles Spurgeon said in regards to the subject at hand:

The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God…

The Only True God

Turn your attention to the prayer life of Jesus just before He was crucified on the cross. We find in the prayer life of Jesus and in the words of His prayers some of Scriptures greatest revelations. Turn with me to the Gospel of John and chapter 17. This whole chapter is the prayer of Jesus Christ that occurs directly prior to Him being betrayed by Judas Iscariot and arrested by the guards in the Garden of Gethsemane. It is also from this prayer that our Bible study ‘The Only True God’ rests upon. Jesus prays for Himself, His disciples and then all those who are going to believe in the future, including you and me.

And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent (John 17:3)

This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God. In Luke’s Gospel (chapter 11) Jesus taught His disciples how to pray. Now Jesus begins to pray for Himself. The Bible Commentator Matthew Henry writes:

Though Christ, as God, was prayed to, Christ, as man, prayed; thus it became him to fulfil all righteousness.

But the profoundness of this prayer is that God is knowable, desires to be known and is the only true God. Salvation and eternal life is through faith in God. However, associated with the knowledge of God is the inseparable truth that to know God is to know Christ, and knowing Christ is knowing God. There is only one true God amongst all the man made false gods of this world. This is the exclusive truth about God. There is not a plurality or a number of different God’s in rivalry. There is one true God, creator of heaven and earth who upholds and sustains of all things by His power.

The Knowability of God

1. Whilst we may seek to know God, it is necessary for Him to reveal Himself

All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him (Matthew 11:27)

The intimacy of with your friends will only deepen because of what they chose to make known to you. You feel close to someone when they share, talk and disclose and invite you into their lives. If we are to know God, it is necessary to come through Jesus Christ alone. It is a privilege and an honour to know God, but is always His prerogative, lest any man boast. If He didn’t choose to disclose Himself to us, He would still be God but we wouldn’t have the joy of knowing Him.

2. We will never fully understand God

Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; And His greatness is unsearchable (Psalm 145:3)

In theology we would call this the incomprehensibility of God. God is perfect, we are imperfect. He is infinite, we are finite. He is immortal, we are mortal. For this reason we can never fully understand God. He is incomprehensible. However this doesn’t mean that He cannot be understood, because He has made Himself known to us in measure. It means we cannot know God exhaustively. No one can understand God except God Himself. Jesus is the only one who has ever perfectly said:

‘nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son’ (Matthew 11:29)

3. We can know God truly

Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the Lord (Jeremiah 9:23-24)

And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent (John 17:3)

We can however come to know God. God takes delight in you understanding and knowing Him. Not just facts and information about God, but knowing God. I know God and am a living testimony that He has revealed Himself to me. He has chosen to reveal Himself to us and those who chose to follow Him will have an eternity with Him.

3) The Importance of Knowing God for the Christian

1. The way to “see” God is to come to know Him through a study of His character as revealed in the Scriptures.
In many religious circles today there is so much noise. Oh we want Jesus; we want to be used of God. We want to see Him and know Him. We often sing empty songs of desiring Him and wanting to know Him. But where the rubber meets the road is when a Christian actually begins the study of God’s character in the scriptures. God has spoken to us through His Son and the Scriptures. We ought to be systematic and disciplined in our study of God. For it is there that we find the truth about Him.

2. The character of God is the basis and standard for all human morality.
When God is removed, the Nazis step in. When God is rejected the communists and Stalin step in. When God is no longer King everything goes. The family breaks up, divorce becomes rampant, teenagers abort, get pregnant, take drugs and go wild. Nations like America and Britain which are now in a sharp moral decline are in a situation because they have refused morality based on God. Everyone is now doing what is right in their own eyes. Knowing the God and His character establishes morality. The Church of Jesus Christ stopped teaching about the moral attributes of God and no sooner had it done that, the glory of God upon this nation began withdrawing. When God is rejected, men like Adolph Hitler arise and quote “I want to raise a generation of young people devoid of a conscience, imperious (dominating), relentless and cruel.”. . . Adolph Hitler

In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25)

3. Failure to think rightly about God is the sin of idolatry, and it leads to countless other sins.
If you fail to understand who God says He is, you will naturally make a god which best suits you. That is why the God of many churches and Christians sounds more like Santa Claus than the awesome and terrible majesty on high. A.W. Tozer was rightly grieved in his days when he heard people bringing God so low and calling him ‘my quarterback’ or ‘God’s a good fellow, I like Him.’ I hear people calling Jesus ‘my homeboy’ or ‘the man upstairs.’ If God was to fall upon us here we would melt and tremble and be on our faces. The majesty of God is mocked, not only by the world outside but even by those who are meant to be inside.

Do you know one reason why this world is as it is right now? It is because Satan made Adam and Eve think wrongly about God’s attributes. The world collapsed into sin that very moment because Satan had convinced Adam and Eve that God was a liar. God’s character was brought into question. ‘Has God indeed said…?’ What has your Church been telling you about God all this time? That He is love, love and more love. Have they told you He is just, holy and perfect?

Has God indeed said…(Genesis 3:1)

4. A study of the attributes of God is the basis for our enjoyment of God and our spiritual growth.
If you take a mobile phone to a tribe in the Amazon forest, they will be able to partake of some of its benefits. They will be able to hold it, touch it, look at it, but not enjoy its purpose. In the same way, if you don’t grow in your understanding of God and His character you can never enjoy Him and grow as God intends for you to grow. You were made for the glory of God and for His pleasure. You were also made to enjoy Him and fellowship with Him. You’re Christianity will be shallow, temperamental and emotion driven. Church attendance, worship, Bible reading and prayer will be a burden.

Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever (Psalm 73:25-26)

5. A study of the attributes of God are a foundation to our faith and hope.
Amongst many of the anxieties, fears and doubts I hear amongst Christians is the assurance of their salvation. The primary cause of this is usually because they do not know God: the faithfulness of God in His promises; the love of God for His elect; the grace of God in forgiving sin; the mercy of God in receiving sinners and the justice of God in the fact that He has redeemed and paid the price for the sinners debts.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23)

6. A study of the attributes of God enhances our worship.
Why do you think David loved God so much and God loved David so much? It is because David knew God and his Praise and worship was not according to His fleshly desires, but according to the attributes of God. Is your worship shallow? Well perhaps you don’t know God as He ought to be known.

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting (Psalms 107:1)

7. A study of the attributes of God enhances our prayer life.
Of the many common struggles, prayer is usually at the top of the list. By knowing God you will know what to prayer and you will enjoy prayer. You will be absorbed and soaked in the majesty of God because you have come to realise that awesomeness of God. Many Christians prayer life consists of ‘God heal this person, bless that person, help me in this’. The correct knowledge of God will enhance your prayer life from the shallow to the deep.

8. A study of the attributes of God enhances our witness.
Evangelists often tell people how wonderful their life will be with Jesus in it? Men come to Jesus and realise this is not what they expected and flee never to return. They fail to tell men that God hates sin and will execute justice perfectly because He is holy and righteous. The reason why missions and evangelism in a greater part is such a failure in the UK is because our witness is ineffective because we declare not the whole counsel of God to men who are perishing.

9. Desiring to know the attributes of God enhances and enriches our study of the Scriptures.
The serious study of God and His attributes will renew your desire to study more about Him in scriptures. Your study of scriptures will become fuller, deeper and more effective.

10. A study of the attributes of God will allow you to begin to view life from God’s perspective.
When Jesus visited the home of Martha and Mary, Mary chose the better thing. She chose to know Her Lord whilst Martha chose to be busy. When you know God your devotion to Him and service to Him will be natural and come from the heart. If you prioritise the pursuit of knowing God, everything else in your life will stem from this source.

Tags: A.W. Tozer, Adolph Hitler, Aldous Huxley, Anthony Flew, Atheism, Brunel Christians, Brunel University, C.S. Lewis, Charles Spurgeon, Communists, Cosmological Argument, Ends and Means, Evidence, Existence of God, Incomprehensibility, Intelligent Design, Jesus Christ, Khmer Rouge, Knowability of God, Matthew Henry, Moral Argument, Nazis, Ontological Argument, Ravi Zacharias, Systematic Theology, Teleological Argument, Theology Proper, Uxbridge, Uxbridge Christian Fellowship, Uxbridge Meeting Hall, Voltaire, Wayne Grudem

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