Why God?
Of all the other things you could pursue, why God? God calls us to Himself so that we may gain a saving knowledge of Him through His Word. He also invites us to “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8). By doing so, God not only grants us eternal life, but also enables us to understand His Word (the Christian Bible) so that we may “know” Him and His goodness. Lastly, knowing God allows us to understand His plan for us and His creation, which better equips us to make sense of this life and the world in which we live.
Because of Who God is
We need to know God because of Who God is:
- God is Eternal (Genesis 1; John 17:5)
- Time is an entity created by God. Thus, God exists outside of, and before time.
- God is the Creator of all things (Genesis 1; John 1:3)
- Because God created, time, the universe, and everything in it, we all belong to Him and are, therefore, subject to His authority and will.
God is Holy (Psalm 99)
- Because God created, time, the universe, and everything in it, we all belong to Him and are, therefore, subject to His authority and will.
- Because God is holy, anyone who is unholy cannot survive in His presence (Exodus 33:20).
- We are all under the curse of Sin and are, therefore, unholy. Thus, we are incapable of obtaining the condition of holiness necessary to allow us into the eternal presence of God.
- God is Gracious and Merciful (Exodus 34:6-7)
- However, because God is gracious and merciful, He chose to make a way in which unholy humanity could live eternally with Him in Heaven. This was made possible through the saving work of Jesus Christ (John 14:6), Who was and is fully God (John 10:30), fully human (John 1:1,14), and the only One to ever exist without Sin (Hebrews 4:15).
Because of What we need
We need to know God because of what we need:
- We need to be reunited with God
- We believe that answering the question “Why God?” grounds our understanding of humankind’s spiritual condition and resultant alienation from God. Beginning with Adam and Eve—the first human beings— humanity has egregiously chosen to rebel against God and His revealed plan for life and eternal salvation. This reckless rebellion stems primarily from a failure to properly understand God's character and nature.
- We need to meet God’s standard
- God’s character and nature demands moral perfection. As sinful people, we are unable to meet God’s requirement for moral perfection; this is evidenced by our own personal experiences and the entirety of global history. Thus, we need to understand what God has done for us so that we can meet His perfect standard.
- We need God to make a way of reconciliation
- Humanity, therefore, left to their own devices, will remain in spiritual alienation from God—a condition that, apart from God’s Amazing Grace, is fixed with no hope of reconciliation. Yet, because of God’s Grace and Mercy, He took the initiative to eliminate our spiritual alienation by sending His only Son, Jesus Christ, to obtain the required moral perfection on our behalf.
Because of What God has done
- We need God to show us how we have failed
- What has God done in response to our sinfulness? He explains to us in His Word that we have all sinned (Romans 3:23) and are, therefore, rebellious against God and His commands. This sinful rebellion requires a punishment, and that punishment is death. The nature of God shows that He is Wrathful and will subsequently punish sin (Romans 6:23); that He is Just, eventually judging those that reject Him; but His nature also illustrates that He is Loving, and freely gives of Himself.
- We need God to show us His Love
- What has God done to show us His Love? He sent His son, Jesus Christ, to pay the ransom for our sins. This is a gift from God, in that while we were dead in our sins, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8-9). He sent His perfect son, Jesus, to die in our place, thereby justifying us and giving us eternal life.
- We need God to show us how to properly respond
- What is our proper response to all this information? If we believe that God is Wrathful, Just, Loving, and Forgiving, and if we believe that Jesus Christ is His son, that He died for our sins, and was raised again, what response does God require of us? The Bible states that we must repent (Mark 1:15) and confess with our mouths that Jesus Christ is Lord, and in doing so, we shall be saved (Romans 10:9-10).
- We need God to show us why He has saved us
- God saved us, not because we have worked to earned it or are somehow better than others who are not saved (Ephesians 2:9). He sovereignly creates and calls us to Himself to fulfill His own eternal plan, that we may bring Him praise, honor, and glory through “good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).
In summary, our spiritual alienation from God was insurmountable and fixed without any hope of reconciliation. Yet, God graciously chose to take the initiative to eliminate our alienation by sending His only Son to obtain moral perfection on our behalf. We only need to confess our trust in the life, death, and subsequent resurrection of His son, Jesus Christ, to address our spiritual alienation. We submit, therefore, that none of this makes sense without first grounding our understanding of Why God.