Who Is God

The Biblical Starting Point

The Bible does not argue for the existence of God. It assumes it, and introduces the question of who God is through narrative, name, and self-disclosure. The opening sentence of the biblical canon sets the frame:

Genesis 1:1 — "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

Hebrew Elohim (אֱלֹהִים, Strong's H430) — plural in form, singular in grammar when referring to the God of Israel — introduces the subject of the Bible before it introduces creation, humanity, or any event.

The Divine Name: YHWH

In Exodus 3, God tells Moses his personal covenant name:

Exodus 3:14 — "And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."

The Hebrew is ehyeh asher ehyeh — "I am what I am" or "I will be what I will be." The related four-letter name YHWH (יהוה, H3068) — traditionally unpronounced by Jewish readers who substitute Adonai ("Lord") — appears approximately 6,800 times in the Hebrew Bible. Modern scholars most often reconstruct the pronunciation as "Yahweh." The English "Jehovah" is a medieval reading convention combining YHWH's consonants with the vowels of Adonai.

YHWH is the name that identifies the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Israel — distinguishing him from the gods of surrounding peoples.

How God Describes Himself

One of the most cited self-descriptions in the Hebrew Bible is Exodus 34:6–7, given to Moses on Sinai:

"The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear [the guilty]."

This formula — sometimes called the "Thirteen Attributes of Mercy" in Jewish tradition — is quoted or alluded to repeatedly in the Old Testament: Numbers 14:18, Nehemiah 9:17, Psalm 86:15, Psalm 103:8, Psalm 145:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2, Nahum 1:3. No other self-description is repeated as often.

The passage holds two realities together: mercy (slow to anger, abundant in love, forgiving) and justice (by no means clearing the guilty). Both are part of the biblical portrait, and neither is reducible to the other.

Key Attributes in Scripture

• Eternal — Psalm 90:2: "from everlasting to everlasting, thou [art] God."
• Invisible spirit — John 4:24: "God [is] a Spirit"; 1 Timothy 1:17: "the invisible… God."
• Holy — Isaiah 6:3: "Holy, holy, holy, [is] the LORD of hosts." The threefold repetition is the highest form of Hebrew emphasis.
• Love — 1 John 4:8: "God is love." The Greek agapē — not merely that God loves, but that his nature is love.
• Light — 1 John 1:5: "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all."
• Truth — John 14:6: "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (Jesus's words).
• Creator — Genesis 1:1, Revelation 4:11: "thou hast created all things."
• Sovereign — Psalm 115:3: "our God [is] in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased."
• Omniscient — Psalm 139:4: "there is not a word in my tongue, [but], lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether."
• Omnipresent — Psalm 139:7–10: "Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?"
• Omnipotent — Jeremiah 32:17: "there is nothing too hard for thee."

One God, Known in Three

The Old Testament's central creed is the Shema:

Deuteronomy 6:4 — "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God [is] one LORD."

The Hebrew echad ("one") is the same word used of the "one flesh" of Genesis 2:24 — a unity that includes internal relationship rather than strict numerical singularity. The New Testament preserves strict monotheism (1 Corinthians 8:4: "there is none other God but one") while speaking of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in equally divine terms:

• The Father — John 6:27, 1 Peter 1:2.
• The Son — John 1:1: "the Word was God."
• The Holy Spirit — Acts 5:3–4: Peter tells Ananias he lied to the Holy Spirit, then says he lied to God.

The traditional Christian word Trinity (not biblical vocabulary itself) names this pattern — one God known in three distinct persons, each fully God, together one.

God Made Known in Jesus

The New Testament's central claim about who God is centers on Jesus Christ:

John 1:18 — "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared [him]."

Hebrews 1:3 — "Who being the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power…"

For Christian readers, the question "who is God?" is answered not only in doctrinal description but in a narrative: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob made himself known ultimately in the person of Jesus Christ.