God is God

We are excited to announce another writer who is joining the existing pool of writers for the RFPA blog. Rick Mingerink is a member of the Protestant Reformed Church in Grandville, Michigan, and also the principal at a Christian school in West Michigan. In his writing for the blog Rick will bring a perspective from the pew. This is his first blog post.

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God is God. That is an interesting phrase, isn't it? In logic class, we would call that a tautology. A tautology is a phrase that has a true truth-value based on the structure of the sentence. But there really isn’t any other way to define God other than by himself. No phrase can adequately summarize the essence of God. There is no creature by which we can compare him to. There is no concept by which we can conceptualize him. In the end, we are left to defining him simply as God.

I have always kept this phrase close to my mind when I consider who God is. The message it brings is that God is so great, so powerful, so un-creature-like, so big that words do not exist to properly define him. God’s Word reveals it:

To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? …Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth (Isaiah 40:25, 26).

Sometimes I have a difficult time simply beginning and ending my small, petty thoughts without interruption or distraction. Some of the simplest thoughts can be easily whisked away with another thought or another impulse; like the wind carrying a leaf in the autumn afternoon. God doesn’t have this problem. In fact, his counsel not only puts into activity the smallest movements of a cell, it is the sole cause for the existence of the entire cosmos. A cosmos so vast we can’t even comprehend the size of it. So immense is God’s creation, man is attempting to launch a new five billion dollar telescope in the next two years to replace the Hubble just to see even further into space. Will they see the end of God’s creation? They may only scratch the surface. Yet, all this was put into existence with a spoken Word. God is nothing less than God.

But God’s counsel is not only active in creation, it is active in redemption, too. God is God of salvation. Not only is he the architect, builder, and upholder of vast landscapes, but also of our salvation. And the beautiful interaction between creation and salvation is that God is working both scenes to a culmination at the end of time. God will not only have a new heaven and earth, but he will have a bride that will dwell in this new creation. God’s bride will be able to perfectly serve him through this renewed creation. Yes, all things in heaven and earth are working together for a divine purpose. This is the work of our God. Only one who is God can perform it.

Meditate on this reality. Contemplate the bigness of God. Everything begins with him and ends according to his counsel. Let’s not think ourselves so big that we can’t see past our own vanity. God is God and we are called every day to serve him as such. “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).

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For further reading on the topic of God is God, the RFPA publishes a great book titled Knowing God and Man by Herman Hoeksema. Chapter 1 is entitled: “God is God.”