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The God who Called us is the Great I AM and He is the God of our Fathers!

God IS. That is the revelation of the scripture. This one of the essential attributes of God. The infinite nature of God simply means that God exists outside of and is not limited by time or space.

Infinite simply means “without limits.” When we refer to God as “infinite,” we generally refer to Him with terms like omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence but this attribute of God being infinite stands apart from the other attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence.

Consider this revelation to Moses:

Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I tell them?”

God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the Israelites: Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation. | Exodus 3:13-15 Christian Standard Bible (CSB)

The fact that God is self-existent — that he was created by nothing and has always existed forever — is perhaps one of the hardest attributes of God for the believer to understand. In our limitedness, grasping the nature of our limitless God is like holding onto water as it rages down a river. Indeed, Tozer writes this about the confusing, head-spinning attribute of God’s infinity:

‘To admit that there is One who lies beyond us, who exists outside of all our categories, who will not be dismissed with a name, who will not appear before the bar of our reason, nor submit to our curious inquiries: this requires a great deal of humility, more than most of us possess, so we save face by thinking God down to our level, or at least down to where we can manage Him.”

Here are some scriptures that describe this:

  • “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” – Colossians 1:17
  • “Great is Yahwey, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure” – Psalm 147:5

In his article on Christianity.com, Dr. Adrian Rogers writes about the self-existence of God:

“The name Jehovah (Yahweh) is used some 6,800 times in the Bible. It is the personal covenant name of Israel’s God. In the King James Version of the Bible, it’s translated Lord God. Not only does it speak of God’s strength, but also it speaks of the sovereignty of God and the goodness of God. The root of this name means “self-existing,” one who never came into being, and one who always will be. When Moses asked God, “Who shall I tell Pharaoh has sent me?” God said, “I AM THAT I AM.” Jehovah or Yahweh is the most intensely sacred name to Jewish scribes and many will not even pronounce the name. When possible, they use another name.”

Because God is infinite, He is also said to be transcendent, which simply means that God is exceedingly far above creation and is both greater than creation and independent of it. What this means is that God is so infinitely above and beyond us and our ability to fully comprehend that, had He not revealed Himself, we would not know or understand what He is like.

Faith at Work: Thankfully, God has not left us ignorant about Himself. Instead, He has revealed Himself to us through both general revelation (creation and our conscience) and special revelation (the written Word of God, the Bible, and the living Word of God, Jesus the Messiah).Our witness to amazing power is very important. Our colleagues want to have hope. We can point them to the way.

Therefore, we can know God, and we can know how to be reconciled to Him and how to live according to His will. Despite the fact that we are finite and God is infinite, we can know and understand God as He has revealed Himself to us.