Additional Texts: Exodus 15:11; Leviticus 11:44; 1 Samuel 2:2; Psalm 36:5, 90:2, 119:75, 139:13-16, 143:1; Isaiah 9:6, 40:28; John 14:6, 17:17, 18:37-38; Acts 17:25; 1 Corinthians 10:13; 2 Thessalonians 3:3; 1 Timothy 1:17; Hebrews 6:18, 10:23; 1 John 1:9; Revelation 4:8.
Inevitably, someone will ask me, “Why should we study theology?” That is a very good question. I remember years ago, I was in a meeting with my father and the leaders of his business when they asked me, “What is your philosophy of life?” I had never been asked that question before, and I did not have an answer ready. I have since learned a much better question, “What is our theology of life?”
I was driving down Fourth Street in Leavenworth this week, when I saw this billboard sign facing the southbound lane. We should notice that this sign was placed there by the Sparrow Women’s Clinic, a missionary agency our church supports. In our church budget, we have a monthly amount we send to the Sparrow Women’s Clinic for routine financial support. In addition, we have an annual diaper drive to help supply the Clinic’s clients with their personal needs. In June of this year, in only five days, our Vacation Bible School raised a large amount of money to purchase new car seats for the young women the Sparrow Women’s Clinic helps.
Why should we do this? Why should we help to encourage young women not to get an abortion but rather help them to raise their infants? What causes us to oppose abortion? Put simply, it is our theology. You see, I believe every human being is the product of God’s special and unique creation. In addition to the special creation of Adam and Eve out of the dust of the ground, our theology tells us that God uniquely creates every person. Each one of you exists today because the living and true God personally created you. Yes, I know there is a natural process which seems to the casual observer to eliminate the need for God’s direct intervention, but despite external appearances, the Bible tells us that God is Himself the cause of every human life and therefore each one of us is the product of a divinely sovereign action of God.
The book of Acts tells us that God “gives to all people life and breath and all things” (Acts 17:25). Let me repeat that: God gives life to all people. There are no exemptions or exceptions. God is the Creator and Lord of human life. Listen carefully to the words of David in Psalm 139:13-16, “For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.”
These verses form our theology of the creation of human life. David said God formed his inward parts, weaving him together in his mother’s womb. The same is true of all of us. While the world could not see the unborn child’s development, God could; your frame was not hidden from God when you were made in secret. God skillfully wrought every person, just as the Bible claims even to the point of having the precise number of days given for our lives before we were even born. Knowing this is true, we joyfully and willingly participate in a ministry that urges young pregnant women to bring their unborn child to term and deliver that dear one to the life God has designed for him or her. This is precisely how our theology of God directly affects our thinking and our choices.
We will continue to discuss God’s attributes this morning in an attempt to accurately refine our thinking about the Lord. We have already focused on eight of His amazing attributes: God is spirit, He is almighty, everywhere present, He knows everything, He is sovereign, all-wise, love and He never changes. To that list we will add the following four: God is holy, He is truth, He is faithful, and He is eternal. Our only ambition is to discern what God reveals to us about Himself in His Word and adjust our thinking to what the Bible teaches us. Our aim is to deepen our worship of our Lord and more willingly submit our lives to Him.
GOD IS HOLY. (Isaiah 6:1-7)
Isaiah the Prophet. Many Bible scholars divide the Old Testament into three parts: the Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy), the Writings and the Prophets. The Old Testament prophets are generally divided into the major prophets and the minor prophets; the difference being the size of the individual books. Typically, there are four major prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. Each of these books makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the nature and attributes of God.
Isaiah served the Lord as a prophet during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, all kings of the southern kingdom of Judah. Isaiah was married and he had two sons. God gave Isaiah the rare privilege of being transported to heaven to actually see the Lord and His throne in heaven. We are told that in the same year King Uzziah died, Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on a throne. The Lord was lofty and exalted, which is a condition consistent with other descriptions of God in the Bible. Isaiah saw angelic beings known as seraphim and heard their worship of the God who has created all things. These seraphim worshiped God for one of His most glorious attributes: His holiness. They said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory” (Isaiah 6:3). Put simply: God is holy.
In another scene, reminiscent of Isaiah’s, the Apostle John was also taken to heaven and seems to have seen exactly what Isaiah saw. In Revelation 4:8, John has seen heaven’s throne and One sitting on that throne. He also saw beings similar to Isaiah’s seraphim, and, significantly, these beings are also continuously praising the virtue of God’s attribute of holiness. As they worship the Lord, they say, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty, Who was and Who is and Who is to come.” Clearly, our Bible teaches us that the Lord God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is holy. God’s holiness is observed in two aspects: God is majestically transcendent and He is absolutely pure.
God’s Majestic Transcendence. In His holiness, God transcends all that He created. Holiness defines God’s character to the point that it is included in all of the other divine moral perfections. Holiness means that God is totally and completely set apart from all creation and evil. God is unique in that He is totally separate from all creation. Moses wrote, “Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders?” (Exodus 15:11). The answer of course, is “no one.” In her prayer, Hannah said, “There is no one holy like the Lord, indeed, there is no one besides You” (1 Samuel 2:2). Isaiah wrote, “For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place” (Isaiah 57:15). Yet, even though our Lord is infinitely holy, He maintains a relationship to fallen creatures, not a dormant aloofness from them, but a vital, vigorous nearness.
God’s Absolute Purity. God is also holy in that He is separated from all that is morally and ethically unclean: a holiness of moral purity. God commanded Israel in the book of Leviticus, “For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44). God’s holiness is absolute purity of substance. There is nothing of impurity in Him. His holiness is a positive moral purity and rightness.
Because of God’s holiness, in all genuine spiritual expression, the high sense of God’s majesty and holiness and the concern of radical depravity and human sin are inseparably linked together. God’s holiness calls His people to live holy lives, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1). God’s holiness calls us to worship Him in holiness and leads us to live pure and ethical lives.
GOD IS TRUTH. (John 14:6)
Jesus Is the Truth. After being mocked and ridiculed during His trial before the Sanhedrin, Jesus was brought before the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate. During his interrogation, Pilate asked, “Are You a King?” Jesus responded, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” With apparent sarcasm or despair Pilate asked, “What is truth?” (John 18:37-38).
Jesus answered Pilate’s question a few hours earlier in the Upper Room with His disciples. He told them, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” Jesus declared that He not only told them the truth and spoke the truth, but that He was, in fact, the truth. Truth means there is nothing false. Jesus, who is God, is genuine, veritable, actual and authentic. Truth is God’s nature; it is what God should be and is. He is completely reliable as are His words and deeds, both of which display the full accuracy of His knowledge, thoughts, and wisdom. Every word of God is true.
Characteristics of God’s Truth. God is absolutely true and genuine in that He alone in His being, attributes, and activities conforms to all that God ought to be. God is authentic, He is who He is. He answers to no standard outside of Himself. He is His own criterion of what God should be. He alone fully answers to the idea of God. Our living God is all that He should be and He has revealed Himself as He really is, and He and His revelation are completely reliable.
God is truthful in that His knowledge and declarations eternally conform to His being. God knows and represents things as they actually are. The writer of the book of Hebrews declared, “It is impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:18). God’s truthfulness has its foundation in His being and nature. This foundational aspect of truth is the basis of a truly Christian theology of truth. Simply stated; truth is that which corresponds to the being and will of the God of truth.
Christians and God’s Truth. How should Christians respond to the reality that God is truth? First they must realize that God inspired the Holy Scriptures so that all of them are His truth. Jesus told His disciples, “Sanctify them in truth; Your word is truth” (John 17:17). Because God is true and authentic He alone is worthy of our worship. No person, thing or activity should replace God’s place in our lives. We must worship Him in spirit and in truth; that is, our worship must be authentic and genuine and involve spiritual realities rather than physical realities and must reflect what is true about God.
The God who is truth desires that His people, Christians, must also be real, genuine, and truthful in their relationships with others. They should be known for their unfailing integrity. The Apostle Paul wrote, “Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another” (Ephesians 4:25). Christian husbands and wives must not lie to each other and Christian families must be known for their honesty. Churches must also be known for their integrity.
GOD IS FAITHFUL. (2 Thessalonians 3:3)
God Is Faithful and Dependable. At the end of his second letter to the Thessalonian church, Paul called upon the believers there to remember to pray for him and for the spreading of the word of the Lord. Then he told them about God’s faithfulness, which expressed to each of them directly, “But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one.” What an amazing promise to these believers in Christ. The same promise applies to each one of us. The word faithful bears the idea of being certain and confident. In ancient Greek literature, it is used of the strong arms of a parent holding a small child. Our faithful God holds us tightly to Himself with omnipotent arms that will not let us go.
God’s faithfulness is His trustworthiness to act or perform in accordance with His Word, His promises, and His sayings. He never commits Himself to something that He could inevitably prove incapable; all He promises and all His prophecies will come to pass. Since God is true in Himself, He is always faithful. David wrote, “Your lovingkindness, O Lord, extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness reaches to the skies” (Psalm 36:5). Paul wrote, “God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:9).
Displays of God’s Faithfulness. Let me give you five ways God displays His faithfulness to us. First, He always keeps His promises as we find in Hebrews 10:23, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.” Second, God preserves Christians in their times of testing. First Corinthians 10:13, says, “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.”
Third, God answers our prayers. We read in Psalm 143:1, “Hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my supplications! Answer me in Your faithfulness, in Your righteousness!” Fourth, God faithfully forgives our sins. In First John 1:9 we read, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Finally, God allows afflictions in His faithfulness. Psalm 119:75, “I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are righteous, and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.” As is the case with all of God’s moral attributes, God expects His people to imitate His faithfulness. We must keep our promises to God and others.
GOD IS ETERNAL. (1 Timothy 1:17)
The King Eternal. God is eternal, as Paul reveals to us in First Timthy 1:17, “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” God is from everlasting to everlasting (Psalm 90:2). God has always existed and always will. God’s existence cannot be measured by time. The past, present and future of God’s existence are possessed by Him in one indivisible present. He has no before or afterward, no earlier and no later. God transcends all temporal limitations and is without beginning or end. Because He is eternal, He is not bound by the limitations of time. Isaiah asks us, “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired” (Isaiah 40:28). And, of Jesus, Isaiah says that He is the “Everlasting Father” (Isaiah 9:6).
The Eternal God Intervenes in Time. We must remember that God created time. While we have always lived completely immersed in time, we have to recall that God is eternal, but that He created it and created us to live in it. God has caused time through His creation but He is not subject to time or anything finite. Yet, God intervenes in time. He certainly knows the differences from one time to another. And He still intervened in the days of Abraham, Moses, David, and Paul and does so today. Since He is eternal, nothing new ever takes Him by surprise. God will never cease to exist; therefore, His sustaining grace and providential control is unquestionably assured, a blessing to all believers in Jesus Christ.
God is holy, He is truth, He is faithful and He is eternal. Our list is now almost complete, but we must not leave these truths here in this place and go about our lives as if they did not exist. These are fundamental truths from the Bible that are designed to influence and guide us in this life. God’s faithfulness extends to all true believers in Christ. We never have to worry whether or not God will fulfill His promises to us: because He is faithful, He certainly will.
And since God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are eternal, when He promises eternal life to those who believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, they will certainly live forever. God in His amazing grace grants that marvelous gift to them. What a blessing for those who know Christ as Savior. How about you? Have you ever received Jesus Christ as your personal Master and Lord? He has done all that is necessary to save your soul and calls upon you to trust in Him. Will you believe? Why not do that right now?
