Q. What is God?
A. God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
Commentary
This answer is perhaps the most celebrated definition of God ever framed in human language, and yet it humbly confesses that God cannot be defined as a creature is defined. To say that God is a Spirit is to deny that He has a body, parts, or passions; He is invisible, immaterial, and not to be conceived in the manner of anything in the created order. Our Lord Himself taught this when He said, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). Because God is Spirit, He is present everywhere at once, perceived not by the eye of the body but by the eye of faith, and no image fashioned by human hands can ever represent Him. To worship Him rightly, we must lift our minds above all that is earthly and material to the pure and infinite Spirit who fills heaven and earth.
The answer then guards believers from every diminished notion of deity. God is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, and these three perfections qualify everything that is true of Him. He is infinite, without limit or measure in His being; eternal, without beginning or end, inhabiting an everlasting now; and unchangeable, never increasing, diminishing, or altering in any respect. “From everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalm 90:2), and with Him “there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). These are not cold abstractions but the very ground of the believer’s comfort: the God who saves us today is the same in His purposes and promises as He was before the foundation of the world and will be when this world is no more.
The catechism then names the attributes in which God is thus infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. These are not pieces or parts of God, as though He were assembled out of many qualities; God is simple and undivided, and each attribute is the whole of who He is, considered from a particular angle. His power is holy power, His justice is good justice, His wisdom is eternal wisdom. Such a God is to be adored with reverence and godly fear, trusted without reservation, and obeyed without complaint. To know that the infinite, eternal, and unchangeable Spirit is also perfect in holiness and overflowing in goodness is to find both the terror that humbles the sinner and the comfort that sustains the saint.
Scripture Proofs
“The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation’” (Exodus 34:6–7).
“Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you” (Psalm 89:14).
“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalm 90:2).
“Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure” (Psalm 147:5).
“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24).
“To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen” (1 Timothy 1:17).
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17).
“And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!’” (Revelation 4:8).
2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689
2.1: The Lord our God is but one only living and true God; whose subsistence is in and of Himself, infinite in being and perfection; whose essence cannot be comprehended by any but Himself; a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; who is immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, every way infinite, most holy, most wise, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will, for His own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, and withal most just and terrible in His judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty.
2.2: God, having all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of Himself, is alone in and unto Himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creature which He hath made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting His own glory in, by, unto, and upon them; He is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things, and He hath most sovereign dominion over all creatures, to do by them, for them, or upon them, whatsoever Himself pleases; in His sight all things are open and manifest, His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature, so as nothing is to Him contingent or uncertain; He is most holy in all His counsels, in all His works, and in all His commands; to Him is due from angels and men, whatsoever worship, service, or obedience, as creatures they owe unto the Creator, and whatever He is further pleased to require of them.