Bible Question:

Before God created the universe, where was He? What was He doing? Where does He get all this knowledge? I know we are supposed to think (believe) that He created everything. I believe that too! But I cannot stop wondering where did He come from? Who created Him? How can something create itself, and why did He give life to an angel that later rebelled against Him? I mean we suffer because Satan was created. Thank you.

Bible Answer:

In John 1, the apostle answered your question about the origin of God.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. (NASB) John 1:1-4

The Word

The apostle John introduces us to the Word who is Jesus Christ (John 1:14). When the Holy Spirit says, “In the beginning was the Word” He uses the Greek imperfect tense for “was” which has the idea of something continuously existing in the past. That is, the Word was already existing when the beginning began. Jesus was existing before anything started. The Word was existing before there was a beginning and He was existing with God.

Quickly, John adds that there are not two Gods, there is only one because we are told that the Word was God. In the Greek, the phrase “The Word was God” is actually reversed. In the Greek the word order is “God was the Word.” That is God describes the Word. The Word is God completely and totally. The Word is nothing more and nothing less than God. The Word was not an angel, a created being, a divine thought, or anything else. He is God totally and completely.

Next we discover that the Word made everything. Some have taught that only Jesus made the universe, but that is not true since scripture also teaches that God the Father made the universe in Revelation 4:11 and God the Holy Spirit created the universe in Genesis 1:1. Everything that exists was made by the One who was existing before the beginning began.

In Him Was Life

Then we are given the answer to your question when we are told that “in Him was life.” The word “was” is again in the Greek imperfect tense which means that life was continuously existing in Him. He has always and He has always been alive. He did not create Himself because He has always existed. Nothing can create something before it exists. Nothing can create itself before it was. How can anything create itself? The Greek word “was” tells us that He has always existed. He was not created. he had no beginning

The Wonder

This is what is wonderful about God. He is beyond my wildest imagination. If I could understand Him, then I doubt that He would be God. What was He doing before the beginning? We are not told, so we do not know. Where does He get all this knowledge? We do not know, since we are not God. Why did He create angels and allow sin into the world? God never tells us, but we know that God decided to let us have an ability to make choices. It appears that God wants our love to be our choice. He did not want robots.

Conclusion:

John 1:1 tells us that the Word was, is, and will always be God. God is self existing, all knowing, and has created everything. That is a good definition of any being we would call God. We can rejoice that we do not understand God. Otherwise, He would not be God. If I could understand such a being then He would probably not be God. Praise the Lord.