Theology Proper

Theologians divide the attributes of God into two categories, communicable and incommunicable. That God created man in his image means that man was given qualities corresponding to the attributes of God. However, not all of God’s attributes were included in this image. Incommunicable attributes are those for which there is no corresponding quality in his image in created man. These attributes were not communicated to Adam. They include aseity (self-existence) and infinitude (unlimited by time or space). Communicable attributes are those that God communicated to man in creation. They are his moral qualities.

God’s communicable attributes are the image of God in us. That image, and therefore those attributes, were lost or damaged in the fall. A part of God’s redemptive plan is the renewal of those communicable attributes (2 Corinthians 3:18; Colossians 3:10).

Among those communicable attributes is wisdom. It should be clearly seen that fallen man is lacking wisdom. It is equally clear that God wants to give us wisdom. Scripture, particularly the book of Proverbs, exhorts us repeatedly to “get wisdom.” The New Testament also instructs us to seek wisdom (Ephesians 5:15-17; James 1:5). But how can we get wisdom? J. I. Packer offers two prerequisites for receiving this gift.

   1. We must learn to reverence God. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” . . . Not until we have become humble and teachable, standing in awe of God’s holiness and sovereignty . . . acknowledging our own littleness, distrusting our own thoughts and willing to have our minds turned upside down, can divine wisdom become ours.
   2. We must learn to receive God’s Word. wisdom is divinely wrought in those, and those only, who apply themselves to God’s revelation. “Your commands make me wiser than my enemies,” declares the Psalmist; I have more insight than all my teachers”—why?—“for I meditate on your statutes” (Ps 119:98–99).
   So Paul admonishes the Colossians, “ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly . . . with all wisdom” (Col 3:16). How are we of the twentieth century to do this? By soaking ourselves in the Scriptures, which, as Paul told Timothy (and he had in mind the Old Testament alone!), “are able to make you wise for salvation” through faith in Christ, and to make us “thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:15&ndashl17).
   Again, it is to be feared that many today who profess to be Christ’s never learn wisdom, through failure to attend to God’s written Word. . . . How long is it since you read right through the Bible? Do you spend as much time with the Bible each day as you do even with the newspaper? What fools some of us are!—and we remain fools all our lives, simply because we will not take the trouble to do what has to be done to receive the wisdom which is God’s free gift.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 101–102.

God is love. It is appropriate that this phrase has become so well used in describing God, for God’s love is his one characteristic which explains the relationship he has chosen to have with us. But this phrase is much misunderstood and misused. It has been used to the exclusion of God’s other attributes, such as his holiness and justice. It is also used in a trite way, being equated to human affections. But, compared to God’s love, the deepest human affections are pitifully shallow.

Packer defines God’s love thusly: “God’s love is an exercise of his goodness toward individual sinners whereby, having identified himself with their welfare, he has given his Son to be their Savior, and now brings them to know and enjoy him in a covenant relation,” and explains,

   1. Gods love is an exercise of his goodness. The bible means by God’s goodness his cosmic generosity. Goodness in God, writes Berkhof, is “that perfection in God which prompts him to deal bountifully and kindly with all His creatures. It is the affection which the creator feels toward His sentient creatures as such.” (Systematic Theology, p. 70, citing Ps 145:9, 15–16; compare Lk 6:35; Acts 14:7). Of this goodness God’s love is the supreme and most glorious manifestation. . . .
    2. God’s love is an exercise of his goodness toward sinners. As such it has the nature of grace and mercy. It is an outgoing of God in kindness which is not merely undeserved but is actually contrary to desert; for the objects of God’s love are rational creatures who have broken God’s law, whose nature is corrupt in God’s sight, and who merit only condemnation and final banishment from his presence.
   It is staggering that God should love sinners; yet it is true. God loves creatures who have become unlovely and (one would have though) unlovable. There was nothing whatever in the object of his love to call it forth; nothing in us could attract or prompt it. Love among persons is awakened by something in the beloved, but the love of God is free, spontaneous, unevoked, uncaused. God loves people because he has chosen to love them . . . no reason for his love can be given except his own sovereign pleasure.
   . . .
   3. Gods love is an exercise in his goodness toward individual sinners. It is not a vague, defused good will toward everyone in general and nobody in particular; rather, as being a function of omniscient almightiness, its nature is to particularize both its objects and its effects. God’s purpose of love, formed before creation (Eph 1:4), involved, first, the choice and selection, of those whom he would bless, and second, the appointment of the benefits to be given them and the means whereby these benefits would be procured and enjoyed. All this was made sure from the start.
. . . The exercise of God’s love toward individual sinners in time is the execution of his purpose to bless those same individual sinners—a purpose which he formed in eternity.
   4. God’s love to sinners involves his identifying himself with their welfare. Such an identification is involved in all love: it is, indeed, the test of whether love is genuine or not. If a father continues cheerful and carefree while his son is getting into trouble, or if a husband remains unmoved when his wife is in distress, we wonder at once how much love there can be in their relationship, for we know that those who truly love are only happy when those whom they love are truly happy also. So it is with God and his love for us.
. . . It is not for nothing that the Bible habitually speaks of God as the loving Father and Husband of his people. It follows from the very nature of these relationships that God’s happiness will not be complete till all his beloved ones are finally out of trouble:
   Till all the ransomed church of God
   Be saved, to sin no more.
. . . 
   Thus God saves, not only for his glory, but also for his gladness. . . .
   5. God’s love to sinners was expressed by the gift of his Son to be their Savior. The measure of his love is how much it gives, and the measure of the love of God is the gift of his only Son to become human, and to die for sins, and so to become the one mediator who can bring us to God.
   . . .
   Thus, John goes straight on from his first “God is love” to say, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we love God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 Jn 4:9–10). Similarly, in his Gospel, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall . . . have eternal life.” (Jn. 3: 16). So too Paul writes, “God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still sinner, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). . . .
   6. God’s love to sinners reaches its objective as it brings them to know and enjoy him in a covenant relation. A covenant relation is one in which two parties are permanently pledged to each other in mutual service and dependence. (example: marriage). A covenant promise is one by which a covenant relation is set up. (example: marriage vows). Biblical religion has the form of covenant relation with God. . . .
   All Christians inherit this promise through faith in Christ, as Paul argues in Galatians 3:15–29. What does it mean? it is truth in a pantechnicon promise: it contains everything. “This is the first and fundamental promise,” declared Sibbes, the Puritan; “indeed, it is the life and soul of all the promises” (Works VI, 8). . . . Thus faith in Christ introduces us into a relation big with incalculable blessing, both now and for eternity.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 123–127.

Grace is a word we hear often in the church, as well we ought. Sadly, it is a word that is not as commonly understood as spoken. J. I. Packer points out that many who speak the word have actually put their faith in something else. “What is it,” he asks, “that hinders so many who profess to believe in grace from really doing so?” The answer, he says, is that they have a basic misunderstanding of the relation between themselves and God. At the root of this is a failure to grasp “four crucial truths . . . which the doctrine of grace presupposes.”

   1. The moral ill-desert of man. Modern men and women, conscious of their tremendous scientific achievements in recent years, naturally incline to a high opinion of themselves. They view material wealth as in any case more important than moral character, and in the moral realm they are resolutely kind to themselves, treating small virtues as compensating for great vices and refusing to take seriously the idea that, morally speaking, there is anything much wrong with them.
. . . The thought of themselves as creatures fallen from God’s image, rebels against God’s rule, guilty and unclean in God’s sight, fit only for God’s condemnation, never enters their heads.
   2. The retributive justice of God. The way of modern men and women is to turn a blind eye to all wrongdoing as long as they safely can. They tolerate it in others, feeling that there, but for the accident of circumstances, go they themselves. . . . The accepted maxim seems to be that as long as evil can be ignored, it should be; one should punish only as a last resort . . .
   In our pagan way, we take it for granted that God feels as we do. The idea that retribution might be the moral law of God’s world and an expression of his holy character seems to us quite fantastic. Those who uphold it find themselves accused of projecting onto God their own pathological impulses of rage and vindictiveness. Yet the Bible insists throughout that this world which God in his goodness has made is a moral world, one in which retribution is as basic a fact as breathing.
   . . .
   3. The spiritual impotence of man. Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People has been almost a modern Bible. A whole technique of business relations has been built up in recent years on the principle of putting the other person in a position where he cannot decently say no. This has confirmed modern men and women in the faith which has animated pagan religion ever since there was such a thing—namely, the belief that we can repair our own relationship with God by putting God in a position where he cannot say no anymore.
   Ancient pagans thought to do this by multiplying gifts and sacrifices; modern pagans seek to do it by churchmanship and morality. . . . but the Bible position is as stated by Toplady:
   Not the labours of my hand
   Can fulfil Thy law’s demands.
   Could my zeal no respite know,
   Could my tears for ever flow,
   All for sin could not atone
—leading to the admission of one’s own helplessness and to the conclusion:
   Thou must save, and Thou alone.
   . . .
   4. The sovereign freedom of God. Ancient paganism thought of each god as bound to his worshipers by bonds of self-interest, because he depended on their service and gifts for his welfare. Modern paganism has at the back of its mind a similar feeling that God is somehow obliged to love and help us, little though we deserve it. . . . But this feeling is not well founded. The God of the Bible does not depend on his human creatures for his well-being (see Ps 50:8–13; Acts 17:25), nor, now that we have sinned, is he bound to show us favor.
   We can only claim from him justice—and justice, for us, means certain condemnation. God does not owe it to anyone to stop justice taking its course. He is not obliged to pity and pardon; if he does so it is an act done, as we say, “of his own free will,” and nobody forces his hand. “It does not depend on man’s will or effort, but on God’s mercy” (Rom 9:16 NEB) Grace is free, in the sense of being self-originated and of proceeding from One who was free not to be gracious. Only when it is seen that what decides each individual’s destiny is whether or not God resolves to save him from his sins, and that this is a decision which God need not make in any single case, can one begin to grasp the biblical view of grace.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 128–132.

God is love. This, quite naturally, is a major theme in our understanding of God. We speak of God’s love, we sing of God’s love, we “love to tell the story of Jesus and his love.” It ought to be reflexive for Christians to revel in the love of God. However, God is not a one-dimensional being; he is not only love. He is a holy God who is righteous and just, as well; and his love does not nullify those attributes. Not only is he a loving father, he is a righteous judge. His justice will be served. The Old Testament is filled with narratives of the judgment of God falling on both pagans and the people of God. This is not only an Old Testament manifestation of God’s character, nor is this quality limited to the Father. Jesus himself is “the righteous judge.”

   When we turn from Bible history to Bible teaching—the Law, the Prophets, the Wisdom writings, the words of Christ and his apostles—we find the thoughts of God’s action in judgment overshadowing everything. The Mosaic legislation is given as from a God who is himself a just judge and will not hesitate to inflict penalties by direct providential action if his people break his law. The prophets take up this theme; indeed, the greater part of their recorded teaching consists of exposition and application of the law, and threats of judgment against the lawless and impenitent. They spend a good deal more space preaching judgment than they do prediction the Messiah and his kingdom! In the Wisdom literature, the same viewpoint appears: the one basic certainty underlying all discussion of life’s problems in Job, Ecclesiastes and all the practical maxims of Proverbs is that “God will bring you to judgment,” “God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden sin, whether it is good or evil” (Eccles 11:9; 12:14).
   People who do not actually read the Bible confidently assure us that when we move from the old testament to the new, the theme of divine judgment fades in the background. But if we examine the New Testament, even in the most cursory way, we find at once that the Old Testament emphasized God’s action as a Judge, far from being reduced, is actually intensified.
   The entire New Testament is overshadowed by the certainty of a coming day of universal judgment, and by the problem thence arising: How may we sinners get right with God while there is yet time? The New Testament looks on to “the day of judgment,” “the day of wrath,” “the wrath to come,” and proclaims Jesus, the divine Savior, as the divinely appointed Judge.
   The judge who stands before the door (Jas 5:9), “ready to judge the living and the dead” (1 Pet 4:5), “the righteous Judge” who will give Paul his crown (2 Tim 4:8), is the Lord Jesus Christ. “He is the one who has been designate by God as judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42 NEB). God “has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed,” Paul told the Athenians (Acts 17:31); and to the Romans he wrote, “God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as the gospel declares” (Rom 2:16).
   Jesus himself says the same. “The Father . . . has entrusted all judgment to the Son. . . . And he has given him authority to judge. . . . A time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear the voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned” (NEB has “will rise to hear their doom”) (Jn 5:22, 27–29). The Jesus of the New Testament, who is the world’s Savior, is its Judge as well.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 140–141.

Last week in our reading of Packer we saw that “The Jesus of the New Testament, who is the world’s Savior, is its Judge as well.” Today we will see what kind of judge he is. His authority as judge is unlike that of any judge in the human realm. The judge of the world differs from earthly judges in authority, passion, wisdom, and power.

What is involved on the idea of the Father, or Jesus, being a judge? Four thoughts at least are involved.
   1. The judge is a person with authority.In the Bible world, the king was always the supreme judge, because his was the supreme ruling authority. It is on that basis , according to the Bible, that God is judge of his world. As our Maker, he owns us, and as our Owner, he has the right to dispose of us. He has, therefore, a right to make laws for us and to reward us according to whether or not we keep them. In most modern states, the legislature and the judiciary are divided, so that the judge does not make the laws he administers; but in the ancient world this was not so, and it is not so with God. He is both the Lawgiver and the Judge.
   2. The judge is a person identified with what is good and right. The modern idea that a judge should be cold and dispassionate has no place in the Bible. The biblical judge is expected to love justice and fair play and to loathe all ill treatment of one person by another. An unjust judge, one who has no interest in seeing right triumph over wrong, is by biblical standards a monstrosity. The bible leaves us in no doubt that God loves righteousness and hates iniquity, and that the ideal of a judge wholly identified with what is good and right in perfectly fulfilled in him.
   3. The judge is a person of wisdom, to discern truth. In the biblical setting, the judge’s first task is to ascertain the facts in the case that is before him. There is no jury; it is his responsibly, and his alone, to question, and cross-examine, and detect lies and pierce through evasions and establish how matters really stand. When the Bible pictures God judging, it emphasizes his omniscience and wisdom as the searcher of hearts and the finder of facts. Nothing can escape him; we may fool men, but we cannot fool God. He knows us, and judges us, as we really are.
   When Abraham met the Lord in human form at the oaks of Mamre, he gave Abraham to understand the he was on the way to Sodom, to establish the truth about the moral situation there. “The Lord said, ‘The outcry against Sodom and Gamorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down an see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know’” (Gen 18:20–21). So it is always. God will know. His judgment is according to truth—factual truth, as well as moral truth. He judges “the secrets of men,” not just their public façade. Not for nothing does Paul say, “We must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Cor 5:10 RV).
   4. The judge is a person of power to execute sentence. The modern judge does no more than pronounce the sentence; another department of the judicial executive then carries it out. The same was true in the ancient world. But God is his own executioner. As he legislates and sentences, so he punishes. All judicial functions coalesce in him.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 141–142.

Judge — it’s a serious title, and one that does not evoke pleasant thoughts. It’s certainly not the first word we think of when we hear the name “Jesus.” But we do not understand Jesus rightly if we neglect knowing him as our judge.

It is not always realized that the main New Testament authority on find judgment, just as on heaven and hell, is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Rightly does the Anglican burial service address Jesus in a single breath as “holy and merciful Saviour, thou most worthy Judge eternal.” For Jesus constantly affirmed that in the day when all appear before God’s throne to receive the abiding and eternal consequences of the life they have lived, he himself will be the Father’s agent in judgment, and his word of acceptance or rejection will be decisive. Passages to note in this connection are, among others, Matthew 7:13–27; 10:26–33; 12:36–37; 13:24–50; 22:1–14; 24:36—25:46; Luke 13:23–30; 16:19–31; John 5:22–30. The clearest prefiguration of Jesus as Judge is in Matthew 25:31–34, 41: “The Son of Man . . . will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations [everybody] will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another. . . . Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance. . . .’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire.’”
   The clearest account of Jesus’ prerogative as Judge is in John 5:22–23, 26–29: “The Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. . . . The Father . . . has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man [to whom dominion, including judicial functions, was promised: Dan 7:13–14]. A time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned” (RSV). God’s own appointment has made Jesus Christ inescapable. He stands at the end of life’s road for everyone without exception. “Prepare to meet your God” was Amos’s message to Israel (Amos 4:12); “prepare to meet the risen Jesus” is God’s message to the world today (see Acts 17:31). And we can be sure that he who is true God and perfect man will make a perfectly just judge.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 144–145.

These last few posts have presented Jesus as quite fearsome, and fearsome he is. But there is more to the story of “Jesus as Judge.” Next time . . .

The last three posts in this series have presented Jesus as our judge. He is holy and righteous, and has received all power and authority from the Father to judge all men. The day is coming when he will do just that. This ought to be a cause for terror in the hearts of all who have not bowed to his lordship. But for those who are his, there is another side to Christ.

Paul refers to the fact that we must all appear before Christ’s judgment seat as “the terror of the Lord” (2 Cor 5:11 KJV), and well he might. Jesus the Lord, like his Father is holy and pure; we are neither. We live under his eye, he knows our secrets, and on judgment day the whole of our past life will be played back, as it were, before him and brought under review. If we know ourselves at all, we know we are not fit to face him. What then are we to do? The New Testament answer is: Call on the coming Judge to be your present Savior. As Judge, he is the law, but as Savior he is the gospel. Run from him now, and you will meet him as Judge then—and without hope. Seek him now, and you will find him (for “he that seeketh findeth”), and you will then discover that you are looking forward to that future meeting with joy, knowing that there is now “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1). So—
   Whilst I draw this fleeting breath;
   When my eyelids close in death;
   When I soar through tracts unknown,
   See thee on thy judment-throne;
   Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
   Let me hide myself in thee.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 146–147.

Just as we cannot know Jesus as Savior until we have first come to terms with him as Judge (see previous posts in this series), we cannot fully appreciate the goodness of God without an understanding of his wrath. But you will not hear much about the wrath of God from many pulpits today. Few home Bible studies will spend much time exploring the topic of wrath. Yet Scripture speaks more of God’s wrath than of his love. Considering that fact, shouldn’t it command more of our attention than we give it? Packer writes:

No doubt it is true that the subject of divine wrath has in the past been handled speculatively, irreverently, even malevolently. No doubt there have been some who have preached on wrath and damnation with tearless eyes and no pain in their hearts. No doubt the sight of small sects cheerfully consigning the whole word, apart from themselves, to hell has disgusted many. Yet if we would know God, it is vital that we face the truth concerning his wrath, however unfashionable it may be, and however strong our initial prejudices against it. Otherwise we shall not understand the gospel of salvation from wrath, nor the propitiatory achievement of the cross, nor the wonder of the redeeming love of God, nor shall we understand the hand of God in history and God’s present dealings with our own people; nor shall we be able to make head or tail of the blood of Revelation; nor will our evangelism have the urgency enjoyed by Jude—“save some, by snatching them out of the fire” (Jude 23 RSV). Neither our knowledge of God nor our service to him will be in accord with the Word.

The wrath of God [wrote A. W. Pink] is a perfection of the Divine character on which we need to meditate frequently. First, that our hearts may be duly impressed by God’s detestation of sin. We are ever prone to regard sin lightly, to gloss over its hideousness, to make excuses for sin. But the more we study and ponder God’s abhorrence of sin and his frightful vengeance upon it, the more likely are we to realize its heinousness. Second, to beget a true fear in our souls for God. “Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28, 29). We cannot serve Him “acceptably” unless there is due “reverence” for His awful Majesty and “godly fear” of His righteous anger, and these are best promoted by frequently calling to mind that “our God is an consuming fire.” Third, to draw our soul in fervent praise [to Jesus Christ] for having delivered us from “the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10). Our readiness or our reluctancy to meditate upon the wrath of God becomes a sure test of how our hearts really stand affected towards Him (The Attributes of God, p. 77).

Pink is right. If we would truly know God, and be know of him, we should ask him to teach us here and now to reckon with the solemn reality of his wrath.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 156–157.

The Apostle Paul, in Romans 11, instructs us to “Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God.” “The crucial word here,” writes Packer, “is and.” We must be aware of these two aspects of God’s character, neglecting neither, dwelling on neither alone, but contemplating them side by side.

God’s Goodness
Goodness, in God as in human beings, means something admirable, attractive and praiseworthy. When the biblical writers call God good. They are thinking in general of all themoral qualities which prompt his people to call him perfect, and in particular of the generosity which moves them to call him merciful and gracious and to speak of his love. . . .
   The Bible is constantly ringing the changes on the theme of the moral perfection of God, as declared in his own words and verified in the experience of his people. When God stood with Moses on Sinai and “proclaimed the name [that is, the revealed character] of the Lord [that is, God as his peoples Jehovah, the sovereign Savior who says of himself, “I am what I am” in the covenant of grace],” what he said was this, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slaw to anger abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished” (Ex 34:6–7). And this proclaiming of God’s moral perfection was carried out as the fulfillment of his promise to -make all his goodness pass before Moses (Ex 33:19). All the particular perfections that are mentioned here, and all that go with them—God’s truthfulness and trustworthiness, his unfailing justice and wisdom, his tenderness, forbearance and entire adequacy to all who penitently seek his help, his noble kindness in offering believers the exalted destiny of fellowship with him in holiness and love—these things together make up God’s goodness in the overall sense of the sum total of his revealed excellencies.
   . . .
. . . Within the cluster of God’s moral perfections there is one in particular to which the term goodness points—the quality which God especially singled out from the whole when, proclaiming “all his goodness” to Moses, he spoke of himself as “abundant in goodness and truth” (Ex 34:6 KJV). This is the quality of generosity. Generosity means a disposition to give to others in a way that has no mercenary motive, and is not limited by what the recipients deserve but constantly goes beyond it. Generosity expresses the simple wish that others should have what they need to make them happy. Generosity is, so to speak, the focal point of God’s moral perfection; it is the quality which determines how God’s other excellencies are to be displayed.
   . . .

God’s Severity
What, now of God’s severity? The word Paul uses in Romans 11:22 means literally “cutting off”; it denotes God’s decisive withdrawal of his goodness from those who have spurned it. It reminds us of a fact about God which he himself declared when he proclaimed his name to Moses; namely, that though he is “abounding in love and faithfulness,” he “does not leave the guilty unpunished”—that is, the obstinate and impenitent guilty (Ex 34:6–7). The act of severity to which Paul referred was God’s rejection of Israel as a body—breaking them off from his olive tree, of which they were the natural branches—because they did not believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. Israel had presumed on God’s goodness, while disregarding the concrete manifestation of goodness in his Son; and God’s reaction had been swift—he had cut Israel off. Paul takes occasion from this to warn his Gentile Christians readers that if they should lapse as Israel had lapsed, God would cut them off too. “You stand fast only thorough faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither ill he spare you” (Rom 11:20–21 RSV).
   The principle which Paul is applying here is that behind every display of divine goodness stands a threat of severity in judgment if that goodness is scorned. If we do not let it draw us to God in gratitude and responsive love, we have only ourselves to blame when God turns against us.
   . . .
   But God is not impatient in his severity; just the reverse. He is “slow to anger” “(Neh 9:17; Ps 103:8; 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jon 4:2) and “longsuffering” (Ex 34:6; Num 14:18; Ps 86:15 KJV). The Bible makes much of the patience and forbearance of God in postponing merited judgments in order to extend the day of grace to give more opportunity for repentance. Peter reminds us how, when the earth was corrupt and crying out for judgment, nevertheless “the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah” (1 Pet 3:20 KJV)—a reference, probably, to the hundred and twenty years’ respite (as it seems to have been) that is mentioned in Genesis 6:3.
   . . .

Our Response
From the above line of thought we can learn at least three lessons.
   1. Appreciate the goodness of God. Count your blessings. Learn not to take natural benefits, endowments and pleasures for granted; learn to thank God for them all. Do not slight the Bible nor the gospel of Jesus Christ, by and attitude of casualness toward either. The Bible shows you a Savior who suffered and died in order that we sinners might be reconciled to God; Calvary is the measure of the goodness of God; lay it to heart. Ask yourself the psalmist’s question —“How can I Repay the Lord of all his goodness to me?” Seek grace to give his answer—“I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. . . . O Lord, truly I am your servant; . . . I will fulfill my vows to the Lord” (Ps 116:12–18).
   2. Appreciate the patience of God. Think how he has born with you, and still bears with you, when so much in your life is unworthy of him and you have so richly deserve his rejection. Learn to marvel at his patience and seek grace to imitate it in your dealings with others; and try not to try his patience any more.
   3. Appreciate the discipline of God. He is both your upholder and, in the last analysis, your environment. All things come of him, and you have tasted his goodness ever day of your life. Has this experience led you to repentance and faith in Christ? If not, you are trifling with God and stand under the threat of his severity. But if, now, he (in Whitefield’s phrase ) puts thorns in your bed, it is only to awaken you from the sleep of spiritual death—to make you rise up to seek his mercy.
   Or if you are a true believer, and he still puts thorns on your bed, it is only to keep you from falling into the somnolence of complacency and to ensure that you “continue in his goodness” be letting your sense of need bring you back constantly in self-abasement and faith to seek his face. This kindly discipline, in which God’s severity touches us for a moment in the context of his goodness, is meant to keep us form having to bear the full brunt of that severity apart form that context. It is a discipline of love, and it must be received accordingly. “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline” (Heb 12:5). “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees” (Ps 119:71).

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 163–166.

Raised as an evangelical Lutheran, the doctrine of Justification has been pretty well drilled into me as the supreme doctrine of the church, with only sola Scriptura as its equal. I’m grateful for that heritage, and the foundation that was laid early in life. These doctrines are the very bedrock of my faith, and without them, I would have nothing to believe in.

In the last several months, however, another doctrine has absolutely captivated my heart. I cannot think of it without being utterly overwhelmed. Whenever I encounter it, I am stopped in my tracks and must simply sit and contemplate it at length. It is the doctrine of Adoption. I have more to say about that, but first this, from J. I. Packer:

   Sonship to God . . . Is not a natural but an adoptive sonship, and so the New Testament explicitly pictures it. . . . The Apostles proclaim that God has so loved those whom he redeemed on the cross that he has adopted them as heirs, to see and share the glory into which his only begotten son has already come. “God sent his Son . . . To redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full [adoptive] rights of sons” (Gal 4:4–5): we, that is, who were “foreordained unto adoption as sons by Jesus Christ unto himself” (Eph 1:5 RV). “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God! And that is what we are! . . .” (1 Jn 3:1–2).
   Some years ago, I wrote:

You sum up the whole of New Testament teaching in a single phrase, if you speak of it as a revelation of the Fatherhood of the holy Creator. In the same way, you sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ tught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctly Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. “Father” is the Christian name for God. (Evangelical Magazine 7, pp. 19–20)

This still seems to me wholly true, and very important. Our understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 201–202 [bold added]

I have a sort of mental picture of God’s adoption process. It is perhaps rather lame; I’m sure I can’t capture such profound truth in a parable of my own design.

There is a fabulously wealthy man who wants to adopt a son. It’s not that he needs to. He already has a son — and not just any son, but a son who is perfect in every way. This man is entirely happy with his natural son, and has no need of another. He loves his son, and his son loves him.

The son he wants to adopt is not just anyone, either. He knows this boy. He has seen him on several occasions. He knows this child. This child is not the typical child that most parents seek to adopt. He is no adorable, cooing baby. He is a homeless child, a loner, living in alleys and abandoned buildings. But he isn’t just any homeless child, either. He has a disease. His disease has deformed his body and twisted his mind. He is filthy, and he stinks. He is vicious and violent, entirely antisocial. He survives by scavenging and stealing. No one would want him.

The man tracks this boy down, finding him in an alley scrounging through a dumpster. He approaches the boy with a smile and an outstretched hand. The boy runs. The man follows him, tracking him to a condemned building. Cornered, the boy begins hurling debris at the man, shouting threats and obscenities.

All the while, the man looks upon him and loves him. He wants him. He wants nothing more than to take him home and lavish his wealth and affection on him. And so he does. He subdues the boy and takes him to his home. He feeds him, clothes him, and treats his illness. He loves him.

And he gives him his name and writes him into his will. This child who was nobody, with no hope, diseased and ugly, hateful and hated, is now a privileged son, heir to a fortune; and he is loved. He has been adopted.

He is me.

I love this doctrine of adoption.

What is the highest blessing and privilege offered by the gospel? Many, if not most, people’s answer would involve something about forgiveness, salvation from the penalty of sin. In short, justification; and it is no wonder that most would answer in that way. Surely, it is a wonderful thing to be forgiven and freed from the threat of eternity in hell. But there is a greater blessing than that. Packer writes:

Adoption . . . is the highest privilege that the gospel offers: higher even than justification. This may cause raising of eyebrows, for justification is the gift of God on which since Luther evangelicals have laid the greatest stress, and we are accustomed to say, almost without thinking, that free justification is God’s supreme blessing to us sinners. Nonetheless, careful thought will show the truth of the statement we have just made.
   That justification—by which we mean God's forgiveness of the past together with his acceptance for the future—is the primary and fundamental blessing of the gospel is not in question. Justification is the primary blessing, because it meets our primary spiritual need. We all stand by nature under God’s judgment; his law condemns us; guilt gnaws at us, making us restless, miserable, and in our lucid moments afraid; we have no peace in ourselves because we have no peace with our Maker. So we need the forgiveness of our sins, and assurance of a restored relationship with God, more than we need anything else in the world; and this the gospel offers us before it offers us anything else. The first gospel sermons to be preached, those recorded in Acts, lead up to the promise of forgiveness of sins to all who repent and receive Jesus as their Savior and Lord (see Acts 2:38; 3:19; 10:43; 13:38--39; compare 5:31; 17:30--31; 20:21; 22:16; 26:18; Lk 24:47).
   In Romans, Paul’s fullest exposition of his gospel—“the clearest gospel of all,” to Luther's mind—justification through the cross of Christ is expounded first (chaps. 1—5), and made basic to everything else. Regularly Paul speaks of righteousness, remission of sins, and justification as the first and immediate consequence for us of Jesus' death (Rom 3:22-26; 2 Cor 5:18--21; Gal 3:13-14; Eph 1:7; and so on). And as justification is primary blessing, so it is the fundamental blessing, in the sense that everything else in our salvation assumes it, and rests on it—adoption included.
   But this is not to say that justification is the highest blessing of the gospel. Adoption is higher, because of the richer relationship with God that it involves. Some textbooks on Christian doctrine—Berkhof's, for instance—treat adoption as a mere subsection of justification, but this is inadequate. The two ideas are distinct, and adoption is the more exalted. Justification is a forensic idea, conceived in terms of law, and viewing God as judge. In justification, God declares of penitent believers that they are not, and never will be, liable to the death that their sins deserve, because Jesus Christ, their substitute and sacrifice, tasted death in their place on the cross.
   This free gift of acquittal and peace, won for us at the cost of Calvary, is wonderful enough, in all conscience—but justification does not of itself imply any intimate or deep relationship with God the judge. In idea, at any rate, you could have the reality of justification without any close fellowship with God resulting.
   But contrast this, now, with adoption. Adoption is a family idea, conceived in terms of love, and viewing God as father. In adoption, God takes us into his family and fellowship—he establishes us as his children and heirs. Closeness, affection and generosity are at the heart of the relationship. To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is a greater.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 206–207

Once a person is saved, he no longer needs concern himself with the law. Since he has been forgiven and justified, he no longer needs worry about sin — right? Orthodox Christianity has always replied, “wrong!” But why is that? If we are indeed freed from the law, what part does obedience play in our lives?

Many have found it hard to see what claim the law can have on the Christian. We are free from the law, they say; our salvation does not depend on law-keeping; we are justified through the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. How, then, can it matter, or make any difference to anything, whether we keep the law henceforth or not? And since justification means the pardon of all sin, past, present and future, and complete acceptance for all eternity, why should we be concerned whether we sin or not? Why should we think God is concerned? Does it not show an imperfect grasp of justification when a Christian makes an issue of his daily sins, and spends time mourning over them and seeking forgiveness for them? Is not a refusal to look to the law for instruction, or to be concerned about one’s daily shortcomings, part of the true boldness of justifying faith?
   The Puritans had to face these “antinomian” ideas, and sometimes made heavy weather of answering them. If one allows it to be assumed that justification is the be-all and end-all of the gift of salvation, one will always make heavy weather of answering such arguments. The truth is that these ideas must be answered in terms not of justification but of adoption—a reality which the Puritans never highlighted quite enough*. Once the distinction is drawn between these two elements in the gift of salvation, the correct reply becomes plain.
   What is that reply? It is this: that, while it is certainly true that justification frees one forever from the need to keep the law, or try to, as means of earning life, it is equally true that adoption lays on one the abiding obligation to keep the law, as the means of pleasing one's newfound father. Law-keeping is the family likeness of God’s children; Jesus fulfilled all righteousness, and God calls us to do likewise. Adoption puts law-keeping on a new footing: as children of God, we acknowledge the law's authority as a rule for our lives, because we know that this is what our Father wants. If we sin, we confess our fault and ask our Father’s forgiveness on the basis of the family relationship, as Jesus taught us to do—“Father . . . forgive us our sins” (Lk 11:2, 4). The sins of God’s children do not destroy their justification or nullify their adoption, but they mar the children’s fellowship with their Father. “Be holy, for I am holy” is our Father’s word to us, and it is no part of justifying faith to lose sight of the fact that God, the King, wants his royal children to live lives worthy of their paternity and position.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 222–223

*Joel Beeke, in his book Heirs With Christ: The Puritans on Adoption, disagrees with this assessment of the Puritans.

All Christians desire God’s guidance in their lives. We know that we need it, and that without it, our lives will be a chaotic, purposeless mess. Unless he leads us, we cannot do his will.

But we are often confused on the subject of God’s leading. J. I. Packer suggests two common misconceptions concerning God’s guidance: 1) many who believe that God can guide, and has promised to do so, doubt their own ability to receive his guidance; 2) knowledge of God in our day has been obscured — “turned, in effect, into ignorance of God” — so that there is doubt as to whether God even has a plan, and is able and willing to give guidance. If this was true thirty-six years ago when Packer first published Knowing God, it is even more applicable in our postmodern age. So we’re going to spend two or three Tuesdays on this subject, beginning with the affirmation that God Has a Plan:

Belief that divine guidance is real rests upon two foundation-facts: first the reality of God’s plan for us; second, the ability of God to communicate with us. On both these facts the Bible has much to say. Has God a plan for individuals? Indeed he has. He has formed an “eternal purpose” (literally, a “plan of the ages”), “a plan for the fulness of time,” in accordance with which he “accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph 3:11; 1:10–11 RSV). He had a plan for the redemption of his people from Egyptian bondage, when he guided them through the sea and the desert by means of a pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. He had a plan for the return of his people from Babylonian exile, where he guided by setting Cyrus on the throne and stirring up his spirit (Ezra 1:1) to send the Jews home to build their temple. He had a plan for Jesus (see Lk 18:31; 22:22 and so on); Jesus’ whole business on earth was to do his Father’s will (Jn 4:34; Heb 10:7 ,9). God had a plan for Paul (see Acts 21:14; 22:14; 26:16–19; 1 Tim 1:16); in five of his letters Paul announces himself as an apostle “by the will of God.” God has a plan for each of his children.
   But can God communicate his plan to us? Indeed he can. As man is a communicative animal, so his Maker is a communicative God. He made known his will to and through the Old Testament prophets. He guided Jesus and Paul. Acts records several instances of detailed guidance (Philip being sent to the desert to meet the Ethiopian eunuch, 8:26, 29; Peter being told to accept the invitation of Cornelius, 10:19–20; the church Antioch being charged to send Paul and Barnabas as missionaries, 13:2; Paul and Silas being called into Europe, 16:6–10; Paul being instructed to press on with his Corinthian ministry, 18:9–10). And though guidance by dreams, visions and direct verbal messages must be judged exceptional and not normal, even for the apostles and their contemporaries, yet these events do at least show that God has no difficulty in making his will known to his servants.
   Moreover, Scripture contains explicit promises of divine guidance, whereby we may know God’s plan for our action. “I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you,” says God to David (Ps 32:8 RSV). Isaiah 58:11 contains the assurance that if the people repent and obey, “the Lord will guide you always.” Guidance is a main theme in Psalm 25, where we read, “Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. . . . Who, then, is the man that fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way chosen for him” (vv. 8–9,12). So in Proverbs 3:6, “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”
   In the New Testament, the same expectation of guidance appears. Paul’s prayer that the Colossians might be filled “with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding,” and Epaphras’s prayer that they might “stand firm in all the will of God” (Col 1:9; 4:12), clearly assume that God is ready and willing to make his will known. Wisdom in Scripture always means knowledge of the course of action that will please God and secure life, so that the promise of James 1:5—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” (RSV)—is in effect a promise of guidance. “Let your minds be remade and your whole nature thus transformed,” counsels Paul. “Then you will be able to discern the will of God, and to know what is good, acceptable, and perfect” (Rom 12:2 NEB).
   Other lines of biblical truth come in here to confirm this confidence that God will guide. First, Christians are God’s sons; and if human parents have a responsibility to give their children guidance in matters where ignorance and incapacity would spell danger, we should not doubt that in the family of God the same applies. “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Mt 7:11).
   Again, Scripture is God’s Word, “profitable” (we read) “for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16–17 RSV). “Teaching” means comprehensive instruction in doctrine and ethics, the work and will of God; “reproof,” “correction” and “training in righteousness” signify the applying of this instruction to our disordered lives; “equipped [ready] for every good work”—that is, a life set to go God’s way—is the promised result.
   Again, Christians have an indwelling Instructor, the Holy Spirit. “You have been anointed by the Holy One. . . . The anointing which you received from him abides in you, . . . his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie” (1 Jn 2:20, 27 RSV). Doubt as to the availability of guidance would be a slur on the faithfulness of the Holy Spirit to his ministry. It is notable that in Acts 8:29; 10:19; 13:2; 16:6 and most strikingly in the decree of the Jerusalem council—“it has seemed to the Holy Spirit and to us” (15:28)—the giving of guidance is specifically ascribed to the Spirit.
   Again, God seeks his glory in our lives, and he is glorified in us only when we obey his will. It follows that, as a means to his own end, he must be ready to teach us his way, so that we may walk in it. Confidence in God’s readiness to teach those who desire to obey underlies all Psalm 119. In Psalm 23:3 David proclaims the reality of God giving guidance for his own glory—“he guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”
   So we might go on, but the point is sufficiently established. It is impossible to doubt that guidance is a reality intended for, and promised to, every child of God. Christians who miss it thereby show only that they did not seek it as they should. It is right, therefore, to be concerned about one’s own receptiveness to guidance, and to study how to seek it.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 231–233.

We read last week that God does indeed have a plan, and that he is able to communicate it to us. But there is much confusion about how he accomplishes that. Packer writes on How We Receive Guidance:

Earnest Christians seeking guidance often go wrong. Why is this? Often the reason is that their notion of the nature and method of divine guidance is distorted. They look for a will-o’-the-wisp; they overlook the guidance that is ready at hand and lay themselves open to all sorts of delusions. Their basic mistake is to think of guidance as essentially inward prompting by the Holy Spirit, apart from the written Word. This idea . . . is a seed-bed in which all forms of fanatacism and folly can grow.
   How do thoughtful Christians come to make this mistake? What seems to happen is this. They hear the word guidance and think at once of a particular class of “guidance problems”—on which, perhaps, the books they have read and the testimonies they have heard tended to harp exclusively. This is the class of problems concerned with what we may call “vocational choices”—choices, that is, between competing options, all of which in themselves appear lawful and good. Should I contemplate marriage, or not? Should I marry this person, or not? . . . Should I serve God in the land of my upbringing, or abroad? Which of the professions open to me should I follow? . . . Is my present sphere of work the right one to stay in? . . . Which claims on my voluntary service time should have priority?
   . . .
   Two features about divine guidance in the case of “vocational choices” are distinctive. Both follow from the nature of the situation itself. First, these problems cannot be resolved by a direct application of biblical teaching. All one can do from Scripture is circumscribe the lawful possibilities between which the choice has to be made. (No biblical text, for instance, told the present writer to propose to the lady who is now his wife, or to seek ordination, or to start his ministry in England, or to buy his large old car.)
   Second, just because Scripture cannot decide one’s choice directly, the factor of God-given prompting and inclination, whereby one is drawn to commit oneself to one set of responsibilities rather than another and finds one’s mind settled in peace as one contemplates them, becomes decisive. The basis of the mistake which we are trying to detect is to assume, first, that all guidance problems have these same two characteristics, and, second, that all life should be treated as a field in which this kind of guidance should be sought.
   The consequences of this mistake among earnest Christians have been both comic and tragic. The idea of a life in which the inward voice of the Spirit decides and directs everything sounds most attractive, for it seems to exalt the Spirit’s ministry and to promise the closest intimacy with God; but in practice this quest for superspirituality leads only to frantic bewilderment or lunacy.
   . . .
   But the true way to honor the Holy Spirit as our guide is to honor the holy Scriptures through which he guides us. The fundamental guidance which God gives to shape our lives—the instilling, that is, of the basic convictions, attitudes, ideals and value judgments, in terms of which we are to live—is not a matter of inward promptings apart from the Word but of the pressure on our consciences of the portrayal of God’s character and will in the Word, which the Spirit enlightens us to understand and apply to ourselves.
   The basic form of divine guidance, therefore, is the presentation to us of positive ideals as guidelines for all our living. “Be the kind of person that Jesus was”; “seek this virtue, and this one, and this, and practice them up to the limit”; “know your responsibilities—husbands, to your wives; wives, to your husbands; parents, to your children; all of you, to all your fellow Christians and all your fellow human beings; know them, and seek strength constantly to discharge them”—this is how God guides us through the Bible, as any student of the Psalms, the Proverbs, the Prophets, the Sermon on the Mount, and the ethical parts of the Epistles will soon discover. “Turn from evil and do good” (Psalm 34:14; 37:27)—this is the highway along which the Bible is concerned to lead us, and all its admonitions are concerned to keep us on it. Be it noted that the reference to being “led by the Spirit” in Romans 8:14 relates not to inward “voices” or any such experience, but to mortifying known sin and not living after the flesh!
   Only within the limits of this guidance does God prompt us inwardly in matters of “vocational” decision. So never expect to be aided to marry an unbeliever, or elope with a married person, as long as 1 Corinthians 7:39 and the seventh commandment stand! The present writer has known divine guidance to be claimed for both courses of action. Inward inclinations were undoubtedly present, but they were quite certainly not from the Spirit of God, for they went against the Word. The Spirit leads within the limits which the Word sets, not beyond them. “He guides me in paths of righteousness” (Ps 23:3)—but not anywhere else.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 233–237.

We have read that God does indeed have a plan for our lives, and that he is able to communicate it to us. We have read of his method of communicating his plan to us. But knowing that does not clear the way for us to easily discern God’s guidance. There are still obstacles, and they are all us.

Even with right ideas about guidance in general, however, it is still easy to go wrong, particularly in “vocational” choices. No area of life bears clearer witness to the frailty of human nature—even regenerate human nature. The work of God in these cases is to incline first our judgment and then our whole being to the course which, of all the competing alternatives, he has marked out as best suited for us, and for his glory and the good of others through us. But the Spirit can be quenched, and we can all too easily behave in a way which stops this guidance from getting through. It is worth listing some of the main pitfalls.
   First, unwillingness to think. It is false piety, super-supernaturalism of an unhealthy and pernicious sort, that demands inward impressions that lave no rational base, and declines to heed the constant biblical summons to “consider.” God made us thinking beings, and he guides our minds as in his presence we think things out—not otherwise. “O that they were wise . . . that they would consider” (Deut 32:29 KJV).
   Second, unwillingness to think ahead and weigh the long-term consequences of alternative courses of action. “Think ahead” is part of the divine rule of life no less than of the human rule of the road. Often we can see what is wise and right (and what is foolish and wrong) only as we dwell on its long-term issues. “O that they were wise . . . that they would consider their latter end!” (Deut 32:29 KJV).
   Third, unwillingness to take advice. Scripture is emphatic on the need for this. “The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice” (Prov 12:15). It is a sign of conceit and immaturity to dispense with taking advice in major decisions. There are always people who know the Bible, human nature and our own gifts and limitations better than we do, and even if we cannot finally accept their advice, nothing but good will come to us from carefully weighing what they say.
   Fourth, unwillingness to suspect oneself. We dislike being realistic with ourselves, and we do not know ourselves at all well; we can recognize rationalizations in others and quite overlook them in ourselves. “Feelings” with an ego-boosting, or escapist, or self-indulging, or self-aggrandizing base must be detected and discredited, not mistaken for guidance. This is particularly true of sexual or sexually conditioned feelings. As a biologist-theologian has written:

The joy and general sense of well-being that often (but not always) goes with being “in love” can easily silence conscience and inhibit critical thinking. How often people say that they “feel led” to get married (and probably they will say “the Lord has so clearly guided”), when all they are really describing is a particularly novel state of endocrine balance which makes them feel extremely sanguine and happy. (O. R. Barclay, Guidance, pp. 29-30)

We need to ask ourselves why we “feel” a particular course to be right, and to make ourselves give reasons—and we shall be wise to lay the case before someone else whose judgment we trust, to give a verdict on our reasons. We need also to keep praying, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps 139:23-24 KJV). We can never distrust ourselves too much.
   Fifth, unwillingness to discount personal magnetism. Those who have not been made deeply aware of pride and self-deception in themselves cannot always detect these things in others, and this has from time to time made it possible for well-meaning but deluded people with a flair for self-dramatization to gain an alarming domination over the minds and consciences of others, who fall under their spell and decline to judge them by ordinary standards. And even when a gifted and magnetic person is aware of the danger and tries to avoid it, he is not always able to stop Christian people from treating him as an angel, or a prophet, construing his words as guidance for themselves and blindly following his lead. But this is not the way to be led by God. Outstanding people are not, indeed, necessarily wrong, but they are not necessarily right, either! They, and their views, must be respected, but may not be idolized. “Test everything. Hold on to the good” (1 Thess 5:21).
   Sixth, unwillingness to wait. “Wait on the Lord” is a constant refrain in the Psalms, and it is a necessary word, for God often keeps us waiting. He is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not his way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time. When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait on God. When action is needed, light will come.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 237–239.

Romans 8:28–39:

   28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. 29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; 30 and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.
   31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? 33 Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; 34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
   36 Just as it is written,

“For Your sake we are being put to death all day long;

We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

When Jesus Died on the cross, he did not merely make our salvation possible; he actually secured that salvation — and all that it entails — for each of his elect. J. I. Packer expounds this truth from Romans 8:

   The thought expressed by Paul’s [question in v. 32] is that no good thing will finally be withheld from us. He conveys this thought by pointing to the adequacy of God as our sovereign benefactor and to the decisiveness of his redeeming work for us.
   Three comments will bring out the force of Paul’s argument.
   Note, first, what Paul implies about the costliness of our redemption. “He did not spare his own Son.” In saving us, God went to the limit. . . . We cannot know what Calvary cost the Father, any more than we can know Jesus felt as he tasted the penalty due to our sins. . . . Yet we can say this: that if the measure of love is what it gives, then there never was such love as God showed to sinners at Calvary, nor will any subsequent love-gift to us cost God so much. So if God has already commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us (5:8), it is believable, to say the least, that he will go on to give us “all things” besides. . . .
   But this is not all. Note, second, what Paul implies about the effectiveness of our redemption. “God,” he says, “gave him up for us all”—and this fact is itself the guarantee that “all things” will be given us, because they all come to us as the direct fruit of Christ’s death. We have just said that the greatness of God’s giving on the cross makes his further giving (if the words may be allowed) natural and likely, but what we must note now is that the unity of God’s saving purpose makes such further giving necessary, and therefore certain.
   At this point the New Testament view of the cross involves more than is sometimes realized. That the apostolic writers present the death of Christ as the ground and warrant of God’s offer of forgiveness, and that we enter into forgiveness through repentance and faith in Christ, will not be disputed. But does this mean that, as a loaded gun is only potentially explosive, and an act of pulling the trigger is needed to make it go off, so Christ’s death achieved only a possibility of salvation, needing an exercise of faith on our part to trigger it off and make it actual?
   If so, then it is not strictly Christ’s death that saves us at all, any more than it is loading the gun that makes it fire: strictly speaking, we save ourselves by our faith, and for all we know, Christ’s death might not have saved anyone, since it might have been the case that nobody believed the gospel. But that is not how the New Testament sees it. The New Testament view is that the death of Christ has actually saved “us all”—all, that is to say, whom God foreknew, and has called and justified, and will in due course glorify. For our faith, which from the human point of view is the means of salvation, is from God’s point of view part of salvation, and is as directly and completely God’s gift to us as is the pardon and peace of which faith lays hold.
    Psychologically, faith is our own act, but the theological truth about it is that it is God’s work in us: our faith, and our new relationship with God as believers, and all the divine gifts that are enjoyed within this relationship, were all alike secured for us by Jesus’ death on the cross. For the cross was not an isolated event; it was, rather, the focal point in God’s eternal plan to save his elect, and it ensured and guaranteed first the calling (the bringing to faith, through the gospel in the mind and the Holy Spirit in the heart), and then the justification, and finally the glorification, of all for whom, specifically and personally, Christ died.
   Now we see why the Greek of this verse says literally (and so the KJV renders it), how shall he not with him also give us all things? It is simply impossible for him not to do this, for Christ and “all things” go together as ingredients in the single gift of eternal life and glory, and the giving of Christ for us, to remove the “sin barrier” by substitutionary atonement, has effectively opened the door to our being given all the rest. . . .
   Note, third, what Paul implies about the consequences of redemption. God, he says, will with Christ give us “all things.” What does that cover? Calling, justification, glorification (which in v. 30 includes everything from the new birth to the resurrection of the body) have already been mentioned, and so throughout Romans 8 has the many sided ministry of the Holy Spirit. Here is wealth indeed, and from other Scriptures we could add to it. . . .

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 264–266

Tuesday has been Theology Proper day here, and having finished Knowing God, I’ve been considering what to start next. Perusing my bookshelves, I was met with the accusing countenance of Stephen Charnock’s (1628–1680) The Existence and Attributes of God scowling at me from beneath a thin layer of dust. I bought it a couple of years ago on a ridiculous sale (because I had to have it), set all 1150 pages of it impressively on my shelf, and have hardly looked at it since. So now I am going to give it a shot.

Whenever I pick up one of these old-timers, it seems I am always impressed with how well their comments on their age apply to ours. Their really is “nothing new under the sun,” and reading old books is one good way of seeing that truism proven.

Expounding Psalm 14:1, Charnock demonstrates that the existence of God is obvious for all to see, so that only fools deny it, and they not entirely sincerely. It would seem, then, that apologetics defending the existence of God would be unnecessary. Yet Charnock gives several reasons for the necessity of speaking apologetically of the existence of God. The following paragraph seems to speak directly to our age.

   But, 1. Doth not the growth of atheism among us render this [teaching the existence of God] necessary? may it not justly be suspected, that the swarms of atheists are more numerous in our times, than history records to have been in any age, when men will not only say it in their hearts, but publish it with their lips, and boast that they have shaken off the shackles which bind other men’s consciences? Doth not the bare-faced debauchery of men evidence such a settled sentiment, or least a careless belief of the truth, which lies at the root, and sprouts up in such venomous branches in the world? Can men’s hearts be free from that principle wherewith their practices are so openly depraved? It is true, the light of nature shines too vigorously for the power of man totally to put it out; yet loathsome actions impair and weaken the actual thoughts and considerations of a Deity, and are like mists that darken the light of the sun, though they cannot extinguish it: their consciences, as a candlestick, must hold it, though their unrighteousness obscure it, (Rom. i. 18.) “Who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” The engraved characters of the law of nature remain, though they daub them with their muddy lusts to make them illegible: so that since the inconsideration of a Deity is the cause of all the wickedness and extravagances of men; and as Austin saith, the proposition is always true, the fool hath said in his heart, &c. and more evidently true in this age than any, it will not be unnecessary to discourse of the demonstrations of this first principle. The apostles spent little time in urging this truth; it was taken for granted all over the world, and they were generally devout in the worship of those idols they thought to be gods: that age run from one God to many, and our age is running from one God to none at all.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, 1:26

If the Apostles, who spoke to a very deistic culture (and under the inspiration of The Holy Spirit), found it necessary to defend God’s existence, how much more necessary it is in an age in which denial of God is becoming more fashionable every day.

As Charnock continues, we see that this is so because of “that secret atheism which is in the heart of every man by nature.” That secret atheism does not entirely and sincerely deny God, as much as it simply wishes that there were no God.

   4. It is necessary to depress that secret atheism which is in the heart of every man by nature. Though every visible object which offers itself to our sense, presents a deity to our minds, and exhorts to subscribe to the truth of it; yet there is a root of atheism springing up sometimes in wavering thoughts and foolish imaginations, inordinate actions, and secret wishes. Certain it is, that every man that doth not love God, denies God; now can he that disaffects him, and hath a slavish fear of him, wish his existence, and say to his own heart with any cheerfulness, there is a God, and make it his chief care to persuade himself of it? he would persuade himself there is no God, and stifle the seeds of it in his reason and conscience, that he might have the greatest liberty to entertain the allurements of the flesh. It is necessary to excite men to daily and actual considerations of God and his nature, which would be a bar to much of that wickedness which overflows in the lives of men.

—Ibid., 27

One died for asserting one God; none, in the former ages upon record, hath died for asserting no God. —Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, 1:30.

While certain famous persons give a public face to atheism, and make it seem to be a common belief, atheism has in fact never been the belief of rational people. In every culture since the beginning of time, the existence of some deity has been assumed. Christians know that this is because the existence of God is made obvious through his creation (Romans 1:19–20). This universal belief is no inconsequential matter of opinion. Throughout history, men and women have laid down their lives rather than deny God. Atheists, in contrast, have no Book of Martyrs.

Charnock writes on this universal knowledge of God and its cause in nature:

   The apostle resolves it (Rom. i. 19, 20), “The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.” They know, or might know, by the things that were made, the eternity and power of God; their sense might take a circuit about every object, and their minds collect the being and something of the perfections of the Deity. The first discourse of the mind upon the sight of a delicate piece of workmanship, is the conclusion of the being of an artificer, and the admiration of his skill and industry. The apostle doth not say, the invisible things of God are believed, or they have an opinion of them, but they are seen, and clearly seen. They are like crystal glasses, which give a clear representation of the existence of a Deity, like that mirror, reported to be in a temple in Arcadia, which represented to the spectator, not his own face, but the image of that deity which he worshipped. The whole world is like a looking-glass, which, whole and entire, represents the image of God, and every broken piece of it, every little shred of a creature doth the like; not only the great ones, elephants and the leviathan, but ants, flies, worms, whose bodies rather than names we know: the greater cattle and the creeping things (Gen. i. 24); not naming there any intermediate creature, to direct us to view him in the smaller letters, as well as the greater characters of the world. His name is “glorious,” and his attributes are excellent “in all the earth;” [Psalm viii. 1.] in every creature, as the glory of the sun is in every beam and smaller flash; he is seen in every insect, in every spire of grass. The voice of the Creator is in the most contemptible creature. The apostle adds, that they are so clearly seen, that men are inexcusable if they have not some knowledge of God by them.; if they might not certainly know them, they might nave some excuse: so that his existence is not only probably, but demonstratively proved from the things of the world [Banes in Aquin. Par. 2. Qu. 2. Artic. 2. p. 78. col. 2.].
   Especially the heavens declare him, which God “stretches out like a curtain” [Psalm civ. 2.], or, as some render the word, a “skin,” whereby is signified, that heaven is as an open book, which was anciently made of the skins of beasts, that by the knowledge of them we may be taught the knowledge of God. Where Scripture was not revealed, the world served for a witness of a God; whatever arguments the Scripture uses to prove it, are drawn from nature (though, indeed, it doth not so much prove as suppose the existence of a God); but what arguments it uses are from the creatures, and particularly the heavens, which are the public preachers of this doctrine. The breath of God sounds to all the world through those organ-pipes. His being is visible in their existence, his wisdom in their frame, his power in their motion, his goodness in their usefulness. They have a voice, and their voice is as intelligible as any common language [“For their voice goeth to the end of the earth,” Psalm xix. 1, 2.]. And those are so plain heralds of a Deity, that the heathen mistook them for deities, and gave them a particular adoration, which was due to that God they declared. The first idolatry seems to be of those heavenly bodies, which began probably in the time of Nimrod. In Job’s time it is certain they admired the glory of the sun, and the brightness of the moon, not without kissing their hands, a sign of adoration [Job xxxi. 26, 27.]. It is evident a man may as well doubt whether there be when he sees his beams gilding the earth, as doubt whether there be a God, when he sees his works spread in the world.

—Ibid., 42–43

Sometimes the best we can do in describing God is to describe what he is not.

   When we say God is a Spirit, it is to be understood by way of negation. There are two ways of knowing or describing God: by way of affirmation, affirming that of him in a way of eminency, which is excellent in the creature, as when we say God is wise, good; the other, by way of negation, when we remove from God in our conceptions what is tainted with imperfection in the creature. The first ascribes to him whatsoever is excellent; the other separates from him whatsoever is imperfect. The first is like a limning, which adds one colour to another to make a comely picture; the other is like a carving, which pares and cuts away whatsoever is superfluous, to make a complete statue. This way of negation is more easy; we better understand what God is not, than what he is; and most of our knowledge of God is by this way; as when we say God is infinite, immense, immutable, they are negatives; he hath no limits, is confined to no place, admits of no change. When we remove from him what is inconsistent with his being, we do more strongly assert his being, and know more of him when we elevate him above all, and above our own capacity. And when we say God is a Spirit, it is a negation; he is not a body, he consists not of various parts, extended one without and beyond another. He is not a spirit, so as our souls are, to be the form of any body; a spirit, not as angels and souls are, but infinitely higher. We call him so, because, in regard of our weakness, we have, not any other term of excellency to express or conceive of him by; we transfer it to God in honour, because spirit is the highest excellency in our nature: yet we must apprehend God above any spirit, since his nature is so great that he cannot be declared by human speech, perceived by human sense, or conceived by human understanding.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker, 2005), 1:181–182

The Second Commandment forbids the making of images of God (Exodus 20:4; Deuteronomy 5:8). Among the reasons for this prohibition is the fact that it is impossible to create an accurate representation of God. Charnock wrote:

   It is impossible to fashion any image of God. If our more capacious souls cannot grasp his nature, our weaker sense cannot frame his image; it is more possible, of the two, to comprehend him in our minds, than to frame him in an image to our sense. He inhabits inaccessible light; as it is impossible for the eye of man to see him, it is impossible for the art of man to paint him upon walls, and carve him out of wood. None knows him but himself, none can describe him but himself. Can we draw a figure of our own souls, and express that part of ourselves, wherein we are most like God? Can we extend this to any bodily figure, and divide it into parts? How can we deal so with the original copy, whence the first draught of our souls were taken, and which is infinitely more spiritual than men or angels? No corporal thing can represent spiritual substance; there is no proportion in nature between them. God is simple, infinite, immense, eternal, invisible, incorruptible being; a statue is a compounded, finite, limited, temporal, visible and corruptible body. God is a living spirit; but a statue nor sees, nor hears, nor perceives anything. But suppose God had a body, it is impossible to mold an image of it in the true glory of that body; can the statue of an excellent monarch represent the majesty of his countenance, though made by the skillfullest workman in the world? If God had a body in some measure suited to his excellency, were it possible for man to make an image of him, who cannot picture light, heat, motion, magnitude, and dazzling property of the sun? The excellence of any corporeal nature of the least creature, the temper, instinct, artifice, are beyond the power of a carving tool; much more is God.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 193.

Here’s a real mind-bender for you:
Stephen Charnock on the Eternity of God.

   God is without beginning. “In the beginning” God created the world (Gen. i. 1) God was then before the beginning of it; and what point can be set wherein God began, if he were before the beginning created things? God was without beginning, though all other things had time and beginning from him. As unity is before all numbers, so is God before all his creatures, Abraham called upon the name of the everlasting God (Gen. xxi. 33) the eternal God.—It is opposed to the heathen gods, which were but of yesterday, new coined, and so new; but the eternal God was before the world was made. In that sense it is to be understood; “The mystery which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the command of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith” (Rom. xvi. 26). The gospel is not preached by the command of a new and temporary god, but of that God that was before all ages: though the manifestation of it be in time, yet the purpose and resolve of it was from eternity. If there were decrees before the foundation of the world, there was a Decreer before the foundation of the world. Before the foundation of the world he loved Christ as a Mediator; a fore-ordination of him was before the foundation of the world (John xvii. 24); a choice of men, and therefore a Chooser before the foundation of the world (Eph. i. 4); a grace given in Christ before the world began (2 Tim i. 9), and therefore a Donor of that grace. From those places, saith Crellius, it appears that God was before the foundation of the world, but they do not assert an absolute eternity; but to be before all creatures is equivalent to his being from eternity. Time began with the foundation of the world; but God, being before time, could have no beginning in time. Before the beginning of the creation, and the beginning of time, there could be nothing but eternity; nothing that was uncreated, that is, nothing but what was without beginning. To be in time is to have a beginning; to be before all time is never to have a beginning, but always to be; for as between the Creator and creatures there is no medium, so between time and eternity there is no medium. It is as easily deduced that he that was before all creatures is eternal, as he that made all creatures is God. If he had a beginning, he must have it from another, or from himself; if from another, that from whom he received his being would be better than he, so more a God than he. He cannot be a God that is not supreme; he cannot be supreme that owes his being to the power of another. He would not be said only to have immortality as he is (1 Tim. vi. 16), if he had it dependent on another; nor could he have a beginning from himself; if he had given beginning to himself, then he was once nothing; there was a time when he was not; if he was not, how could he be the Cause of himself? It is impossible for any to give a beginning and being to itself: if it acts it must exist, and so exist before it existed. A thing would exist as a cause before it existed as an effect. He that is not, cannot be the cause that he is; if, therefore, God does exist, and hath not his being from another, he must exist from eternity. Therefore, when we say God is of and from himself, we mean not that God gave being to himself; but it is negatively to be understood that he hath no cause of existence without himself. Whatsoever number of millions and millions of years we can imagine before the creation of the world, yet God was infinitely before those; he is therefore called the “Ancient Of Days” (Dan. vii. 9), as being before all days and time, and eminently containing in himself all times and ages. Though, indeed, God cannot properly be called ancient, that will testify that he is decaying, and shortly will not be; no more than he can be called young, which would signify that he was not long before. All created things are new and fresh; but no creature can find out any beginning of God: it is impossible that there should be any beginning of him.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:281–282

Did you get that?

It is impossible for any to give a beginning and being to itself: if it acts it must exist, and so exist before it existed. A thing would exist as a cause before it existed as an effect. He that is not, cannot be the cause that he is; if, therefore, God does exist, and hath not his being from another, he must exist from eternity.

The eternality of God juxtaposed against our finitude necessarily precludes us from gainsaying his decrees and designs. Stephen Charnock draws from the book of Job:

   How bold and foolish is it for a mortal creature to censure the counsels and actions of an eternal God, or be too curious in his inquisitions! It is by the consideration of the unreachable number of the years of God that Elihu checks two bold inquiries: “who hath enjoined him his way, or who can say, thou hast wrought iniquity? Behold, God is great, and we know him not; neither can the number of his years be searched out.”[Job xxxvi. 26, compared with ver. 23.] Eternity sets God above our inquiries and censures. Infants of a day old are not able to understand the acts of the wise and gray heads: shall we, that are so short of being and understanding as yesterday, presume to measure the motions of eternity by our scanty intellects? We that cannot foresee an unexpected accident which falls in to blast a well-laid design, and run a ship many leagues back from the intended harbor; we cannot understand the reason of things we see done in time, the motions of the sea, the generation of rain, the nature of light, the sympathies and antipathies of the creatures; and shall we dare to censure the actions of and eternal God, so infinitely beyond our reach? The counsels of a boundless being are not to be scanned by the brain of a silly worm, that hath breathed but a few minutes in the world. Since eternity cannot be comprehended in time, it is not to be judged by a creature of time: “ Let us remember to magnify his works which we behold,” because he is eternal, which is the exhortation of Elihu backed by this doctrine of God’s eternity (Job xxxvi. 24), and not accuse any work of him who is the “ancient of days,” or presume to direct him of whose eternity we come infinitely short. Whenever, therefore, any unworthy notion of the counsels and works of God is suggested to us by Satan, or our own corrupt hearts, let us look backward to God’s eternal and our own short duration, and silence ourselves with the same question wherewith God put a stop to the reasoning of Job—“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Job xxxvi. 4), and reprove ourselves for our curiosity, since we are of so short a standing, and were nothing when the eternal God laid the first stone of the world.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:295

All of God’s attributes are dependent upon his eternal being. If God has an end, none of his attributes which we recognize as being unlimited can be. What this means to us is that, if God is not eternal, his promises are meaningless; for if he ceases, his covenant ceases.

   If God be eternal, his covenant will be so. It is founded upon the eternity of God; the oath whereby he confirms it, is by his life. Since there is none greater than himself, he swears by himself (Heb. vi. 13), or by his own life, which he engageth together with his eternity for the full performance; so that if he lives forever, the covenant shall not be disannulled; it is an “immutable counsel” (ver. 16, 17). The immutability of his counsel follows the immutability of his nature. Immutability and eternity go hand in hand together. The promise of eternal life is as ancient as God himself in regard of the purpose of the promise, or in regard of the promise made to Christ for us. “Eternal life which God promised before the world began.” (Tit. i. 2): As it hath an ante-eternity, so it hath a post-eternity; therefore the gospel, which is the new covenant published, is termed the “everlasting gospel” (Rev. xiv. 6), which can no more be altered and perish, than God can change and vanish into nothing; he can as little morally deny his truth, as he can naturally desert his life. The covenant is there represented in a green color, to note his perpetual verdure; the rainbow, the emblem of the covenant “about the throne, was like to an emerald” (Rev. iv. 3), a stone of a green color, whereas the natural rainbow hath many colors; this but one, to signify its eternity.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:297.

In our last visit with Charnock, we discovered the comfort we can find in in the attribute of God that is his eternality. Now we’ll see an application regarding our attitude toward our sin.

   Let us be deeply affected by our sins long since committed. Though they are past with us, they are, in regard of God’s eternity, present with him; there is no succession in eternity, as there is in time. All things are before God at once; our sins are before him, as if committed at this moment, though committed long ago. As he is what he is in regard of duration, so he knows what he knows in regard of knowledge. As he is not more than he was, nor shall not be any more than he is, so he always knew what he knows, and shall not cease to know what he knows. As himself, so is his knowledge, is one indivisible point of eternity. He knows nothing but what he did know from eternity; he shall know no more for the future than he now knows. Our sins being present with him in eternity, should be present with us in our regard of remembrance of them, and sorrow for them. What though many years are lapsed, much time run out, and our iniquities almost blotted out of our memory; yet since a thousand years are, in God’s sight, and in regard of his eternity, but as a day—“a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday, when it is past, as a watch in the night.” (Ps. xc. 4)—they are before him. For suppose a man were as old as the world, above six thousand five hundred years; the sins committed five thousand years ago are, according to that rule, but as if they were committed five days ago; so that sixty-two years are but as an hour and a half; and the sins committed forty years since as if they were committed but this present hour. But if we will go further, and consider them as a watch of the night, about three hours (for the night, consisting of twelve hours, was divided into set watches), then a thousand years are but as three hours in the sight of God; and then the sins committed sixty years ago are but as if they were committed in this five minutes. Let none of us set light by the iniquities committed many years ago, and imagine the length of time can wipe out their guilt. No; let us consider them in relation to God’s eternity, and excite an inward remorse, as if they had been but the birth of this moment.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:301–302

As the perfection of God is dependent upon his eternality, so it is also necessary that he be immutable.

Unchangeableness doth necessarily pertain to the nature of God. It is of the same necessity with the rectitude of his nature; he can no more be changeable in his essence than he can be unrighteous in his actions. God is a necessary being; he is necessarily what he is, and, therefore, is unchangeably what he is. Mutability belongs to contingency. If any perfection of his nature could be separated from him, he would cease to be God; it is reciprocated with the nature of God. Whatsoever is immutable by nature is God; whatsoever is God is immutable by nature. Some creatures are immutable by his grace and power. God is holy, happy, wise, good by his essence; angels and men are made holy, wise, happy, strong and good by qualities and graces. The holiness, happiness, and wisdom of saints and angels, as they had a beginning, so they are capable of increase and diminution, and of an end also; for their standing is not of themselves, or from the nature of created strength, holiness, or wisdom, which in themselves are apt to fail, and finally to decay; but from the stability and conformation they have by the gift and grace of God. The heaven and earth shall be changed; and after that renewal and reparation they shall not be changed. Our bodies after the resurrection shall not be changed, but forever be “made conformable to the body of Christ” (Phil. iii. 21); but this is by the powerful grace of God: so that, indeed, those things may be said afterwards rather to be unchanged than unchangeable, because they are not so by nature, but by sovereign dispensation. As creatures have not necessary beings, so they have not necessary immutability. Necessity of being, and, therefore, immutability of being, belongs by nature only to God; otherwise, if there were any change in God, he would be sometimes what he is not, and would cease to be what he was, which is against the nature, and, indeed, against the natural notion of a Deity.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:318–319

I don’t know if there were open theists in the seventeenth century, or if Stephen Charnock foresaw the Boyds and Pinnocks of our day, but either way, Stephen Charnock has a message for them:

   If God were changeable in his knowledge, it would make him unfit to be an object of trust to any rational creature. His revelations would want the due ground for entertainment, if his understanding were changeable; for that might be revealed as truth now which might prove false hereafter, and that as false how which hereafter might prove true; and so God would be and unfit object of obedience in regard of his precepts, and an unfit object in regard of his promises. For if he be changeable in knowledge he is defective in knowledge, and might promise that now which he would know afterwards was unfit to be promised, and, therefore, unfit to be performed. It would make him an incompetent object of dread, in regard of his threatenings; for he might threaten that now which he might know hereafter were not fit or just to be inflicted. A changeable mind and understanding cannot make a due and right judgment of things to be done, and things to be avoided; no wise man would judge it reasonable to trust a weak and flitting person. God must needs to be unchangeable in his knowledge; but as the schoolmen say, that, as the sun always shines, so God always knows; as the sun never ceaseth to shine, so God never ceaseth to know. Nothing can be hid from the vast compass of his understanding, no more than anything can shelter itself without the verge of his power.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:322

Does God change his mind? How can we reconcile the passages of Scripture that seem to indicate that he does with his omnipotence and infallibility? Charnock writes:

   Prop. III. Repentance and other affections ascribed to God in Scripture, argue no change in God. We often read of God’s repenting, repenting of the good he promised (Jer. xviii. 10), and of the evil he threatened (Exod. xxxii. 14; John iii. 10), or of the work he hath wrought (Gen. vi. 6). We must observe, therefore, that
   1. Repentance is not properly in God. He is a pure Spirit and is not capable of those passions which are signs of weakness and impotence, or subject to those regrets we are subject to. Where there is a proper repentance there is a want of foresight, an ignorance of what would succeed, or a defect in the examination of the occurrences which might fall within consideration. All repentance of a fact is grounded upon a mistake in the event which was not foreseen, or upon an after knowledge of the evil of the thing which was acted by the person repenting. But God is so wise that he cannot err, so holy he cannot do evil; and his certain prescience, or foreknowledge, secures him against any unexpected events. God doth not act but upon clear and infallible reason; and a change upon passion is accounted by all so great a weakness in man, that none can entertain so unworthy a conceit of God. Where he is said to repent (Gen. vi. 6), he is also said to grieve; now no proper grief can be imagined to be in God. As repentance is inconsistent with infallible foresight, so is grief no less inconsistent with undefiled blessedness. God is “blessed forever” (Rom. ix. 8), and therefore nothing can befall that can stain that blessedness. His blessedness would be impaired and interrupted while he is repenting, though he did soon rectify that which is the cause of his repentance. “God is of one mind, and who can turn him? what his soul desires that he doth” (Job xxiii. 13).
   2. But God accommodates himself in the Scripture to our weak capacity. God hath no more of a proper repentance, than he hath of a real body; though he, in accommodation to our weakness, ascribes to himself the members of our bodies to set out to our understandings the greatness of his perfections, we must not conclude him a body like us; so, because he is said to have anger and repentance, we must not conclude him to have passions like us. When we cannot fully comprehend him as he is, he clothes himself with our nature in his expressions that we may apprehend him as we are able, and by an inspection into ourselves, learn something of the nature of God; yet those human ways of speaking ought to be understood in a manner agreeable to the infinite excellency and majesty of God, and are only designed to mark out something in God which hath a resemblance with something in us; as we cannot speak to God as gods, but as men, so we cannot understand him speaking to us as a God, unless he condescend to speak to us like a man. . . .
   3. Therefore, repentance in God is only a change of his outward conduct, according to his infallible foresight and immutable will. . . . it is a change of events, not of counsels. Repentance in us is a grief for a former fact, and a changing of our course in it; grief is not in God, but his repentance is a willing a thing should not be as it was, which will was fixed from eternity; for God, foreseeing man would fall, and decreeing to permit it, he could not be said to repent in time of what he did not repent from eternity; and therefore, if there were no repentance in God from eternity, there could be none in time. But God is said to repent when he changes the disposition of affairs without himself; as men, when they repent, alter the course of their actions, so God alters things, extra se, or without himself, but changes nothing of his own purpose within himself. It rather notes the action he is about to do, than anything in his own nature, or any, change in his eternal purpose. . . .

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:340–342

I expect that’s the most absurd title you’ll read today. As you may know, I’ve been reading The Existence and Attributes of God by Stephen Charnock, which is not a brief summary. Charnock uses a lot of words to describe God, and none are wasted. There is just no way to put God in a nutshell!

Nevertheless, I am going to try. Call this my attempt to wrap up some enormous concepts in a package more manageable to little bitty minds like mine. As I read Charnock, the following two attributes of God strike me as possibly the most important to understand, before considering his other attributes. That might change as I continue reading, but that’s how I see it presently.

God is eternal.
If God is not eternal, then that which we recognize as God is not God, for if it has a beginning, something must have caused that beginning. So if we look for the cause of that which we have called God, and investigate far enough, we must eventually find the first cause, which is necessarily uncaused, i.e., God.

God is immutable.
Immutability is a necessary characteristic of perfection. God is neither complete nor good if he is mutable. To be mutable is to be in need of improvement, or subject to corruption. If something perfect changes, it loses its perfection; if it becomes perfect, then it formerly lacked perfection. Therefore, God must be what he has always and ever will be, and, contra open theism, know all there is or ever will be to know.

So that’s the eternality and immutability of God in under 150 words. How did I do?

God’s immutability is the basis upon which all of our security rests. Because God is unchanging, we can trust his promises. And because it is he who has written our names in heaven, we can be sure that our perseverance is guaranteed.

   It consists not with the majesty of God to call a person effectually to himself today, to make him fit for his eternal love to give him faith, and take away that faith tomorrow. His effectual call is the fruit of his eternal election, and that counsel hath no other foundation but his constant and unchangeable will; a foundation that stands sure, and, therefore, called the foundation of God, and not of the creature; “the foundation of God stands sure, the Lord knows who are his” (2 Tim. ii. 19). It is not founded upon our own natural strength; it may be then subject to changes all the products of nature are. The fallen angels had created grace in their innocency, but lost it by their fall. Were this the foundation of the creature, it might soon be shaken; since man, after his revolt, can ascribe nothing constant to himself, but his own inconsistency. But the foundation is mot in the infirmity of nature, but the strength of grace, and of the grace of God, who is immutable, Who wants not virtue to be able, not kindness to be willing, to preserve his own foundation. To what purpose doth our Saviour tell his disciples their names “were written in heaven” (Luke x. 20), but to mark the infallible certainty of their salvation by an opposition to those things which perish, and have their “names written in the earth” (Jer. xvii 23); or upon the sand, where they may be defaced? And why should Christ order his disciples to rejoice that their names were written in heaven, if God were changeable to blot them out again? or why should an apostle assure us, that though God had rejected the greatest part of the Jews, he had not, therefore, rejected his people elected according to his purpose and immutable counsel; because there are none of the elect of God but will come to salvation? For, saith he, the “election hath obtained it” (Rom. xi. 7); that is, all those that are of the election have obtained it, and the others are hardened. Where the seal of sanctification is stamped, it is a testimony of God’s election and that foundation shall stand sure “the foundation of the Lord stands sure. Having this seal. “The Lord knows who are his;” that is the foundation, the “naming the name of Christ” or believing in Christ, and “departing from iniquity,” is the seal. As it is impossible when God calls those things that are not, but that they should spring up into being and appear before him; so it is impossible but that the seed of God, by his eternal purpose, should be brought to a spiritual life, and that calling cannot be retracted; for that “gift and calling is without repentance” (Rom. xi. 29) and when repentance is removed from God in regard of some works, the immutability of those works is declared; and the reason of that immutability is their pure dependence on the eternal favor and unchangeable grace of God “purposed in himself” (Eph. i. 9, 11) and not upon the mutability of the creature. Hence their happiness is not as patents among men, quam diu bene se gesserint, so long as they behave themselves well; but they have a promise that they shall behave themselves so as never to wholly depart themselves from God (Jer. xxxii. 40): I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them to do them good, but I will put my fear into their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.” God will not turn away from them, to do them good, and promiseth that they shall not turn from him forever, or forsake him. And the bottom of it is the everlasting covenant, and therefore, believing and sealing for security are linked together (Eph. i. 13). And when God doth inwardly touch his law, he puts in a will not to depart from it: (Ps. cxix. 102) “I have not departed from Thy judgments;” what is the reason? “For thou hast taught me.”

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:355–356

Stephen Charnock on God’s omniscience:

God is essentially everywhere present in heaven and earth. If God be, he must be somewhere; that which is nowhere, is nothing, since God is, he is in the world; not in one part of it; for then he would be circumscribed by it: if in the world, and only there, though it be a great space, he were also limited. Some therefore said, “God is everywhere, and nowhere” [Chrysostom]. Nowhere, i. e. not bounded by any place, nor receiving from any place anything for his preservation or sustainment. He is everywhere, because no creature, either body or spirit, can exclude the presence of his essence; for he is not only near, but in everything (Acts xvii. 28): “In him we live, and move, and have our being.” Not absent from anything, but so present with them, that they live and move in him, and move more in God, then in the air or earth wherein they are; nearer to us than our flesh to our bones, than the air to our breath; he cannot be far from them that live, and have every motion in him. The apostle doth not say, By him, but in him, to show the inwardness of his presence. As eternity is the perfection whereby he hath neither beginning nor end, immutability is the perfection whereby he hath neither increase nor diminution, so immensity of omnipresence is that whereby he hath neither bounds nor limitations. At he is in all time, yet so as to be above time; so is he in all places, yet so as to be above limitation by any place. It was a good expression by a heathen to illustrate this, “That God is a sphere or circle, whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere.” His meaning was, that the essence of God was indivisible; i. e. could not be divided. It cannot be said here and there the lines of it terminate; it is like a line drawn out in infinite spaces, that no point can be conceived where its length and breadth ends. The sea is a vast mass of waters; yet to that it is said, “Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further.” But in cannot be said of God’s essence, hitherto it reaches and no further; here it is, and there it is not. It is plain, that God is thus immense, because his is infinite; we have reason and scripture to assent to it, though we cannot conceive it. We know that God is eternal, though eternity is to great to be measured by the sort line of a created understanding. We cannot conceive that vastness and glory of the heavens, much less that which is so great, as to fill the heaven and the earth, yea (1 Kings viii. 27), “not to be contained in the heaven of Heavens.”

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:366–377

Now here is a concept that, obvious as it is, had never occurred to me: while God, in his omnipresence, fills all of creation, it is really creation that is contained by him. Charnock wrote:

“In him we live,” is to be understood, not of his power and goodness, perfections of his nature, distinguished according to our manner of conception from his essence, but of the essential presence of God with his creatures. If he had meant it of his efficiency in preserving us, it had not been any proof if his nearness to us. Who would go about to prove the body or sustenance of the sun to be near to us because it doth warm and enlighten us, when our sense evidenceth the distance of it? We live in the beams of the sun, but we cannot be said to live in the sun, which is so far distant from us. The expression seems to be more emphatical than to intend any less than his essential presence; but we live in him not only as the efficient cause of our life, but as the foundation sustaining our lives and motions, as if he were like air, diffused round about us; and we move in him . . . as a sponge in the sea, not containing him, but being contained by him. He compasseth all, is encompassed by none; he fills all, is comprehended by none. The Creator contains the world, the world contains not the Creator; as the hollow of the hand contains the water, the water in the hollow of the hand contains not the hand; and therefore some have chose to say, rather, that the world is in God, it lives and moves in him, than that God is in the world. If all things thus live and move in him, then he is present with everything that hath life and motion; and as long as the devils and damned have life, and motion, and being, so long is he with them; for whatsoever lives and moves, lives and moves in him.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:374–375

A final word from Charnock on the omnipresence of God:

   Let us endeavor for the more special and influential presence of God. Let the essential presence of God be our the ground of our awe, and his gracious influential presence the object of our desire. The heathen thought themselves secure they had their pretty household gods with them in their journeys: such seem to be the images Rachel stole from her father (Gen. xxxi. 19) to company her travel with blessings: she might not at that time have cast off all her respect to those idols, in the acknowledgment of which she had been educated from her infancy; and they seem to be kept by her till God called Jacob to bethel, after the rape of Dinah (Gen. xxxv. 4), when Jacob called for the strange gods, and hid them under the oak. The gracious presence of God we should look after, in our actions, as travelers, that have a charge of money or jewels, desire to keep themselves in company that may protect them from highwaymen that would rifle them. Since we have the concerns of the eternal happiness of our souls upon our hands, we should endeavor to have God’s merciful and powerful presence with us in all our ways (Ps. xiv. 5); “In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths:” acknowledge him before any action, by imploring; acknowledge him after, by rendering him the glory; acknowledge his presence before worship, in worship, after worship: it is this presence makes a kind of heaven upon earth; causeth affliction to put off the nature of misery. How much will the presence of the sun outshine the stars of lesser comforts, and fully answer the want of them! The ark of God going before us, can only make all things successful. It was this led the Israelites over Jordan, and settled them in Canaan. Without this we signify nothing: though we live without this, we cannot be distinguished forever from devils; his essential presence they have; and if we have no more, we shall be no better. It is the enlivening fructifying presence of the sun that revives the languishing earth; and this only can repair our ruined soul. Let it be, therefore, our desire, that as He fills heaven and earth by Hiss essence, he may fill our understanding and wills by his grace, that we may have another kind of presence with us than animals have in their brutish state, or devils in their chains: his essential presence maintains our beings, but his gracious presence confers and continues a happiness.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:405.

The following single sentence from Charnock, inspired by Psalm 147:5, is worthy of a post all by itself, and an excellent truth upon which to meditate.

Nothing doth so much delight a gracious soul, as an opportunity of celebrating the perfections and goodness of the Creator.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:406.

Stephen Charnock on the future knowledge of God; or, Why Open Theists Are Wrong:

God knows all future things, all things to come. The differences of time cannot hinder a knowledge of all things by him, who is before time, above time, that is not measured by hours, or days, or years; if God did not know them, the hindrance must be in himself, or in the things themselves, because they are things to come: not in himself; if it did, it must arise from some impotency in his own nature, and so we render him weak; or from an unwillingness to know, and so we render him lazy, and an enemy to his own perfection; for, simply considered, the knowledge of more things is a greater perfection than the knowledge of a few; and if the knowledge of a thing includes something of perfection, the ignorance of a thing includes something of imperfection. The knowledge of future things is a greater perfection than not to know them, and is accounted among men a great port of wisdom, which they call foresight; it is then surely a greater perfection in God to know future things, than to be ignorant of them. And would God rather have something of imperfection than be possessor of all perfection? Nor doth the hindrance lie in the things themselves, because their futurition depends upon his will; for as nothing can actually be without his will, giving it existence, so nothing can be future without his will, designing the futurity of it. Certainly if God knows all things possible, which he will not do, he must know all things future, which he is not only able, but resolved to do, or resolved to permit. God’s perfect knowledge of himself, that is, of his own infinite power and concluding will, necessarily includes a foreknowledge of what he is able to do, and what he will do. Again, if God doth not know future things, there was a time when God was ignorant of most things in the world; for before the deluge he was more ignorant than after; the more things were done in the world, the more knowledge did accrue to God, and so the more perfection; then the understanding of God was not perfect from eternity, but in time; nay, is not perfect yet, if he be ignorant of those things which are still to come to pass; he must tarry for a perfection, he wants till those futurities come to be in act, till those things which are to come, cease to be future, and begin to be present. Either God knows them, or desires to know them; if he desires to know them and doth not, there is something wanting to him; all desire speaks an absence of the object desired, and a sentiment of want in the person desiring: if he doth not desire to know them, nay, if he doth not actually know them, it destroys all providence, all his government of affairs; for his providence hath a concatenation of means with a prospect of something that is future: as in Joseph’s case, who was put into the pit, and sold to the Egyptians in order to his future advancement, and the preservation both of his father and his envious brethren. If God did not know all the future inclinations and actions of men, something might have been done by the will of Potiphar, or by the free-will of Pharaoh, whereby Joseph might have been cut short of his advancement, and so God have been interrupted in the track and method of his designed providences. He that hath decreed to govern man for that end he hath designed him, knows all the means before, whereby he will govern him, and therefore bath a distinct and certain knowledge of all things; for a confused knowledge is an imperfection in government; it is in this the infiniteness of his understanding is more seen than in knowing things past or present; his eyes are a flame of fire (Rev. i. 14), in regard of the penetrating virtue of them into things impenetrable by any else.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:429–431.

As with all of God’s attributes, the perfection of his knowledge is a great source of comfort to his children. Charnock writes:

This perfection of God fits him to be a special object of trust. If he were forgetful, what comfort could we have in any promise? How could we depend upon him, if we were ignorant of our state? His compassions to pity us, his readiness to relieve us, his power to protect and assist us, would be insignificant, without his omniscience to inform his goodness, and direct the arm of his power. This perfection is, as it were, God’s office of intelligence: as you go to your memorandum-book to know what you are to do, so doth God to his omniscience; this perfection is God’s eye, to acquaint him with the necessities of his church, and directs all his other attributes in their exercise for and about his people. You may depend upon his mercy that hath promised, and upon his truth to perform; upon his sufficiency to apply you, and his goodness to relieve you, and his righteousness to reward you; because he hath an infinite understanding to know you and your wants, you and your services. And without this knowledge of his, no comfort could be drawn from any other perfection; none of them could be a sure nail to hang our hopes and confidence upon. This is that the church alway celebrated (Ps. cv. 7): “He hath remembered his covenant for ever, and the word which he hath commanded to a thousand generations;” and (ver. 42), “He remembered his holy promise;” “And he remembered for them his covenant” (Ps. cvi. 45). He remembers and understands his covenant, therefore his promise to perform it, and therefore our wants to supply them.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:484–485.

Charnock lists three Uses (applications) of the doctrine of God’s Knowledge: Use I, information or instruction; Use II, comfort; and Use III, to humble sinners.

   Consider what a poor refuge is secrecy to a sinner. Not the mists of a foggy day, nor the obscurity of the darkest night, not the closest curtains, nor the deepest dungeon, can hide any sin from the eye of God. Adam is known in his thickets, and Jonah in his cabin. Achan’s wedge of gold is discerned by him, though buried in the earth, and hooded with a tent. Shall Sarah be unseen by him, when she mockingly laughs behind the door? Shall Gehazi tell a lie, and comfort himself with an imagination of his master’s ignorance, as long as God knows it? Whatsoever works men do, are not hid from God, whether done in the darkness or daylight, in the midnight darkness, or the noon-day sun: he is all eye to see, and he hath a great wrath to punish. The wheels in Ezekiel are full of eyes: a piercing eye to behold the sinner, and a swift wheel of wrath to overtake him. God is light, and of all things light is most difficultly kept out. The secretest sins are set in the light of his countenance (Ps. xc. 8), as legible to him, as if written with a sun-beam ; more visible to him than the greatest print to the sharpest eye. The fornications of the Samaritan woman, perhaps known only to her own conscience, were manifest to Christ (John iv. 16). There is nothing so secretly done, but there is an infallible witness to prepare a charge. Though God be invisible to us, we must not imagine we are so to him; it is a vanity, therefore, to think we can conceal ourselves from God, by concealing the notions of God from our sense and practice. If men be as close from the eyes of all men, as from those of the sun, yea, if they could separate themselves from their own shadow, they could not draw themselves from God's understanding: how, then, can darkness shelter us, or crafty artifices defend us? With what shame will sinners be filled, when God, who hath traced their steps, and writ their sins in a book, shall make a repetition of their ways, and unveil the web of their wickedness!

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:491–492.

Charnock wrote, of God’s knowledge, that it should cause us to agree with God in all things. That he knows all things, and is surprised by nothing, but works all things according to his will, should cause us to rest in him in all circumstances.

The consideration of this excellent perfection should make us to acquiesce in God, and rely upon Him in every strait. In public, in private; He knows all cases, and He knows all remedies; He knows the seasons of bringing them, and He knows the seasons of removing them, for His own glory. What is contingent in respect of us, and of our foreknowledge, and in respect of second causes, is not so in regard of God’s, who hath the knowledge of the futurition of all things; he knows all causes in themselves, and, therefore, knows what every cause will produce, what will be the event of every counsel and of every action. How should we commit ourselves to this God of infinite understanding, who knows all things, and foreknows everything; that cannot be forced through ignorance to take new counsel, or be surprised with anything that happens to us! This use the Psalmist makes of it (Ps. x. 14): “thou hast seen it, the poor committeth himself unto thee.” though “some trust in chariots and horses” (Ps. xx. 7), some in counsels and counselors, some in their arms and courage, and some in mere vanity and nothing; yet, let us remember the name and nature of the Lord our God, his divine perfections, of which this of his infinite understanding and omniscience is none of the least, but so necessary, that without it he could not be God, and the whole world would be a mere chaos and confusion.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:497.

We know that the wisdom of God is foolishness to the world; but we, i.e., believers, must admit that much of scripture is foolishness to us, too. God requires us to be diligent students of his Word, and to rely on this Holy Spirit to quicken our understanding. Charnock wrote:

The whole scheme of godliness is a mystery. No man or angel could imagine how two natures so distant as the Divine and human should be united; how the same person should be criminal and righteous; how a just God should have a satisfaction, and sinful man a justification; how the sin should be punished, and the sinner saved. None could imagine such a way of justification as the apostle in this epistle declares: it was a mystery when hid under the shadows of the law, and a mystery to the prophets when it sounded from their mouths; they searched it, without being able to comprehend it (1 Peter i. 10, 11). If it be a mystery, it is humbly to be submitted to: mysteries surmount human reason. The study of the gospel must not be with a yawning and careless frame. Trades, you call mysteries, are not learned sleeping and nodding: diligence is required; we must be disciples at God’s feet. As it had God for the author, so we must have God for the teacher of it; the contrivance was his, and the illumination of our minds must be from him. As God only manifested the gospel, so he only can open our eyes to see the mysteries of Christ in it.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:502–503.

In Charnock’s Discourse IV “On the Wisdom of God,” he offers three points in which wisdom consists: “In acting for a right end,” “in observing all circumstances for action,” and

in willing and acting according to the right reason, according to a right judgment of things. We can never count a wilful man a wise man; but him only that acts according to a right rule, when right counsels are taken and vigorously executed. The resolves and ways of God are not mere will, but will guided by the reason and counsel of his own infinite understanding (Eph. i. 11): “Who works all things according to the counsel of his own will.” The motions of the Divine will are not rash, but follow the proposals of the Divine mind; he chooses that which is fittest to be done, so that all his works are graceful, and all his ways have a comeliness and decorum in them. Hence all his ways are said to be “judgment” (Deut xxxii. 4), not mere will. Hence it appears, that wisdom and knowledge are two distinct perfections. Knowledge hath its seat in the speculative understanding, wisdom in the practical. Wisdom and knowledge are evidently distinguished as two several gifts of the Spirit in man (1 Cor. xii. 8) : “To one is given, by the Spirit, the word of wisdom; to another, the word of knowledge, by the same Spirit.” Knowledge is an understanding of general rules, and wisdom is a drawing conclusions from those rules in order to particular cases. A man may have the knowledge of the whole Scripture, and have all learning in the treasury of his memory, and yet be destitute of skill to make use of them upon particular occasions, and untie those knotty questions which may be proposed to him, by a ready application of those rules. Again, knowledge and wisdom may be distinguished, in our conception, as two distinct perfections in God : the knowledge of God is his understanding of all things; his wisdom is the skilful resolving and acting of all things. And the apostle, in his admiration of him, owns them as distinct; “O the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God” (Rom. xi. 33)! Knowledge is the foundation of wisdom, and antecedent to it; wisdom the superstructure upon knowledge: men may have knowledge without wisdom, but not wisdom without knowledge; according to our common proverb, “The greatest clerks are not the wisest men.” All practical knowledge is founded in speculation, either secundum rem, as in a man; or, secundum rationem, as in God. They agree in this, that they are both acts of the understanding; but knowledge is the apprehension of a thing, and wisdom is the appointing and ordering of things. Wisdom is the splendour and lustre of knowledge shining forth in operations, and is an act both of understanding and will; understanding in counselling and contriving, will in resolving and executing: counsel and will are linked together, (Eph. i. 11).

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:508.

As beings created in God’s image, we share some of his attributes. Those attributes that we share are called communicable attributes. We, of course, possess these attributes incompletely and imperfectly, while in God they are seen in all their complete perfection. But there is a more important, more fundamental difference in the way we possess these communicable attributes. While we are said to possess them because they are communicated, or added, to us, they are not added to God. Charnock wrote:

[T]he wisdom of God is the same with the essence of God. Wisdom in God is not a habit added to his essence, as it is in man, but it is his essence. It is like the splendour of the sun, the same with the sun itself; or like the brightness of crystal, which is not communicated to it by any thing else, as the brightness of a mountain is by the beam of the sun, but it is one with the crystal itself. It is not a habit superadded to the Divine essence; that would be repugnant to the simplicity of God, and speak him compounded of divers principles; it would be contrary to the eternity of his perfections: if he be eternally wise, his wisdom is his essence; for there is nothing eternal but the essence of God. As the sun melts some things, and hardens others; blackens some things, and whitens others, and produceth contrary qualities in different subjects, yet it is but one and the same quality in the sun, which is the cause of those contrary operations; so the perfections of God seem to be diverse in our conceptions, yet they are but one and the same in God. The wisdom of God, is God acting prudently; as the power of God, is God acting powerfully; and the justice of God, is God acting righteously: and therefore it is more truly said, that God is wisdom, justice, truth, power, than that he is wise, just, true, &c. as if he were compounded of substance and qualities. All the operations of God proceed from one simple essence; as all the operations of the mind of man, though various, proceed from one faculty of understanding.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:509.

Because God is immutable, his wisdom is also unchanging.

[God] is “only wise” perpetually. As the wisdom of man is got by ripeness of age, so it is lost by decay of years; it is got by instruction, and lost by dotage. The perfectest minds, when in the wane, have been darkened with folly: Nebuchadnezzar, that was wise for a man, became as foolish as a brute. But the Ancient of Days is an unchangeable possessor of prudence; his wisdom is a mirror of brightness, without a defacing spot. It was “possessed by him in the beginning of his ways, before his works of old” (Prov. viii. 22), and he can never be dispossessed of it in the end of his works. It is inseparable from him: the being of his Godhead may as soon cease as the beauty of his mind; “with him is wisdom” (Job xii. 13); it is inseparable from him; therefore, as durable as his essence. It is a wisdom infinite, and therefore without increase or decrease in itself. The experience of so many ages in the government of the world hath added nothing to the immensity of it, as the shining of the sun since the creation of the world hath added nothing to the light of that glorious body. As ignorance never darkens his knowledge, so folly never disgraces his prudence. God infatuates men, but neither men nor devils can infatuate God; he is unerringly wise; his counsel doth not vary and flatter; it is not one day one counsel, and another day another, but it stands like an immovable rock, or a mountain of brass. “The counsel of the Lord stands for ever, and the thoughts of his heart to all generations” (Ps. xxxiii. 11).

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:511–512.

We live in an age of overt hostility toward any theological, philosophical, ethical, or moral absolutes. All opinions must be held tentatively. They may be suggested, but never asserted. Anyone who has spent much time in internet forums has probably run into this attitude. A few years ago, one pusillanimous soul admonished me that I should always append “IMO” to every contention. Today’s tolerant mindset refuses to say one thing is absolutely right, while its opposite is absolutely wrong. Both can be right! Today’s tolerant mindset is absolutely intolerant of absolutes.

How are we to interact with those with whom we disagree? Flexibly, of course, even when dealing with people of other religions. We must never hold our convictions — if I may use such a coarse word — too firmly. Be eager to make concessions and compromises. As John MacArthur quotes Doug Pagitt, “It’s important to note that dialogue is not debate; for dialogue to be effective, we need to resist the urge to cut people off and fix what they say. Healthy dialogue involves entering into the reality of the other. . . . In dialogue you are not allowed to stay right where you are; you must move toward the perspective of the other person.”

MacArthur shows just how dissimilar that approach is to the manner in which Jesus interacted with heretics and hypocrites:

Jesus’ interaction with the religious experts of His time was rarely cordial. From the time Luke first introduces us to the Pharisees in Luke 5:17 until his final mention of the “chief priests and rulers” in Luke 24:20, every time the religious elite of Israel appear as a group of in Luke’s narrative, there is conflict. Often Jesus Himself deliberately provokes the hostilities. When He speaks to the religious leaders or about them—whether in public or private—it is usually to condemn them as fools and hypocrites (Luke 11:40; 12:1; 13:15; 18:10–14). When He knows they are watching to accuse Him of breaking their artificial Sabbath or their manmade systems of ceremonial washing, He deliberately defies their rules (Luke 6:l7–11; 11:37–44; 14:1–6). On one occasion, when He was expressly informed that His denunciations of the Pharisees were insulting to the lawyers (the leading Old Testament scholars and chief academics at the time), Jesus immediately turned to the lawyers and fired off a salvo at them, too (Luke 11:45–54).

. . . Jesus never took the irenic approach with heretics or gross hypocrites. He never made the kind of gentle private appeals contemporary evangelicals typically insist are necessary before warning others about the dangers of a false teacher’s error. Even when he dealt with the most respected religious figures in the land, He took on their errors boldly and directly, sometimes even holding them up for ridicule. He was not “nice” to them by any postmodern standard. He extended no pretense of academic courtesy to them. He didn’t invite them to dialogue privately with Him about their different points of view. He didn’t carefully couch his criticisms in vague and totally impersonal terms so that no one’s feelings would be hurt. He did nothing to tone down the reproach of His censures or minimize the Pharisees’ public embarrassment. He made His disapproval of their religion as plain and prominent as possible every time He mentioned them. He seemed utterly unmoved by their frustration with His outspokenness. Knowing that they were looking for reasons to be offended by Him, He often did and said the very things that He knew would offend them the most.

—John MacArthur, The Jesus You Can’t Ignore (Thomas Nelson, 2009), xi, xiv–xv.

A fitting addendum to yesterday’s post:

Now, we need to keep this in proper perspective. I’m not suggesting that every disagreement is an occasion for open combat, or even harsh words. Far from it. Many disagreements are so petty that it would be utterly unprofitable to engender strife over them. Merely personal conflicts, debates over arcane or unclear things, and semantic disputes usually fall into that category (2 Timothy 2:14, 23; 1 Corinthians 1:10). Not every issue on which we might hold strong opinions and disagree is of primary importance.
   Furthermore, no one who is mentally and spiritually healthy enjoys conflict for conflict’s sake. No one who thinks biblically would ever relish strife or deliberately indulge in “disputes over doubtful things” (Romans 14:1). Most of us know people who are overly pugnacious or incurably argumentative about practically everything. That is not at all what Jesus was like. And Scripture gives us no warrant to be like that. Petty or insignificant personal disagreements usually ought to be either charitably set aside or settled by friendly dialogue. Anyone who is prepared to pick a fight over every minor difference of opinion is spiritually immature, sinfully belligerent—or worse. Scripture includes this clear command: “if it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men” (Romans 12:18).

. . . dialogue does sound nicer than debate. Who but a fool wouldn’t prefer a calm conversation instead of conflict and confrontation?
   In fact, let’s state this plainly once more: Generally speaking, avoiding conflicts is a good ideal. Warmth and in geniality are normally preferable to cold harshness. Civility, compassion and good manners are in short supply these days, and we ought have more of them. Gentleness, a soft answer, and a kind word usually go farther than an argument or a rebuke,. That which edifies is more helpful and more fruitful in the long fun than criticism. Cultivating friends is more pleasant and more profitable than crusading against enemies. And it’s ordinarily better to be tender and mild rather than curt and combative—especially to the victims of false teaching
   But those qualifying words are vital: usually, ordinarily, generally. Avoiding conflict is not always the right thing. Sometimes it is downright sinful. Particularly in times like these, when almost no error is deemed too serious to be excluded form the evangelical conversation, and while the Lord’s flock is being infiltrated by wolves dressed like prophets, declaring visions of peace when there is no peace (cf. Ezekiel 13:16).
   Even the kindest, gentlest shepherd sometimes needs to throw rocks at the wolves who come in sheep’s clothing.

—John MacArthur, The Jesus You Can’t Ignore (Thomas Nelson, 2009), xi–xii, 19.

George Swinnock on the moral capabilities of man:

There are several things which may help the to make the life fair in the eyes of men, but nothing will make it amiable in the eyes of God, unless the heart be changed and renewed. Indeed, all the medicines that can be applied, without the sanctifying work of the Spirit, though they may cover, they can never cure the corruptions and diseases of the soul. . . . Such civil persons go to hell without much disturbance, being asleep in sin, yet not snoring to the disquieting of others; they are so far from being awaked that they are many times praised and commended. Example, custom, and education, may also help a man to make a fair show in the flesh, but not to walk in the Spirit. They may prune and lop sin, but never stub it up by the roots. All that these can so, is to make a man like a grave, green and flourishing on the surface and outside, when within there is nothing but noisomeness and corruption.

—George Swinnock, “Do You Worship God,” cited in John MacArthur, The Jesus You Can’t Ignore (Thomas Nelson, 2009), 47.

Spurgeon on the unhesitatingly confrontational character of Christ:

Brethren, the Savior’s character has all goodness and all perfection; he is full of grace and truth. Some men, nowaday, talk of him as if he were simply incarnate benevolence. It is not so. No lips ever spoke with such thundering indignation against sin as the lips of the Messiah. “He is like a refiner’s fire, and like a fuller’s soap. His fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor.” while in tenderness he prays for his tempted disciple, that his faith may not fail, yet with awful sternness he winnows the heap, and drives away the chaff into unquenchable fire. We speak of Christ as being meek and lowly in spirit, and so he was. A bruised reed he did not break, and the smoking flax he did not quench; but his meekness was balanced by his courage, and by the boldness with which he denounced hypocrisy. “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, ye fools and blind, ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” These are not words of the milksop some authors represent Christ to have been. He is a man—a thorough man throughout—a God-like man—gentle as a woman, but yet stern as a warrior in the midst of the day of battle. The character is balanced; as much of one virtue as another. As in Deity every attribute is full orbed; justice never eclipses mercy, nor mercy justice, nor justice faithfulness; so in the character of Christ you have all the excellent things.

—Charles Spurgeon, “Sweet Saviour,” cited in John MacArthur, The Jesus You Can’t Ignore (Thomas Nelson, 2009), 99.

One of the Pharisee’s biggest peeves with Jesus was his habit of associating with sinners; so they were particularly annoyed when he attended a party in his honor at the house of Levi the tax collector (i.e. Matthew, Luke 5:27ff). John MacArthur writes:

   That a rabbi would be willing to fraternize at a party with such people was utterly repugnant to the Pharisees. It was diametrically opposed to all their doctrines about separation and ceremonial uncleanness. Here was yet another pet issue of the Pharisees, and Jesus was openly violating their standards, knowing full well that they were watching him closely. From their perspective, it must have seemed as if He was deliberately flaunting His contempt for their system.
   Because He was. Remember an important fact we stressed in the previous chapter; all the friction that has taken place out in the open thus far between Jesus and Israel’s religious elite has been entirely at His instigation. As far as we know from Scripture, they had not yet voiced a single unprovoked criticism or public accusation against him.
   Even now, the Pharisees were not yet bold enough to complain to Jesus directly. They sought out His disciples and murmured their protest to them. Again, all three Synoptics stress that the Pharisees took their grievances to the disciples. It was a craven attempt to blindside Jesus by provoking a debate with His followers instead. I like the way Luke says it; “The Pharisees and their scribes began grumbling at His disciples” (Luke 5:30 NASB).
   But Jesus overheard (Matthew 9:12; Mark 2:17), and He answered the Pharisees directly, with a single statement that became the definitive motto for His interaction with the self-righteous Sanhedrin and their ilk: “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17 NASB). For sinners and tax collectors seeking relief fro the burden of their sin, Jesus had nothing but good news. To the self-righteous religious experts, He had nothing to say at all.
   Harsh? By postmodern standards, this was a terribly strident thing to say. And (as many people today would quickly point out) there was virtually no possibility that a comment like this would help sway the Pharisees to Jesus’ point of view. It was likelier to increase their hostility against Him.
   And yet it was the right thing say at this moment. It was the truth they needed to hear. The fact that they were not “open” to it did not alter Jesus’ commitment to speaking the truth—without toning it down, without bending it to fit His audience’s tastes and preferences, without setting the facts of the gospel aside to speak to their “felt needs” instead.

—John MacArthur, The Jesus You Can’t Ignore (Thomas Nelson, 2009), 105–106.

What if the WWJD fad had caught on with preachers? What if preachers asked, “How would Jesus preach?” and then actually aspired to follow his example? Things might be different in a lot of pulpits; because Jesus’ preaching showed no sensitivity to fashion and trends, or to the preferences of his hearers. MacArthur writes:

. . . consider how Jesus’ preaching might come across if He spoke that way in a stadium filled with twenty-first-century evangelicals. Because let’s be candid: Jesus’ style of preaching was nothing at all like most of the popular preaching we hear today—and His style of preaching isn’t likely to generate the kind of enthusiastic arm waving and feel-good atmosphere today’s Christians typically like to see at their mass meetings and outdoor music festivals.
   Survey the current plethora of websites devoted to supplying preachers with prefabricated sermon material, and you’ll get a very clear picture of what constitutes “great preaching” in the minds of most twenty-first-century evangelicals: trendiness; funny anecdotes; slick packaging; clever audio-visual aids; and short, stylish, topical homilies on themes borrowed from pop culture. Favorite subjects include marriage and sex, human relationships, self improvement, personal success, the pursuit of happiness, and anything else that pleases the audience—especially if the topic or sermon title can easily be tied into the latest hit movie, must-watch TV series, or popular song. In the trendiest churches, you are more likely to hear the preacher quote lyrics from Bono and U2 than from David and the Psalms. One megachurch sponsored a four-part sermon series in which their pastor did a word-by-word exegesis of passages taken from Dr. Seuss books, starting with Horton Hatches the Egg. The pastor of one of America’s five largest churches put a king-size bed on the platform as a prop while he preached a five-week series on sex. A year or so later, the same church made national headlines by promoting yet another series with a “sex challenge” so blatantly inappropriate that even some in the secular media expressed shock and outrage.
   Such shenanigans come under the rubric of relevance in the catalog of contemporary church-growth strategies. Sermons featuring straight biblical exposition, precise doctrine, difficult truths, or negative-sounding doctrines are strongly discouraged by virtually all he leading gurus of cultural relevance. And the people filling the evangelical pews “love to have it so” (Jeremiah 5:31). “Speak to us smooth things” (Isaiah 30:10) is their constant demand. Teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, (cf. 2. Timothy 3:16) are out. Catering to itchy ears is in (cf. 4:23). No truly clued-in preacher nowadays would think to fill his message with reproof, rebuke, or exhortation. (cf. 4:3). Instead, he does his best to suit the felt needs, preoccupations, and passions of the audience. Many contemporary pastors study pop culture as diligently as the Puritans used to study Scripture. They let congregational opinion polls determine what they should preach, and they are prepared to shift directions quickly if the latest survey tells them their approval ratings are beginning to drop.
   That, of course, is precisely what Paul told Timothy not to do. “Preach the word! . . . in season and out of season” (v. 2).
   The contemporary craving for shallow sermons that please and entertain is at least partly rooted in the popular myth that Jesus Himself was always likable, agreeable, winsome, and at the cutting edge of His culture’s fashions. The domesticated, meek-and-mild Savior of today’s Sunday-school literature would never knowingly or deliberately offend someone in a sermon—would He?
   As we have seen, even in a cursory look at Jesus’ preaching ministry reveals a totally different picture. Jesus sermons usually featured hard truths, harsh words, and high-octane controversy. His own disciples complained that His preaching was too hard to hear!
   That’s why Jesus’ preaching heads the list of things that make Him impossible to ignore. No preacher has ever been more bold, prophetic, or provocative. No style of public ministry could possibly be more irksome to those who prefer a comfortable religion. Jesus made it impossible for any hearer to walk away indifferent. Some left angry; some were deeply troubled by what He had to say; many had their eyes opened; and many more hardened their hearts against hiss message. Some became His disciples, and others became His adversaries. But no one who listened to Him preach for very long could possibly remain unchanged or apathetic.

—John MacArthur, The Jesus You Can’t Ignore (Thomas Nelson, 2009), 161–162.

In the book of Revelation, Jesus (via the Apostle John) is very clear on the importance of opposing false doctrine. John MacArthur writes:

   In His final recorded messages to the church, given to the apostle John in a vision several decades after Christ’s ascension into heaven, we see that the silencing of false teachers was still one of our Lords primary concerns, even from his throne in heaven. He addressed several churches—Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. Only two of the churches, Smyrna and Philadelphia, were commended for their faithfulness without any qualification or hint of rebuke. Both of them had remained true to Christ despite the influence of “those who say they are Jews and are not, but a synagogue of Satan” (Revelation 2:9; 3:9). All five other churches received various measures of rebuke, based on how corrupt, unfaithful, or spiritually lethargic they were.
   A prominent theme in practically all Jesus’ messages to those seven churches is the issue of how they responded to false teachers and rank heretics in their midst. Ephesus, of course, was the church Jesus rebuked with the words: “I have this against you, that you have left your first love” (2:4). But Ephesus was nonetheless strongly commended twice because they refused to tolerate false teachers. Before he admonished them for leaving their first love, Jesus praised them for their steadfast resistance to false apostles: “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. and you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars” (v. 2). Afterward, he told them, “But this you have, that you hate the deeds of Nicolaitans, which I also hate” (v. 6).
   The epistle to Pergamos was basically the flip side of that message to Ephesus. Christ commended the saints at Pergamos for holding fast to his name and not denying the faith, even though they dwelt where Satan’s throne was. In other words, they had successfully preserved in the faith despite external threats and persecution. Unlike Ephesus, they had not left their first love. Nevertheless, Christ had a list of rebukes for them, and these were all related to their tolerance of false doctrine in their own midst. It was if they were utterly insensible to internal dangers that came with a tolerant attitude toward deviant doctrines. He wrote, “I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam. . . . You also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate” (vv. 14–15).
   Likewise to Thyatira he wrote: “I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants.” (v. 20).
   The church at Sardis was spiritually dead, and the church at Laodicea was lukewarm and smug. Those churches had clearly already lost their will to oppose false doctrine and purge sin from their midst. Their lack of energy, lack of zeal and (in the case of Sardis) lack of life was a direct result of their failure to keep themselves and their fellowship pure. They had not been sufficiently wary of false teaching, and therefore they had not remained devoted to Christ alone. The warnings of Christ gave them chilling reminders that churches do go bad. When that happens, it is almost it is almost never because they succumb to dangers from the outside. Rather it is almost always because they let down their guard and allow false doctrines to be disseminated freely inside the church. Apathy sets in, followed inevitably by spiritual disaster.
   It is clear from those letters to the churches in Revelation that battling heresy is a duty Christ expects every Christian to be devoted to. Whether we like it or not, our very existence in this world involves spiritual warfare—it is not a party or a picnic. If Christ himself devoted so much of his time and energy during His earthly ministry to the task of confronting and refuting false teachers, surely that must be high on our agenda as well. His style of ministry ought to be a model for ours, and his zeal against false religion ought to fill our hearts and minds as well.

—John MacArthur, The Jesus You Can’t Ignore (Thomas Nelson, 2009), 206–208.

Tuesday is supposed to be reserved for William Gurnall and The Christian in Complete Armour, but my current reading in that volume brought to mind the following quote from The Holiness of God by R. C. Sproul, so I thought I would share it before it slips away from my memory. In a chapter titled Holy Justice, Sproul reviews a few instances from the Old Testament of God meeting out his justice in dramatic ways. Among them is the story of Uzzah (2 Samuel 6). As you likely remember, the ark of God was being transported on an ox-cart — already in violation of God’s specific instructions — when the ride got rough.

6 But when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out toward the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen nearly upset it. 7 And the anger of the Lord burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down there for his irreverence; and he died there by the ark of God.

Sproul writes:

Uzzah was a Kohathite. He knew exactly what his duties were. He had been trained thoroughly in the discipline of his calling. He understood that God had declared that the touching of the ark of the covenant was a capital offence. No Kohathite, under any circumstances, was ever permitted to touch the ark. No emergency was grounds for breaking that inviolate command. The elaborate construction of the ark, complete with golden rings through which long poles were inserted, was so fashioned as to make it clear that the ark itself was not to be touched. Only the poles could be touched by man and inserted into the rings for purposes of transport. Then it was the task of the Kohathites to carry the ark by these long poles. No provision was made for hurrying the procedure by transporting the ark via an oxcart.
   We must ask the question, what was the ark doing on an oxcart in the first place? God was so strict about the holy things of the temple that the Kohathites were not even allowed to gaze upon the ark. This, too, was a capital crime. God had decreed that if a Kohathite merely glanced at the ark in the Holy of Holies for an instant that he would die. Not only was Uzzah forbidden to touch the ark, he was forbidden even to look at it.
   He touched it anyway. He stretched out his hand and put it squarely on the ark, steadying it in place lest it fall to the ground. An act of holy heroism? No! It was an act of arrogance, a sin of presumption. Uzzah assumed that his hand was less polluted than the earth. But it wasn’t the ground or the mud that would desecrate the ark; it was the touch of man. The earth is an obedient creature. It does what God tells it to do. It brings forth its yield in its season. It obeys the laws of nature which God has established. When the temperature falls to a certain point, the ground freezes. When water is added to dust, it becomes mud, just as God decided. The ground doesn’t commit cosmic treason. There is nothing polluted about the ground.
   God did not want his holy throne to be touched by that which was contaminated by evil, that which was in rebellion to him, that which by its ungodly revolt had brought the whole of creation to ruin and caused the ground and the sky and the waters of the sea to groan together in travail waiting for the day of redemption. Man. It was man’s touch that was forbidden.

—R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Tyndale, 1985), 140–141.

When we think of the attributes of God, we generally think of things like omniscience and omnipotence, justice and mercy, or holiness and sovereignty, attributes that speak of power, authority, and glory. But God also has an attribute that seems quite incongruous with his more spectacular attributes. It is also one that completes his character beautifully. Ligon Duncan said:

Consider what we learn about God from 2 Samuel 7. It is right in the context of that Davidic covenant. But look at how it starts: David wants to build a temple for the Lord. He is dwelling in a cedar-lined palace, and he looks over at the ark of the covenant of God—the visible symbol of manifestation of the presence of God with his people in the old covenant—and it is in a tent. It is a glorious tent. It is a relatively big tent for a nomad. And David says, “It’s not right for me to live in a palace while the ark of God is in a tent.” And his humility leads him to say, “Lord God, I want to build a temple for you that is greater than the palace that I live in. It’s not right that I live in something more glorious than what the ark of God is housed in.”
   God sends Nathan to say, “Are you going to be the one who will build me a house to dwell in?” and notice what God says: “For I have not dwelt in a house since the day I brought up the sons of Israel from Egypt, even to this day; but I have been moving about in a tent, even in a tabernacle. Wherever I have gone with all the sons of Israel, did I speak a word with one of the tribes of Israel, which I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, ‘Why have you not built Me a house of cedar?’” (2 Sam. 7:6-7).
   That’s a glorious passage about the character of God. Do you know what it tells us? It tells us that this majestic, awesome, transcendent, creating, redeeming God is humble. In effect he says, “David, I want to tell you something. When my people were going through the wilderness, living in tents, I lived in a tent with them—right in the middle of it—and I never asked them to do anything for me, other than to let me live with them right where they were.”
   What does this tell you about the character of God? It is the same thing that tells us: “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory” (John 1:14). But it was the Father who had revealed that part of himself in the old covenant.

—Ligon Duncan, Preaching the Cross (Crossway, 2007), 61–62.

Preaching the Cross is a collection of messages from the 2006 Together for the Gospel Conference. You can download the entire message from which today’s quote was taken here.

Since our homeschool students are currently studying the Trinity, I was reminded of this article, originally posted November 22, 2006.

I was thirty years old before I actually encountered anyone who called themselves Christians and denied the Trinity. I had heard that such people existed, but outside the Jehovah’s Witnesses, I didn’t know who they were. Then, when we moved to this small town in North Dakota, we met a character who had recently left the same church that we began attending. He was a self-styled teacher with a very overpowering personality who had managed to gather a small group of very committed disciples and formed his own “church,” renting a church building in a neighboring town. A few years ago, this little cult built its own facility just a few blocks up the street from our house.

This post is, in a nutshell, what I told one of them when I had the occasion to discuss it, along with a few comments to Trinitarians who explain it badly.

There is one true God, eternally existent in three persons.

There is only one God. In no sense are there three.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord” (Deuteronomy 6:4, and quoted again by Jesus in Mark 12:29). “[H]ath not one God created us?” (Malachi 2:10) God is always spoken of as singular. God is always “he,” never “they.” He reigns over the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of the gods. In Luke 18, Jesus is addressed as “Good Master.” His reply: “Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God” [bold type added].

God is three distinct persons. In no sense are they one. All three exist simultaneously and eternally.

The Father is God.
The Son is God.
The Holy Spirit is God.
The Father is never the Son or the Holy Spirit.
The Son is never the Father or the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is never the Father or the Son.

The Trinity is revealed in Scripture from the very beginning. In Genesis 1:2, “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Farther along in verse 26 we find God talking to himself: “Let us make man in our image” [bold type added]. Who was God talking to? Why the plural pronouns? Four thousand years later, John the Apostle wrote of Christ: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:1-3) The Son was present in the beginning, and participated in creation.

“Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. … And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. … He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.” (Matthew 26:36,39,42) Who was Jesus praying to? Was he putting on an act, going through the motions of prayer in order to set an example for his disciples, as some have said? If so, what does that tell us about him? If true, it tells us that God is an actor, a deceiver, a manipulator who plays with our minds like faith-healers and “revival” preachers. No, Jesus, being God, is incapable of any kind of deceit. He was praying to his Father, as one distinct person to another.

The Trinity is probably most clearly demonstrated at Jesus’ baptism: “And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:16-17). Jesus was in the Jordan, the Holy Spirit descended upon him, and the Father spoke from Heaven—three distinct persons in three distinct places—simultaneously.

God does not appear at different times and places in different roles or modes. His triunity may not be compared to the way in which we fill different positions yet remain one person, as one man may be a son, husband, father, grandfather, employer or employee, etc., all at once. That is the Modalist heresy.

God also cannot be described as many Trinitarians have attempted to describe him:

The Trinity is not like an egg—yolk, white, shell.
The Trinity is not like an apple—skin, flesh, seeds.
The Trinity is not like water—liquid, solid, vapor.
The Trinity is not like time—past, present, future.
The Trinity is not like space—height, depth, width.

The Trinity is not any other metaphor you’ve thought of. I know, some of you can’t stand not having an explanation for everything. You are very creative and imaginative and love thinking these things up. Well, stop it! You almost persuade me to become a modalist. The Bible tells us quite clearly that God is triune. It does not even begin to tell us how that is so.

Originally posted at The Calvinist Gadfly

Q. 14. How does God execute his decrees?

A. God executes his decrees in the works of creation and providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will.

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,

And by the breath of His mouth all their host.

He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap;

He lays up the deeps in storehouses.

Let all the earth fear the Lord.

Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.

For He spoke, and it was done;

He commanded, and it stood fast.

—Psalm 33:6–9

I have built houses — whole houses, from a bare hole in the ground to a turn-key home. I’ve formed and poured the footings down in the ground, and set forms on top of them and poured the basement walls. I’ve bolted plates down on top of those walls and nailed the floor joists to them. I’ve screwed the sub-floor to the joists, and framed walls on top of them. I’ve set the rafters, sheeted the roof and walls, installed the windows and doors, and shingled, sided, and soffited the shell of the house. Then, following the electrician and plummer, I’ve gone inside, insulated the exterior walls and hung the drywall. I’ve installed the kitchen and bathroom cabinets and countertops, hung the interior doors, and trimmed the whole works.

Impressive? Not really. On every job, I was taking orders, along with at least two others. Every wall I raised had another man at the other end, and maybe a couple in the middle. Lumber was measured and cut, and nails, screws, and glue held it all together. Thousands of dollars worth of tools and who-knows-how-many kilowatts of electricity got the job done. All that, plus hundreds of man-hours, put another family in a house.

Sometimes, when my back and feet were tired and hurting, I wished I could be God for a day. I wished I could show up on the job site one morning and say to my boss, “Watch this,” and to the dirt, “Let there be a house.” I reckon I could have gotten a pretty good raise out of that.

That’s how God executes his decrees. From creation to the carrying out of his will for the creation, he executes his decrees by the sheer power of his will. He speaks, and it is done; he commands, and it stands fast.

Let them praise the name of the Lord: for he commanded, and they were created.

Psalm 148:5

Get your own copy of The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms here.

Originally posted at The Calvinist Gadfly

Q. 15: What is the work of creation?

A. The work of creation is that wherein God did in the beginning, by the word of his power, make of nothing the world, and all things therein, for himself, within the space of six days, and all very good.

By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

—Hebrews 11:3

Nothing: it's a big word. Wrapped up in those two syllables is a concept that won't fit into my head (spare me the jokes). But I need to try to get a grip on it, because it's a very important concept, vital, in fact, to my understanding of God. If you were to ask me what it is that convinces me of the existence of God, I would reply, “Nothing.” “Yeah, me too,” says the atheist. But you know I don’t mean that. Let me explain.

Billy Preston exhibits his scale model of the Big Bang

The only way to get something when there is nothing is for someone to create it. If we go back as close to the beginning as we can get, we must find an uncaused cause which would be, by definition, without beginning and self-existent. It would also have to have the ability to create from less than thin air. It would have to be a who.

The nothing I have described is impossible for the human mind to imagine, but we can and must understand that that was the state of things — that is, not things — before the first creative act took place. Having admitted that, it is simply obtuse to argue that all that is came to be independently. So there is a God who created the heavens and the earth, and everyone reading this knows it. He created it out of absolute nothing.

Atheists will, of course, deny it, but that doesn’t bother me (Psalm 53:1). What bothers me is that all this is plainly true, yet some men to whom God has entrusted his truth are too sophisticated to believe that it was done in six days, as God has plainly declared, and have the hubris to teach their improved history to Christ’s flock.

Get your own copy of The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms here.

As discussed previously, God has made a unilateral covenant with his people. He alone has made a promise, and he alone will be the promise keeper. And, as Duguid explains, he alone has the authority to set the terms of the covenant.

What does it mean when we say our relationship with God is based on a covenant? In the first place, it means that we cannot set the terms of our relationship with God. the terms of the covenant are not negotiable.
   Imagine the weaker king in an ancient covenant saying to the great king, “Fine. Let’s do a deal here, but I want to be in charge in this relationship. I want to say what you can do and what you can be like—and don’t come making demands of me.” It’s absurd, isn’t it? He would have found his head on a pole and his limbs distributed to the four corners of the empire before you could say, “Assyria rules, okay!” Yet many people think that they can strike their own bargains with God. They say, “I like to think of God as . . .”—as if they can decide what God will be like. They want to pick and choose what they will believe and what they will do—and they certainly don’t want a God who makes too many demands on them. “My God isn’t like that,” they will tell you. In other words, they don’t want a God who is God.
    The real question, however, is not what you would like God to be like God to be like, but what he is really like. And he has revealed himself as the God who has made a covenant with his people. When the great king comes and offers to establish a covenant with you, you really have only two choices: you can accept the covenant relationship on his terms and receive its benefits, or you can refuse it and face the consequences.
   Many people approach religion as if they were interviewing God for a job, the position of “personal deity in my life.” “I want to find a philosophy that works for me,” they say. But if God is really who he claims to be, Almighty God, then that is what he is, whether the idea “works for you” or not. You can interview idols and ideologies, but the God who created the universe offers you only two choices: surrender on his terms of face the consequences.

—Iain Duguid, Living in the Gap Between Promise and Reality: The Gospel According to Abraham (P&R, 1999), 75.

I believe that most of the controversial doctrines of Scripture are disputed only because men and women want some control over whom and how they will worship. They hear a doctrine that challenges autonomy, and reason thusly: if a, then b; b is unacceptable, therefore a must be false. But God has no interest in conforming to our opinion of what is right and acceptable. He is Lord; we are not. Our opinions must conform to the truth that is, the truth that our Sovereign has declared. When we get our view of God straight, we will cease protesting against the truths revealed in Scripture.