“The Character of God” Part #1 Incommunicable Attributes
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Welcome: Glad that you are here.
Announcements:
-This Sunday at 10:30.
-We will meet next Monday evening and then take a break on December 30th.
Prayer:
Over the past few weeks everything that we have addressed and taken a look at really has been in order to set us up for the proceeding chapters beginning with this chapter on God. Some of the most difficult questions that people have about God are addressed in this chapter.
How do we know that God exists?
Can we really know God?
How is God different from us?
*Have someone read the Explanation and Scriptural Basis Part on the top of page 73.
Over the course of this chapter we are going to study the doctrine of God or “theology proper.” The word theology actually means, the study of God. Throughout this chapter we will look into the various aspects of God’s character and namely His attributes. What is God like?
When we think about God one of the first questions that may come to someones mind is how do we know there is a God, and does God exist? The answer to this question comes to us in 2 parts.
A. First of all people have an inner sense of God.
B . Second of all, we as believers know that evidence is given to us and found in Scripture and in nature.
Question #1 In addition to the Bible, what evidence do we have that God exists?
The answer to this question is that all people everywhere have a deep, inner sense that God exists, that they are His creatures, and He is their Creator. Here is what the Apostle Paul said.
21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Even though wicked unbelievers have a knowledge of God they often do not choose to believe and follow Him. They exchange the truth about God for a lie.
25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
Unbelievers willfully reject the truth about God, that He exists or about His attributes.
The Psalmist tells us in Psalm 14 and verse 1 that a fool purposes in his heart that there is no God. In other words foolish unbelieving people deny an inner sense of God and so they willfully choose to renounce Him.
We would say that sin and the deceiver lead people to think irrationally and to deny God. However, in the life of a Christian, we begin to have an awareness of God and we begin to love God more and more.
8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,
Question #2 How would you reconcile the incomprehensibility of God and the fact that we can know God truly?
*Have someone read the first paragraph on page 75. The “Knowability of God.”
Because God is infinite and we are finite or limited, we can never fully understand God. In this sense God is said to be incomprehensible. This means that God is unable to be fully understood. Grudem says that this sense must be clearly distinguished from the more common meaning, “unable to be understood.” It is not true to say that God is unable to be understood, but it is true to say that he cannot be understood fully or exhaustively.
3 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
and his greatness is unsearchable.
God’s greatness is beyond searching out or discovering.
5 Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
his understanding is beyond measure.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
We can never know any of God’s attributes completely or exhaustively. Yet, we can know God truly. But how is this? We can know true things about God. In fact, all of Scripture tells us about God is true. Here are just a few examples.
-God is love = (1 John 4:8)
-God is light = (1 John 1:5)
-God is Spirit = (John 4:24)
-God is righteous = (Romans 3:26)
And even more significantly we know God himself, because we have a personal relationship with Him.
3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor
and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
13 I am writing to you, fathers,
because you know him who is from the beginning.
I am writing to you, young men,
because you have overcome the evil one.
I write to you, children,
because you know the Father.
Question #3 Differentiate between incommunicable attributes of God and communicable attributes of God.
Several different methods of classifying God’s attributes have been used. In this chapter we will adopt one of the most commonly used classifications. The incommunicable attributes of God. This means that these attributes are things that God does not share or communicate to others, and the communicable attributes of God, those things that God shares or communicates with us.
*Examples of the incommunicable attributes are:
-God’s eternity. God has existed for all of eternity.
-God’s unchangeableness. God does not change.
-God’s omnipresence. God is everywhere present.
*Examples of the communicable attributes are:
-God is love. We are as well.
-Knowledge. We are able to have knowledge as well.
-Mercy. We are able to be merciful as well.
-Justice. We are able to be just too.
Question #4 Define God’s independence. How can the two parts of this definition be reconciled?
God’s independence is defined as follows. God does not nee us or the rest of creation for anything, yet we and the rest of creation glorify him and bring him joy. This attribute of God is sometimes called his self-existence or his aseity. God does not need any part of creation in order to exist or for any other reason. God is absolutely independent and self-sufficient.
24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
God does not need anything from mankind. God did not create humans because he was lonely. If that were true than it would certainly mean that God is not completely independent of creation. It would mean that God would need to create persons in order to be completely happy or fulfilled. We know of course that there was a love and communication between the Father and Son before creation. This fellowship helps us to see that there was no lack or unhappiness that required the creation of mankind.
That being said, there is a balancing consideration with respect to this doctrine or attribute of God. The fact that we and the rest of creation do in fact glorify God, and we do bring him joy remains true. This must be stated in order to guard against the idea that God’s independence makes us meaningless. Sometimes people can wonder, if God does not need us for anything, then are we important at all? Yes, we are meaningful because God has created us and has determined that we would be meaningful to him.
7 everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.”
Question #5 In light of God’s unchangeableness, what does Scripture mean when it speaks of God changing his mind?
The second incommunicable attribute of God is His unchangeableness. This means that God is unchanging in his being, perfections, purposes, and promises, yet God does act and feel emotions, and he acts and feels differently in response to different situations. This attribute of God is also called God’s immutability.
25 Of old you laid the foundation of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
26 They will perish, but you will remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
27 but you are the same, and your years have no end.
Knowing this definition brings about a good question, because there are times in Scripture where it looks as if God sometimes changes his mind. Here is what we mean. There are places where God said he would judge his people and then, because of prayer or the people’s repentance or even both, God relented and did not bring judgement as he said he would.
A. The first example of this was the intervention of Moses when he prayed to prevent the destruction of his people in Exodus chapter 32.
B. Another example of this is when 15 years were added on to the life of Hezekiah in Isaiah chapter 38.
C. Finally, we see this when Jonah goes to Nineveh and the people repented of their ways and God relented of His judgement. Are these not cases where it seems that God’s purposes in fact did change? What are we to make of this?
The answer = This is just saying that God responds differently to different situations. When Jonah went to Nineveh he preached that God would overthrow this city in 40 days. (Jonah 3:4) The possibility that God would withhold judgment if the people repented is not mentioned in the verse. However, it is implicit in the warning that the purpose for proclaiming a warning is to bring about repentance. Once the people did repent, the situation was different, and God responded differently to that changed situation.
10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
God responded to the new situation differently, but nevertheless remained unchanging in his being and his purposes. In fact, if God did not respond differently when people acted differently, then people’s actions would make no difference to God, and he would not be the kind of just and merciful God that we see in the Bible.
Question #6 Does time have any effect on God? Explain.
The third incommunicable attribute of God is that he is eternal. This means that God has no beginning or end or succession of moments in his own being, and he sees all time equally vividly, yet God sees events in time and acts in time. We see this in Psalm chapter 90.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
So, to answer the question this doctrine is called God’s infinity for a reason because it has to do with time. To be infinite is to be unlimited, and so this doctrine teaches that time does not limit God or change him in any way.
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
Alpha, or A, or aleph in the Greek alphabet is the first and Omega or omicron is the last letter in the Greek alphabet. Jesus is the beginning and the end. He has always been.
God does see events in time and acts in time. When the fullness of time had come, God the Father sent the Son to be born of a woman.
*In short than we would say, that God is the Lord who created time and who rules over it and uses it for his own purposes. God can act in time because he is Lord of time.
Question #7 If God is present everywhere, how can he be present in hell if it is a place of terrible suffering?
The fourth incommunicable attribute of God is that he is Omnipresent. This means that God does not have size or spatial dimensions and is present at every point of space with his whole being, yet God acts differently in different places.
A. We know that God is present everywhere.
23 “Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away? 24 Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord.
There is nowhere in the entire universe, on land or sea, in heaven or in hell, where one can flee from God’s presence.
B. God does not have spatial dimensions. God cannot be contained by any space.
27 “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!
C. God can be present to punish, to sustain, or too bless.
This idea here is where sometimes people wonder how God can be present in hell? Isn’t hell the opposite of God’s presence or the absence of God? This difficulty can be resolved by realizing that God is present in different ways in different places. God acts differently in different places in his creation. Sometimes God is present to punish, and it seems that this is how God is present in hell. We see this in Amos chapter 9.
Question #8 Is there any attribute of God that is more true about him than other attributes? Explain.
The final incommunicable attribute of God is Unity. This means that God is not divided into parts, yet we see different attributes of God emphasized at different times. When Scripture speaks about God’s attributes, it never singles out one attribute of God as more important than all the rest. There is an assumption that every attribute is completely true of God and is true of all of God’s character. So, why does Scripture speak of different attributes of God? it is probably because we are unable to grasp all of God’s character at one time, and we need to learn of it from different perspectives over a period of time.
Questions?
Close in Prayer:
