How does the self-existence of God help us to understand the Gospel? Some would laugh at the thought, but it is still true. It is the Gospel of God (Romans 1:1) and God is “the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ (II Cor 4:6). The Gospel is a primary way that God shines His glory to people. So it should be no surprise that we can examine the attributes of God in the Gospel. In doing this we are enabled see the glory of the Gospel which is the beauty of the attributes of God on display.
In the Gospel we are told how one can have life and how one can be made alive. Yet, without the One who has the power of life and is life itself this would not be possible. The Gospel itself depends and rests upon the One giving life to actually be life itself. The Gospel speaks and declares that eternal life is for all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, yet this could not be possible without Christ either being life or being the way to life. How can we believe in the promise of life unless the One promising this life can actually deliver life itself to us? How can He who promises life actually deliver this life upon His promise alone unless He has life itself? So the Gospel promises are themselves reliant on the self-existence of God.
Ephesians 4 tells us this: “So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.” The Gospel comes to people who are excluded from the life of God. The Gentiles, that is, unbelievers, live in the futility of their mind and are darkened in their understanding. They are excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them. So the Gospel brings knowledge, understanding and life to those who hear. But what kind of promise does the Gospel bring apart from a God who has and is life? Ephesians 2 puts it this way: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved). Salvation is God making people alive together with Christ. The Gospel is all about God making people who are dead in sin alive together with Christ by grace. It is in being delivered from the death of sin and given life in Christ that salvation is given.
God, as the source of life and being life itself, can give life to those He pleases. He does not need anyone else but Himself in order to bring sinners to life. Where does that life come from? On what basis does a person obtain life? How are we to get life? We must go to Him who is life. He can bring sinners to life because it all depends on Him to do so. It is by grace because He is sufficient in and of Himself to be the cause and reason for making sinners alive. Here the glory of God’s self-sufficiency is seen in a full array of beauty. God makes sinners alive by grace because He does not need anything from them as a cause to make them alive. He makes sinners alive because He is sufficient to do so all of Himself simply because He is self-existent and self-sufficient. This is a God that can be trusted and this is a God who can supply all that His people need without any of His supply coming on the basis of their worth or because they have earned it. God gives grace in order to display how gloriously self-sufficient He is. Salvation is to display the glory of His grace. So He is the source of grace and the sustainer of grace simply because He is sufficient to do so and needs no help from the creature. Any efforts and works of the creature that attempt to earn from God are really attacks on His sovereign self-sufficiency.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (I Peter 1:3). What is salvation in accordance with? Man’s works or efforts? No, but in accordance with His great mercy. Can man earn mercy? Can man incline God to mercy because of his own efforts? No, because if so that would make mercy more like justice or at least partial justice. What did man do to raise Jesus Christ from the dead? This is a rather dumb question in some ways. However, the resurrection of Jesus Christ was all because of the life and power of God. The causation of eternal life in the believer is also only because of the life and power of God. His self-existence and self-sufficiency teach man how humble man must become. They teach man that the Gospel is all from God because He needs no one to help Him. After all, the Gospel is all about His glory and He saves to the glory of His name. Without God being self-existent and self-sufficient, there would be no grace, no mercy, no life, and no Gospel. Self-existence is a vitally important attribute that shows the real character and glory of the Gospel.
God Loves... Himself 
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