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FOUNDATIONAL STUDIES
Lesson 1
Who Is God?
Estimated Completion Time: 35–50 minutes
Lesson Purpose
Every part of the Christian faith begins with God.
Before we study the Bible, Jesus Christ, sin, salvation, prayer, or the Christian life, we need to begin with the question beneath all of them:
Who is God?
This lesson will introduce what Scripture teaches about who God is, what He is like, how He has made Himself known, and why the answer matters personally.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
- explain the basic Christian understanding of God as Creator;
- explain what Christians mean by revelation and monotheism;
- identify several important characteristics of God revealed in Scripture;
- give a basic explanation of the Trinity;
- explain why knowing about God and knowing God are not exactly the same thing;
- begin considering what God's existence means for your own life.
OPENING READING
The Question He Could Not Quite Name
He could not have explained exactly what was wrong.
Nothing dramatic had happened. His life had not collapsed. He had work to do, people who knew him, responsibilities that filled his days, and enough ordinary pleasures to keep life moving.
Still, every so often, usually when things became quiet, a question returned.
Is this really all there is?
He did not say it out loud at first.
It came while driving home alone. It came when he looked into a clear night sky. It came after attending a funeral and realizing how quickly a life could become a memory. Sometimes it came for no obvious reason at all.
He was not miserable.
He was searching.
The strange part was that he did not know what he was searching for.
He had heard people talk about God all his life. Some spoke with confidence. Others seemed angry at the very idea. Some treated God as an old religious tradition with little connection to ordinary life.
He was not sure what he believed.
But the question would not quite leave him alone.
One day he mentioned it to someone he knew was a Christian.
“I don't know,” he said. “Something just feels missing.”
His friend did not immediately give him a sermon.
He listened.
Then he asked, “What do you think is missing?”
“I wish I knew.”
There was a pause.
Then his friend said something he did not expect.
“Maybe you're not looking for something.”
Another pause.
“Maybe you're looking for Someone.”
He almost laughed.
It sounded too simple.
Still, the words stayed with him.
That evening he found a Bible.
He was not even sure where to begin, so he did the obvious thing.
He opened to the beginning.
— Genesis 1:1, NKJV
He read it again.
The Bible did not introduce God as though He were a new character entering the story.
God was already there.
Before the earth.
Before humanity.
Before everything he had ever seen or touched.
If the sentence were true, then God was not simply something inside the universe.
God was the reason there was a universe at all.
That was different from the vague idea of God he had carried around for years.
He had sometimes imagined God as an invisible force somewhere beyond the world.
But the Bible's opening words described a Creator.
And if there was a Creator, then everything else—including him—was creation.
That raised another question.
If God made me, does that mean there is a reason I am here?
Over the next several days he kept reading.
Not much at a time.
Some passages confused him. Others seemed surprisingly clear.
One evening he found this:
— Psalm 19:1, NKJV
He thought about the sky he had seen thousands of times.
He had always looked at it.
He had rarely asked what it meant.
Now Scripture was suggesting that creation could point beyond itself.
Handiwork suggested a hand.
Creation suggested a Creator.
Then he found another passage. In the book of Job, God asks a man who has struggled with enormous questions:
— Job 38:4, NKJV
The words did not answer every question.
Instead, they changed his perspective.
If God truly was the Creator, then perhaps God was far greater than the small, manageable idea of Him that he had carried in his mind.
Perhaps God was not someone he could simply define according to his own preferences.
If God was real, then God's identity did not depend upon what he wanted God to be.
He would have to discover who God actually was.
That realization changed the search.
He had originally been wondering whether belief in God might fill the empty place he sometimes felt.
Now another possibility was emerging.
Perhaps the question was not merely whether God could improve his life.
Perhaps his life already belonged to God.
That was more uncomfortable.
It was also more important.
As he continued reading, he began noticing something else.
The God described in Scripture was not an impersonal force.
He spoke.
He created.
He commanded.
He loved.
He judged.
He showed mercy.
He made promises.
He dealt with human beings personally.
Again, his old idea of God seemed too small.
A force cannot know you.
A force cannot love you.
A force cannot call you.
The Bible spoke of Someone.
He still had many questions.
What was God like?
Was He good?
Why was the world filled with suffering?
What did Christians mean by sin?
Who exactly was Jesus?
He had not found all of those answers.
But something important had happened.
He had stopped asking whether there might be something out there.
He had begun asking:
Who is God?
Eventually he encountered these words:
— Jeremiah 29:13, NKJV
The words were originally spoken to people living in circumstances very different from his own. But they revealed something about the God who spoke them.
God was not merely an idea hidden somewhere behind the universe.
Scripture presented Him as a God who makes Himself known.
A God who can be sought.
A God who can be known.
He still did not know where his search would lead.
But for the first time, he knew where to begin.
Not merely with:
“What can God do for me?”
But with a much greater question:
“God, who are You?”
Begin the Lesson
The man in the reading has not become a theologian.
He has simply begun asking the right question.
That is where we will begin too.
Think About the Reading
Answer these questions in your own words.
1. What changed about the man's understanding of God after he read Genesis 1:1?
2. Why was the distinction between a “force” and a personal God important to him?
3. The man begins by asking whether God might fill something missing in his life. What larger question eventually replaces that one?
There is no need to reproduce the wording of the reading. The goal is to explain what you understood.
1. God Is the Creator
The Bible begins with a declaration:
— Genesis 1:1, NKJV
This one sentence establishes one of Christianity's most important truths.
God is the Creator.
Everything else is creation.
God is not the universe.
God is not nature.
God is not simply an invisible energy contained within creation.
According to Scripture, He existed before the created world and is responsible for its existence.
That means Christianity begins with a distinction between Creator and creation.
This distinction also raises a personal question.
If God created human beings, then human beings are not entirely self-explanatory. Our existence, value, purpose, and responsibility cannot ultimately be understood without considering the One who made us.
That does not answer every question about life.
But it changes where those questions begin.
Knowledge Check 1
Which statement best represents the teaching of Genesis 1:1?
2. God Makes Himself Known
If God exists but never reveals anything about Himself, our ability to know Him would be extremely limited.
Christianity teaches something different.
God has made Himself known.
A word Christians use for this is revelation.
Key Term: Revelation
Revelation means God making Himself or His truth known.
— Psalm 19:1, NKJV
Creation itself points toward its Creator.
We can observe the world around us and encounter beauty, order, life, power, and things that provoke enormous questions.
But creation does not tell us everything we need to know about God.
A person can look at the night sky and conclude that something extraordinary lies behind it without knowing God's character, His purposes, or His relationship to humanity.
For that reason, Christianity teaches that God has revealed Himself more specifically through His Word.
The Bible does not merely record people wondering about God.
It presents God as speaking and acting within human history.
We will examine that claim much more carefully in Lesson 2: What Is the Bible?
For now, understand the central idea:
Christianity begins not merely with people searching for God, but with God making Himself known.
Reflection
The man in our reading realized:
“If God is real, then God's identity does not depend upon what I want God to be.”
Think about that statement.
Why might it be important to discover what is actually true about God rather than simply choosing the idea of God we find most comfortable?
This reflection is not graded.
3. There Is One God
The Bible teaches that there is only one true God.
Read Deuteronomy 6:4 in your Bible.
This belief is called monotheism.
Key Term: Monotheism
Monotheism means belief in one God.
Christianity does not teach that there are many competing gods or that the God of the Bible is merely one powerful spiritual being among others.
There is one Creator.
One ultimate Lord.
One God.
Now read Isaiah 45:5–6.
Pay attention to how strongly God declares that there is no other God beside Him.
This matters because Christianity does not ask us merely to add God to an already crowded life.
If God truly is God, He is not simply another interest, preference, or spiritual option.
He is our Creator.
That gives Him rightful authority over His creation.
4. God Is Greater Than Creation
In the opening reading, the man encountered God's question to Job:
The point is not that asking questions is wrong.
Job asked many of them.
The point is that human beings see reality from a very limited position.
God does not.
The God described by Scripture is not merely a larger human being.
He does not possess slightly more knowledge, slightly more power, or a slightly longer life than we do.
He is God.
Scripture teaches that He existed before creation and is not dependent upon creation for His existence.
Read Psalm 90:2.
We use the word eternal to describe this truth.
Key Term: Eternal
When Christians say that God is eternal, they mean that God has no beginning and will have no end.
Everything about ordinary human life trains us to think in beginnings and endings.
Birth.
Age.
Calendars.
Generations.
Death.
God is not contained by those limits in the way we are.
This is one reason Scripture repeatedly calls human beings to humility before Him.
5. What Is God Like?
Saying that God exists is only the beginning.
The next question is unavoidable:
What is He like?
The Bible describes qualities that are true of God's character. Christians often call these His attributes.
We will encounter many of them throughout the Academy. For now, consider five.
God Is Holy
Read Isaiah 6:1–5.
God's holiness means that He is completely pure and morally perfect.
There is no evil, corruption, or moral defect in Him.
Isaiah's response to God's holiness is striking: seeing God's holiness makes him suddenly aware of his own condition.
That will matter greatly when we eventually study sin.
God Is Just
Read Deuteronomy 32:4.
God always does what is right.
His judgments are not corrupt, dishonest, careless, or unfair.
If God is perfectly just, then good and evil are not ultimately meaningless.
God Is Loving
Read 1 John 4:8–10.
Scripture does more than say that God occasionally acts lovingly.
It tells us that love belongs to God's very character.
Biblical love, however, is deeper than simply approving everything a person wants.
God's love is truthful, holy, purposeful, and demonstrated through action.
Eventually, the Academy will bring us to the greatest demonstration of that love: Jesus Christ.
God Is Merciful
Mercy is compassion shown toward those who are needy or guilty.
God's mercy does not mean that justice disappears.
One of the great questions of Christianity is how a perfectly just God can also show mercy to guilty human beings.
The answer will eventually take us to the cross.
God Is Faithful
God can be trusted to remain true to His character and His promises.
Human beings fail.
We forget.
We change our minds.
We break promises.
Scripture presents God as faithful.
Knowledge Check 2
Match each word with its meaning.
6. God Is Personal
The man in our opening reading noticed something important.
The God of Scripture does things an impersonal force cannot do.
He speaks.
He loves.
He commands.
He judges.
He forgives.
He makes promises.
He calls people to Himself.
Christianity therefore means something more than believing that some mysterious power exists somewhere in the universe.
The Bible describes Someone who speaks, loves, commands, judges, forgives, and calls people to Himself. We can know facts about God, but Christianity teaches that God can also be known personally.
Christianity therefore teaches that God is not merely someone to be studied.
He can be known.
7. One God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
At this point we encounter one of Christianity's deepest teachings.
The Bible teaches that there is only one God.
Yet Scripture also identifies the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit distinctly.
Christians call this the doctrine of the Trinity.
Key Term: Trinity
The Trinity means:
There is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
This does not mean Christianity teaches three gods.
And it does not mean that one Person simply changes costumes or roles.
The Father is not the Son.
The Son is not the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is not the Father.
Yet Christianity teaches one God.
Read Matthew 3:16–17.
At the baptism of Jesus, notice that the Son is present, the Holy Spirit descends, and the Father speaks.
Then read Matthew 28:19.
You are not expected to master the doctrine of the Trinity in Lesson 1.
You are simply being introduced to it.
We will encounter the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit repeatedly as the course continues.
Knowledge Check 3
Which statement best represents the Christian doctrine of the Trinity?
8. Jesus Shows Us God
Our opening reading ends with a man wanting to know who God actually is.
Christianity eventually gives an extraordinary answer to that search.
It directs us toward Jesus Christ.
Read John 1:1–3, and then John 1:14.
John describes Jesus as the eternal Word and teaches that the Word became flesh.
This means Christianity does not merely claim that God sent humanity information.
It claims that God entered human history in Jesus Christ.
— John 14:9, NKJV
Jesus is not saying that He is God the Father.
He is teaching that He reveals God perfectly.
This is why Jesus Christ will stand at the center of the entire Academy.
If we want to know who God is, Christianity ultimately requires us to consider who Jesus is.
That question will receive its own lesson very soon.
9. Knowing About God and Knowing God
There is one final distinction to make.
A person can learn facts about God.
A person can memorize definitions.
A person can become familiar with Bible stories.
A person can even become knowledgeable about Christian theology.
Those things matter.
But they are not the final goal.
— John 17:3, NKJV
The purpose of Christian education is not ignorance.
We intend to learn.
We intend to think carefully.
We intend to understand Scripture accurately.
But knowledge is meant to lead somewhere.
The Academy exists not merely to teach you facts about Christianity, but to help you understand the truth clearly enough to respond to it.
The man in our opening reading began with a vague feeling that something was missing.
By the end, his question had changed.
That is a good place for us to finish Lesson 1 as well.
Not:
What religious information can I collect?
But:
Who is God—and what does it mean if He really is my Creator?
Key Truths to Remember
- God existed before creation.
- God created the heavens and the earth.
- God is distinct from His creation.
- Creation points toward its Creator.
- God has made Himself known.
- There is only one true God.
- God is eternal.
- God is holy, just, loving, merciful, and faithful.
- God is personal, not merely an impersonal force.
- There is one God who exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
- Jesus Christ reveals God to humanity.
- Christian learning should lead beyond knowing facts about God toward knowing and responding to Him.
Scripture Review
Review the passages below. You may look back at the lesson or reread the passages in your Bible. Then explain the central idea you learned from each one in your own words. Exact quotation is not required.
Genesis 1:1
Psalm 19:1
Deuteronomy 6:4
Isaiah 6:1–5
John 1:1–14
John 17:3
Explain each main idea in your own words.
Final Lesson Check
Answer each question before checking your results. You may review the lesson if you need to.
1. Which truth is taught in Genesis 1:1?
2. What does revelation mean?
3. What does monotheism mean?
4. Which statement best describes God's holiness?
5. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity teaches:
6. According to Christianity, who most clearly reveals God to humanity?
7. Why is knowing facts about God not the final goal of Christian learning?
Personal Reflection
Return to the man from the opening reading.
At first he wondered whether God might fill something missing in his life.
Eventually he faced a more difficult possibility:
If God created me, perhaps my life already belongs to Him.
What is your reaction to that idea?
You may agree with it, disagree with it, feel uncertain about it, or simply have questions.
Write honestly.
There is no graded answer.
Putting the Lesson Into Practice
Before beginning Lesson 2, do three things.
1. Read Psalm 19
Read the entire Psalm for yourself.
You encountered verse 1 during this lesson. Now see how it fits within the whole Psalm.
2. Pay Attention to Creation
At some point today or tomorrow, deliberately notice something in the created world.
It might be an animal, a tree, the human body, the sky, a landscape, weather, or something else you normally pass without much thought.
Consider the statement:
What, if anything, does the created world cause you to wonder about its Creator?
3. Consider One Question
Do not rush to produce the answer you think a Christian school expects.
Think about it honestly:
If the God described in Scripture truly exists, what rightful claim would He have upon my life?
Closing Prayer
If you are comfortable praying, you may use these words or speak in your own words:
Looking Ahead
Lesson 2 — What Is the Bible?