Is God dead?

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY?

“God is dead” is a philosophical argument that assumes “God” is simply a crutch created to control people. To say that God is dead is to say that people now see through the façade. However, Scripture argues that God is and has always been. The reality of God’s existence is the foundation of everything else that exists. The heavens declare His glory, with His eternal power and divine nature being clearly seen. As His image-bearers, humanity also testifies to His reality. That testimony is seen in our conscience’s innate knowledge of right and wrong and our inner sense of eternity.

Though we know some things about God in creation and within ourselves, that knowledge is only enough to show us that we are under His wrath. Fortunately, God kindly revealed more through the prophets and Jesus so that we can respond rightly to Him. All who seek Him in His Word will find Him. Faith is not robotically believing that a god exists—it is confidence grounded in the true God’s character, promises, and self-revelation.

FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

• The Bible never attempts to prove the reality of God. Instead, it assumes and asserts it. For example, because God is the Creator, all of creation is evidence for God. The first two chapters of the Bible are about God’s creative work, opening with the statement, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Everything exists only because God exists and caused everything else that exists to be. If God was, indeed, dead, then there would be nothing else.
• Creation’s existence, then, is evidence of the Creator. Psalm 19:1–4 talks about creation as being the “voice” (the words or song) that declare the Creator’s existence. Despite creation having “no speech,” it’s “voice goes out through all the earth.” Creation is perpetually declaring not only that God exists, but who He is.
• Because creation makes it clear that God exists, we learn that “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1). As contrary to modern thinking as this may sound, denying God is not rational, but a morally corrupted foolishness.
• Because men and women are walking images of God, each man and women is a self-witness to His existence. Genesis 1:26–27 reads, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’… So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” God made men and women in His image. While theologians disagree as to what exactly being in God’s image entails, at a minimum, it means that we are like Him and reveal Him in unique ways. Our love, wisdom, moral sense, creative abilities, and so forth are all faint echoes of our Creator. We each are walking testimonies to the reality of God, though that is tainted by sin.
• Because we represent God in a way that the rest of creation does not, God specifically calls for the death of any human who kills another human. After God destroyed the world because of sin, He said that we can kill and eat animals (Genesis 9:1–4) However, He then adds, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image” (Genesis 9:6). There is something special about men and women being in God’s image, such that intentionally destroying another image-bearer is a particularly wicked act to God.
• Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God “has put eternity into man’s heart.” This is why we long for something greater and why we grieve when someone dies. Within each of us is a recognition that there is something—and Someone—beyond ourselves.
• God also revealed Himself verbally and directly to key individuals in the Old Testament. A prime example of this is when God commissioned Moses to rescue the Israelites from captivity. Moses asked God what His name was, to which He replied, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14b). In this statement, God revealed His eternality—that He is. The very nature of eternality is self-existence. He has everything within Himself to continue to exist. In a very real sense, it is impossible for Him to die.
• God also revealed that He, alone, is God, saying, “I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God” (Isaiah 45:5). To be God, alone, means that there is nothing bigger, stronger, or otherwise greater than He is. In short, there is nothing that can “kill” God because He is the only God.
• Many years prior to God’s statement recorded in the book of Isaiah, Moses made a similar statement. He was writing to the Israelites as they were planning to enter the Promised Land that God had given them, and he reminded them of their impossible escape from Egypt (Deuteronomy 4:33–34). Moses said, “To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him” (Deuteronomy 4:35).
• Asaph expressed misery over his life circumstances. However, when confronted with what felt like a non-existent God, Asaph took comfort in remembering that God had revealed Himself many times through His “wonders of old” and His “mighty deeds” (Psalm 77:11–15).

FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT

• Creation teaches us that God is not dead but has eternal power and is divine. Paul notes that these characteristics are “clearly perceived” (Romans 1:18–20). Why, then, do people think that God is imaginary or dead? The reason is that sinful men and women “suppress the truth.” Because God hates sin, and because we are sinful, one way we try to not think about the coming judgment is by suppressing everything we know about God. One form of suppression is saying that God is dead.
• God has personally shown Himself to each one of us. The ESV renders Romans 1:19 as, “what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them,” meaning that God has shown Himself to people. The NASB more clearly translates the verse as, “that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.” Paul was saying that the knowledge of God is inside of us and something that God personally placed within each of us. Given the creation theme in this passage, Paul is likely referring to the fact that we are made in God’s image. Specifically, in the next chapter, he will say, regarding those who know right from wrong even without knowing the Mosaic Law, “They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness” (Romans 2:15). God has made evident within us, in our conscience, that He is real. This is why, back in Romans 1, Paul can say that we are “without excuse” (Romans 1:20b). God has so clearly revealed Himself, both in creation and within each of us, that we will not be able to declare ignorance when He judges us at the end time.
• In the Old Testament, God revealed Himself directly to prophets like Moses. However, He finished speaking to us by speaking to everyone through His Son, Jesus (Hebrews 1:1–2).
• John opened his gospel with an allusion to the Genesis 1:1 passage, saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1–3). John was saying that Jesus is God and our Creator.
• Jesus revealed the invisible God to us (John 1:18). Jesus, in His humanity, died, but He came back to life because He paid the wrath of the Father in full, conquering death (Romans 6:9).
• In the final book of the Bible, Revelation, Jesus spoke to John, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last,and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Revelation 1:17b–18). Death is the result of our sin, and all humans die as a result. However, the perfectly righteous God-man died as a sacrifice to remove the eternal effects of death for those who believe in Him. Having full authority means He has the final say over who lives and dies.

IMPLICATIONS FOR TODAY

“God is dead” is a philosophical argument that says that humans no longer need the religious “crutch” of there being a god. The most influential promoter of this claim was nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. His intent was to challenge traditional Christianity because he believed it was nothing but an attempt by religious leaders to control the unthinking masses. The point was not that God once existed, but that man’s intelligence no longer required believing in something like a god.

The idea that “God is dead” resonates with a world trying to free itself from moral accountability. But Scripture tells a different story. God is not absent or silent—He is living, active, and working out His sovereign plan even now. Though people may reject Him or deny His existence, that does not change who He is. For all his enlightened thinking, when Nietzsche died, he had to face the God he mocked. For him, it was too late to repent, but you still have the chance! Because He is eternal, God never slumbers, grows weary, or forgets those who rebel against Him. But He is also merciful, sending His Son Jesus to take the judgment of death for sin. Repent now, and God has promised to forgive your debt through Jesus with the promise that after this life, you will live eternally with Him.

For believers, knowing that God cannot die provides great comfort. We are not putting our hope in a fading ideology, a fallen leader, or the latest philosophical fad. We are anchored in the unchanging, ever-living God. He walks with us in the present and assures us of the future. When pain or injustice tempt us to question whether God has abandoned the world, we need to remember that the cross and resurrection are the clearest proof that He is very much alive and involved. As long as God lives—and He always will—we will always have hope, meaning, and purpose.

UNDERSTAND

• God is not dead—He is eternal and self-existent.
• Creation and conscience testify to God’s existence.
• Jesus Christ is the clearest proof that God lives.

REFLECT

• When you face suffering or injustice, how do you respond to the idea that God is still living and present?
• How do you see evidence of God’s existence?
• What difference does it make in your daily life to believe that God is not dead but alive and active?

ENGAGE

• How does the claim that “God is dead” reveal the way people want to escape moral accountability today?
• When we share with others who believe God is dead, what can we point to that attests to God’s existence?
• How does the resurrection of Jesus confront or counter the philosophical idea that God is irrelevant or absent?