The Fundamental Truth

 

When God spoke to Moses from a burning bush, Moses responded and heard something very important. God tells him His name! Their conversation went like this . . .

(Exodus 3:13–15) 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?” 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.’ ” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

In this narrative, the word LORD, when spelled with capital letters, stands for the divine name, YHWH. YHWH is translated I AM — from a primary root verb “hayah” meaning “to be or to EXIST, to have the quality of being.” The Israelites considered this word YHWH so holy that they would not say it; instead, they used “Lord” to speak of God. This translation is continued in most English Bibles resulting in thousands of uses, many meaning YHWH and others a title “lord” or adoni.

That said, the existence of God is not explained in Scripture, only stated. God gives no description of any beginning or end to Himself; He just IS. Like “eternal” this is impossible to wrap my mind around. We can explain why we have such things as air and sunlight but God cannot be explained in that way. He just EXISTS.

The NT uses several Greek words for EXIST. All of them are verbs that mean “to have an existence, be extant” and appear in several ways. Here are a few of them. In the first one, Jesus is praying . . .

(John 17:5) And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

This next verse stands out in that God’s power to create something out of nothing says much about who He is — the Creator who alone is not created . . .

(Romans 4:17) as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

In the next verse, a clear distinction is made between idols which are not real only imaginary and the God who IS, who exists — He is not an imaginary entity like an idol. His reality cannot be dismissed by saying that people have invented Him . . .

(1 Corinthians 8:4) Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.”

The connection between faith and the fact of God’s existence is also clarified in Scripture. The Bible says . . .

(Hebrews 11:6) And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

How do I know God exists? I became a Christian while still believing the evolution theory and before I understood this passage . . .  

(Romans 1:19–23) For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Now I get it. Those ‘images’ that some people have made to replace God’s glory are images of one-celled life forms evolving into larger creatures like fish, then birds, and mammals and finally apes on all fours evolving into humans walking  erect. They say we exist only because of chance events in a process that took billions of years rather than because this powerful God simply said the word and gave us existence.

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. Before I realized all of that, God showed me the reality of Himself in the face of Jesus Christ. He walked into my life and gave me forgiveness and a new start, a new life. I heard Him speak love and grace to me and keep hearing the marvel of His goodness and power. Nothing could convince me that He does not exist nor that He has no rewards for those who seek Him. He is real and for that reason, I continue to gaze into His glory.