What do Baptists Believe about God?

My God is so big,
So strong and so mighty,
There's nothing my God cannot do.
[clap, clap]

My God is so big,
So strong and so mighty,
There's nothing my God cannot do.
[clap, clap]

The mountains are His,
The valleys are His,
The stars are His handiwork too.

My God is so big,
So strong and so mighty,
There's nothing my God cannot do.
[clap, clap]

Did you know that there are around 4.7 billion people in the world who would say the above statement? Out of the 6.7 billion people in the world, more than half could make those claims! Unfortunately, only 1.9 billion of those people call themselves Christians. Even worse, there are many people who will call themselves Christians who only think of God in terms of "big" and "mighty." Thankfully, there is much more to God than that.

From The Baptist Faith and Message:

There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience. The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.

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"OK, OK!" You say. "What is so special about that statement that I didn't already know?" First, let me quote author Brennan Manning, "The moment you think you understand is the moment you do not understand. I am God not man....When you try to convince others that you understand what you are talking about, I will tell you to shut up and fall flat on your face" (Manning 160).

• God is Creator (Isa. 43:15, "I am the LORD, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King."), Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler. Everything that is created is through Christ. Salvation (redemption) is only through Christ. Every moment the only reason we exist is because God wills it (He preserves us, and if he ever failed to do so, we would not exist). He rules over the universe--even when babies die, moms get cancer, and there's a war in Iraq.

• God is all-powerful and all-knowing. He can do anything because he is so mighty. He can both stop and start natural disasters. He can cause and end temptation. He can turn hearts toward or against Himself. He knows what you will do tomorrow, He even knows what you'll think in your heart while you're reading your Bible, praying, or talking with friends. He knew your heart when he created the world, and he knows all of our motives for doing something.
  

• God exists in the Trinity, with three different personalities who have different attributes, but share the same nature, essence, and being. There are not three parts of God--he is One. There are not three separate forms of God--he is One. In the words of Wayne Grudem, "The fact that God is three persons means that the Father is not the Son; they are distinct persons. It also means that the Father is not the Holy Spirit, but that they are distinct persons. And it means that the Son is not the Holy Spirit" (Grudem 239). Each person (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) has different characteristics and roles, but each share the same qualities: holiness, all-knowing, all-powerful, always present.
  
• There are many people who believe that the idea of "trinity" is ridiculous because 1) the term does not appear in the Bible and 2) it does not make sense. These people include Muslims, Mormons, Unitarians, and Jehovah's Witnesses, and they consequently do not believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, the Lord and Savior.
  
• Although the word "Trinity" does not appear in the Bible, there are times when the Bible mentions the three personalities of God, which help us conclude that there are three distinct persons from the one Holy God (Mt. 28:19, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," Jn. 14:26, "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you," and Gen. 1:26, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness...").
  

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What do Baptists Believe about God the Father?

From The Baptist Faith and Message:

God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace. He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, and all wise. God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. He is fatherly in His attitude toward all men.

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Ex. 14:11-14, "Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? You stretched out your right hand; the earth swallowed them. You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.”

prov·i·dence - divine guidance; not ruled by chance or by fate but by God, who directs history and creation toward an ultimate goal (Grenz).

Baptists believe that God really is in control of the universe, and is overseeing everything for an ultimate goal (Acts 1:7, "He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.’"). Today there are people who call themselves Christians who do not believe this, but believe that God has removed himself from creation--either temporarily or permanently. This means that they think God has nothing to do with what happens in the world, but think everything is the consequence of something else.

We also believe that God is all-powerful (omnipotent), all-knowing (omniscient), all-loving, and all-wise. When a person becomes a Christian, he is adopted as a son of God, and God relates to him as a father to a son. We can see this illustrated in the story of the prodigal son, and in how God relates to the Israelites in the Old Testament.

1 Tim. 1:17, "To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen."

Works Cited:
Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994.
Grenz, Stanley J., David Guretzki & Cherith Fee Nordling. Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms. Downers Grove, Ill: Intervarsity, 1999.
Manning, Brennan. The Ragamuffin Gospel. Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2000.