2.1 The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
Christianity teaches that God is not an impersonal force, a vague spiritual energy, or a distant creator who abandons the world. Christians believe God is living, personal, faithful, and active. He creates, speaks, calls, commands, judges, forgives, delivers, and keeps His promises.
When Christians speak of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they are not only identifying Christianity’s connection to Israel. They are also describing the kind of God Christianity claims to worship: the God who makes Himself known in history and remains faithful across generations.
Christianity begins with God as the living Lord who reveals Himself. In the Bible, God is not treated as an abstract idea that human beings discover by reasoning alone. He is the God who acts, speaks, and enters into relationship with human beings.
God calls Abraham. He makes covenant promises. He remains faithful to Isaac and Jacob. He hears the cries of Israel in slavery. He delivers His people from Egypt. He gives commandments. He sends prophets. He warns, corrects, forgives, and restores. Again and again, the Bible presents God as personally involved in the world He created.
Christianity teaches that God is eternal, sovereign, holy, and above creation. He is not merely one powerful being among many. He is the source of all life and the Lord over all things.
At the same time, Christianity teaches that God is not cold, detached, or unreachable. He is transcendent, meaning He is above creation, but He is also near. He is high above human beings, yet He knows them. He rules over history, yet He hears prayer. He judges evil, yet He shows mercy. He commands obedience, yet He also invites trust.
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The phrase “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” shows that God is personal. He is not presented only as “the force behind the universe” or “the principle of existence.” He is identified through relationship. He is the God who knows people by name, calls them into covenant, and remains faithful to His promises.
It also shows that God is faithful across generations. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob face different situations, failures, fears, and struggles. Yet God’s faithfulness continues. His promises do not disappear when one generation ends. The God who calls Abraham remains the God who works through Isaac, Jacob, Israel, and the larger biblical story.
This idea of faithfulness is central to Christianity. Christians believe God does not forget His promises. Human beings may be weak, sinful, forgetful, or unfaithful, but God remains constant. He is not controlled by human instability. He does not change His nature from one generation to the next.
The Bible often connects God’s identity with what He has done. God is known as Creator, Deliverer, Redeemer, Father, King, Shepherd, Judge, and Savior. These names and titles do not describe separate gods. They describe the many ways the one God relates to His creation.
For Christians, God’s actions reveal His character. When God creates, He shows power and purpose. When God commands, He shows moral authority. When God judges, He shows justice. When God forgives, He shows mercy. When God keeps His promises, He shows faithfulness.
This helps explain why Christian faith is not only about believing that God exists. Christianity is about trusting who God is. To believe in God, in the Christian sense, is not merely to agree that some divine being exists. It is to trust the living God who reveals Himself, speaks truth, calls people to obedience, and remains faithful to His covenant promises.
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Christians believe this same God is revealed most fully through Jesus Christ. This point will become more important later in the course. For now, the key idea is that Christians do not see Jesus as revealing a different God from the God of Israel. They believe Jesus reveals the same God more fully.
Before asking how Christians understand God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it is important to understand the basic claim Christianity inherits from Scripture: there is one living God who creates, speaks, rules, judges, loves, forgives, and keeps His promises.
In Christianity, God is not distant from the human story. He is the Lord of the human story. He is not merely a symbol of goodness or a name for religious feeling. He is the living God who calls people, confronts evil, forms covenant, offers mercy, and draws human beings into relationship with Himself.
This foundation shapes everything that follows in Christian theology. The doctrines of creation, sin, salvation, Scripture, worship, prayer, ethics, judgment, and eternal life all depend on this view of God. Christianity begins with the claim that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is living, personal, faithful, and active — and that this same God makes Himself known through His words, His works, His promises, and, ultimately, through Jesus Christ.
In section 2.2, we will look at God’s authority over creation, history, nations, moral order, and human accountability.