Right Thinking About God

  • “God is the most noble thought that can ever cross our minds, confronting us with eternal mystery and ultimate reality.”
  • What we think about God is the most important and revealing thing about us. We must entertain high thoughts of God. 
  • Right thinking about God is the key to right doctrine and right living.

The Folly of Disbelief

  • The Bible presupposes God’s existence. It makes no systematic effort to defend Him. It simply opens with “In the beginning, God…” 
  • In Romans 1:20-23, Paul speaks of self-imposed spiritual blindness: “when they knew God, they glorified him not as God.” 
  • “Even his eternal power and Godhead” are “clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made…so that they are without excuse” (Ro. 1:21). 
  • “The fool hath said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 41:1).

Evidence for His Existence

  • Creation points to a Creator. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).
  • There are countless philosophical arguments for the existence of God; however, Christianity is not primarily an intellectual position. God is looking for our trust.

God is Personal

  • When the Bible speaks of God as “living,” it means that He is essentially personal.
  • God is capable of feeling, willing, speaking, creating, and loving. God can be grieved, hurt, offended, and insulted.
  • While God is transcendent, He is not an impersonal force in the universe. He is capable of knowing and being known. God created us to enjoy an intimate love relationship with Him.

A God of Holy Love

  • God is holy. It is His very nature and essence; it is God’s “deepest self.”
  • His holiness distinguishes Him from man and the rest of His creation. God is sacred, set apart, high and lifted up, “other than.”
  • The moral sense of “I ought to” or “I ought not to do this,” argues for a moral Being. God is the absolute standard of all moral perfection. He has an absolute settled hatred towards all wrong.
  • While holiness distinguishes God from His creation, love binds Him strongly to man. God is love.
  • His love is universal, generous, and selfless. God’s love is motivated by His character. It is the free outflowing of His Being.
  • The cross is the ultimate demonstration of God’s holy love. Everything converges at the cross. It exhibits His judgment on sin and amazing mercy towards sinful man.

A. W. Tozer on God's Holiness

Tozer writes that mankind cannot even imagine God’s holiness. “He is absolutely holy with an infinite, incomprehensible purity that is incapable of being other than it is.” Isaiah spent a moment in God’s presence and all he could do was cry out, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips.”

​Tozer warns, “We heave learned to live with unholiness…whatever is holy is healthy; evil is a moral sickness that must end ultimately in death.” While we may tolerate sin, God doesn’t. “God’s first concern for His universe is its moral health, that is, its holiness…to preserve His creation God must destroy whatever would destroy it.” This was accomplished by Christ on the cross.

Attributes of God

  1. Omnipotence — God is able to do anything which He wills to do. He can do anything as easily as anything else. All His acts are done without effort. This is not power to do the self-contradictory. 
  2. Immutability — God is unchanging in His nature. He will always act like Himself. However, God is enriched and fulfilled by His interaction with us. 
  3. Eternity — God is not limited by time. In fact, time has no application to Him. God dwells in the eternal present. “From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God” (Ps. 90:2). 
  4. Omnipresence — God is not limited by space. He maintains His presence and influence everywhere simultaneously.
  5. Omniscience — God is not limited in knowledge. God has never learned and cannot learn; He simply knows all that can be known.
  6. Sovereignty — God is absolutely free to be himself. This presupposes that God has all power and is not bound by time or space. No one and no thing can hinder Him or stop Him. 
  7. Wrath — God opposes unholiness. “The wrath of God is…divine love opposing that which opposes love.” If God did not punish the wicked, He would not really love the righteous.

The Triune Nature of God

  • The Bible teaches that there is only one God; however, the Bible refers to three distinct persons as God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 
  • Therefore, God is one in nature and essence but three in His persons. He is three centers of self-consciousness in one underlying nature.
  • This will be explored in-depth in Lesson 17.

Knowing God

  • Jesus came to show us the heart of the Father. He is the “image of the invisible God,” the “fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 1:15, 2:9).
  • God has revealed Himself to us so that we might love Him more. When we study God, we cannot help but fall in love with Him.

The Bible: Our Primary Source of Knowledge About God

  • God is holy: Ex. 5:11; 1Sam.  2:2; Isa. 6:3; Rev. 4:8.
  • God is love: Jer. 31:3; Jn. 3:16; Ro. 5:8; 1Jn. 4:8,19.
  • God has all power: Jer. 32:17,27; Ps. 62:11; Mt. 19:26.
  • God does not change: Mal. 3:6; Num. 23:19; Ja. 1:17.
  • God is eternal: Isa. 57:15; Ps. 90:2; Isa. 40:28. 
  • God is omnipresent: Ps. 139:7-12; Jer. 23:24; 1Ki. 8:27.
  • God is all-knowing: 1 Jn. 3:20; Ps. 139:1-3; Heb. 4:13.
  • God is in control: Ps. 115:3; Ro. 9:21; Jn. 19:11.
  • God judges sin: Ro. 1:18; Ps. 5:5; Jn. 3:36. 
  • God is fair and just: Ro. 2:11, Col. 3:25; Rev. 16:7. 
  • God is Creator: Ps. 33:6; Jn. 1:3; Isa. 44:24.
  • God is Spirit: Jn. 4:24; Col. 1:15; 1 Tim. 1:17. 
  • God is truth: Ps. 117:2; 119:160; Jn. 14:6, 17:7.
  • God is transcendent: Isa. 55:8-9; Ps. 113:5-6; Jn. 8:23
  • God is immanent: Jn. 1:14; Deut. 4:39; Isa. 57:15?