Christianity 101- Part 2: God

God has revealed much information about Himself and His creation in His Word, The Holy Bible. The Bible begins as follows: “In the beginning, God created.” God unilaterally created the world and everything in it is the message of the Old Testament. In the New Testament, Paul gave the men of Athens the same message (Acts 17:24). In this creation He chose to make human beings with a free will and the ability to choose good or evil.

God has revealed much about His attributes and His character in His Word. A major theme in Scripture is that God is all-powerful, sovereign, and in total control of His creation. The Bible has revealed many other things about God such as His holiness, love, mercy, truthfulness, faithfulness, justice, righteous anger, wrath and hatred of sin. Sin is basically disobeying God. God told the first humans that He took sin very seriously and gave them only one thing to obey. They were given a paradise and everything they could possibly need but were told they would surely die if they disobeyed this one rule. Everyone knows the story of what happened. They were tempted by Satan and disobeyed. While He loves mankind (1 John 4:8) and does not take pleasure in punishing us, He is a God of truth and justice and must punish sin (Romans 6:23). Therefore, God’s holiness meant He was true to His word and carried out the penalty of death exactly as He said He would. As a result of this sin, Adam and his posterity instantly died spiritually and physical death became the destiny of the human race. The earth became subject to bondage (Romans 8:20-22) and man was banished into the world to toil as a result. The fellowship that man had with God was severed because God takes His glory, honor and character very seriously.

Fortunately for mankind, God gave a glimpse of His mercy and love when He told Satan in (Genesis 3:15) “He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." With that statement God hinted at a plan of redemption for the human race. As Biblical revelation unfolded, it became more and more clear that God did have a plan of redemption for mankind.

Next in Part 3 we will look at the character of man.