God calls himself "I AM WHO I AM” – i.e. he says "I am eternally existing and self-existing." (Exo 3:13-14). Also, in verse 15, he identifies himself as “the LORD,” meaning, “Jehovah” or “the self-existent one.” This phrase occurs at least 70 times in the first five books of the bible alone (I stopped counting after 70) (see, e.g., Gen 15:7 and 17:1, Exo 6:2 and 7:5, Lev 20:8 and 22:2, Num 10:10 and 15:41, and Deu 1:42 and 4:1). God further identifies himself as “God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God….” (Deu 10:17). In Isaiah, he asks, “to whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to Him”? (Isa 40:18). He repeats, “To whom then will you liken me,” adding, “or to whom shall I be equal”? (Isa 40:25). And he declares, “[I am] the everlasting God.” These verses remove any doubt that all power and authority (including the power and authority to create) exist in God. His existence depends on no one. Therefore, no one could have ever created or appointed God.
In the New Testament, the Jews were bewildered and angry to hear Jesus, a man, refer to himself as the self-existing God. He said, “before Abraham was, I am." (Joh 8:58). He had just told the Pharisees, “I am from above . . . . I am not of this world.” (Joh 8:23). They might have mistakenly interpreted Jesus as saying that he was merely sent by God (in v. 23). But he was clearly making a much stronger claim by saying, “I am the self-existing one who existed even before Abraham.”
There is further support for God’s self-existence in his role in, and existence outside of, creation. Genesis 1:1 says, “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The book of Isaiah adds, “it is he who sits above the circle of the earth . . . . who stretches out the heavens like a curtain.” In Revelation, God calls himself “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end" (Rev 22:13). Finally, the gospel of John declares, “[i]n the beginning was the Word . . . . All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (Joh 1:1-3). Since God, the creator of all things, has existed since the beginning and absolutely nothing exists apart from him, the conclusion is inescapable- God must be self-existent.
[I thought I'd add more verses in case those verses in Genesis through Deuteronomy can't be counted more than once]
The gospel of John tells us that "the world was made through him. (Joh 1:10). So do the letters written by the apostles: "[A]ll things were created through him and for him," (Col 1:16) and "from him and through him and to him are all things," [so rhetorically,] Paul asks, "who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?" (Rom 11:35-36). Even the angels refer to God as "him who lives forever and ever . . . ." (Rev 10:6).
The gospel of John also records Jesus as describing eternal life as knowing the father, "the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom [the father has] sent. (Joh 17:3). In Jesus' prayer, he also speaks of "the glory that [he] had with [the father] before the world existed." (Joh 17:5).
1 John also has many examples, as the author writes about "that which was from the beginning" (1Jn 1:1); he "proclaim[s] to [us] the eternal life, which was with the Father" (1Jn 1:2); and he calls God "eternal life." (1Jn 5:20). Abraham declared our God to be "the LORD, the Everlasting God." (Gen 21:33).
Good composition.
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