Lesson for September 15, 2019
The Integrity of God – Lesson 14
Divine Essence (cont’d)
Omnipotence
God is all powerful, infinitely able to do all things by His power within His holy character or essence. He will not abuse His power or compromise His justice.If God is limited at any time, it is because of a self-limitation consistent with His own essence. God can do all He wills to do, but He may not will to do all He can.(Isaiah 44:24; II Corinthians 4:6; Ephesians 1:19-21, 3:20; Hebrews 1:3)Infinite energy and power belong to God alone. God does not sleep and never becomes tired. There never has been a time when God became tired, even after creating the universe. When it says that God rested on the seventh day after creation, it simply meant that God’s creative work was complete. (Psalm 8:3)
Though God is compassionate, He never condones or sympathizes with our excuses for not learning and applying Bible doctrine and growing in grace. When you need energy to carry on or to fulfill your responsibility as a believer in Christ, God will supply that needed energy. Regardless of how we feel at the time, there is no legitimate excuse for not being consistent in our intake and application of Bible doctrine. God does not condone giving up! His power is available 24-7!
Immutability
God is unchanging. He cannot change, cannot be better or worse than He is. The problem is that anthropopathic and anthropomorphic representations of God in the Bible are misunderstood. They really represent the perfect attitude of God toward variations in human beings or history in human language, so that we can understand God’s policy. God doesn’t hate, get angry, have hands or eyes. (Psalm 33:11; Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8; James 1:17)
God is wise and just. Just because God disciplines one believer and delivers another does not mean that God has changed. How God deals with individuals is based on His sovereignty and is always compatible with His immutability and justice. God has all the facts. Therefore, we can totally and completely trust the wisdom and immutability of God. God never acts outside of the realm of His divine essence. God’s essence never changes, but His dealings with mankind do.
Truth
God cannot lie. God’s truth is absolute truth. God is perfect truth and faithfulness. God’s truth is expressed to us in Bible doctrine.God is the truth. (John 14:6) God did not acquire truth, He is truth from eternity past. This attribute guarantees the genuineness of divine revelation. Bible doctrine, or absolute truth, is the expression of God’s integrity. God’s truth is revealed to us in His Word, the Bible. God is never unfaithful to Himself. He is always true to His divine nature and His divine essence. (Deuteronomy 32:4; I John 5:20; John 6:32, 15:1; Hebrews 8:2)
Every thought or word from God is absolute truth. Perfect, accurate revelation of the plan, policies and character of God are absolute and guaranteed by the truth of God. (Deuteronomy 32:4; John 6:32; Hebrews 8:2; I John 5:20)
Much of the absolute truth of God has not been revealed to us. We will have to wait until we get to Heaven. However, whatever has been revealed to us is meant to be understood and utilized. For this reason, we must be diligent in our pursuit of Bible doctrine. No one can understand God apart from the Word of God, the Bible. Feelings do not reveal the truth of God. God is not the so-called “still small voice in your head.” If you want to know God, you must learn about Him according to the plan He designed, by learning accurate Bible doctrine.
Learning Bible doctrine is not the same as sitting down and reading the Bible. No one can completely understand what they read in God’s Word without help. God in His wisdom has provided the filling of the Holy Spirit and the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher to accurately teach His Word. When properly and accurately done, a believer will be able to learn in a systematic way what God has revealed to us in the Bible. Therefore, it is necessary to find and support a local church where accurate Bible doctrine is being taught by a man with the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher. Of course, our ultimate teacher is God the Holy Spirit.
God always honors His Word wherever He finds it. When it is found in the soul of a believer, God honors that doctrine and that doctrine in the soul is the “raw material” that God the Holy Spirit uses to form in a believer the character of Christ. God is faithful to keep all of His promises and when a believer adjusts to God’s faithfulness by believing and claiming those promises, God is able to do great and wonderful things in his life. Since God keeps all of His promises, we can have complete confidence in God’s plan for us. (I Corinthians 1:9, 10:13; II Thessalonians 3:3; I John 1:9)
Omniscience
God is wise; He has perfect wisdom. God knows perfectly, eternally, and simultaneously all that is knowable, whether it is actual or possible. He knows our thoughts, motives, decisions and actions. God is eternal and has eternal knowledge. God is truth and His knowledge is totally and perfectly accurate. Since God has always existed, His knowledge has always existed with Him. Therefore, He knows perfectly and simultaneously everything that has occurred or ever will occur. There are three factors of divine knowledge:1)it is eternal – Acts 15:18 2)it is incomprehensible – Romans 11:33 3)it is wise – Ephesians 3:10.The future is as clear to God as the past.God foreknows the future, but He doesn’t interfere with your volition.God foreknows what will be the choices of everyone.Likewise, He may attempt to influence their choice by gracious guidance through Bible doctrine, but He doesn’t coerce. (Psalm 33:13-15, 139:2, 147:4; Matthew 6:8, 10:29-30; Hebrews 4:3; Acts 15:8; Malachi 3:16; Isaiah 46:9-10, 44:28)
God foreknows the past as well as the future and therefore the future is as clear to God as the past. However, God’s foreknowledge does not violate the free will of anyone. God never predetermines what choice a person will make in any given situation. God does however know what decision you will or will not make because of foreknowledge. He even knows the outcome of all possible decisions a person may or may not make. This should give each one of us total confidence in God and His perfect plan for our lives.
God’s knowledge did not have to be developed as ours does. God has always known all the knowable. God’s knowledge is perfect, rational and infinite. God doesn’t need to reason things out. Therefore, we need never “second-guess” God,” but we need to simply follow His plan and policies for our lives, which is always in a believer’s best interest.
Omnipresence
God is personally present everywhere. God is in every place.This is not pantheism, since pantheism denies the Person of God saying that God is in the rocks, the grass, etc.God, in the total of His essence, fills the universe. (Psalm 139:7-8; Jeremiah 23:23-24; Acts 17:27)God is also free to be local, as in the mountain with Moses, or in the Holy of Holies above the Mercy Seat. He is free to become flesh and dwell among us as Christ did. (John 1:14)
Unlike man, God is not limited by time or space. God invented time and space and is not subject to its limitations. Since God is omnipresent, He is with us at all times and can handle any adversity or problem that we face. God is infinitely greater than anything that a believer faces, and He is with us every step of the way through life. However, we must make the choice to allow God to help us handle our problems, solve our problems and guide us through this life by means of the study and application of His Word, Bible doctrine and the filling of the Holy Spirit.
Though God is limitless in His being, He may at times limit Himself, as in the case of the Hypostatic Union. Under the Doctrine of Kenosis, the deity of Jesus Christ limited Himself to the limitations of a human being. Christ deprived Himself of the use of His deity while on earth, prior to the Resurrection, while submitting to the plan of God the Father. Never did Jesus Christ become less than God, He remained co-equal and co-eternal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. Therefore, in His human body Jesus was limited to being one place at one time.