Tracing the Amazing Wonders of the Personhood of God
Study Guide, October 12, 2025
Pastor Clay Olsen
We are about to embark on an adventure of discovering some of the amazing wonders of the Personhood of God. And why is there a need for such an adventure? Because one of the major problems that many Christians face in trying to live out the Christian life is that they have not grasped what the Apostle Paul specifically prayed for Christians to grasp and to then experience in their walk with God. Note: “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” Eph. 3:14-19 NASB
And while this passage is a whole study in and of itself, it makes a connection between communing with Christ, who indwells our lives, and comprehending the love of Christ throughout our lives. In other words, to better understand the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ, we are to better understand the breadth and length and height and depth of the Personhood of Christ who has come by grace through faith to indwell our spirit forever and ever. And one of the wonders of that is that the more we do come to understand the Personhood of our God the more we will then be able to understand and to then revel in the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of God for us.
And thus, to do that we are going to trace God’s own revelations of His Personhood, because of all the things God wants us to better understand, it is to understanding this: ‘Who’ our God really is, and ‘What’ our God is really like and ‘How’ He wants us to think of Him and ‘What’ He wants us to thus experience in our relationship with our Maker and our Savior. So, are you ready to begin the adventure?
We begin with a walk, a walk in a garden…not any garden, but, right…the Garden of Eden. Gen. 3:8- “They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…” In one of the most respected works on the Book of Genesis, Dr. Henry M. Morris writes this: “God was walking in the garden in the cool of the day. The more or less offhand way in which this is stated indicates that this was a normal event, perhaps a daily appointment time at which the Lord met with them for communion and fellowship. This is no crude anthropormorphism, but a repeated, or even continual, theophany, in which the Word of God, Christ preincarnate, clothed Himself in human form in order to communicate with those whom He had created in His own image.”1
So from the very beginning of God creating human beings in His own image, He reveals Himself to His created children as being not only their God, but as being their God who is, as Isaiah later records, their “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, and Prince of Peace.” Isa 9:6 And in this revelation of Himself they realize that their Maker is also a very ‘Personal Being.’ A Person Being with a distinct ‘Personality’ and a distinct personal character and a Being with whom they could daily know and trust and love and enjoy, and on and on! Yes, long before C. Austin Miles wrote the Hymn, Adam and Eve experienced its words every day in that Garden, as God came to walk with them in the cool of the day…
“And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own,
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other, has ever, known!
He speaks and the sound of His voice,
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that he gave to me,
Within my heart is ringing . . .”
In your own walk with God, do you ever have a joy that you share with your Lord as you tarry there in the cool of the day? Do you ever get a ‘ringing within your heart’ from sensing the presence of the Person of God in Christ in your life? That’s something of what Adam and Eve experienced with God before the Fall and then regained it after their repentance and the second birth of their spirit. And, of course, that’s what God wants each of His children to experience in our own walk with God, as we come to better know and to deeper understand what it means that He is our Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, and Prince of Peace.
The question to ask ourselves is: Does any of this describe my experience in my relationship with God? If not, then this journey into the breadth and length and height and depth of the Personhood of God is designed to help each one of us experience something more of what it was like when our first parents used to, day by day, walk with God in the cool of the day. True, this world is not the Garden of Eden anymore, but your walk with God in your world can be much like it was with Adam and Eve in their world. It’s what that postulate of the Westminster Confession was seeking to state: ‘The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ It’s what God through Nehemiah was trying to help us understand is the key to living out a vital and soul satisfying life. What is the strength of your life…knowledge, talent, accomplishments, possessions, aptitude, abilities? Neh. 8:10: “…the joy of the Lord is your strength.” NASB
And how do you acquire that kind of joy? You can’t work it up…but you can walk it out, as you take a walk with your God in the cool of each day. And we’re not talking about a time of day, but about having a particular focus throughout the day. For, you see, this ‘Chief end of man’ is also to be the chief focus of each day. When you make the primary focus of each day be to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, you will then find yourself coming to better know the Personhood of your God and being filled with the joy of your Lord.
The Personhood of God: Let’s think about it: Throughout the Bible, whenever God appeared to people in physical form, it was the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God, that did so. The theological description of this is a Theophany or Christophany. The term ‘theophany’ is a combination of two Greek words: theos, meaning ‘God’, and phainein, meaning ‘to show’ or ‘to appear.’ It refers to a visible manifestation of Deity, often associated with extraordinary events that show the presence and the character of God.
And so what we have here in Genesis 3:8 is…brace yourselves…the first ‘Theophany’, the first appearance of the Pre-incarnate Christ in the Bible. Essentially, the first appearance of the Pre-incarnate Jesus in the Bible! For remember, whenever the invisible Spirit of God became visibly manifested to people it would be the Second Person of the Trinity that would do so. Do you remember Philip’s words to Jesus? Jn. 14:8-10: “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?”
So again, the manifestation in human form of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit would be through God the Son. Which reveals to us that this ‘Theophany’ who walked with Adam and Eve in the garden in the cool of the day was in fact the Pre-incarnate Jesus Christ! Oh yes, wonder of wonders, right? And then thousands of years later, this ‘Theophany’ would permanently take on a fully physical human body in the Incarnation of God, Jesus the Christ, in Greek, or Jesus the Messiah, in Hebrew.
Which points to another ‘in fact’…for ‘in fact’, in the creation of the physical body in which our first parents were given, God was ‘in fact’ also creating the kind of body with which He would one day forever clothe Himself! God would become both Divine and Human…Christ and Jesus…fully God and fully Man. Oh yes, those who saw Jesus also saw God the Father and God the Holy Spirit…the three in One…the Trinity of God.
But, think again…thousands of years before the wonder of the Incarnation of God is this wonder of the Pre-incarnation of God. It was Christ, who would become Jesus Christ, who was walking and talking and fellowshipping and communing with His created children.
One essential point being: When Adam and Eve thought about God, they thought about this very personal God…this Immanuel…God with us…God with them. Oh yes, they thought of His Godhood, but at the same time they thought of His ‘Personhood’. And right there is a major disconnect from how many people, Christians included, think about and relate to God. But when you disconnect Personhood from Godhood you disconnect communing and fellowshipping, and all the joy God created you ‘to share with Him as you tarry there with Him.’
A lot of theological teaching about God leans heavily to the side of God’s transcendence…the existence of God beyond the physical. And that is often coupled with both the transcendence and the ‘utter otherness’ of God. It leans hard on God’s unfathomable and incomprehensible being and nature and power. It stresses God’s thoughts and ways being so different and so much higher than our thoughts and ways that not even the distance between heaven and earth can measure that. And while all this is absolutely true, it’s also completely incomplete in relation to God’s own revelation and description of Himself to His world, and especially to how God wants His own reborn children to think of Him and to know Him.
For while we are to be in awe of His power over us, we are to also be at peace in His passion for us. While we are to live in the fear of our God we are also to rest in the favor of our God. While God is the Holy Judge of all mankind, He is also the compassionate Heavenly Father of His sons and daughters. In our born-again relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ, His transcendence is linked with His tenderness. And therefore, we are meant to understand and glory in and rejoice in both! It is because the God of the Universe is also our Immanuel for our spirit that we can say and sing, “It is well with my soul.” So mark it down: The more that we come to know the Personhood of God the more we can then relate to our God in a personal way, which is exactly the way our God wants us to know Him and to think of Him and do life with Him!
All right then…so what are some characteristics of God’s Personhood? Let’s explore…
Here’s a fun question: So what type of personality are you? Granted, people are often a combination of many types, but sometimes a person’s personality has some component that sort of drives them. How do you like this description of Personality? ‘Personality is any person‘s collection of interrelated behavioral, cognitive, and emotional patterns that comprise a person’s unique adjustment to life. These interrelated patterns are relatively stable, but can change over long time periods, driven by experiences and maturational processes, especially the adoption of roles, such as in working and parenting.’
To that I say – “Wowzers!” That’s a headful, right?! We usually think of people’s personality in terms of them being, for example: Very analytical about people and things…or very resolute, seeking to resolve or reconcile or mediate people and things…or very managerial, adept at leading people or things…or very creative, even innovative with people and things. And then there’s that whole extrovert and introvert aspects of personality. One way I’ve heard those described, in terms of an extrovert, is one who gets energized from interacting and engaging in social settings and communications, whereas an introvert is one who gets drained after interacting and engaging in social settings and communications. Most people are a combination of many of those things, but the real point we are pointing out is why does anyone even have a personality at all? It is because our Creator has a Personality…a distinct as well as perfect personality that can be known and understood and then related to based upon His glorious personality!
This is a revelation from God about Himself you should dwell upon over and over…Jer. 9: 23-24: “Thus says the Lord, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord.” Therefore, central in the personality of God is the perfect balance of these three glorious characteristics. Note His amazing love and mercy. In one Psalm, Psalm 136, God had David repeat God’s lovingkindness or mercy is everlasting twenty-six times in a row! That’s how important it is to God that we know that about Him and think about Him and relate to Him according to His lovingkindness toward us.
And perfectly balanced with His mercy is His justice. We are to know that whenever God’s mercy is spurned, His justice steps us…His justice is certain! The clearest example of that is John 3:16-18- “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” God always begins with lovingkindness…with mercy. But when His mercy is rejected or neglected, then His justice is assured. Remember, the gift of Free Will to mankind meant that ‘choices’ have been given to everyone, but ‘consequences’ belong to God alone. For He is the God of perfect love, but also perfect Justice.
And completing this perfect balance is God’s righteousness. Remember, God can only and always do that which is the perfectly righteous thing to do. For God is perfectly righteous. And so not only is God’s lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness key to His personality, God tells us that He also delights in these things. Aha! And so it’s right here that we have a big-time takeaway! For if this majestic balance of mercy, justice, and righteousness is what delights our Creator, what then is the key to bringing delight into the lives of those made in the image of the Creator? Exactly!
Thus, our need, then, to better know and understand the Personhood of our Creator, Savior, and our Heavenly Father. And our adventure will continue…
- Dr. Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Record, p. 116