Who is God?

 

Who is God? 

In most peoples' imagination, God is an old man with a beard, wearing a toga or similar garment as they did in ancient Rome or Greece, and sitting on a throne on a cloud somewhere.

This is because that's how the painters of masterpieces portrayed Him. No doubt taking their clue from Genesis 1:27 where it says: "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them."

We, being humans, and perhaps somewhat arrogant, interpreted this to mean that if we look humans then it follows that God looks human too. And if He has always existed, (A Ω - Alpha and Omega - Jesus says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega" in the Book of Revelation, specifically in Revelation 1:8, 21:6 and 22:13. In this text, Jesus identifies Himself as the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, symbolizing that He is the beginning and the end, and eternally exists as the Almighty); therefore it follows that He is old and has a beard. 

In reality, the quotation from Genesis 1:27 does not mean that God looks like a human. It means humans were created with a unique likeness to God in their moral, spiritual, and intellectual nature, not in physical form. This likeness is often interpreted as the capacity for reason, creativity, free will, and a spiritual dimension.

The last bit is important - "spiritual dimension".

What this means is that God is a spirit. (And so are we - but more of this later).

There is around us an invisible spiritual world which we cannot see. It is inhabited by invisible spiritual living "beings" whom we call spirits. For example angels; they are invisible spirits. Also the souls of people who have departed before us.  

We are both visible in human form and invisible in our spiritual form - our soul.

As C S Lewis described it: You don't have a soul. You are a soul; you have a body.

God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are invisible living spirits in this spiritual world that exists around us.

And of course, so is Satan and his demons. Remember, Satan was an angel who rebelled against God.

So, having established that God is a living spirit, we ask the question again: Who is God?

Jesus described God as His Father, and our Father. He is a loving, omnipotent, all-knowing, creator God, Who created the universe and all that is in it, including us humans. His desire is that we all, having lived for a period here on earth, would return to Him and live with Him for eternity in Heaven. That is to say, our soul, once the body we have has perished at death, would keep on living for eternity in Heaven.

The invitation to go to Heaven is open for all of us. We need to respond to it. (RSVP).

God wishes us to make the conscious decision to go to Heaven once our body dies. He has given us the free will to make that decision for ourselves without any force or coercion whatsoever. 

No one goes to Heaven against their will.

How does one go to Heaven?

"Not everyone who calls me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do what my Father in Heaven wants them to do." Matthew 7:21.

"For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day." John 6:40.