The Nature of God According to scripture

What can actually be known about God? The question is older than any system of theology built to answer it, and the Bible's own answer is more restrained than most readers expect.

This second volume of the According to Scripture series examines every major statement Scripture makes about the nature of God, tracing the subject from the first sentence of Genesis to the closing vision of the New Testament. It begins with the texts in which God defines Himself - the name given at the burning bush, the character proclaimed before Moses at Sinai, the confession that the LORD is one, and the insistence that God is not a man. It then follows the subject across the whole canon: creation and the primeval narratives, the patriarchs, the law and the covenant, the Psalms, the prophets, the wisdom literature, and finally the revelation of God in the Son.

Four questions the text does not settle receive their own extended treatment. Does God change? How can God be described in bodily terms when Scripture also says no form was seen? Does God know all things in advance, and if so, what does it mean that He tested Abraham and said, "now I know"? Where does God dwell, if the heavens cannot contain Him?

Throughout, the volume applies a single discipline. What the text states plainly is reported as fact. What it implies is labelled as implication. What it does not address is named as an open question and left open. No creed, confession, or denominational framework is imported, and no apparent contradiction is smoothed over. Where two passages pull against one another, both are shown and the tension is left standing exactly where Scripture leaves it.

Written for the general reader with no prior theological training, and citing the New American Standard Bible (1995) throughout, this volume is for anyone who has grown tired of being handed conclusions and would rather read what the text actually says.

N. Z. Nathaniel writes Scripture-focused studies that examine biblical themes through direct analysis of the text. The "According to Scripture" series explores foundational topics of the Christian faith using cross-references from Genesis to Revelation.