C H A P T E R   T H R E E

THE SELF-EXISTENCE OF GOD

God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And he said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’… This is my name forever.’

EXODUS 3:14-15 

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us,” asserts A. W. Tozer. He then extrapolates on his bold assertion:

The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God.

For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God….

Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, ‘What comes into your mind when you think about God?’ we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man.^[i]

A. W. Tozer understood that there is an inescapable connection between a person’s perception of God and the trajectory of their Christian life and ministry. Therefore, his admonition should be taken to heart:

The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him—and of her.  In all her prayers and labors this should have first place.  We do the greatest service to the next generation of Christians by passing on to them undimmed and undiminished that noble concept of God which we received from our Hebrew and Christian fathers of generations past.  This will prove of greater value to them than anything that art or science can devise.^[ii] 

Since I share Tozer’s concern for the church, with fear and trembling, I want to try and paint a glorious portrait of God for you in the chapters that follow, beginning with what seems to be the logical starting point: the self-existence of God.

BEFORE “IN THE BEGINNING”

To put God’s self-existence in historical context, I’d like to take you back to the time just before the “In the beginning” of Genesis 1:1. However, even in speaking of the “time” prior to creation I’m not being entirely accurate, since there wasn’t any time, because God hadn’t created it yet. This is hard to fathom, but there was a time (or period or era—do we even have a word to describe it?) when nothing existed…nothing that is except the ineffable mystery of the being and eternal fellowship of the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

            Have you ever tried to contemplate nothingness? Periodically, I’ll ask my kids, “What are you doing?” And they’ll say, “Nothing.” But that’s impossible. They couldn’t do nothing, even if they tried. So what exactly is nothing? The Greek philosopher Aristotle said, “Nothing is what rocks dream about.”  Along a slightly more serious line, let’s consider nothing. We’re told by scientists that the universe is finite—it has a limit—even if they have yet to discover it. Nevertheless, this harmonizes with Scripture, since the universe is a created entity, and only God is infinite—without limits. Given this situation, what exists two feet beyond the edge where the universe ends? The answer is nothing (whatever that is, or should we say whatever that is not) except God, because only God is infinite. We might picture space beyond the borders of the cosmos, but even “space” is something. Isn’t the thought of absolute nothingness mind-boggling? 

THE ASEITY OF GOD

The simple notion of God’s existence also challenges our puny brains. About the age of four or five a child will often ask, “Who created God?” You can see the wheels turn in his or her small mind as they reason, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1); so God created everything that exists.” But then the little philosopher stumbles when he or she takes one more step forward (or backward) in logical progression as he or she wonders, “But who created God? Where did God come from?” Theologians answer these questions by referring to the self-existence or aseity of God. Aseity comes from the Latin words a se, which mean “from Himself.” Mom or dad will probably forego the Latin lesson, and simply say, “God didn’t need to be created, because He has always existed.” Truth be known, little children are not the only ones who have a hard time grappling with the aseity of God. After all, what do you do with an utterly independent Being, whose existence is before and outside of time, space and matter? This is a difficult concept for all of us, because everything we have ever seen, touched, tasted, smelled or heard has an origin. But we can’t comprehend the uncaused Cause, since such a Being refuses to squeeze into any of our familiar categories. The Scriptures, nevertheless, declare unequivocally, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Ps. 90:2).

THE REVELATION OF GOD’S PERSONAL NAME

One of the most important revelations of God was given to Moses at the burning bush. This revelation of God came through His personal name. Up until this juncture in redemptive history, God had never revealed His personal name to Israel. Now for the first time God is going to tell His people what His name is. We read in Exodus 3:13: “Then Moses said to God, ‘If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?’” One commentator said that in asking God for his name, Moses was asking God to define Himself; but this God refused to do, since He is beyond definition. I am not so sure that Moses was looking for a precise definition, because Moses’ request was not refused, but granted. God did tell Moses His name. Yet we can be certain that Moses was asking God to make Himself known through His name. Names in the Bible are almost always a revelation of that person. For example, Adam “called his wife’s name Eve [which in Hebrew means life-giver], because she was the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20; emphasis added). All throughout the Scriptures a name is followed by a because—whether explicit or implicit.  It is no different with God. Also, realize that Moses is asking for God’s name, not His title. Names are more personal, intimate and revealing than titles.

“God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And he said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’… This is my name forever’” (Ex. 3:14-15). God’s name reveals, among other things, the truth that His existence is a self-existence or an eternal-existence. One of the greatest and most mysterious realities in the universe is sheer existence. Once again, this defies our imagination, but everything that exists, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities had a beginning, a point of origin, except God. God and God alone simply is. God says, “I AM.” This is what it means to be God.

JESUS IS THE GREAT “I AM”

In light of God’s self-disclosure in Exodus 3:14, ponder Jesus’ answer to the Jews in John 8:58: “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’” If Jesus was only claiming to exist before Abraham, He would have said, “Before Abraham was, I was.” But He didn’t say, “I was,” He said, “I am.” The revelation that He is unveiling about Himself is that, like His Father, His existence is also a self-existence or an eternal-existence. And, of course, the Jews understood that Jesus was claiming to be equal with God Himself. This was a blasphemous statement to the Jews, and they responded as you might expect: “So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple” (vs. 59). 

In John 17:11b, Jesus prays in His High Priestly prayer for His disciples: “Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.” God’s name is I AM, pronounced Yahweh or Jehovah in Hebrew, and He has given His Son His name, so that Jesus is also the great I AM, who before the earth was formed is from everlasting to everlasting. As Jesus said in John 5:26, “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.”

THE MYSTERY OF COSMOGONY

Even if you’re an ordinary layman, don’t be intimidated by the intellectual rhetoric of the scientific community. Cosmogony (the origin of the universe) boils down to two basic views: In the beginning, God. Or, in the beginning, nothing…which then went “Bang!” and started the whole evolutionary process. Have you ever thought about the tremendous explosion that nothingness can cause?  It should be patently obvious to the first-year logic student that if there ever was a time when nothing existed, then there would still be nothing today, because ex nihil, nihil fit, out of nothing, nothing comes. Watch out for scientific slight of hand with highfalutin academic jargon such as “spontaneous generation.” The term sounds plausible when naïve freshmen in high school read it in a thick textbook…until you clarify that scientists are postulating that something came from nothing. This is not science, it’s nonsense, and it’s pervasive. R. C. Sproul provides us with a humorous (or not so humorous, depending on your perspective) example:

Recently I read an essay by a well-known Nobel Prize winning physicist (whose name will remain unstated so as not to embarrass him) who argued that the idea of ‘spontaneous generation’ be abandoned in science once and for all….

I was glad the physicist repudiated spontaneous generation. My gladness abruptly turned to astonishment when the scientist said, “We must have a new model. We must speak in terms of gradual spontaneous generation.” I couldn’t believe what I was reading. “Gradual spontaneous generation”? How can something gradual be spontaneous? How can something spontaneous be gradual?

Our scientist wanted to debunk the myth that something can come suddenly from nothing and replace it with a better myth that something can come gradually from nothing.^[iii]

So, there you have it, for something to come into being out of nothing requires an enormous period of time. At the root of cosmogony is not two competing scientific views, but two competing faiths or philosophical systems. 

THE MYSTERY OF LIFE

Equally fundamental and frustrating to scientists along with cosmogony is the issue of life itself. What is life? Conscientious scientists and physicians will admit, “We don’t know.” Isn’t that astounding! They have yet to unravel the mystery of life.

            How do physicians determine whether or not an elderly person under their care is still “alive”? The criteria are at least a beating heart and brain wave activity. Incidentally, each of these can be detected in a fetus (baby) 40 days after conception. But a beating heart and brain waves do not comprise life; they are merely the signs of the presence of life. Consider the question from this angle: If all the particles or elements of the human body were appropriately organized, what else would be needed to impart life? Again, we haven’t a clue—scientifically.

            Biblically, however, we have an answer; even if it will fail to satisfy the scientific community. Life is God’s breath in us. We read in Genesis 2:7, “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath [or spirit] of life; and man became a living soul” (KJV). One thing is clear, if you remove God from the equation, you have no rational explanation for the presence of life or the existence of the soul. 

Human life is derivative. We derive our existence directly from God. Additionally, our lives are contingent. Paul told the men of Athens, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), so that our lives are inextricably tied to God’s. If God should at any moment cease to exist, we would be vaporized in a split second. In fact, the whole realm of creation would vanish instantly. Even the existence of the cosmos is derivative and contingent, with Christ personally upholding it “by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3). Consequently, to imagine a life independent of God is a sheer impossibility. Moreover, the attempt to live independent of God is sinful, not to mention suicidal. The original sin in the Garden of Eden and every subsequent sin is rebellion against the One on whom we are utterly dependent. We must never forget that only God “has life in Himself” (Jn. 5:26), while all other life is a gift from Him—even if we can’t verify all this in a laboratory.  

            Scientists are incapable of giving a precise, physical definition to life, because it’s a metaphysical reality—meaning, literally beyond the physical or material. For even if I granted the evolutionary presupposition that matter is eternal (which I reject), this still wouldn’t explain where life came from, or how life “evolved” from no life.

            Even though the origin of life is beyond science, that is not to say that it is contradictory to science. An inviolable law of science states that every effect must have a sufficient cause. Going a step further, and, by the way, this is as far as we can go, “if any effects exist at all, then there must be causes, and consequently some reality must ultimately be uncaused, or have the cause in itself.”^[iv] Therefore, submitting to the laws of science doesn’t rule out the possibility that a self-existent God is the author of life. In fact, the conclusion is quite logical, and many open-minded “unbelievers” can at least infer the existence of a Supreme Being from this argument.

The spirit which God imparts, and removes as easily as He gave it, is what constitutes life. King Belshazzar should have trembled, when Daniel said, “the God who holds your breath [or spirit] in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified” (Dan. 5:23, NKJV). Our lives are in God’s hands, and when the time of our departure comes our spirits go to God. This is why Jesus’ final words from the cross were, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Lk. 23:46). Our life comes from God, and it then returns to God. The writer of Hebrews stated it this way: “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27).

SPIRITUAL LIFE

There is a final dimension to our spirits that I want to look at, namely whether they are alive or dead spiritually. To state it another way, are our spirits spiritual? I’m not trying to play word games; I have in mind Jesus’ exhortation to be born again (Jn. 3:3, 5). He said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (vs. 6). Human beings can give birth to human beings, but only the (Holy) Spirit can give birth to the (human) spirit. This means that until the Holy Spirit breathes life into our spirits, they don’t experience spiritual life. Prior to regeneration we are all spiritual zombies; we can be alive physically, but dead spiritually in our “trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1-5). When one is born again, born of the Spirit, he or she transitions from one level of life to another. This is why Christians will speak of knowing Jesus Christ, and say that they had never experienced real life before. The truth is…they hadn’t, since He is “the life” (Jn. 14:6), and he came that we “may have life and have it abundantly” (Jn. 10:10b). 

In the spring of 1721, Jonathan Edwards’ life was changed forever when he experienced the new birth. It happened as he meditated on 1 Timothy 1:17: “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”  He wrote:

As I read the words, there came into my soul, and was as it were diffused through it, a sense of the glory of the divine being; a new sense, quite different from anything I ever experienced before. Never any words of Scripture seemed to me as these words did. I thought with myself, how excellent a Being that was; and how happy I should be, if I might enjoy that God, and be wrapt up to God in heaven, and be as it were swallowed up in him. I kept saying, and as it were singing over these words of Scripture to myself; and went to prayer, to pray to God that I might enjoy him; and prayed in a manner quite different from what I used to do; with a new sort of affection....

From about that time, I began to have a new kind of apprehensions and ideas of Christ, and the work of redemption, and the glorious way of salvation by him…. And my mind was greatly engaged, to spend my time in reading and meditating on Christ; and the beauty and excellency of his person, and the lovely way of salvation, by free grace in him.^[v]

Not all conversions are this dramatic. Nevertheless, for the Christian who has experienced new life in Christ, Jesus and the gospel are not merely subjects to be studied, but realities to savor. All believers who have been born again of the Spirit should be doubly grateful, since they owe their physical, as well as their spiritual life, to the I AM, who alone has life in Himself.

The God of Abraham praise,

who reigns enthroned above;

Ancient of Everlasting Days,

and God of Love;

Jehovah, great I AM!

by earth and heaven confessed;

I bow and bless the sacred name

forever blest.

The great I AM has sworn;

I on this oath depend.

I shall, on eagle wings upborne,

to heaven ascend.

I shall behold God's face;

I shall God's power adore,

and sing the wonders of God's grace

forevermore.

The heavenly land I see,

with peace and plenty blest;

a land of sacred liberty,

and endless rest.

There milk and honey flow,

and oil and wine abound,

and trees of life forever grow

with mercy crowned.

The God who reigns on high

the great archangels sing,

and "Holy, holy, holy!" cry

"Almighty King!

Who was, and is, the same,

and evermore shall be:

Jehovah, Lord, the great I AM,

we worship thee!"

Thomas Olivers (United Methodist Hymnal 1989)