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Home , Love of God, Personal god

T HE PERSON Al. / 151 God is good, loving, forgiving, necessary part of his jllstice. He The merciful. gracious, holy, truthful, cannot but be angry with 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 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 and we : 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 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 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 belong to There arc some things which can is self-existing. This means that exercises fatalistic control over Gno. 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 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 , 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 ' 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. niMism and time·1 resurrection are its mid­ 8J(istentiatism." Ihe same things - on what God is The thought is staggering: the point Each of ua find8 lesile Paul like. . eternal God, the timeless God, our individual purpc»e has chosen to reveal himself to within thisover'al1 plan. The unlimited God us in time, because that is the Both the glory of God, and the only habitat we understand. And difficulties we have in h'fappling if we find it difficult to w ith what he has revealed of unde rstand what it means to say himself, stem from the fact that God slands above time, how he transcends the limits we much more difficult is it for us to "xperience. God is essentially unde rstand how this eternal God unlimited. By contrast. we can reveal himself to us in time. human being:; are limited in There is nothing intrinsically time (we are born, live and die illogical about the idea; but there at a certain time in history): is much we do not comprehend place (if I am in London I am nol about it. simulianeously in Montreal or • God is unlimited in place. Karachi); power (there arf, many He is everywhere: as the things I um inGlpable of doing): theologians say, he is knowledge (enough said!). But 'omnipresent'. It is impossible to God is infi nite in all these hide from him or to escape from respects. him. He is in everything. But il • He is unlimited in time. His does not follow that he cannot realm is eternity. Our ve ry sometimes appear to people in a THE PERSONAl. COD i F." ------~------~------~-- localized way. In the Old Testa­ In the same way. God cannot errors of which Jesus): God, who is eternal, . ment, God meets with his people do anything th at wOllld violate infiltrattl d the early church go created ti me and surrounds It personally and at a particular his own character, or break one back 10 the Greek view of time. on all sides. Our future is place - in a bright cloud of glory, of his promises. When Christi ans The Gnostics SdW as always present to him. Some at the tent in the wilderness. at say th at God is omnipotent, they deliverance from the wheel of have found help in C. S. Lewis's th e temple. When he withdraws simply mean that there is no bondage. Hindus also pictu:e picture of time as a straight line from th em in wrath, he makes it limit to his power, no intrinsic time as an endlessly recurrmg along which we travel and of impossible for them to meet him weakness or inability. He can do circltl. Each lif e is repeated God as the whole page on or experience him; but in one which the line is drawn. God anything he pleases; bllt what he time and again. in successive sense even then th ey cannot reincarnations. f rom above or outside or all pleases will always he in perfect around contains the whole of escape his presence. harmony with his character, "Ged's Iova is In In the , God Time isreal time and sees it aiL ourcise of his with all that makes him Gocl. The Christian picture of time is No human analogy or picture ...... meets his people in th e most • God is unlimited in quite different. because can fully explain the mystery of iIIIIividHI -u-n humanly personal way possible knowledge: he is ·omniscient'. Christi

Yet these very difficulties to Christians can do when they try our understanding can also to think clearly about God's prove a help. If we can get them character. sorted out, they help to explain • We need to admit ignorance. some of the earlier questions we We can only know what God faced. We said that God is both discloses of himself. To claim we loving toward sinners and angry know more about God than he with them. We find it hard to has revealed is a mark not of imagine how that can be. knowledge but of arrogance. The closest analogy might be a Indeed, if we knew all there was good mother or father who both to know about God, we would loves and is angry wi th a have to pass through the very disobedient child. But perhaps it barriers which make us is easier to think of God being creatures. In short, we would full of love and wrath 'at the have to be God. same time' if we remember that • We must also worship. Far he is above time. The mystery of from being an excuse for lazy God's eternal, timeless being thinking, worship is the only may well help shed light on adequate response to the God some other mysteries. who made us and who, despite our persistent rebellion and How should we respond? indifference, still delights to Our problem with qua1ities that make himself known. Such a belong to God alone is that our God will move us to profound human experience of what adoration, to thinking about God 'persons' and 'personal on the large scale and about rela tionships' are like takes people on the small scale ­ place entirely within the limits precisely the opposite pattern to of time, space, knowledge and the predominant attitude in power. But in God we are our secular world. deal ing with a person who is • It is important to get the problems in perspective. We may not fully grasp the details of how God, above time, reveals " Is God the keystone that supports himself and interacts with the structure of our thought? Or is he people within time. But, as many a personal, warm, attentive presence scholars have pointed out, there at the heart of our life? Is he the God is nothing fundamentally illogical about the idea. postulated by philosophy who gives • Above all, we need to an ultimate meaning to our world, or examine how God's qualities is he the living God, in the biblical work out in practice in the Bible. sense, who touches our hearts? " This will save us from using our Watar. lor the 0loI knOwledge of them wrongly. Tastlment paople. Leon Joseph Suenens often ,tood lor cia Take God's unlimited power. Irom which only till The biblical writers never power of God couIi beyond all such limitations. deduce from this that we are all ....: .... we will l11li. lur ... though ill Understandably, we do not robots, or that it does not matter waters roar and know exactly how to resolve what we do because God will loam: But wlter _ these matters. We do not have have his way in the end. Instead, also. ,ourca of lilt: enough information. But there the Bible uses God's omni­ are several useful things potence to encourage his THEPJ::RSUt( .-\ i. Cf)II ' 1')'1 --- - people and warn his e ne mies. God knows all things, even the as he is, we cannot, without dllthat we can know abollt God Da le a man fight an end from the beginning, does not being God, know all there is to were a jigsaw pllzzle, Wf) wflllid omnipotent God? Even if such a appear in the Bible as some know about him, This mp.ans WP. be missing many pieces;' BlI t the God is longsuffering, must he not abstruse theory, or to make him mllst ti1kp. pains to kno\\' him ilS pieces he has graciollsly given us triumph in the end? Cannot illto some sort of clairvoyant. But he has rp.vealed himsdf. It is are magnifice nt. VVhen we fit God's people invest great r.on­ it does have th e great value of fatal to sper.ulate ;!bout God in fidenr.e in him preciH ely because assuring God's pp.o pl e he is such a way that our picture of noth ing Cdn take pl ace apart never taken by surprise, he him is different from the froo1 his permission? Even a knows what he is doing, he character he has made known. "A God, who does not sanctify the spar row cannot drop to the understands our needs and long­ Second, we need to ask why everyday IS dead. and in such a ground without God's permis­ ings, He even knows 'insig­ God has revealed his character sion, so his people need not be nifi cant' details, such as when to us. It is not to titillate our remote God is an intellectual or prey to anxiety. They ca n trust we sit down and when we stand curiosity but to evoke aesthetic luxury. , . it does not lead to th ei r heavenly Father, lip, With such kn owl edge, he repentance, and worship. the celebration of life, An Or r.onside;' God's limitless r.a llnot be tricked or deceived, Certainly we need to think unemployed God quickly exhaUSts his pre~ e nc e , The bihlica l writers and his justice will be absolutely deeply about God .- But God has never use this idea as if it meant fair and impartial. capital and becomes a dead God, " made himself known to us not Sam Keen that. because God is evp. rywhere There are two things that primarily to satisfy our and in evp. rything, an orr.hid or a come out very clearl y from th e intelligencp. but to meet our daisy is part of God, They recog­ Bible's account of God's many needs>The Bible shows liS these together they form ni ze that God is also above the character. First. his qualities are each of God's qualities first and patterns of great heauty and unive rse he has creatp. d, and not never described in a way which foremost in th e context of the grandeur which stretch our throws one attribute into conflict to b e co nfused with it. The far.t human need that called it forth, human conceptions to the limit. with another. In oth e r words, it that God is everywhere serves as God reveals his compassion to WP. must guaro against forr.ing is wrong to lay such absolute a warning to thosp. who want to people who are lost, his grace to the pieces togeth er in IInn atural escape from him, and as a great stress on one of God's revealed th e guilty, his love to the unlov­ ways, or throwing some of th p. m qualities that ot hers, equally comfort and encouragement to ing, his eternity to those too pre­ away, or introducing new piecp.s revealed, are neg lected. Eastern spirituality those who love him and want to occupied with what is passing, from oifferent pllzzles, Othe r­ has had an extensIve For instance, it is possible to do his will. When Jp.s us says that hiS wrath to th e rehellious, wise the picture becomes baoly appeal in the West think so much about God's recent IV. Some he will he with his disciples to ,(God is greater than the sum of distortp.d and is no longer a . techniques, such as the e nd of the age, he is giving a limitless powe r th a t his more th e qualities he has revealp.d. If picture of God, Zen Buddhism and promise to he savoured and personal characteristics - his , have the aim of losing oneself in the e njoyed, a spur to mission, love, his wrath, his give-and-take universal. Here the oh p. oience and worship, with his creatures - fade from practice of Zen W e need to be cl ear, too, what view, Equally, some people Buddhism is linked dwe ll so much on God as a with tuition in God's limitless knowledge GOD AS HE REVEALS ffiMSELF singiny . means in prar.tice. The fact that pe rson that they eff ectively put aside his , Others All we know about God has with his people, (The old word stress his love, and so conclude comp. to us in H story, He has for this was 'Jehovah'; in most that his wrath must be revp.aled himself in historical Bibles it is f,>ivcn as 'the LORD',) impersonal; or else they decide, events ann in words spoken by Thp. name signifies '1 am what I against the Bible's teaching, that historical people, What he has am', He is 'Yahweh thp. everlast­ p.ve ryone will ultimately sur­ rp.vea led has affected the history ing God', He is aodwsscd as render to such magnificent love, of th e nations it has tOllched. 'YahwBh provides', 'Yahweh is These are dangerous ways of God has chose n to reveal our righteousness', 'th e Ancient thinking about God, They distort himself to hllmanity in a number of days', 'th p. hol y One of Israel', th e only evidence we have by of remarkable way~. One of These names or titles often supprp.ssing the bits we may not th ese is to use deeply significant first r.allp.d forth in specific co n­ like, And sooner or later we find names for himsp. lf. His 'names' teXis, becamp. fill ed with grea ter ourselves worshipping a falsp. or 'titles' rp.f1ect what ann who nwaning ilS God rev()aled god, WP. must frankly r.onfp.ss he is, He is 'Yahweh', the himself more and more over that, although we can know God pe rsonal God of th e covenant slIr.cessivc generations. 'Yahweh loll! (;UO ------~-=~------'1'1 IE pr:RS UN.,\L (;Oll " Hi! ------_._- - -- ._-- -.-_. ' S p.;

compared with anyone or any­ thing: he is completely apart, The transcendent, 'holy'. We are holy Trinity ------Kl if we belong to God, if we are set aas Runia ------aside for him alone. The holy God is also th e loving God. God's love is not caused by anything in the ones whom he loves, but finds its springs in his own character. We human beings often lov e because we find th e one we love attractive; God loves because it is his When we speak or write about Jesus Christ, d. as both Old and reveals what the personal God nature to love. His love is his only-begollen w Testaments God the Three-in-one, we are Son, o is like. directed towards the lost world. ur Lord ... and in the Hol y icnbe him. is just not dealing with a purely Spirit.' Our whole lif d contelOed that But the Bible equally declares e as th eologi cal mailer. This beli ef Christians is tice should prevail Holiness and love that God sets his love in a special surrounded by the huma n affairs. about God takes us to the very Na If th e r e are two allributes of God way on some people, not me of God the Trinity. We len people such as for' any heart of th e church's life. You which most comple superior were baptized into the Name of {her Kiog Jr work tdy sum up value in them, but can see this from th e centr justice and al th e Fa ther and the Son and the r!Sist alltha t he has revealed of simply because God has chosen place it ~r8s si on , they do co mm ands in the Holy Spirit. himself, they are holiness and to do so. This love God has Usu'ally we were ! work of God. worship of th e church. Many of love. towards his people married in th e same threefold is shown as our hymns end with some such 'Holiness' sums up th e nature he works for th eir good, Name. And in many Christian doxology as: churches of God. Other persons and things especiall y for their eternal well­ we will also he buried in the in the Bible are called 'holy' , but being. lis greatest demonstration Praise God from whom all very same Name. Fro only b ecause of their relati on to came when he sent his Son to blessings flow ; m all this it is clear that we are God. Holiness is not essentially a reconcile us to himself . Praise him, all creatures here not dealing with something question of character: clothes, No description of the below; food and utensils are sometimes character of God can ever be Praise him above, ye heavenly called holy. They become holy adequate: the suhject is too vas\. host; not hecause th ey are good, nor But no other subject so urgently Prai se Father, Son and Holy "Without the Spirit it is not possible by some magical rite, but demands our though\. This is Ghos\. to hold the Word of God nor without hecause th ey arc peculiarly God's world, he made us, we will Another well-known h the Son can any draw near to the God's. The moral obligation in all have to give account to him ymn begins wi th the ve rse: Father, for the knowledge being called holy lies in this: and in Jesus he has opened up of the 'holy people' • those who th e way for Father is the Son and the knowledge belong us to know him. Our Holy, holy, holy, Lord G to God, must r response od efl ect something of must surely be to give almighty! of the Son of God is through the Holy God's character: That is part of our minds to the tas k of thinking Early in the morning our song Spirit. "Irenaeus of Lyons his ma rk of ownership>God about his ch aracter. As we do so, shall rise to thee; himse If is holy we will in that he is not become a lillie more like Holy, holy, holy, bound b merciful and y creation, not to be him. mighty, God in three persons, blessed that belongs to th e periphery of Trinity. th e Christian faith; we are coming to its centre. When, in a church service, we And ye t, is it really a li vi ng reci te the Creed, we again speak doctrine for the average church of God the Three-in-one, for we member? To he honest, {have a confess him as th e One God, suspicion that many church who is Father, Son and Holy people deviate from it, tn one Spirit : '{ believe in God the side or the oth er. Some arc Fath er Almighty, Maker of vi rtuall y 'tri-theists': the Father, hea ven and earth . .. and in the Son and th e Holy Spirit are