In the Word: God is Self-Existent

Welcome to Hope Mommies’ In the Word devotionals. Over the next several weeks, we will be pouring over Scripture with the goal of knowing God increasingly as He truly is. As we study together, we encourage you to use the comments as a place to dialogue with us about what you are learning and share your answers to the questions below. We pray that you hearts will be encouraged as you study these names of God along with us! 

Knowing Our Glorious God

“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”
Acts 17:24-25

READ:

That God is self-existing is also know as “aseity,” or “independence.” In Latin, a se means, “from Himself.” God’s existence—being underived—is contingent upon no one and nothing outside of Him.

Consider some passages that teach this truth:

 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.”
And He said, “Say this to the people
of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
Exodus 3:14 

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

Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel
and His Redeemer, the LORD of hosts:
“I am the first and I am the last;
besides me there is no god.
Isaiah 44:6

For as the Father has life in Himself,
so He has granted the Son also to
have life in Himself.
John 5:26

Acts 17:25 tells me that because God is self-existent, He is able to give “life” and “breath” to all mankind. Because my dear daughter was stillborn, she had no breath on this earth. He was able to make her breath here; life and breath can only ever arise from Him. But the frailty of life on this earth has never been more apparent to me than when, within hours, I went from hearing my daughter’s heartbeat to not—when my prayer changed from asking for a safe delivery to asking for a miracle He deemed fit not to enact.

When it was clear that no miracle would happen, there He was—and there His Word was, still proclaiming that He is, that He has always been, and that He always will be. I AM, He says—not frail, not able to lose His life, not able to cease, but necessarily existing. When my daughter did not have life on this earth—but instead in the next—I knew I AM. And because God is, in and of Himself—independent of any needed supply—and exists beyond my greatest possible thought of Him, a hope beyond me could also still be.

REFLECT:

• When is the last time I reflected upon the greatness of God to exist, beyond my comprehension, in and of Himself? (Meditate upon verses listed above.)
• How has God sustained my life—i.e. moving and having being—since the moment it started to feel frailest?

PRAYER AND PRAISE:

Father, it is my hope and my joy that You have not been made or created, that you do not need man, that You are—from everlasting to everlasting, first to last—and that You have life in Yourself. You sent Your Son, fully God and having life, that He may be the Way, the Truth, and the Life—that He might bring those needy in sin back into communion with You that gives life in the innermost spirit. You do not always grant further earthly life, but in You is life that will exist for all eternity by Your self-existing, continual power. I have the hope of life—of continuing to move through the stages of grief, and have being when the weight of loss stalls me. Thank You for being my never-ending supply.

QUOTE FROM SOURCES CONSULTED¹:

In theology, endless mistakes result from supposing that the conditions, bounds, and limits of our own finite existence apply to God. The doctrine of his aseity stands as a bulwark against such mistakes. In our life of faith, we easily impoverish ourselves by embracing an idea of God that is too limited and small, and again the doctrine of God’s aseity stands as a bulwark to stop this happening. It is vital for spiritual health to believe that God is great (cf. Ps. 95:1–7), and grasping the truth of his aseity is the first step on the road to doing this. (J. I. Packer, Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs)

¹Sources consulted for this series: D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, God the Father, God the Son; Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology; Paul Enns, Moody Handbook of Theology; John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion; J. I. Packer, Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs

Lianna (@liannadavis) is wed to Tyler and mom of two dear daughters. She is author of Made for a Different Land: Eternal Hope for Baby Loss (Hope Mommies, 2019). More of her writing can be found at her website.

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