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The Personal God Merciful

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T HE PERSON Al. GOD / 151 God is good, loving, forgiving, necessary part of his jllstice. He The personal God merciful. gracious, holy, truthful, cannot but be angry with sin and -. -~ ..- ... .... - - - ~ .. - - - - - - - - D. A. Carson ~- --·-- - --------- righteous: that he is a peace­ with sinners. If he were maker, helper, a compassionate indifferent he would be denying provider: that he plans things his own holiness. according to his own perfect This does not mean God's will. Because he is perfectly anger is impersonal, merely a righteous, he is also angry at symbolic picture of his justice. It both sinners and their sin, for is personal enough, but without light cannot stand darkness, and is jealous of those pledged to be his but who yet turn away and God is, but what is God like? The So what is God like? What are choose some lesser allegiance. question is not merely academic, his main qualities (which are All these qualities belong in "A city bullion broker, I am told, because if what we think about sometimes called his attributes)? some measure to people as well. decided to adorn rus notepaper with a God is basically wrong, we may Many of God's characteristics We, too, can be merciful. truth­ suitable motto and asked staff for be vvorshipping a false God, an are shared in some degree with ful, compassionate, angry, suggestions, The best they came up idol. And what we worship human beings. This makes it Jealous. We use our wills and shapes us. We tend to take on possible for us to understand choose our course. with was Ingot We Trust. " The Times. London what he is like. But the qualities God shares with us are not God's perfection exactly like ours, for our words What makes these character­ being spiteful. arbitrary, or " If your conception of God is are not adequate to express his istics different in God from in uncontrolled. His jealousy is radically false, then the more devout perfection. God wills, and we us? It is that in God they are justified precisely because he is will; God loves and we love: God perfect and unqualified, quite you are the worse it will be for you. God, who rightly lays claim to hates, and we hate. But God's untarnished by sin. God is You are opening your soul to be our devotion. Our jealousy, by "viiI. God's love and God's hate perfectly good. Everything he is contrast, is too often (though not moulded by something base, You had are not exactly like ours. In each and everything he does and says always) the result of our desire case, we must try to detect how is good: he cannot be other than much better be an atheist." to hang on to something over William Temple God's qualities are like ours, and good. God is lOving, so much so how they differ. which we ought not to make such that the Bible dares say God is absolute claims. In addition, God has attributes love. His love, unlike ours, never More imT)Ortant ye t, most of us som ething of the character of quite unlike anything else in the fails. His forgiveness is far more wha t we worship - money, universe. They are far harder for remarkable than ours. When we find we can b" loving or angry, forgiving or jealolls, com­ pleasure, success, God, or any­ us to understand, even when forgive we remember that we passionate or holy, bllt not both thing else. So if we will worship they are described for us. But too, have sinned: but when G~d a t once. God is under no such God, we must think of him as he there are ways of picturing them forgives, it is despite the fact he limitations. He cannot bl) other is. Otherwise the false image we and glimpsing them, and they is always the wounded party, worship will distort our motives are an essential part of what and has never sinned. than both compassionate and holy. In what he feels towards a and twist our personalities. makes God who he is. The Bible tells us that God sinful human being, God will feels wrath against all sin and all invariably be both loving and sinners (we are all by nature angry. But to understand better 'children of wrath'). But, unlike how this can be so, we mllst QUALITIES GOD SHARES WITH PEOPLE most of our anger, this is not the think about Some other of God's result of personal pique. It is a Gor! is personal. This means he the universe, like a giant robot in qUfllities. is aware of his own existence, a factory. He acts and speaks that he reasons, makes free deci­ bec.ause he consciously chooses sions. He is an intelligent moral to act and speak, deciding what being. not merely an abstract he will do and what he will say. QUALITIES UNIQUE TO GOD idea, a 'thing' which somehow All moral virtues belong to There arc some things which can is self-existing. This means that exercises fatalistic control over Gno. Jesus has shown us that be said of God alone. God alone whereas fwerything and every- I,,~ GUO 0 11 (' else depends on him for notion of time is bound up with existence, he is ahsolutely the movement of the stars and TIME AND ETERNITY inde pendent of Ih em. He has lif" planets which he created. We BfIlce Nicholls in hi.mself, and he is the source cannot easily think of days or of Ihe life of the universe; but he years or any sequence, apart Throughout human histor\" harmonize through festiva ls 'Her" li"s Ihe lTlaIl who triud 10 himself hilS no source. He alone from presuppositions about the movement of planet earth, rotat­ peopl'; have had differe ni with the cycl e of nalure. hurry Ih" East' . OIptl y illustrates is utterlv self-sufficie nt. He piclures of time, especiallv There is little thought of Ilw Ih e lension betwep,n diffuwlIl needs n~ lhing the universe ing on its axis and circling the when they think of etemit\" or p,.st or the futun,: the prese nt is vi.)ws of timo. "II God is dead, then off ers him. sun. But God is not bound by this immorlality. For manv ancient a ll-i mporlant. Ancestors are Ihe Hellenislic culllll"e. which the",oat II follows that God docs not system. He made it, and so he is cultures, e~pecially in Africa. li ving d ead with whom pervaded Ihl' world of Ihe N.,w capibliatiGo of the changl'. HL iii t; clueS not change, above it. Asia and the South Pacific, the immediale contacl is possible. l'estanwnl. was dominated bv ,I lorce stBIIdiftg ..... The problem is that we can rhythmical patte rn of the People from such Guitures are cyclic view of time. For Plato' aeaiAst man has his ch"racter does nol change, been made. lAd man his ways do not chauge, his scarcely understand what it seasons - seed-lime and offended by impali'mce, bul nut ollly dernilv as tillle lessness isb.. lD_ purposes do not change: even his means 10 be above time. It harvesl, hoi and cold, wei a nd by laleness, and Ihis is re fl ecled was real. l'iin" was bUI a copy l_anlandlD dry - has given meaning to life in the behaviour of students of " t"rnity and nu "venl in tim', Son does not change. For this certainly does not mean that God _ytheSad-lik. itself. The sun, Ihe moon a nd coming from such cuitures 10 had any ullimate meaninK This positions, is me re ly static: the God of the reason, God is supremely reli­ Ihe sta rs are the reference study in the West. The apocry­ lIIade the death of Jesus fllncolerth, .... is Bible slands in active troelD m.... of able and Irustworlhy. poinls. The goal of living is 10 phaltomhslone inscription, foolishness 10 the Greeks. The himuIf whal h. It is most important to under­ relationship with the universe will ... If Soc! is sta nd God's changeless- he created. We are creatures in doad evetytlliag is ness correctly. It does not mean time, and so if God is to reveal THREE WAYS OF SEEING TIME parmittad. .- the r&SOft to the he is passionh,ss, that he cannol himself to us, it must be in terms animality of an feel n varie ty of emotions. The of history, of sequence, of 'l1Ie wbee.I of 'l1Ie liDe oJ. God'. The circle of life amoral Aitural lorce. Bible shows us a God who feels 'before' and 'after'. Before Paul exiIteDce­ ~- banded on- Th. decision thaI d.. was converted, in the doys of tbeHmdu tbe BIble view a modern ~ idea war is 0\111. arut man very deeply. Nor does it mean undenIaodIas God's plan for the Immortality lies simply has won, and Golf is tha I his dealings with a Pontius Pilote, Jesus died and History is 8 .arlee of world Is an unde1l.ected in the life of each doadisth. particulnr person or nation may rose again, the perfect repealed reincarnations straight line. It runs generation being laken inspiration and at from aeation to lhe day up and carried on by d8$jlair .f not change in their experience. manifestation of God within differenlleveb of life. (The Greab abo of Jesus Christ's return; the next. c""temporary Rather, ilmeans God's dealings time, at a specific place in bad a cyclic view of Jesus' death and mGY8Ifli!RtIi S&lch as vliilh us will always h" ],;\sf1d on history.
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