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What is God Like - Part I"Theology Proper"
February 4, 1999 |
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The study of the nature and character of God himself is that branch of theology called "theology proper." It is our attempt to determine what God is like; to look into what defines the divine.
By definition, the scope of such an examination is beyond our capacity to comprehend it. Some would say, then, that we shouldn't even try to define God.
The problem is once one defines God then you have a concept, a thing. That reduces God to a thing. Not very empowering because the inquiry stops. That is what a belief does, too.1
But God has chosen to reveal himself to us, and wants us to be in relationship with Him2. As discussed in our study of the inspiration of the Bible, God has given us a look at what He is like. If God has taken this step, it behooves us to investigate what He wants us to know about Himself. In fact, as Chuck Swindoll states, there can be no greater pursuit in life than that of "theology proper."
I am more convinced than ever that life's major pursuit is not knowing self...but knowing God.
As a matter of fact, unless God is the major pursuit of our lives, all other pursuits are dead-end streets, including trying to know ourselves. They won't work. They won't satisfy. They won't result in fulfillment. They won't do for us what we think they're going to do.
You never really begin the process of coming to know yourself until you begin the process of coming to know God. The by-product of such a process is discovering the peace you long for so desperately3.
In our study of God's nature, we will look at four overriding concepts of God which seem to encompass broadly most of what God had made known about himself.
Twice in scripture we are given a glimpse into the throne room of heaven. In both these cases God shows us the singularly most encompassing part of his character. In the Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah, 700 years before Christ, is given a vision of what the throne room of God looks like.
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!" And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.4
This is a truly awe-inspiring scene with God, high and exalted sitting on a throne, his robe filling the temple. Angels are shouting the character of God in a loud rumble that shakes the throne room of heaven. And the singular attribute attributed to the Lord is his holiness. The same is true in Revelation 4:8 when the apostle John has a vision while exiled on the island of Patmos:
And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and night they do not cease to say, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come."5
In both these cases, the attribute of God proclaimed in the throne room is God’s holiness. Holiness is the attribute with which God wants to be primarily identified. That being the case, we should take God’s holiness very seriously.
The Bible says that God is holy, holy, holy. Not that He is merely holy, or even holy, holy. He is holy, holy, holy. The Bible never says that God is love, love, love, or mercy, mercy, mercy, or wrath, wrath, wrath, or justice, justice, justice. It does say that He is holy, holy, holy, the whole earth is full of His glory.6
Holiness is one of those religious terms we hear all the time but sometimes struggle to define. We can use synonyms such as sacred, consecrated, and hallowed. But these terms have the same stuffy old feeling as holy. Holiness, as amplified in scripture, seems to encompass three things:
God is unique. He has not rivals or competition7. He is unsearchable, incomprehensible, incomparable, great, wonderful, and exalted.8
"Who among the gods is like you, O LORD? Who is like you-- majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?9
As our skeptic quoted at the beginning of this paper says, God can not really be defined. He is holy, different, unique, and foundationally beyond our ability to put a definition on Him.
Holy things are pure and clean. There is no evil or wickedness.
You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness.10
To say that God is pure and perfect means does not merely mean that God doesn't have any imperfections. In the same way that being healthy is not merely the absence of illness, God's purity is not just the absence of imperfection. Holiness means that God is absolutely perfect.
God's holiness encompasses righteousness. But righteousness does not mean that God does what is right. Rather, whatever God does is right. Righteousness itself is defined by God's character. He is the standard of all that is good and right. Any less and God would be subject to a standard outside himself. This is outside the boundaries of the definition of holiness.
As such, God's righteousness and purity is a transcendent purity.
When things are made holy, when they are consecrated, they are set apart unto purity. They are to be used in a pure way. They are to reflect purity as well as simple apartness. Purity is not excluded from the idea of the holy; it is contained within it. But the point we must remember is that the idea of the holy is never exhausted by the idea of purity. It includes purity but is much more than that. It is purity and transcendence. It is a transcendent purity.11
Holiness is not merely just another attribute in a long list of attributes. It is the attribute proclaimed by the Seraphim in heaven. It is the attribute by which all His other attributes are qualified.
The word is used as a synonym for his deity. That is, the word holy calls attention to all that God is. It reminds us that His love is holy love, his justice is holy justice, his mercy is holy mercy, his knowledge is holy knowledge, his spirit is Holy Spirit."1
When we contemplate God's holiness, what should our response be? Isaiah's response is a good picture of what our response will be if we truly understand his holiness.
So I said: "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts."13
Isaiah became aware of His own sinfulness, especially related to his speech. When confronted with the transcendent purity of God, his impurity was readily apparent. Furthermore, he became aware of His people’s sinfulness. But mostly, he became aware of his fate. He understood that his lack of holiness doomed him ("Woe is me, for I am undone!").
John's response in Revelation reveals this same awareness of his fate:
And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as a dead man.14
When confronted with God's holiness, our response is humility. Humility is seeing God for who He is. But it is also seeing myself for who I am not. To truly understand God, and therefore understand ourselves and our meaning and purpose, it must begin with humility.
Isaiah's response is far from what we hear today from many who claim to teach biblical truth. He was not impressed with his "significance." His "self-esteem" was not enhanced. Just the opposite took place. His vision of the holiness of God caused Isaiah to lament his utter sinfulness. If God was holy, Isaiah saw he was not. Isaiah confessed his own unholiness and that of his people.16
In a culture that tells us that the way to find meaning is to look inside yourself, to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, humility seems like a foolish, weak, unempowered character trait. But God tells us that the way up is down, that when we humble ourselves, we will be lifted up. It is only when we humble ourselves that we will truly understand who God is.
The same prophet Isaiah who sees a glimpse of God, goes on in his prophecies to condemn the arrogance of the nations. When we get to chapter 40, Isaiah lays out for us the folly of our pride in the light of a transcendent God.
Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. He brings the princes to nothing; He makes the judges of the earth useless.17
God is outside his creation. He sits above the earth, outside of the heavens. The arrogant nations, which threaten God's people, are nothing compared to a God who exists beyond the universe.
"To whom then will you liken Me, or to whom shall I be equal?" says the Holy One. 18
There is no one like God. He is incomparable.
Why do you say, O Jacob, And speak, O Israel: "My way is hidden from the Lord, and my just claim is passed over by my God"? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. 19
God sees all for nothing is hidden from Him. He is everlasting. He is all powerful, never growing weary. His understanding is beyond our ability to comprehend it.
Isaiah is describing a God who is transcendent. To be transcendent means to exist beyond and outside the ordinary range of human experience or understanding. Transcendence can be amplified into several attributes:
God is independent of creation. He is free to choose anything He wants. He is only restricted by His perfection. Yet perfection is not a restriction, so He is truly free to do whatever He wants.
This often begs the question of the existence of evil. How can a free God co-exist with evil? God has allowed evil because without it there can be no recognition of God's perfect holiness and God's perfect love. He allows it to show more of His character.
God is eternal. To say God is eternal is more than just God has always existed and will live forever. God is not just without beginning and end. To be eternal means that God exists outside of time itself. All of time is equally present to God. That means God, right now, is aware and living in the past just as much as he is aware and living in the present, just as much as he is aware and living in the future. He exists outside of time.
Likewise, God's omnipresent nature means more than just that he exists everywhere. God exists outside of space itself. He is equally present in all aspects of space because he transcends space and time.
In the classic book, "Flatland", Edwin Abbott describes a world of 2 dimensions and how an entity in that world might see a three dimensional object. To such a two dimensional creature, a sphere walking through his universe would look like it exists in more than one place at a time. God has the same appearance to us. He exists in all time and space because he is at least one-dimension above the known universe. He is eternal and omnipresent.
God knows everything. He is omniscient. Everything He knows is important to Him. God did not learn anything. His omniscience is a state of His being. What He knows He has always known. Therefore, God can not be surprised, let down, or disappointed.
There is nothing God can not do. He has the capacity to do absolutely anything except something outside of his perfect character. But to accomplish something beyond perfection is not truly a limitation, so he is absolutely powerful.
The transcendence of God can be a little disconcerting to us. If God can see everything I do, if he knows everything about me, and can do absolutely anything, then I can not escape from Him. God's transcendence without his benevolence is a scary thing.
But Isaiah begins this whole passage with his intent in discussing God's transcendence.
"Comfort, yes, comfort My people!" Says your God.20
To those who trust in his goodness as well as his transcendence there is comfort and strength for the week.
He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.21
If we understand our place from God’s perspective, God will comfort us and give us strength. It is the weak that shall have strength, and the humble that will be lifted up by God.
The Israelites are ready to enter the Promised Land. For forty years the nation has wandered in the wilderness waiting for the last of a generation to die before they could enter the land promised to them by God. As this new generation gathers, their leader Moses stands and presents them with the law, the covenant, between them and God. At the heart of this covenant is a statement of faith regarding the character and nature of God.
"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!22
This statement has become the core of Judaism. It is the foundational creed of the Jewish faith, and therefore, by extension, the Christian faith. Yahweh our God is one.
God's oneness does not merely mean that there is only one God. It declares that God has unity in His character. All His characteristics work in complete harmony with each other. This complete unity of his character places Him in absolute control of absolutely all things. Nothing, therefore, can have any measure of control over Him. 23
Another term for this is sovereignty. Sovereignty is not just authority and power. Sovereignty is God's absoluteness, God's unity all wrapped up as oneness.
Another way to think of this is to put Moses proclamation in the cultural context of the wandering Hebrews. Monotheism was the anomaly in that day. Each culture had a pantheon of gods that were defined as the god of this or the god of that. But Yahweh, the God of Abraham is one. He is not the god of this or that. He is the God of all things. He is one. He is sovereign.
God's oneness means he does not change. He does not grow or develop. God is as He is, as He was, and as He always will be. Change becomes impossible for someone who exists outside of time. But even beyond that, there is nothing in God's character to change. If He is holy, He can't become more holy. If He could become more perfect, that would mean He was less than perfect. God must be, by nature then, immutable.
God's oneness means He is consistent with himself. He is always true to His character and always communicates consistently with His character. He is the ultimate reality. Therefore, all that He is, does and says is true. Truth, in fact, is defined as that which is consistent with God's ultimate reality.
After Moses declares the statement of faith, He dictates the response to God's oneness. If God is one, being sovereign, unchanging, and true, then our response should be wholehearted devotion to Him.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart.24
Put yourself back in the mindset of the people hearing this from Moses. These people are being told that there is one God, not a number of gods. You don't need to have divided loyalties. You don't need to please Yahweh and another god. You don't need to sacrifice to the god of rain to get good crops, and then sacrifice to the god of war to ensure victory over your enemies. There is only one sovereign God. You can wholeheartedly follow him.
While we may outwardly subscribe to monotheism in our culture today, the call to love God with all our heart, soul, and strength remains. If God is sovereign, I don't have to be divided about my pursuit. I need not worry about money, status, influence, or even mere survival. God is one. He is sovereign. He never changes. He is in control. My response can be to trust Him with all aspects of life.
Thus says the Lord: "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight," says the Lord.25
A century after Isaiah showed the folly of pride and arrogance in light of the attributes of God, Jeremiah reiterates the message. We shouldn't be proud of our wisdom, our might, or our wealth. The only thing in which we can legitimately take pride is in how well we know God.
But, in knowing God, notice the attributes by which he defines himself: lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness. God delights in his benevolent character and wants us to also.
We have already discussed how God's righteousness, or moral purity, is a part of His holiness. But his justice and righteousness are also a part of his benevolence. It might seem strange to think of God's judgment along with his lovingkindness.
Think, however, of an unjust and unrighteous god. Pagan cultures are full of gods who are vindictive and cruel. A god who treats people unfairly and with arbitrary judgement would not be seen as benevolent.
Yet Yahweh delights in judgment and righteousness. He will deal with us with justly. His judgments are never arbitrary or cruel. He is not vindictive. He is benevolent.
God's benevolence does not stop at treating us justly. He also treats us with mercy, giving us chance after chance to repent of our evil. God is a relenting God, not wanting any to perish.
The Old Testament is replete with examples of God providing warnings to people to respond to Him. He withholds punishment again and again. Our just punishment is delayed and delayed in hopes that we will change.
God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.26
Ultimately, God's benevolence is wrapped up in love. God is love. He not only is just and longsuffering. He also loves us to the point of providing a mechanism by which we can be forgiven of our wrongs.
Ultimately the reconciliation between God's holiness and love is met through the work of Jesus on the cross.
How do we respond to God's love? John continues the passage by showing how God's love eliminates fear from our life.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.27
We are not afraid that God will unjustly or arbitrarily condemn us. But more than that, we are not afraid that God will justly condemn us for the things we deserve, because he is longsuffering and relenting. Ultimately we do not have to fear any punishment from God if we accept the mechanism of reconciliation accomplished by Jesus.
We are free to make mistakes. We are free to be bold in Him. We can be confident as we approach life for we are not afraid of God. God's love can bring confidence that nothing else can. We are free from fear.
Footnotes
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The Grace Institute is a three year course of study offered at Grace Community Fellowship taking a deeper look at the scriptures, doctrine, and ministry. These notes are from the Winter/Spring 1999 semester class, Survey of Bible DoctrineThis class was taught by Ken Carson, an elder at Grace Community Fellowship. Back to The Grace Institute Home
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