The Doctrine of God

 

     We could spend lifetimes upon lifetimes uncovering the great truths about God.  In fact, mankind has.  Theologians, pastors, and others have explored the glories of heaven, the magnificent creation around us, the words of the Bible, and the matters of the human mind and heart seeking to uncover and understand who God is and how He works.  My purpose is not to seek to totally explain all there is to know about God because that is humanly impossible.  However, I want to highlight just a few attributes of God I believe Christians and non-Christians misunderstand and/or misapply to our lives and the lives of others.

     I am obviously starting out with a few presuppositions.  First, I believe God exists (only a fool says He doesn’t – Psalm 14:1).  Second, I believe God is knowable and has made Himself known through creation, human conscience, Scripture, and – most importantly – through the person of Jesus Christ (general & special revelation).  Finally, I believe there are attributes of God that He has allowed us to only see a peak of this side of eternity so we must be cautious to not go beyond Scripture’s testimony.  Time and space does not allow me to seek to explain all of these, but they are all validated by the Word of God – which makes the previous post on the doctrine of the Word so important.

 

1. God is Creator

     The first twelve chapters of Genesis are likely the most debated of the entire Bible.  Of these twelve, chapters one through three are not only debated, but denied by most outside the church and some inside. I would submit the following: If a person does not believe in Genesis 1-3, the rest of the Bible is foolishness and can be rejected.  Each book of Bible is important, but the first three chapters of Genesis are so critical to its theological structure, development, and understanding that denying them denies the whole collection.

 

    I want to demonstrate this by asking a series of questions:
·         Why is murder wrong if we are not created in the image of God? (Gen. 1:26-27)
·         Why should we care about protecting creation if there is no creator? (Gen. 1)
·         What does marriage look like with no Adam & Eve? (Gen. 1-3)
·         How do we explain pain and suffering apart from the fall? (Gen. 3)
·         How can we have any hope without a God who wants a relationship with man? (Gen. 2)
·         How can we say all humans are created equal if we do not have a common ancestry? (Gen. 1:28)
·         How can evil be explained without the perfection of creation being ruined by sin? (Gen. 1-3)

 

     Denying Genesis 1-3 leaves us with more questions and few answers.  We must believe in the testimony that is given in these chapters that God is the creator of everything.  It is He who has no beginning and from Him all things were created out of nothing (ex nihilo). Darwin and theistic evolution theory deny this truth and must be rejected as false.

 

2. God is Holy

     Timothy George says, “Holiness so defines the character of God that it can be said to include all of the other divine moral perfections as well.”  The holiness of God is why Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden.  The flood was caused by people neglecting the holiness of God.  Every covenant in the Bible references the holiness of God.  The Mosaic Law was designed as a holiness code to show all men that no one can live a holy life apart from God.  In the book of Revelation, the group around the throne of God does not cry out “love, love, love” or “grace, grace, grace,” but “HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is the Lord God almighty”.

     However, the God’s holiness appears to be the most hated and despised attribute of God.  Why?  Because if God is holy and we are not, then we are doomed.  Again Georges states, “We cannot grasp the holiness of God without at the same time recognizing our own unworthiness and sinfulness before such a God.”  Our sin in the light of God’s holiness should cause all of us to repeat the words of Isaiah: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.”  If God’s holiness is rejected, His love, wrath, mercy, and grace are misunderstood.  If holiness is rejected, everyone goes to heaven and hell is neither necessary nor exists.  Everyone becomes a universalist.  God’s holiness makes the cross of Christ all the more glorious and amazing – a holy God providing forgiveness to the unholy by Jesus taking on Himself my sin and your sin by dying a gruesome death and becoming a propitiation for all those who will put their faith in Him.

 

3. God is Love

  Dale Moody declared, “As holiness is the starting point, so love is the high point in the biblical unfolding of the nature of God.”  First John 4:8 simply states, “God is love.” But these three words carry with them an immensely important statement about God.  The entirety of Scripture is often described as a 66 book “love letter.” 

     Wayne Grudem summarizes God’s attribute of love by saying, “God’s love means that God eternally gives of himself to others” (199).  We see God’s love from the start of creation.  The very fact that the eternal God would create anything or anyone to share existence with is astonishing. Out of His love, God created the world and humankind to experience in His glory. Not only did He create man, but then entered into a relationship with him in the Garden of Eden.  Then, even after the fall, God forms covenants of love with Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and the sinful world.  Finally, the ultimate act of love was witnessed with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  All of these point to a God who gives of himself for the benefit of His creation – especially mankind.

   Verse after verse repeatedly illustrates Jesus’ death was an act of love:

John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Romans 5:8 – “God showed his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”

1 John 4:10 – “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

Galatians 2:20 – “the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

  

4. God is Just/Right

     Righteousness and Justice must be handled as one unit because they exist as one idea in both Hebrew and Greek.  Grudem says, “God’s righteousness means that God always acts in accordance with what is right and is himself the final standard of what is right” (204). Therefore, there is God has the ability to define what is good and evil.  Man can either accept or reject God’s standards, but we do not have the ability to change or alter what God has defined.

   Some verses that testify to God’s justice/righteousness are:

 
Deutronomy 32:4 – “All his ways are just.  A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is he.”
 

Psalm 19:8 – “The percepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.”

 

1 Corinthians 1:30 – “And because of God you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”

 

Isaiah 45:19 – “I the Lord speak the truth, I declare what is right.”

 

Problems & Unity

     Problems arise when we try to separate these attributes from each other.  In doing so, we distort the nature of God and misrepresent Him to the world.  If God is not creator, then how can He be loving?  If God is not just, then how can He be holy?  If we focus on only God being just, we make Him a cruel being.  If we focus on God only being love, we make Him a softy or a pushover.

     The attributes of God are unified – meaning every attribute of God qualifies, exists, and functions with every other.  We cannot separate love from justice or holiness from jealous, but they are all part of His whole being.  When we comprehend the unity of God within Himself and His attributes, then we can move on to understanding human nature and sin.  We must be careful not to work backwards from man to God because then He looks a lot like us.