REFORMED WITNESS
Volume IV, July 1996, Number 7
I Believe in God
Part II
Article by Pastor Arie den Hartog of Hope Protestant Reformed Church, Redlands, California
In last month's article Pastor den Hartog emphasized the importance of the right knowledge of God based upon the truth of Scripture. This month the author concentrates on the nature and attributes of our glorious God.
When the Christian confesses to believe in God, he acknowledges that the Lord Who has revealed Himself in the scriptures is the one only true God. This God has revealed Himself in His wonderful and glorious attributes. God declares concerning Himself in His Word: "I even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no savior." Isaiah 43:8. "Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? Who hath told it from that time? Have not I the Lord? And there is no God beside me: a just God and a Savior; there is none beside me." Isaiah 45:21. Of this true God, Jesus says in His great high priestly prayer: "And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent." John 17:3
He is the personal, living, blessed, triune God. He is not a mere abstract being, the first cause and prime mover which philosophers talk about. He is the Living One. He is a God Who knows and loves His people. He speaks to them and makes Himself known to them. He declares Himself to be the friend of His people. He is the great I AM THAT I AM. Exodus 3:14 and 15. This is the name by which God was pleased to reveal Himself to His people Israel in the days of the Old Testament. The true God is known by this name even today. He is the God and Father of Jesus. The name Jesus means literally "Jehovah salvation." The true God is not Buddha, or Krishna, or Allah. He is Jehovah, the only true and living God.
The true God has revealed Himself in His Word as the Triune One. God is One in His Being. The church confesses that there is one God and Father who is above all and through us all and in us all. Ephesians 4:6.
There are not three gods, but only one God. Nevertheless, this one God has revealed Himself in three persons. Though this is a very profound mystery about God, it is one of the first truths of God that we must know. Anyone who denies the fact that God is triune in His being, is in fact worshiping another god, an idol, who is not the living God and not the Savior of His people. Our Lord Jesus gave the church the great commission to preach the gospel unto all nations. Those who truly believe are to be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Matthew 28:19.
That God is triune in His being is not some abstract philosophical concept of God invented by human reason, an idea about God that has no relevance at all for the Christian faith. In fact, that God is triune shows that He is the personal living God. He lives His own blessed triune life within Himself. He knows and loves Himself. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have perfect fellowship with each other. They know one another, speak to one another, and delight in one another. As the triune God, God has no need of any creature outside of Himself. He is perfectly self-sufficient and happy in Himself. Because the true God is triune in His being He can be and is the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. To deny that God is triune is to deny that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. To deny that God is triune is to deny the great mystery of our salvation which involved the Father in giving His only begotten and beloved Son for our salvation. The blessed triune God has made a covenant with His people. According to this covenant God lives with us through His Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is not a mere power coming from God but God Himself.
The true and living God is infinite in His being, and incomprehensible in His greatness. Time does not apply to God. He is the Eternal One, without beginning and without end of days. "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." Psalm 90:2.
God is infinite in relationship to space. He fills heaven and earth but He is also above and beyond space. After Solomon had built the temple, He declared in worship and adoration concerning God; "But will God in very deed dwell on earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built."
The true God is incomprehensible. He can be known only because He has revealed Himself in His creation and in His Word and in His Son Jesus Christ. He makes Himself known to His people by His Holy Spirit in their hearts. Nevertheless He can never be fully known. He is infinitely greater than our limited human understanding. He is a God of wonders. The apostle Paul says concerning this God in Romans 11:33-36. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgements, and His ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or Who hath been His counselor? O Who hath first given to Him, and it shall be repented unto him again? For of Him, and through Him, and unto Him, are all things to Whom be glory for ever. Amen." In Job 11:7 to 9 we read concerning the true God "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as the heaven; what canst thou do? Deeper than hell; what cast thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea."
The true God is absolutely transcendent in glory above His creation. He cannot be compared with any creature. He is not a mere extension of the creation. He is therefore absolutely distinct from idol gods which are all the figment of man's foolish imagination and fashioned after the image of the creature. "God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshiped by men's hands, as though He needed any thing, seeing He giveth to all, life and breath, and all things. Acts 17:24 and 25.
Though God is transcendent in glory above the heavens and earth, He is not a God who is only afar off. He does not live merely in the far distant reaches of space without any regard for the His creation. He is not the abstract god of Deism, who is little concerned and involved with the life of man on earth. The true God is also everywhere present in the universe. He is not far from any one of us. "For in Him we live and move and have our being." Acts 17:28. No man can ever escape the presence of God. This is the powerful teaching of Psalm 139 which asks the rhetorical question, "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?" The psalmist goes on in the psalm to give the fearful answer to that question. No matter where we flee to in all the universe we can never escape the presence of God. This is a terrifying truth for the ungodly but a most blessed comfort for the child of God.
God is a Spirit. He is purely invisible in His being. No man has ever seen God at any time. Even in heaven we will not see God in His divine essence for He is the Invisible One. He is not made of any substance or material. He is not limited by any form or shape. As the invisible God He is the absolutely glorious one. He cannot be represented by any image. All material and earthly representations of God are an abomination to the Lord and His wrath is upon all those who deny the infinite glory of God by seeking to make an image of God. God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth.
The true and living God is the absolutely sovereign one. He is not determined by or dependant on, or limited by any being outside of Himself. He is God of all. The creature is absolutely dependant on God. God does not depend on the creature but the creature depends on God. God does not exist for man but man was created for God. God does not need the worship of men as though He needs anything. (See Acts 17) Of Him and through Him and unto Him are all things. (See Romans 11) He is the sovereign Lord of all the universe. He sits on the circle of the heavens and rules among the nations of the earth. Before Him the nations of the earth are as nothing and as less than nothing, as a drop on a bucket and as dust in the balances. (See Isaiah 40.) He sits on His throne in the heavens and does whatsoever He pleases. (Psalm 115:3) He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. (See Revelation 19).
The true God is sovereign over all history. He has determined all things that will ever take place in history in His eternal counsel. He causes His counsel to be fully realized. He is the alpha and omega of history. Revelation 1:8. He declares "the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." Isaiah 46:10.
As the Sovereign God, God does all things for His own pleasure and glory. He created all things for His glory. Revelation 4:11. He even created the wicked for His own glory. Proverbs 16:4. He calls and forms and saves His people for His own glory. "This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise." Isaiah 43:21. (See also I Peter 2:9)
The true God is the sovereign God of salvation. Not man but God determines who shall be saved. He has determined the number of the saved in His sovereign decree of election. In the days of the Old Testament He was pleased to chose Israel alone as the nation He delighted to save. He rejected all the nations of the heathen. He condemned them to eternal destruction. (See Deuteronomy 7:6 to 8.) This Sovereign God has not changed in the New Testament age. He continues to save those whom He has chosen from before the foundations of the world. (See Romans 9 and Ephesians 1) God also sovereignly condemns those whom He wills. He does that from eternity. He raises up the wicked and uses them for His sovereign purpose. He hardens their hearts so that they will not believe in Him. He reveals His glory in the way that He rules over the wicked. Afterwards in sovereign justice and perfect righteousness He destroys the wicked. (See Romans 9.)
God does not have to wait on the will of man to save him. He saves His own with sovereign irresistible grace. Not one of those whom the Lord has chosen will be lost.
God will realize His sovereign counsel finally when He comes to destroy the wicked nations of the earth and to establish His new and everlasting kingdom in the new heavens and earth. He will glorify Himself in His Son Jesus Christ. He will exalt Him as the glorious king of the everlasting kingdom of righteousness. No one will ever be able ultimately to resist God's sovereign purpose in realizing His counsel in His everlasting kingdom. In the new heaven and earth all creatures will acknowledge Him as God alone and will understand that all glory and praise and honor belong to Him alone.
God is almighty in His power. He is infinite in power. There is no limit to His strength. He is able to do all things that He pleases. He shows His mighty power in all the universe around us. There is no power in the universe that does not come from God. He is infinitely more powerful than any mere creature. There is nothing too hard for God. He is able to do that which for man is utterly impossible. It is utterly absurd for man to imagine that He can resist God.
God is absolutely and perfectly holy. The truth of God's holiness means that God is the implication of all absolute and infinite perfection and goodness. He is light and in Him in no darkness at all. I John 1:5. A god who is not holy and all that this implies is not God. Under the truth of God's holiness are comprehended all the ethical perfections of God. God is the God of love, and grace, and mercy. He is the God of perfect wisdom, righteousness, justice, truth, and faithfulness. Each of these perfections of God are abundantly revealed in the scriptures. It would be easy to list hundreds of passages of scripture that speak of these glorious virtues of God.
God is a God of infinite and perfect love. He loves His people with an everlasting and unchangeable love. Jeremiah 31:3. God revealed the amazing greatness of His love by giving His Son for the salvation of the world. John 3:16. John testifies in his epistle that God IS LOVE. I John 4:8. The love of God for His people is absolutely sovereign. The love of God has all of its basis and reason in Himself and not in man. "Herein is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." I John 4:10.
The love of God is not merely an emotion or feeling without any attributes. The love of God is characterized by all of His perfections. God loves Himself as the highest God. He is consecrated to Himself and seeks in all things the glory of His own name.
God does not love all men. This is a common heresy in the church world. Scripture teaches that God loves only His people whom He has chosen. He hates the ungodly who rebel against Him and dishonor His name. He will surely destroy them all. See Romans 9:13. Yet He loved His people with such a sovereign and unchangeable love that He loved them when they were His enemies. While they were yet His enemies He gave His own beloved Son to the death of the cross that He might save His people from their sins and in order that they mighty be reconciled to Him. (See Romans 5)
God's grace is sovereign. The grace of God is His unmerited favor towards His elect. He saves those who in themselves were dead in trespasses and sins. Ephesians 2:1 and 2. He does not save men because of their works. He saves according to His own good pleasure those whom He wills to save. God saves by irresistible almighty grace. No man on earth of himself wants to be saved. All men are rebels against God they blind to their own lost condition and to the awful judgment their sin deserves. God in saving His people breaks their rebellious wills and gives them a new heart to know and love and seek Him as their God.
God's mercy is His compassion to His people in the misery of their own sin. In tender compassion God longs to deliver His people out of all their misery and to make them perfectly blessed through life and fellowship with Him. God is unchanging in His faithfulness and mercy. Though God's people are often unworthy and sinful, God will never forsake them. God will not allow His people to die in their misery. He will in the greatness of His mercy save them to the uttermost.
The holiness of God also means that He is a God of wrath. He hates sin and evil. His wrath is against the workers of iniquity. God's wrath is the reaction of His perfect holiness against all sin and wickedness. The anger of God is perfect. It is not an irrational ranting and raving like the anger of men. It does not come from some evil passion in God that suddenly flares up in an uncontrollable way to destroy anyone that is in the way. The wrath of God is a steady, determined, controlled reaction of His perfect holiness against sin and wickedness of men.
The wrath of God is a terrible reality for wicked sinful man. God is angry with the wicked every day. His wrath is continually revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men. Romans 1:18ff. The Old Testament surely reveals the fearful reality of the wrath of God. The Psalmist says in Psalm 90 "Who knoweth the power of thine anger? Even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath." In His wrath God often destroyed whole nations. In His wrath He chastened His people severely. He caused heathen nations to devastate the country of the Israelites, to destroy their temple and to lead them away captive to a strange land.
The wrath of God brings trouble and sorrow, suffering, and misery and death to man. Let no man think that God has changed in holy wrath so that today His love excludes His wrath. Also the New Testament speaks often of the holy wrath of God. Hebrews 10 tells us that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God. Hebrews 12 tells us that God is a consuming fire to those who do evil. In His wrath God will come finally to destroy this wicked world. The wrath of God will be poured out forever upon the wicked in hell.
The gospel calls men everywhere to flee from the wrath of God. The only place of refuge from that wrath is the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus bore God's infinite wrath against the sins of His people on the cross. This wrath caused Him in bitter anguish to cry out: "My God, My God why hast Thou forsaken me." Anyone who imagines that God is not a God of wrath will have no understanding of the great mystery of the cross and why it was necessary for Jesus to suffer the torments of hell on the cross to save His people.
God is a God of absolute perfect righteous judgment. God always acts in perfect righteousness and justice. God is the judge of all the earth. In the great and fearful day of judgment that shall come at the end of this world all men and angels must stand before the judgment seat of God.
In His righteousness God will justify His saints because Jesus has satisfied for all their sins making full atonement for them on the cross. He will impute to them by sovereign grace the perfect righteousness of the cross of Christ Jesus and declare them to be worthy of eternal life.
In His perfect justice God will also condemn and punish the wicked. He will give to the wicked the punishment they deserve because of their sins against His holy majesty. The final day of judgment will be the revelation of the righteous judgment of God. The judgment of God will be unspeakably terrible for the wicked in the end. It will result in their being cast by God into the everlasting fire of hell. Through all eternity God will be praised as the God of perfect righteousness by the whole creation.
We have given a very brief summary of some of the great attributes of God. When we say "I believe in God" we must know God according to His attributes. Man has no right to change God from what He has revealed concerning Himself in the scriptures. Modern day religion often tries to do that. There are truths about God that man does not like. So many modern day religious leaders have tried to make God over to be more pleasing to man. Doing this denies the true God and has made an idol of man's vain imagination. When we consider the god who is preached and worshiped in modernistic liberal churches over our land we can hardly recognize Him when compared with the God of the scriptures. Many who profess to believe are in fact worshiping an idol of their own imagination. Many are being deceived to their own condemnation.
When the Christian confesses I BELIEVE IN GOD he bows in humble adoration and worship before the God who has revealed Himself in the scriptures. We know that we are under solemn obligation to worship the true and living God who created us and redeemed us. We have no right to live unto ourselves and for our own glory. We have no reason to boast before the holy God of the Bible. This God is to be worshiped with deepest humility with Thanksgiving for all that He has done for us. He must be worshiped with fear and trembling. He cannot be trifled with. He is to be worshiped in Spirit and truth. If we truly believe in Him we will seek Him as the one and only God of salvation, our only hope from sin and death and hell. Believing on this God means that we are profoundly conscious of the fact that in all our life we live before this great and glorious God. This God sees and knows and judges us in all that we do. To believe in this God means that we must serve and obey Him. To believe in this God means that He must be trusted and relied upon completely. The true believer finds His joy and comfort and hope in the true God. The true God is worthy of all glory and praise and adoration. The true believer knows that God does not exist to please man but man was created in order that in all his life he might glorify and praise God His creator, redeemer and Lord. Those who believe in Him long for the day when they shall see Him in all His glorious attributes in heaven. We long for the great blessedness of life with Him eternally in perfect happiness and glory. It is our great desire to praise and magnify His name forever. May God help us and give us true faith in Him.
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