Word of the Week: Aseity

By Elizabeth Prata

The thread of Christianity depends on a unity from one generation to the next of mutual understanding of our important words. Hence the Word of the Week.

Aseity

When we affirm that God is eternal, we are also saying that He possesses the attribute of aseity, or self-existence. ... Unlike creation, God is self-existent, uncaused, and independent. RC Sproul

What does it mean that He is self-existent? It means in simple language, go down to verse 4, here it is again, four words. I told you John’s economy of words is stunning. "In Him was Life." In Him was Life. John 5:26 says it again, that in God is life and in the Son is life. This is an amazing statement. Life not bios, not just physical life, but zoe, the biggest, broadest term for all kinds of life. And what it’s saying is this. Life was in Him. What do you mean by that? Well look at it from a negative standpoint. He didn’t receive life from any other source. He didn’t develop life from some other power. This is self-existence. He wasn’t given life, He didn’t receive life, He possesses it as an essential of His nature. In Him was life. ~John MacArthur

Scriptures:

For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me. (Isaiah 46:9)

I AM who I AM. (Exodus 3:14)

For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. (John 5:26)

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. (Acts 17:24-25)