God's Providence

God's providence could be defined as the thought that God is continually involved with all created things in such a way that he keeps them existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them. He cooperates with created things in every action, and directing their distinctive properties to cause them to act as they do and directs them to fulfill his purposes.

Our words, our steps, our movements, our hearts, and our abilities are all from the Lord. But we must guard against misunderstanding. God's providential direction as an unseen, behind the scenes, "primary cause" should not lead us to deny the reality of our choice and actions. Scripture affirms that we really do cause events to happen. We are significant and we are responsible. We do have choices, and these are real choices that bring about real results.

God has made us responsible for our actions, which have real and eternally significant results. In all his providential acts, God will preserve these characteristics of responsibility and significance. If we do right and obey God, he will reward us, and things will go well with us both in this age and in eternity.

God has ordained that our actions do have effects. If I go through life and I neglect to take care of my health and have poor eating habits, or if I abuse my body through alcohol or tobacco, I am likely to die sooner. God has ordained that events will come about by our causing them. Of course, we do not know what God has planned, even for the rest of this day, but we do know that if we trust God and obey him, we will discover that he has planned good things to come about through that obedience.

God has also ordained that prayer is a very significant means of bringing about results in the world. When we earnestly intercede for a specific person or situation, we will find that God has ordained that our prayer would be a means he would use to bring about the changes in the world. Scripture reminds us of this when it tells us, "You do not have, because you do not ask", James 4:2.

Creation

Why, how, and when did God create the universe?

A. God Created the Universe Out of Nothing

• God created the entire universe out of nothing; it was originally very good; and he created it to glorify himself.
• Because God created the entire universe out of nothing, no matter in the universe is eternal. The mountains, the oceans, the stars, the earth itself, all came into existence when God created them.
• God the Father was the primary agent in initiating the act of creation, but the Son and the Holy Spirit were also active. The Son is often described as the one "through" whom creation came about. "All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made." (John 1:3). The Holy Spirit was also at work in creation. Job said, "The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life."

B. Creation is Distinct from God Yet Always Dependent on God

• The Bible teaches that God is distinct from his creation. He is not part of it, for he has made it and rules over it.
• So basically God is far above the creation in the sense that he is greater than the creation and he is independent of it. (We need God, He doesn't need us)
• God is also very much involved in creation, for it is continually dependent on him for its existence and its functioning.
• The term used to say that God is much greater than creation is the word transcendent.
  
• The term used a lot to speak of God's involvement in creation is the word immanent, meaning "remaining in" creation.
• The Bible is the story of God's involvement with his creation and particularly with the people in it.

C. God Created the Universe to Show His Glory

• It is clear that God created his people for his own glory, for he speaks of his sons and daughters as those "whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made" (Isaiah 43:7)
• When we affirm that God created the universe to show his glory, it is important that we realie that he did not need to create it. We should not think that God needed more glory than he had within the Trinity for all eternity or that he was somehow incomplete without the glory that he would receive from the created universe. We must remind ourselves that the creation of the universe was a totally free act of God.

D. The Universe God Created Was "Very Good"

• If God created the universe to show his glory, then we would expect that the universe would fulfill the purpose for which he created it. When God finished his work of creation, he did take delight in it. At the end of each stage of creation, God saw that what he had done was "good." Then at the end of the six days of creation, "God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good" (Genesis 1:31)

E. The Age of the Earth (Here's a tough one for me)

• The question of the age of the earth, is a question about which Bible-believing Christians have differed for many years. The two primary options to choose from for a date of the earth are the "old earth" position, which agrees with the consensus of modern science that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, and the "young earth" position, which says that the earth is 10,000 to 20,000 years old, and that secular scientific dating schemes are incorrect.
• Those who believe old earth theories of creation prpose that the six "days" of creation in Genesis 1 refer not to periods of twenty four hours, but rather to long periods of time, millions of years, during which God carried out the creative activities. They point out that Hebrew word translated "day" is sometimes used to refer no to a literal twenty four hour day but to a longer period of time. Other factors supporting the old earth view include the fact that the genealogies of the Bible contain gaps and are not intended to be used to calculate the age of the earth, and the evidences of antiquity in the universe (such as the continental drift, dinosaurs, and other things).
• Those who believe in the "young earth" theories of creation argue that the "days" in Genesis 1 represent literal twenty four hour periods of time, pointing to the fact that each of the days of Genesis 1 ends with an expressions such as, "And there was evening, and there was morning - the first day." Another "young earth" theory is that the tremendous natural forces unleashed by the flood at the time of Noah significantly altered the face of the earth, exerting extremely high pressures on the earth and depositing fossils in layers of incredibly thick sediment all over the earth's surface.
• While the various arguments for the two basic views of the age of the earth are complex and our conclusions are tentative, I feel that Scripture seems to be more easily understood to suggest a young earth view, while the observable facts of creation seem increasingly to favor an old earth view.
• With the information we have now, it is not at all easy to decide this question with certainty. The possibility must be left open that God has chosen not to give us enough information to come to a clear decision on this question.
• For me it is helpful to just admit that God may not allow us to find a clear solution to this question before Christ returns.
  

The Trinity

How can God be three persons, yet one God?

A. The Doctrine of the Trinity Is Progressively Revealed in Scripture

• The word trinity is never found in the Bible, however is used to summarize the teaching of Scripture that God is three persons yet one God.

B. Three Statements Summarize the Biblical Teaching

1. God is three persons
2. Each person is fully God
3. There is one God

• Scripture is clear that there is one and only one God.
• The three different persons of the Trinity are one not only in purpose and in agreement on what they think, but they are one in essence, one in their essential nature.
  
• Isaiah 45:5-6, "I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I gird you, though you do not know me, that men may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other."
  

C. All analogies have shortcomings

• People have used several analogies drawn from nature or human experience to attempt to explain this doctrine. Although these analogies can be helpful at an elementary level of understanding, they all turn out to be inadequate or misleading.
• To say, for example, that God is like a three-leaf clover, which has three parts yet remains one clover, fails because each leaf is only part of the clover, and any one leaf cannot be said to be the whole clover.
• To say, that the trinity is also like the three forms of water (steam, water, and ice) is also inadequate because no quantity of water is ever all three of these at the same time, they have different properties or characteristics, the analogy has nothing that corresponds to the fact that there is only one God, and the element of intelligent personality is lacking.

Summary

• "It is important to affirm that each person is completely and fully God; that is, that each person has the whole fullness of God's being in himself. The Son is not partly God or just one0third of God, but the Son is wholly and fully God, and so are the Father and the Holy Spirit. Thus, it would not be right to think of the Trinity with each person representing only one0third of God's being. Rather, we must say that the person of the Father possesses the whole being of God himself. Similarly, the Son possesses the whole being of God in himself, and the Holy Spirit possesses the whole being of God in himself. When we speak of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together, we are not speaking of any greater being than when we speak of the Father alone, or the Son alone, or the Holy Spirit alone. The Father is all of God's being. The Son also is all of God's being. And the Holy Spirit is all of God's being. But if each person is fully God and has all of God's being, then we also should not think that the personal distinctions are any kind of additional attributes added on to the being of God. Rather, each person of the Trinity has all of the attributes of God, and no one person has any attributes that are not possessed by the others. On the other hand, we must say that the persons are real, that they are not just different ways of looking at the one being of God. Rather, we need to think of the Trinity in such a way that the reality of the three persons is maintained. There is no difference in attributes at all. The only difference between them is the way they relate to each other and to creation. The unique quality of the Father is the way he relates as Father to the Son and Holy Spirit. The unique quality of the Son is the way he relates as Son. And the unique quality of the Holy Spirit is the way he relates as Spirit."
  

Where are you looking?

The Doctrine of God (3)

The "Communicable" Attributes of God

I. Explanation and Scriptural Basis

A. Attributes Describing God's Being

1. Spirituality

• People have often wondered, what is God made of? Is he made of flesh and blood like ourselves? Is God made of matter at all? Or is God pure energy? The answer of Scripture is that God is spirit.
• This signifies that God is in no way limited to a spatial location. We should therefore not think of God as having size or dimensions, even infinite ones.
• We must remember that God's being is different from everything that he has created. To think of his being in terms of anything else in the created universe is to misrepresent him, to limit him, to think of him as less than he really is.
• God's spirituality means that God exists as a being that is not made of any matter, has no parts or dimensions, is unable to be perceived by our bodily senses, and is more excellent than any other kind of existence.

2. Invisibility

• God's invisibility means that God's total essence, all of his spiritual being, will never be able to be seen by us, yet God still shows himself to us through visible, created things.

B. Mental Attributes

3. Knowledge (Omniscience)

• God fully knows himself and all things actual and possible in one simple and eternal act.
• God fully knows himself which is an amazing fact since God's own being is infinite or unlimited.
• God's knowledge never changes or grows. If he were ever to learn something new, he would not have been omniscient beforehand. Thus, from all eternity, God has known all things that would happen and all things that he would do.

4. Wisdom

• God's wisdom means that God always chooses the best goals and the best means to those goals.
• Every day of our lives, we may quiet our discouragement with the comfort that comes from the knowledge of God's infinite wisdom. If we are his children, we can know that he is working wisely in our lives to bring us into greater conformity to the image of Christ.
• We can ask God confidently for wisdom when we need it, for he promises in his Word, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him" James 1:5

5. Truthfulness (Including Faithfulness)

• God's truthfulness means that he is the true God, and that all his knowledge and words are both true and the final standard of truth.
• If we think the same thing God thinks about anything in the universe, we are thinking truthfully about it.
• God's faithfulness means that God will always do what he has said and fulfill what he has promised.

C. Moral Attributes

6. Goodness

• The goodness of God means that God is the final standard of good, and that all that God is and does is worthy of approval.
• No good thing does the Lord withhold from those who walk uprightly.
• Paul writes, "So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith."

7. Love

• God's love means that God eternally gives of himself to others.
• We imitate this communicable attribute of God, first by loving God in return, and second by loving others in imitation of the way God loves them.

8. Holiness

• God's holiness means that he is separated from sin and devoted to seeking his own honor.
• The idea of holiness as including both separation from evil and devotion to God's own glory is found in a number of Old Testament passages.
  

9. Righteousness (or Justice)

• God's righteousness means that God always acts in accordance with what is right and is himself the final standard of what is right.
• We ought therefore continually to thank and praise God for who he is, "for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is he"

10. Jealousy

• God's jealousy means that God continually seeks to protect his own honor.
• People sometimes have trouble thinking that jealousy is a desirable attribute in God. This is because jealousy for our own honor as human beings is almost always wrong. We are not to be proud, but humble.
• It is healthy for us spiritually when we settle in our hearts the fact that God deserves all honor and glory from his creation, and that it is right for him to seek this honor. He alone is infinitely worthy of being praised.

11. Wrath

• God's wrath means that he intensely hates all sin.
• It is in fact a virtue to hate evil and sin, and we rightly imitate this attribute of God when we feel hatred against great evil, injustice, and sin.
• We should feel no fear of God's wrath as Christians, for although "we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind", we now have trusted in Jesus, "who delivers us from the wrath to come".
• God's wrath should motivate us to evangelism and should also cause us to be thankful that God finally will punish all wrongdoing and will reign over a new heavens and a new earth in which there will be no unrighteousness.

D. Attributes of Purpose

12. Will

• God's will is that attribute of God whereby he approves and determines to bring about every action necessary for the existence and activity of himself and all creation.
• Sometimes it is God's will that Christians suffer, as is seen in 1 Peter 3:17, "For it is better to suffer for doing right, if that should be God's will, than for doing wrong."

13. Omnipotence (or Power, including Sovereignty)

• God's omnipotence means that God is able to do all his holy will.
• There are, however, some things that God cannot do. God cannot will or do anything that would deny his own character. For example, God cannot lie, he cannot be tempted with evil, and he cannot deny himself. Although God's power is infinite, his use of that power is qualified by his other attributes.

E. "Summary" Attributes

14. Perfection

• God's perfection means that God completely possesses all excellent qualities and lacks no part of any qualities that would be desirable for him.

15. Blessedness

• God's blessedness means that God delights fully in himself and in all that reflects his character.
• We imitate God's blessedness when we find delight and happiness in all that is pleasing to God, both those aspects of our own lives that are pleasing to God and the deeds of others.

16. Beauty

• God's beauty is that attribute of God whereby he is the sum of all desirable qualities.
• David speaks of the beauty of the Lord in Psalm 27:4
• "One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple."