Glory Be to Our Great God | Day 2 - God is Simple

Give Thanks to the One, Undivided God

This was created by Microsoft Copilot when I asked it to create a picture expressing Divine Simplicity. It’s pretty.

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” - Exodus 3:14

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. - Deuteronomy 6:4-5

God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. - 1 John 1:5

We believe in one God . . . - The Nicene Creed

We all believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that there is a single and simple spiritual being, whom we call God . . . - The Belgic Confession (emphasis added)

There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions . . . - The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (emphasis added)

The Lord our God is but one only, living, and true God; whose subsistence is in and of himself, infinite in being, and perfection, whose Essence cannot be comprehended by any but himself; a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts or passions . . . - The London Baptist Confession of 1689 (emphasis added)

We believe the Lord our God is One
Father, Spirit, Son; This is our God!
We believe forever He will reign
Let the church proclaim: This is our God!
- Sovereign Grace Music, “This is Our God”

Overwhelming Options, Scatterbrained, and Conflicting Interests

Have you ever looked at a menu at a new restaurant and got overwhelmed? I felt that earlier this week at a new Italian restaurant and bar that some friends and I visited for the first time. As we walked in, I immediately felt both excited and slammed by all of the options they had to offer. Looking through the menu felt like a workout as I had to think through what I wanted with what they offered. Thankfully, this wasn’t a challenging situation like dismantling an atomic bomb, and I ended up choosing to split a large pizza with one of my buddies.

Is God’s nature like a list of menu options? At first, we can be overwhelmed by what we learn about him and it can be hard to approach him. But what could happen is we can choose one thing about God over the rest of who God is. For example, most people around us like that God is love or loving, but would they still like God because he is holy, righteous, and sovereign? That is like treating God like what we pick and choose from a buffet line to put on our plate. But is God just an amalgamation or composition of things like we want about him? Or put another way, is the God of the Bible a being that is made up of different components of various characteristics? Is his nature like a large pizza cut up into 8 slices?

Thankfully, the answer is not complicated but simple. Funny enough, the church throughout the ages has called it Divine Simplicity.

Divine Simplicity is Simply Simple

Gerald Bray wrote, “The most fundamental attribute of God’s being is its simplicity,”¹ but you might be thinking right now, “Divine what? I’ve never heard of that before! What is it, and why is it the most fundamental?” Divine simplicity means “God is not divisible into parts; God’s attributes are coexistent with who he is.”² In other words, “his nature is not compounded of different elements” and “whatever we say about God applies to the totality of his being.”³ So God being simple doesn’t mean he is simplistic in his character but that his nature is not made up of different parts that make him become God. Let’s reflect on this reality in several ways.

First, God is simple because he is all that he has. When we talk about God’s attributes, they don’t mean “something we ‘attribute’ to God as if it is a ‘part’ of God. Instead, attributes are what God is, in his entire being and perfection as ‘the one God.’”⁴ So, God is not like a restaurant whose menu possesses many different options. Herman Bavinck “His attributes coincide with His being. Every attribute is His being. He is wise and true, not merely, good and holy, just and merciful, but He is also wisdom, trust, goodness, holiness, justice, and mercy. Hence He is also the source and fount of all the attributes of man. He is everything that He possesses and is the source of everything that creatures possess. He is the abundant source of all goods.”⁵ For example, John writes that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5), and in Exodus 3:14 God tells Moses his covenant name “I AM WHO I AM.” This means that God is who and what he is, and he is not a fragmented being/ontology.

Second, God is simple because he is not dependent on anything else. If we assume he is made up of parts, that then begs the question, “Who composed or made him from these parts?” If God were a composite being, he would then be dependent both on those parts of his being and a composer outside of him. But the Bible clearly states that God is one not only in that there is only one true God that exists but also that he is not divided in his nature. James describes God as the “Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (Jam. 1:17) which means that God in consistent within himself. No other being is in the same category as God because he alone is God. He states in Isaiah 44:6, “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.” “Who is greater, a God who depends on someone or something else to make him what he is, or a God who is composed by no one but simply is?”⁶

Third, God is simple because he is the most perfect being who is greater than everything else. Stephen Charnock wrote that “God is the most simple being, for that which is first in nature, having nothing beyond it, cannot by any means be thought to be compounded; for whatsoever is so, depends upon the parts whereof it is compounded and so is not the first being. Now God, being infinitely simple, has nothing in himself that is not himself and therefore cannot will any change in himself, he being his own essence and existence.”⁷ In light of this and the witness of Scripture, it makes sense that God is a se (aseity/self-sufficient), incorporeal (immaterial), infinite, eternal, immutable, etc. If all that is in God is God, then we are talking about the most perfect absolute being that is unlimited in glory and power. This God is why Isaiah boldly asks the future exiles of Israel, “To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him” (Isa. 40:18). Unlike idols, fake gods, angels, demons, or anything else in creation, “When we see God through God’s eyes, he doesn’t fit into any box of created size. He goes beyond our categories of experience and therefore deserves our trust.”⁸

The LORD is the Undivided God = Undivided Joy and Life for Us

Christians shouldn’t shelve Divine Simplicity as something complicated only reserved for ivory tower theologians; instead, if God is simple, then we can totally trust in him. If God was divided within himself in his being, how can we truly believe that his agenda for our lives is really for our good? If God is dependent on attributes that are only parts of him or derived from outside of him, then how can we truly depend on all that he is for us? Can we truly believe that he is infinite in all his perfections? In fact, can we even call them perfections since he would be a compounded being?

But because the undivided God is who is he, those who trust in him can expect an undivided joy and life from him. All who put their trust in him will never be put to shame (Ps. 25:3) because he is who he says he is. Therefore, “that’s why we must never derive our sense of worth from anything within the creation. It will rot. That’s why we must delight that God alone is God. His incomparability is our salvation.”⁹ If this simple God is the God of our salvation, that means his work in our lives is foolproof and more than enough! When we reflect on how in his presence “there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11) we are reminded time that we who are in Christ live in the totality of all that God is for us, regardless of circumstances or emotional state. If the simple, undivided God is “for us, who can be against us” (Rom 8:31).

Answer: No one!

Father, thank you that you are all that you are. You are undivided in your nature and therefore are the only one worthy of my trust and devotion. Because you are the one, true, and living God, we can rest knowing that you are not divided within yourself. No other god or idol and truly satisfy, and nothing can separate us from your love that was given to us through your Son and applied to us by your Holy Spirit. Help me remember that because you are the same, simple God, your works towards me are perfect and infinitely effective, and all who are hidden in your Son and indwelt by your Holy Spirit are secure forever. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

1. Gerald Bray, The Attributes of God: An Introduction (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 26.

2. Stephen J. Wellum, Systematic Theology, Volume 1 (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2024), 596.

3. Bray, 26-7.

4. Wellum, 594.

5. Herman Bavinck, The Wonderful Works of God, ed. John Bolt, trans. Henry Zylstra (Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 2019), 118.

6. Matthew Barrett, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2019), 78.

7. Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (published by Crossway), p. 496. (Clean up)

8. Raymond C. Ortlund Jr. and R. Kent Hughes, Isaiah: God Saves Sinners, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 245.

9. Ortlund, 245.