Self-existence of God
God has no origin, He is an eternal Being.
“I AM THAT I AM” Exodus 3:14
God is the ever living One the fountain of all life. Stephen Charnock, in his work, “The Existence and Attributes of God” says the following:
“ God hath life in himself. (John 5:26)
He hath life by his essence.
He hath unlimited life.
He hath life in himself; all creatures have their life in him and from him.
He that hath life in himself doth necessarily exist, and could never be made to exist;
What doth necessarily exist, therefore, exists from eternity; what hath been of itself could never be produced in time, because it hath being from its essence, without influence of any efficient cause.
All life is seated in God, God is life; it is in him originally, radically, therefore eternally.
He that hath life in himself, and is from himself, cannot but be. He always was because he received his being from no other, and none can take away that being which was not given by another.
Since he hath life in himself, and that there was no cause for his existence, he can have no cause of his limitation, and can no more be determined to a time, than he can to a place.
What hath life in itself, hath life without bounds, and can never desert it, nor be deprived of it; so that he lives necessarily, and it is absolutely impossible that he should not live; whereas all other things “live, and move, and have their being in him” (Acts 27:28); and as they live by his will, so they can return to nothing at his word.”
Not only is God self-existent, but He is self-sufficient.
Self- Sufficiency of God
A. W. Tozer, writes in the "Knowledge of the Holy" the following concerning God's self-sufficiency and our responsibility as His creatures to understand who He has revealed Himself to be in Scripture:
"God is what He is in himself.
Whatever God is, and all that God is, He is in Himself. All life is in and from God. No creature has life in itself, all life is a gift from God.
God is the One who contains all, who gives all that is given, but who Himself can receive nothing that He has not first given.
God has a voluntary relation to everything He has made, but He has no necessary relation to anything outside of Himself. His interest in His creatures arises from His sovereign good pleasure, not from any need those creatures can supply nor from any completeness they can bring to Him who is complete in Himself.
To God alone nothing is necessary.
Were all human beings suddenly to become blind, still the sun would shine by day and the stars by night, for these owe nothing to the millions who benefit from their light. So, were every man on earth to become atheist, it could not affect God in anyway. He is what He is in Himself without regard to any other. To believe in Him adds nothing to His perfection; to doubt Him takes nothing away.
Almighty God, just because he is Almighty, needs no support. God is not greater for our being, nor would He be less if we did not exist. That we do exist is altogether of God’s free determination, not by our desert nor by divine necessity.
To be right we must think worthily of God. It is morally imperative that we purge from our minds all ignoble concepts of the Deity and let Him be the God in our minds that He is in His universe. The Christian religion has to do with God and man, but its focal point is God, not man. Man’s only claim to importance is that he was created in the divine image; in himself he is nothing.
That God exists for Himself and man for the glory of God is the emphatic teaching of the Bible."
If as brother Tozer says, "God exists for Himself and man for the glory of God is the emphatic teaching of the Bible." then why is this truth so little proclaimed from our pulpits today?
The gospel we hear today, in many ways, has ceased to be God-centered and has become man-centered.
Oh, that all the churchs who name Christ as Lord would recall the chief end of man, which is to glorify God (as God truly is) and enjoy Him forever.
