When it comes to Christians growing in their faith, there is often a focus on ensuring that believers are clear on the Gospel and understand what Christ has done for us. This is right to do, but along these same lines, we must ensure that our knowledge of God is just as strong as our knowledge of the Gospel. In fact, I would argue that we will have a weak understanding of the Gospel if we have a weak understanding of the nature and being of God.
I recently did a question-and-answer session with a group of middle school students where they could ask anything about God, the Bible, or Christianity. I was fascinated and impressed by how many of their questions dealt with the nature of God—particularly questions like: Who created God? When did God come into existence? How long did God exist before the creation of the heavens and the earth? These are the types of questions that young Christians should be asking. However, as we grow in our faith, asking these same questions can point to a lack of discipleship, because these questions often stem from a misunderstanding of God’s being.
All the questions the kids asked touched on what is called the aseity of God. The aseity of God refers to God’s self-existence—His being is dependent on, or contingent upon, no one and nothing other than Himself. God does not need space to be in, or time to be within.
The word aseity comes from the Latin, meaning “of oneself.” As impossible as it is for the human mind to comprehend, God has always existed. He resides outside of space and time. God is reliant upon no external system or support, for He is completely and wholly dependent solely upon Himself.
God is the ultimate and absolute power. The term we use is omnipotence, meaning all-powerful. If God were created by something else, He would not be God, for whatever created Him would then rightly be considered God.
To ask, “How long did God exist before He created the heavens and the earth?” is to place God within the realm of time. But God is outside of time—so the question doesn’t even apply to Him.
A better question is, “What was God doing before creation?” And to this, we do have an answer. For eternity past, God existed in perfect union, fellowship, and relationship with Himself. For God is Trinitarian—three in one. From all eternity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit shared perfect community and love with one another. Not that God could be bored, but He was never alone, for He was in the fullness of His own company as three in one.
God’s aseity is a mind-bending and complex doctrine, but it’s one we must keep at the forefront of our minds when we think about Him. Our natural inclination is to make God into something we can understand, but when we do that, we make Him smaller than He is. God’s aseity forces us to place Him in a category all His own, making Him infinitely greater than our all-too-often anthropocentric understandings of Him.
In the full breadth of Scripture—from the very first verse of the Bible (Gen. 1:1), across the Torah (Ex. 3:15; Deut. 33:27), throughout the Historical Books (Neh. 9:6), within the Psalms (Ps. 90:2), among the Prophets (Isa. 40:28; 44:6), announced through the Gospels (John 1:1–3; 5:26; 17:5, 24), recorded in Acts (Acts 17:24–25), detailed within the Epistles (Rom. 11:36; Col. 1:16–17), and affirmed in the final book of the Bible (Rev. 1:8)—God’s Word proclaims God’s self-existence and independence.
We see that God needs no one and nothing, and yet—He chooses to create us and give us life. Even more, He chooses to save us when we rebel against Him. Our God, who needs nothing, steps into the creation He made to redeem and restore us—not because He has to, but because He wants to.
This eternal, all-powerful, self-sufficient, perfectly holy God—this God, our God—loves us.
As you grow in faith and in your knowledge of God, may you deepen in an ever-expanding comprehension of God’s aseity, and may this, in turn, enrich your experience of God’s profound love as revealed through the Gospel.
