Who made God? That’s the question I have been asked when I’ve gone into schools to speak to young childrenabout the Bible and God.
This is a question that comes up again and again. It is a very good question, and I always have to think carefully before answering it.
The question is, “Who Made God?” There are other variants of this question, such as, “When was God born?”
The short answer, is of course, that no-one made God. God is himself the maker and original cause of all that exists. God is the one who is “before all things” (Col. 1:17) and “from everlasting to everlasting” (Psalm 90:2). He is the one through whom all “all things were created” (Col. 1:16) and that nothing exists without his having made it (John 1:3).
God is God because He is the Source and First Cause
That is part of the very definition of what it is to be God. If God ever had a beginning, or had ever been made in any way, we would be right in considering that which was before God, or that which cause God, as the true and proper God and all other gods to be false. God is God because he is the source and first cause of all things.
It’s interesting that when I explained this to a class of six-year-olds, their response was, “God didn’t make everything! God didn’t make cars!” I replied that yes, God did make everything, because he had made cars through us. He had given us the intelligence and materials to make the cars. The children were obviously unconvinced, because later, when the class teacher, who hadn’t heard my answer, came in, they asked her the same question. She replied that of course, God hadn’t made the cars, but he had made the original materials. So, as you can see, these issues get a bit tricky, and not just with six-year-olds!
Some of the clearest insights into the question of who made God are found in the first chapter of John. The first three verses say,
“In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”
Here you have “things” mentioned. There is “God,” the “Word,” and the things that have been made. There is also a fourth thing which is implied, and that is time. Time is reflected in the phrase “in the beginning” and in the process of the making of the things that have been made.
The phrase “in the beginning” does not refer just to the creation of this world. In the context of these verses, the phrase “in the beginning” refers to the time before anything, anywhere, was made. It refers to the eternal past.
The first thing that creation experiences is the Word, through which God creates. That’s why the verse says, “In the beginning was the Word.” From the beginning, God reveals himself through the Word.
The verses next clarify that the Word is so intimately connected with God that “the Word was God” himself.
These verses tell us about the relationship between God and his creation. They tell us God does not depend on his creation, but that rather creation depends on God. They tell us that it is the act of having created everything that defines God as God, and it distinguishes him from his creation.
God existed in the beginning, before anything else. That is what defines him as God. He is the First Principle, the First Cause, the First Mover.
I Worship God Precisely Because No One Made Him
No one made God. He was not made. No one gave birth to God. He was not born.
This becomes even more interesting when we take a look at verse 14:
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The One who was not made, became a tiny, newborn baby, coming into the world as we all must enter it. In a world in which all things have a beginning, there was One among us who was himself the Beginning of all things.
No one made God. Rather, God made himself to be a human being, so that humanity could have a new beginning through him.
I worship God precisely because no one made him. That’s why he is God.
I worship God because he made me, not once, but twice. Once by physical creation, in that he created the human race. Then secondly, because God has welcomed me into the new, spiritual creation, as his child.