Incommunicable Attributes Part 2 (All of Life for God)
Episode Summary:
“To whom will you liken Me, and make Me equal, And compare Me, that we should be alike?”—Isaiah 46:5
Discover the majesty of the one true God in His incommunicable attributes with pastor Terry Johnson on this week’s episode of All of Life for God.
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Now this evening, what I want us to move on to is the look at the infinity of God, the third of those incommunicable attributes, and then the unity or the simplicity of God. Let's look at infinity then. What does infinity mean? God is infinite. The Catechism says he's infinite, eternal and unchangeable. What do we mean that God is infinite? We mean that there are no limitations that can be placed upon God. He is free of all limits of time, of space, of ability, and of character. Let's look at each of those. Regarding character, God is infinite. That is God is perfect. Jesus said that we are to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. He is perfect love. He is perfect justice. He is perfect righteousness. He is perfect graciousness. His character is without blemish. It is without flaw. It is perfectly pure and boundless.
We can learn, I think, by contrasting this with human character. Whereas whenever we do anything, we do so with a mixture of motives. Even at our altruistic best, there's a mixture of selfishness and self-interest. Lovely people do unlovely things. We are fickle, we fail, we disappoint each other. This is never true of God. Why? Because he is a perfect character without any flaws whatsoever, without any corruption, perfectly holy, perfectly just, perfectly loving. His character is infinite, that is infinitely perfect and pure.
Secondly, regarding power, God is infinite. That is he is omnipotent. That is he holds in his hands all the power of heaven and earth. Again, we can contrast with human capacities. There are those things that we wish to do, that we wish to accomplish, but we have physical limitations. There are things that we cannot do. We may have good intentions at times, but we grow tired and so we're not able to accomplish that which we intended to do. We need rest. We need breaks. There are bodily limits that are imposed upon us. We have to take into consideration human frailty, weakness, limitations that keep us from doing even that which we would do. The Apostle Paul in Romans 7 talks about that which he would do but he cannot do because of his own weakness and because of his own, the remaining corruption within him, "The good that I do, I do not do," he says. Jesus said the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is what? Weak.
There's that internal division that we have where there may be the highest of aspirations that we have, but we're not able to accomplish that which we aspire to do. That's never true of God. James Henley Thornwell, the great 19th century southern Presbyterian theologian says, "It is easy for God to create a world as to move a feather, to uphold all things as to speak a word." Mary was told in Luke 1:37 that with God nothing is impossible. Matthew 19:27, Jesus says, "With God all things are possible." He is, Psalm 91:1, the Almighty. Jeremiah 32:17, when he was instructed by God to buy land back in Palestine, even though Israel was being exiled and buying land didn't seem to make any sense at all since he would not ever returned to the land, was told to buy it because implied in the instruction was that one day Israel well returned to the land from which they were at that moment being banished, and as impossible as that seemed, the Lord said to him, "Nothing is too difficult for me." Nothing.
God doesn't ever grow weary. Psalm 1:21, he doesn't sleep. He doesn't slumber. We need never fear that there's something that he cannot do, that there's this weakness in him, or there is the problem of his weariness, or that he has had to rest, that he needed a nap. He's always alert, awake, empowered, able to act, shattering all the limitations that any might wish to impose upon him. One can never exhaust his supply of power and of goodness. Regarding knowledge, God is infinite in his knowledge. That is he is omniscient. Regarding character, he is perfect. Regarding power, he's omnipotent. Regarding knowledge, he is omniscient. God never learns and God never forgets. He knows all that there is to know about this world, this universe, and all that there is to know about all possible worlds and all possible universes. He knows everything there is to know, everything that is knowable.
Thomas Watson, he says he knows everything that is knowable. If it can be known, he knows it. For the child of God, that means God knows me. He knows everything about me. He knows my weaknesses. He knows my strengths. He knows what I've done, what I haven't done, what I intended to do, what I never intended to do. He knows everything. His knowledge is comprehensive, his knowledge is exhaustive. There is nothing outside of the scope of his knowledge. Whatever I am and whatever I have done, he knows all about it. Now, for the child of God that can be unsettling, but it also is a reassuring thing because he knows me and he still loves me. He still has redeemed me. He still has saved me through the cross of Christ. He still has brought me into his family in spite of all that he knows.
I think it could be comforting too because there's a tendency that people will misjudge us. They'll misunderstand what we've done. They'll misjudge our motives. They'll misjudge our actions. They'll attribute to us intentions that were never true for us. This again never happens with God. He knows our heart. Psalm 103:14, he knows our frame that we are, but dust. Psalm 139:2. He discerns our thoughts. He never misjudges us. He never falsely accuses us. Look at Psalm 139 verses 23 and 24. I believe this is why at the conclusion here he says, "Search me oh God and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." He's willing to submit his heart and his thoughts to the judgment seat of Almighty God, knowing there that he will get a just and fair verdict from him because God knows. He knows us better than we know ourselves.
Search me, oh God. God is omniscient. He never learns, he never forgets, and of all possible options, he always does that which is wise. His wisdom consistent then with his knowledge is of infinite quality. He's perfectly wise. We will know the difference between knowledge and wisdom because there are many, many knowledgeable, educated fools. Right? Our university faculties are full of that sort of person. They've earned their PhDs. They know how many angels can dance on the head of a secular pin, so to speak, but that does not make for wisdom necessarily. One can have much knowledge and be very foolish, very unwise, and yet with God there is the compliment of infinite knowledge, the compliment of infinite wisdom whereby that knowledge then is applied. God is omniscient.
Regarding time, God is eternal. He is infinite with respect to time and so he is eternal. God has had no beginning. God has had no end. God has no experience of temporal succession. He never has to say to himself, I wish I could do that over again. He's not frustrated with an unrepeatable past or an unknowable future. Louis Berkhof, a name that you should know, so I introduced him to you, but he wrote a fabulous single volume on systematic theology. It says of God's eternality, he possesses the whole of his existence in one indivisible present. W.G.T. Shedd, I think that we introduced him already. He taught at Union Seminary in New York in the late 19th century. He says of God's eternality with him, "There is no distinction between the present, past and future, but all things are equally and always present to him." Aquinas used the analogy of the hub of a wheel and time as the circle around the hub and all points are equal distance from the hub in the middle and equally accessible even though the hub is rotating and time is moving. If it's a useful metaphor for you, make use of it. If it's not, discard it.
God is not limited by time. He is not frustrated by time. He is not so much outside of time, but above time. He is, Exodus 3:14, in his seminal self-revelation to Moses, he is the I am, the name being the present tense of the Hebrew verb ever present, ever being, present tense. Genesis 21:33, he is the everlasting God. Psalm 90 verse two, which we paraphrased in singing our God, our health in ages past, before the mountains were born or you gave birth to the earth and to the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. That then being contrasted with human limitations. The limitation of the years of our life were like the grass that withers and the flower fades, but God is from everlasting to everlasting ever enduring, eternal. Psalm 102:12 and also 27, God is enthroned forever. Your years have no end. Isaiah 44:6, he is the first and the last. Revelation 1:8, the alpha and the Omega. 1 Timothy 6:16, he alone has immortality. 1 Timothy 1:17, he is eternal and immortal.
Jonathan Edwards, probably the greatest theologian that America ever produced, if not the greatest philosopher as well, and the revival preacher, somebody who believed like we believe, believed the whole Bible was true from cover to cover, lived in the 18th century and still today is widely regarded as greatest theological philosophical mind America ever produced. Jonathan Edwards said, "The eternity of God's existence is nothing else but his immediate perfect and invariable possession of the whole of his unlimited life together and at once." He says, "It is equally improper to talk of months and years of the divine existence as square miles of deity." God is eternal.
Then regarding space, God is infinite with respect to space. That is he is omnipresent. The theologians have some time referred to God's immensity. Let me quote Berkhof again. "God is present in every point of space with the whole of his being. That is there is no place where God is not. And where God is, he is present with the whole of his essence." The whole of his being is present everywhere in all of the universe. That's what's meant by the immensity of God. I'll quote Thornwell, the 19th century southern Presbyterian. "God in the fullness of his essence is present to every point of space in every point of time." There's the relationship between the eternal and the omnipresent. He is present at all times and in all places with the fullness of his being. Now, this is not pantheism, which pantheism says that matter is an extension of the essence of God. It all participates in that essence and therefore matter is an element of the being of God. Everything is God.
We'll look at that when we look at Providence in a couple of weeks and look more carefully at the relationship between God and the creation. That's not what is being said. There is an unbridgeable chasm that separates the essence of God from all created things, and yet God is present with the fullness of that essence everywhere to the ends of the universe, wherever that may be. That's the point of Psalm 1:39. If I ascend up into heaven, he's there. If I descend into Sheol, into the grave, he's there. There's nowhere to go, nowhere to escape. Remember, Hebrew expresses universals through the use of contrast. If the writer of Hebrew wants to say all day long, he says when I rise up and when I lie down. That means the whole day he's thinking about the things of God, all day long from when he rises up to when he lies down.
If the psalmist poetically wishes to make a point about God, God's omnipresence, he does so through the use of these contrasts. He says, "If I ascend to heaven or go all the way down into the depths of hell, God is there. Now, this is not a denial of the special presence of God, which is when God is pleased to manifest himself to us. That's a different thing. That's when we experience his gracious presence or even his pleasure, so that's when he manifests his power or his glory in a special way that makes it clear and obvious, tangible to us. He may manifest himself or he may keep himself hidden, but whether he makes himself manifest or makes himself hidden, he is always there. I am always coram Deo, always in the presence of God, so the psalmist is comforted by it. He might well the discomforted by it as well. God is always there. He knows, he's watching, and he's always there.
Years ago I mentioned that when I first went to England, I visited an old, old Anglican church. The church building was built before Columbus sailed. In the center of the front of the building there was a great big eyeball. Now for me, my little California 22-year-old self, that was a little bit unsettling. I'd never seen such a thing in the church. A great big eyeball looking down at us. I just thought it was plain weird. What was the point? I'm not advocating putting eyeballs anywhere in our place of worship, but the point was God is watching always, and not just in this building, the addendum I would attach to it. That's reality. He's always there, always present, always watching. He knows why because he's there. On the other hand, it's a very comforting thing to know. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me. Even there? Yes, even there. Even there in the valley, even there in the valley of the shadow of death. Even there I need fear no evil. Why? Because God is with me.
Again, I'll quote from Thornwell. "We are never beyond the reach of our Redeemer and our friend." Jesus says, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." I know Ron has this joke about how that that's why you don't get on airplanes because it's low that God is always with us, so you don't want to get up high where he's not going to be with us. Now, the point is, he is always with us. Through the prophet God says, "I will never leave nor forsake you." Always present with his people. The infinity of God means that God is infinite in character, therefore perfect. Infinite in power, therefore omnipotent. Infinite in knowledge and wisdom, therefore omniscient. Infinite with respect to time, therefore eternal. Infinite with respect to space, therefore omnipresent. What the infinity of God is teaching us, it is teaching us of the greatness of God just vast beyond all comprehension, vast beyond all the categories that we might wish to create. Expansively beyond.
This is why the Apostle Paul at the end of his consideration of predestination through chapters 9, 10, and 11 of the book of Romans comes to this conclusion, oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable his judgments and unfathomable his ways. The finite cannot comprehend the infinite for who has known the mind of the Lord or who became his counselor. Did God have to go to counselors? No, he already knew everything. Did he need helpers when he created? No, because he's omnipotent. Who is first given to Him that he might be paid back to Him? No. From Him, through Him, to Him are all things, to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Psalm 48:1, great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. The infinity of God teaches us about the greatness of the God that we serve. Then we look together at the unity or simplicity of God.
Let me say another word before I move on about, just a couple of more citations about the omnipresence of God. 1 Kings 8:27, Solomon asked at the dedication of the temple, but will God indeed dwell on the earth? You see the point of the question there? He's built a temple, so does this mean this is where God lives? Is God contained within the temple? Can we localize the essence of God and limit it to the temple, to the building that we have built? Behold heaven and highest heaven cannot contain you. How much less this house that I have built? This is the whole problem of pagan religion. It's always this attempt localize, to limit, to restrict, to contain, to control the deity. You build a house for Him and you have rituals and ceremonies by which you tap into his magic. Solomon, therefore making the point that they were very slow to learn that no, this house cannot contain God.
Again, Jeremiah 23:24, in denouncing the false prophets, God asked the rhetorical question through Jeremiah, can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him, declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? Jeremiah 23:24. Then the Apostle Paul at the Areopagus in Athens said to the Greek idolaters that God is actually not far from each one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being. As we live, as we move, as we exist, we are living and moving and existing, and we have our being in him. Never are we removed from him. Never is he removed from us.
Okay, then fourthly, unity or the simplicity of God. Two things were meant by this. First, that God is numerically one and unique. 1 Kings 8:60, the Lord is God. There is no other. 1 Corinthians 8:6, there is one God, the Father. Also, 1 Timothy 2:5, Deuteronomy 6:4, the confessional, the original confessional statement of the people of Israel, the Lord our God is one, and you shall love the Lord your God and so forth. Exodus 15:11, who is like unto you oh Lord among Gods, perfect and holiness, fearful and praises, doing wonders, God is one. One in essence. It's a simplified life for us. We don't have a whole chain of deities that we have to please, that we have to serve, that we have to obey, that we have to placate to him. That we have to offer sacrifices. There is but one God, and his essence is one. Three persons, yes, but his essence is one. The substance of God is one. There is but one God though he subsists in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then secondly, in terms of the unity or simplicity of God, he is unified in his being and character.
Now, listen carefully. This is probably the incommunicable attribute that most of us have not spent a great deal of time thinking about. What is meant there is that the essence of God is undivided. There is a consistency. It is free from composition. It is indivisible. His attributes are not parts of God. They are different ways of describing how God acts. We're not to think of there being parts of God. In fact, Article 1 of the 39 articles of the Church of England, which is repeated verbatim, the Westminster Confession, Chapter 2, Section 1 says that God is without body, parts, or passions, so God is a spirit. John 4:24, Jesus tells that to the Samaritan woman, God is invisible. He does not have a body. The Mormons are just upside down on this one. God doesn't have a body. God is not a physical being. God is a spirit and has not a body like men.
Children's Catechism, question number one, two, somewhere in the beginning, we can't divide God up. He's not made up of a composition of different things. He is indivisible in that respect, without body, without parts. Even the Confessions say, the church Fathers, the Reformers, of talk without passions. What did they mean by that? They meant that God does not have passions like we do. Our passions are involuntary in a sense. Something happens and anger flares up. Some image or opportunity passes before us, and our lust is inflamed. Our appetites are in a sense involuntary. We are often the victim of our passions. People say things to us, and they do things to us, and we respond emotionally to them. What the church has sought to guard is against the idea that there is never anything that interferes with God's perfect contentment, blessedness and happiness within himself. Nothing disrupts that. God is always perfectly blessed, perfectly content, perfectly happy. In the interrelationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, He is never the victim of passions.
When we see the language of passion attributed to God, we're to understand it in ways similar to what we understand. When the Bible speaks of the body parts of God, his hand, his arm, his legs, his feet, that's anthropomorphic language. It's ways of describing the way that God relates and acts at certain times. When it speaks of the justice of God, it will use language like wrath and anger and jealousy to describe his justice using anthropomorphic language, language used of human beings describing how human beings would act in those circumstances. Then similarly, the positive attributions describing the essential goodness of God. But never are we to think that the language of passion describes anything but a chosen outlook and response by God, not that he is upset and disoriented by an emotional response in the way that we would be. There is perfect harmony and unity in God. He is totally integrated in his being. There is agreement and consistency and unity regarding purpose and ends and means, complete contentedness, blessedness, and happiness.
What are we to say when we come to the end of the incommunicable attributes of God, that he is independent and immutable, that he is infinite, and when we speak of his simplicity. I believe the right response is that we bow down in worship and we realize that, I had to realize myself as a college senior beginning to delve deeply into the Bible, there had to come a point where I had to say, look, God is so much bigger than the tame version that I had, as I had conceived of him up to that point. He just shatters all the categories. We can't put him into a little box. All that we know is just a grain of dust in comparison with the infinite God who is there. Richard Baxter at English Puritan, for example, says there is a thousand thousand fold more that we know not of him than that we know. Cyril of Jerusalem, fourth century Church Father said, "Our highest knowledge is to confess our ignorance." Thomas Watson, another of the English Puritans says we're to learn to admire where we cannot fathom, and yet Watson says, "Our God is one who can supply all our wants, who can scatter all our fears, who can resolve all our doubts, and conquer all our temptations as we pray together."
