What is God like?

God & the TrinityIn theological review

The short answer

God is spirit, eternal, unchanging, all powerful, holy, just, good, and true. And he is love. Scripture gives his character in his own words and deeds rather than in our guesses: he is the I AM who always is, the Maker who never tires, and the Father who so loved the world that he gave his Son.

The fuller answer

When Moses asked for God's name, God gave one that is mostly about being there: I AM WHO I AM. God does not depend on anything outside himself, and he does not fade. Isaiah presses the same point from creation: the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not grow tired or weary.

God 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.’”

Exodus 3:14 (BSB)

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary; His understanding is beyond searching out.

Isaiah 40:28 (BSB)

His rule is total and his character is good. The psalm says his sovereignty rules over all, and John, who walked with Jesus, gives the shortest summary of all: God is love. That love is not softness. The same Bible calls him holy and just, a God who cannot wave sin away as if it did not matter, which is why the cross was necessary. The Westminster Shorter Catechism gathers the whole portrait into its fourth answer: God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 4:8 (BSB)

If you want to see what God is like in a face, Christians point to Jesus. He is the one who said that whoever has seen him has seen the Father, and the Gospels show that character in action: patient with the slow, severe with the proud, and kind to people everyone else had written off.

Sources

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)
The Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647)

Review status: in-theological-review. Every Contend page passes a human theological review against the Statement of Faith before it is published as approved teaching. This section is in that queue.

Dig deeper

No answer here is a dead end. Follow the question on, test it in practice, or work the method yourself on the Dig deeper page.

Does God exist?Yes. Christians do not believe in God as a guess to fill a gap. We believe because the world he made shows his power and nature, and because he has spoken, first through the prophets and then in his Son. The question is not really whether there is evidence, but whether we will treat the evidence as what it is.What is the Trinity?The Trinity is the Christian confession that there is one God, and that this one God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons, each fully God, equal in power and glory. The word itself is not in the Bible. The reality is taught everywhere in it, and the church forged the word to protect what the Bible says from being flattened in either direction.Why does God allow suffering?The Bible does not give one reason for every instance, and anyone who offers you one is overselling. It does give a frame: the world is fallen and groaning, human evil does real damage, God is patient toward a world he intends to judge and remake, and in the meantime he has entered the suffering himself in Jesus Christ. The final answer is not an explanation but an ending: a day when he wipes away every tear.Lesson: I believe in God, the Father almightyThe Creed opens by naming who God is before it says anything about us. Take the first line apart, word by word, with the Scripture under each word.