2025 Women’s Promise – Who is God?

The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) drafted in 1646, has one of the perfect definitions on Who God is, and what his nature is.

“There is but one only, living, and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions; immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, 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.” – Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 2: Of God, and of the Holy Trinity: 2.1

WCF was written to clarify doctrines, unify belief, counter opposition and to address controversies. The above words, are stringed together from 26 different bible passages written by 121 persons commonly known as Westminster Divines, over a period of 5 years. Reading each words produces such a joy in the heart because our existence and our purpose of creation is irrevocably tied to each of these attributes of the Living God. We live to glorify God.

A century before the Westminster Confession of Faith was drafted, Calvin in his magnum opus – The Institutes of the Christian Religion, wrote in similar lines when discussing about the attributes of God.

“Assuredly, the attributes which it is most necessary for us to know are these three: LovingKindness, on which alone our entire safety depends: Judgement, which is daily exercised on the wicked, and awaits them in a severer form, even for eternal destruction, Righteousness, by which the faithful are preserved, and most benignly cherished. The prophet (Jeremiah) declares, that when you understand these, you are amply furnished with the means of glorifying God.” – Institutes, Chapter 10: In Scripture, The True God opposed, exclusively, to all the gods of the heathen.

Approximately 3600 years before the Institutes was written, a slave woman, pregnant with a child from her master, in the arid Negev desert in Israel, running away from her mistress due to ill treatment, meets God. There, she names Him – God of my vision – El-Roi.

As a background, Abraham was nearing 100 years and was childless, some years before, God had promised him offspring that would form a great nation (Genesis 12:2-3). As per Sarah’s suggestion, Abraham has intercourse with Hagar so that Sarah can build a family through her slave. Once Hagar was pregnant with a child, Sarah became despised in her eyes, this causes Sarah to ill-treat Hagar prompting her to flee from her mistress.

In the desert, she meets God and discovers one of the glorious attributes and insightfully declares – “Thou art a God that permits Himself to be seen”

Hagar, an Egyptian slave, was not seen by Abraham and ill-treated by her mistress, in a sense, there was no one to vindicate her cause, life seemed to have turned against her favor, and left alone in the desert, forgotten by the family whom she depended for her livelihood. Her prospects were gloomy, because the reality is that if you went out on your own, you would almost certainly die. The heat, the lack of water, the lack of food, the lack of protection from bandits and wild animals, etc. meant that not being part of a family would equal death. Yet, she was not forgotten or hidden from our God.

The Danish Philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard writes, “In spite of your boundless power and limitless sovereignty you give heed to us lowly human beings. You bend down to listen to each one so attentively and so caringly that, amidst all the cacophony and confusion of the daily clamor, each person is assured that you are giving all concern to him alone. Not only do you pay attention to the one who commands and leads; not only do you listen to the voice of him who prays in intercession for loved ones as if he had a special conduit to your favor. No! You pay attention also to the one who is the most miserable, the most abandoned, the most solitary – whether he moves among the multitude or plods along the trackless desert. And if others have forgotten him and cast him out of their caring, if in the crowd he has lost all identity, if he has ceased, really, to be a human being and has become no more than a number on a list, you know him, oh God. You have not forgotten him. Wherever he is, lost in the desert or just as lost and unnoticed in the crowd; whatever state he is in, whether it be in agonizing pain, or in bondage to terrible and terrifying thoughts, abandoned, so cut off from communication that in the prolonged silence he has forgotten his native tongue – nevertheless you, oh God, have not forgotten him and you hear and comprehend his speechless cry! You know at once how to find the road that leads to him, and rapid as sound and prompt as light you speed to his side!”

Dear reader, we saw the attributes of God as defined by the theologians, we saw God defined and named by a woman forgotten by everyone. Who is God to you?

“God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob – not of the philosophers and scholars.” Thus, exclaimed Blaise Pascal.

God is not a system of thought; he is a Spirit who calls to your spirit. He identifies in your loneliest moment, he is a good God. He alone is a good God, there is no goodness apart from God.

Even though you walk through the valleys of the shadows of death, he will guide you and you need to fear no evil. As the poet writes “Even if I make my bed in hell, you are there” He has not forgotten your cause, your weakness, and your pain.

Psalm 107 is one of my favorite Psalm simply because it shows the “uttermost” depths that God would go to save his people, or even those who rebel against God.

10 Some sat in darkness, in utter darkness, prisoners suffering in iron chains, 11 because they rebelled against God’s commands and despised the plans of the Most High. 12 So he subjected them to bitter labor; they stumbled, and there was no one to help. 13 Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. 14 He brought them out of darkness, the utter darkness, and broke away their chains. 17 Some became fools through their rebellious ways and suffered affliction because of their iniquities. 18 They loathed all food and drew near the gates of death. 19 Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. 26 They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths; in their peril their courage melted away. 27 They reeled and staggered like drunkards; they were at their wits’ end. 28 Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress.

It is vain to put trust in man. He sees and knows your reality more than you yourself are aware of it. And He Alone will sustain you. He wounds, but he heals. He strikes, but his hands heal. You are not forgotten by God.

He is a God who keeps covenants to thousands of generations, He is a God who keeps his promises across time, innumerable as they are. He is a God who has helped thus far – Ebenezer. He is a God who heals and raises the dead. He is a God who loves and sent His only begotten son. A God who is one, whose existence is equated to his attributes. He is Holy. God is all sufficient, that makes King David say that “he shall not want or lack any good thing”. God is almighty, so you shall not go out with haste or go by flight for God will go before you and will be your rear guard. A God who sanctifies and makes you holy. A God who is our righteousness. A God who is our shield, strength, judge, powerful in battle, deliverer, redeemer, rock, refuge, banner, King eternal, immortal, invisible, only wise, selfexistent. “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh” – A God, who is, what He is. A completeness.

As we enter this new year, let us take some time to remember who our magnificent God is, and worship him for His faithfulness in your story.