Good morning. Holy smokes that was a wild couple of weeks. I started seminary and it's for real. We took turns with cold in our house the very next week. By the grace of God, it wasn't Covid. There is a bit of a flap going on it seems. One night of a feverish, congested baby should be punishment for all sorts of misdemeanor crimes. We'd have a cleaned-up country in no time.
I have created a Facebook group and Discord channel. I will keep you posted as to when those are operational. The plan is to cover as much ground as possible through various platforms to not only reach more people, but to give us wider options of communication. Discord will allow us to communicate in a live meeting room with screen sharing if we want to pursue that at some point. The goal will be to convert these series into video for streaming platforms. Let me know if you have any ideas or are interested in scheduling live meetings so I can prioritize things better.
Let's get started on God's Attributes. I want to start off with the Trinity just to nail down something, I believe, must be held firmly in your mind when you are thinking about God's attributes. I believe this because of how we should be reading Scripture. We ought to be reading Scripture with God first, not man. We live in a world where Christianity is often taught as a means to get what you want. It's not about what we want, it's about what God wants. He is getting what He wants, and you can be a part of it or not.
That sounds cold and mean. Yes, if you are thinking about yourself. Think about God first. When God gets His way, will that not be your best life? If you want your best life now, then what is there to have hope in later? Put yourself aside and think about all the ways that God getting what He wants puts us in uncomfortable positions. It's not because God is cold and mean, it's because we cannot see the complexity of it all. Understanding who God IS goes a long way in resting in the Lord and considering all suffering as joy if it is for the advancement of the Kingdom.
This doesn't mean to not pray for your situation. It means to ask God to provide everything you need to show the world who He is through your reactions to your situations. Because as we will see, God is always acting for the best and never disappoints.
Many errant doctrines begin with a misunderstanding of who God is. There is also a way of describing God that seems to make some Christians uncomfortable and that is describing God as a what. There is nothing blasphemous or irreverent to understand God as a what. In fact, it is important that we always understand God as a person. A what and a who.
To set the table for our walk-through of God’s attributes, we should begin with the Trinity. The Doctrine of the Trinity is often attacked by your above average village atheist as a Christian invention. Yes, in the sense that a full doctrine has been articulated, it is a Christian invention. No biblical scholar, secular or confessional, will make this assertion. Let’s look at a couple of scriptures to understand why.
John 1:1-5
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
So here we have The Son with The Father in the beginning. This is what is known as The Two Powers in Heaven. In the Old Testament, God manifests as the Angel of the Lord. Any time you have God appearing as a man or doing human-like things, this is the Pre-Incarnate Son. We understand this from passages where God and the Angel of the Lord appear together, or separately, and swap pronouns. In other words, God will be speaking in the first person, using I, and the Angel will then seamlessly begin speaking in the first person as I. The Angel will also assume the authority of God, something no created being has the authority to do.
Genesis 16:10
10 The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.”
Genesis 22:11-12
11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”
We have a couple of options here. First, ignore it and say, “well that’s weird.” Second, believe that the authors are writing in a complicated manner to convey something difficult to understand and move on. Third, think more deeply about what is being communicated theologically.
Understanding that the Angel of the Lord is the second person of the Trinity has a lot to do with how people were to recognize Jesus of Nazareth as the incarnate Son of God by the way He spoke about Himself and how He taught Scripture. When Jesus taught “with authority” it doesn’t mean that He taught well and with competency. He spoke Scripture in the first person as the underwriter of Scripture. Well, who has the power to speak to the validity of Scripture?
We are left with the Holy Spirit. Perhaps someday we will go down the road of the especially dense understanding of Ruach and Nephesh, today is not that day. It is important to understand that God the Father was understood by ancient Israelites as Spirit or Ruach. To insult a modern Christian or ancient Israelite as someone who believes in a “giant man in the sky,” just shows astounding ignorance. Nobody has ever believed that the Father is embodied. The passages describing the Father as embodied are humans using human language to articulate a spiritual truth to other humans using the imagery available to them. This isn’t to say that the Father cannot appear in human form to humanity, we just covered that.
Let’s look at Genesis 1:1-2. Who is there?
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
We know from several passages in the OT and NT that both the Father and the Son were always together. The Spirit of God is here. Where do we see this same imagery again?
Luke 3:21-22
21 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
Notice Luke is careful to note that the Spirit was in bodily form, why? Because you cannot see spirit. Notice what isn’t said here. In spite of what you may hear taught by some preachers, the Spirit of God didn’t enter into Jesus and hitch a ride like some kind of avatar. Notice that Jesus here, nor anywhere in the Bible is said to be filled with the Holy Spirit. So, what is happening here?
God is “re-creating” humanity. God’s Spirit is once again hovering over the waters. And once again the Son is setting order in the universe. Because it is through the Son that we have life. As it was in the beginning so it shall be in the end. This is why Paul can speak of new creatures and new creation.
We can stop here for today. We are trying to understand the theological implications of the Trinity. It took the Church nearly 400 years to articulate and codify the Hypostatic Union. The physics and technicalities of this union are not important to this series but understand that it is important to simply know this: God is one what and three who’s. They have always been and neither one is created or separate in essence.
We will begin our series in full tomorrow. It is my intention to present God’s attributes in pairs. This is not to say that God is warring against Himself or always playing some weird balancing game. That would be very Egyptian of Him. I want to help illustrate how God simply IS. God does not possess His attributes; He IS His attributes.
God, we ask that You speak words of wisdom into our hearts as we boldly attempt to understand who You are. While You can be understood we know that we will never comprehend You and we marvel in that greatness. May we glorify You by representing You accurately and with reverence. May the reality of who You are guide our hearts as we divide Your word and seek to know You more fully. Thank you for sending Your Son, Jesus, to exemplify Your holy and righteous nature. It is in His name that we come before You in fear and praise, amen.