The Attributes of God
Series: Sword of the Spirit – Unit: Knowing the Father
Lesson: Who is God? – Topic 3: The Attributes of God
Teacher: Colin Dye
Announcer: Welcome to Sword of the Spirit, written and presented by Colin Dye, senior minister of Kensington Temple and leader of London City Church. Sword of the Spirit is a dynamic teaching series equipping the believers of today to build the disciples of tomorrow. We pray that you find these programs inspiring, and a catalyst in deepening your knowledge of God, your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and your intimacy with the Holy Spirit.
Colin Dye: Hello, and welcome to The Sword of the Spirit, a school of ministry in the Word and the Spirit. Our topic is Knowing the Father. This is not just about studying what the Bible says concerning the existence of God as Father. It’s more than that. It’s getting to know Him as Father. And we’ve been looking at the attributes of God the Father. In other words, what’s He like? We’ve seen that He is the eternal God. He is the great transcendent God. In other words, His presence isn’t just found within this universe. He exists right outside of it. He is this amazing eternal being who loves us. But we also have seen that that same God draws close to us. His presence fills the universe. The Father is with us at every moment. He knows when the sparrow falls to the ground. The Father knows every detail about your life. He knows you through and through. He knows you more than you can possibly know yourself. And we also understand that as Bible-believing Christians, the fatherhood of God was ultimately and fully revealed in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. So Jesus said, “If you know me, you know the Father. If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” And it’s this revelation of Jesus concerning the fatherhood of God that we are studying in detail in this series on Knowing the Father. And at this particular point in the series, I’m about to show you how that God the Father is the first member of the trinity. That word ‘trinity’ scares many, many people. Because they rightly believe and understand that God is one. Yes He is one. There is only one God. But this oneness is not a cold, arithmetic oneness. Not some kind of monolithic oneness. This oneness is expressed in fatherhood, sonship, and the Holy Spirit.
Hello and welcome back to the second session in Knowing the Father—a part of the Sword of the Spirit series; a school of ministry and the Word and the Spirit. And as I said in the first session, this topic is going to demand the very best in terms of your concentration and your desire to love God with all your mind and all your understanding. But thank God for the Holy Spirit’s revelation, who will give us that understanding and impart to us the knowledge of who our God really is. We’ve been starting by looking at the attributes of God—seeing His eternal nature, His infinite nature, and so forth. And we finished up in the last session talking about how God is personal. In other words, He carries all the attributes of personality. He thinks. He feels. He wills. He chooses. He has compassion. He has anger. All of the normal reactions that we would think about when we think about personality. God is personal. He is not just a force, an it, or a thing. God is a person. Now we’re going to look briefly at a few more of these attributes before we start examining the names of God. Moving on, we see that God is trinity. God is trinity. Now we to establish straight away that the word ‘trinity,’ as such, does not occur in the Bible. Neither does the word ‘omnipresent’ or ‘omniscient.’ And it’s a theological term. But the truth of trinity does exist. And we’re going to be looking at this in much more detail later on in one of the sessions. But let me just say, first of all, at this point, that when we say that God is three, we do not mean that He is three separate, distinct, individual beings. There is one being, God, who eternally exists in three persons. I prefer the term ‘unipersons’ so that we don’t overemphasize the three. But we must be careful because if we overemphasize the unity we can forget the diversity. And so it’s a balance that we must have. There is one God who eternally exists in three persons—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And we see this throughout the whole of scripture really, especially the New Testament. The Old Testament, the scripture teaches that some of these things are hinted at in terms of God’s plurality, but it’s really when we come to the New Testament that we discover that we have three divine persons, each fully God, and we’re going to look at this in further sessions.
Now we come on to the fact that God is Creator. The Bible reveals that God is our creator—the God who brought this universe into existence. Even though all that we see in the physical created world is but a tiny indication of who God is. Job says in verse 14 of chapter 26, “Indeed, these are the mere edges of His ways. How small a whisper we hear of Him. But the thunder of His power who can understand?” And so God is the great Creator God, and all that He’s created demonstrates His nature and His being but only gives us a tiny glimpse. For example you look into the world [stutters] of the stars and the heavens. You see there just a tiny indication of God’s ability because the heavens are the work of His fingertips. But from the beginning of Genesis right the way through to Revelation, we understand God is the great Creator God. Revelation 4 verse 11 says “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.” Now we cannot describe or understand how God created. We know He spoke the universe into being, but the actual way in which He created, the Bible is silent on. Just asserts the fact that He did create. But let’s pause for a moment and look at some of the possibilities, not of how God created, but how this universe came into being. And here we find only three possibilities. First of all, there’s the possibility, theoretically I suppose, that matter and energy have always existed and that the physical universe is the ultimate reality—that all we see is all that there is. Then there’s another possibility, theoretically one supposes that this world spontaneously just happened. It happened. It came out of nothing without explanation. And then there’s the third alternative, which is the Bible’s teaching that God created this world a wholly other, wholly beyond, wholly non-material Being created space, time, matter, energy, life, everything that there is, and that He created it out of nothing. I mention those three alternatives because the choice between these is not a scientific or an intellectual decision. That’s where people go wrong. They say, “Well, the Christians who believe in creation, they’re the brainless morons. They’re the people that just opt for this spiritual explanation. They believe in magic or superstition. And the rest of the people who believe that the world always existed or it sort of somehow spontaneously happened, then they’re the scientific ones.” They’re—whether it’s the big bang or whatever theory they want to hold to. But the truth is, the decision as to whether you hold to view one, two, or three is entirely a spiritual decision. You need an equal amount of faith for whichever explanation you choose to follow. So the idea that we are just blind, bigoted believers and the rest are reasoned, intellectual, clever people, that is actually a flawed argument to begin with. But the Bible does not seek to go into great detail about these matters. The Bible simply asserts that God is the Creator of all things.
And then the Bible goes on to say that God is also the sustainer. God didn’t just wind this world up like some cosmic clock and then disappear while the clock kept on ticking of its own accord. No, God penetrates His universe and actively sustains what He created. We see this, for example, in Acts chapter 14 verses 15 to 17. And this is the confrontation of those who were about to worship Paul and Barnabas because of the miracle of the healing of the man at Lystra. “Men why are your doing these things? We are also men with the same nature as you and preach to you that you should turn from these useless things to the living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them and who in bygone generations allowed nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without a witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with goodness and gladness.” In other words, this describes that the God who created is also the God who sustains. So the creation power of God was not some momentary flash of inspiration—the very best that God could do as He mustered all His strength one sweaty morning in the—in His existence. No, it was the effortless work of His fingertips. He spoke this world into being and this universe into existence out of nothing. But by that same word He sustains all that you and I see, and the heavens and earth are reserved by the Word of God until that day when the judgment shall come. No, God is Creator and God is Sustainer.
Implicit in all that I’ve been saying is the teaching also that God is sovereign. Because He created all things and sustains all things, that demonstrates that God controls all things and is Lord, sovereign, over all things. We see this in many, many examples, but I would like you to look particularly at Isaiah chapter 46, verses 6 through to 11. Here we have . . . Let’s have a look at verse 9. “Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.” Verse 10. “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that [are yet] are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.’” Can you see here is the Old Testament teaching that God is sovereign, and He reigns supreme? It says in Psalm 103 that the Lord has established His kingdom in the heavens, His throne in the heavens, and His kingdom rules over all things. God’s sovereignty, God’s lordship, is expressed all over the world, all over the universe, and God says “My counsel shall stand. I will do all that I please to do.” Ephesians 1 verse 11 says, “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.” This shows us that God governs and rules and controls. He has supreme power over all His universe. He controls everything. He’s infinitely active in the world and He works out His eternal purposes in this world. The devil’s not in control, my friend. God is in control. The devil’s not lord. Jesus is Lord. And so this is God’s sovereignty. God’s sovereign nature. He rules and controls over all things. We must also recognize that the Bible teaches our human responsibility. It’s not that God controls us like puppets. We have free will. But God’s sovereignty is so big that [stutters] that His sovereignty even transcends that and [stutters] that God’s power works even through free will decisions. He is that big. We find in the Bible God sovereignly controlling and working through what are nothing less than free will acts of humans—men and women on this world. And that’s a deep mystery that no philosopher or theologian has ever been able to work out. But we just need to be balanced and understand God is sovereign and we are accountable and responsible in our free will to Him.
Then there’s another teaching which in many ways summarizes everything the Bible says about God. God is holy. God is holy. And in every expression of God—Father, Son, and Spirit—He is holy. God the Father is holy. God the Son is holy. God the Spirit is holy. Now most people, when they think of this word ‘holy,’ they immediately think about morality. But the word holy doesn’t just mean being good or well-behaved. The Hebrew word qodesh and the Greek word hagios primarily mean ‘that which is separated unto,’ unto a purpose, or devoted for a particular person, purpose, or cause. So when God is described as holy, it means that He is separated from His universe. He is the one who is infinitely above and beyond His universe. It’s another way of looking at His transcendence. But it’s more than that because it’s the sum of all His attributes. The holiness of God is everything that makes God God and therefore different from everything else. His holiness includes His justice, His power, His might, His goodness, His love. Everything that is God, that goes to make Him God, and therefore separate from everything else, that’s what His holiness means. But then there is another aspect to His holiness. It’s His devotedness. And God is holy in that He is devoted. He is devoted, entirely separated and consecrated unto His own holy purposes. We see this in the members of the Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are holy because these members of the Trinity are totally and exclusively consecrated to each other. The Father is consecrated to the Son. The Son is consecrated to the Father. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are totally, completely, and utterly consecrated and devoted to the other members of the godhead. That’s deep thinking and requires a lot of thought, but it’s so powerful in that it’s that relationship of holiness into which we have been called to be totally devoted to God and to be committed to Him even as He is to Himself and He is committed within Himself in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Are you still with me out there? I told you we’re gonna plumb some depths and rise to some heights.
Okay, I’ve mentioned these two next words already in the earlier session. God is omnipotent and God is omniscient. He is the all-powerful, all-knowing God. And so we must understand that God’s power and God’s knowledge extends to everything. There is no part of the universe where God’s power is lacking or where God’s presence is lacking or where God’s knowledge is lacking. Some people struggle with the idea of God knowing everything because they say, “How can God know the future? How can He predict what free will agents are going to do? And if He could predict them then they are predetermined.” And they say, “Well this is impossible philosophically.” Well you can struggle with it philosophically as much as you like, and the truth is there is no philosophical system that can contain this, because God cannot be contained by the tiny containers known as human minds, intellects, or philosophies of people. Now, God is so sovereign, so powerful, and He’s so all-knowing, that He knows the future. And it’s nothing to do with whether you believe in double predestination or anything like this. It’s to do with the simple fact that God is God. Well, we need to perhaps understand this and hopefully try to understand that by looking at the difference between His permissive will and His perfect will. The permissive will of God is what God allows, but in allowing it to happen, He does not compromise His ongoing purposes. He does not allow something that will ultimately frustrate Him from what He has purposed to do. God will ultimately work out His will in the world. Jesus Christ will return and He will establish God’s kingdom fully upon this earth. But in the meantime, He has allowed a rebellious kingdom, Satan’s kingdom. He allows sin. He doesn’t automatically stop sin. The time is coming when He will. But in the meantime He gives us the freedom to choose so that we can willingly submit to His kingdom and His authority. And that’s when His perfect will will be established. And the tension between His permissive will and His perfect will is seen everywhere in the scripture. God’s permissive will allowed the enemy to enter Judas Iscariot and to betray Jesus and to cause Jesus Christ to be crucified upon the cross. That was His permissive will. God did not will that in the sense that He was the one doing it and making these people do it to fulfill His plan. But as they took their own choice and did this deed, which is the most wicked deed that ever happened in all history, it was at the same time God’s perfect will to see salvation come to the world. And the day you can explain that to me, that’s the day I think we’d be in heaven, maybe, I don’t know. I said you explain it to me because I’m not going to try and explain it to you. I’m the Bible teacher. But it’s [stutters] my prerogative to say this is beyond human understanding and explanation. At such a point as this we bow and worship at the mystery of God and say, “Lord, let Your will be done in me.”
And then finally in this section, we see that God is the God of love. That’s the essence of God. God is love. He’s all love, all loving. Exodus 34 verses 6 to 7, here we have—I think it’s the amplified name of God—Exodus 34: 6 to 7: “And the Lord passed before him [that’s Moses], and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.’” God’s mercy is for a thousand generations of those who love Him and obey Him. Psalm 103 verse 8: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” 1 John 4 verse 8: “He who does not love God does not know God; for God is love.” And so here we have, it seems to me to be the very essence of God, this unceasing, unchanging love that belongs to God that is God. And that’s how we come to know Him because this loving God not only loves within the persons of the godhead—the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father and the Spirit is committed to the Father and to the Son and vice versa. Not only are these—is this love seen in the intra-personal relationships within the godhead, but God has brought us into that family of love by extending His love towards us so that we could come to know Him. And the greatest expression of God’s love is His revelation of Himself. And the greatest revelation of Himself is the revelation of God in Christ especially at Calvary where Jesus died as an expression of the Father’s love to bring us into the knowledge of Him.
Well that’s the end of the [stutters] first section and we’re going to carry on in this session going on into section number two. So turn there in your manuals, to section number two. And before we go in to look at the name of God which is the topic under consideration now, let me remind you where we are heading. We are looking at God. And I know we need very, very, very heavy sunglasses on to shade our eyes at the lights and the brilliance of this revelation. It’s far more brilliant than any noonday sun anywhere on the earth. And the purpose of this as we try to grapple and peer through all the brilliant light coming towards us and grapple with the revelation that we see, the reason we’re doing this is because we want to love God with all our hearts and all our understanding and it’s because we want to know Him. And here’s how God has made Himself known. He has revealed Himself to us in His name. When I say ‘name,’ I’m understating it, because there are at least three hundred different names of God. And each of these names contains a rich revelation of His person and of His character and what His purposes are for us. Now names today generally mean very, very little. Not so much in the African cultures when we dedicate children to the Lord we have sometimes names which are as long as your arm, and when we have them translated they are glorious names, and they are very significant. But in western culture, names don’t really mean that much. But I’ve been looking at the meaning of my name I’ve decided that I’m going to really lay hold of it. My name is Colin. And you can derive Colin in English from either the Latin or the Greek. Now in the Latin, it’s derived from the Latin word for ‘dove’—the Holy Spirit. And from the Greek, it’s derived from the meaning of the word, the word meaning ‘victory’ or ‘victorious.’ So either the Latin or the Greek, I’m laying hold of my name as a revelation of God for me. So we ask ourselves in the Bible what is, what’s in a name. Sometimes the name reflected the character or personality of the person. In 1 Samuel 25 verse 25, Abigail was married to a man called Nabal, which means ‘worthless’ or ‘fool.’ And Abigail said of her husband to David, “He’s [stutters] rightly named.” Now sometimes names were given which demonstrated there was a change in the person. For example, Abram, Sarai, and Jacob became Abraham, Sarah, and Israel. Because—and in the New Testament Simon and Joseph were also called Peter and Barnabas. Peter meaning ‘rock’ or ‘stone,’ and Barnabas meaning ‘encouragement.’ And so these names were given, in a way, to reflect the individual. Sometimes names were given to reflect the circumstances of the person’s birth or the prophetic nature of their life given by revelation of God. So when it comes to the name of God, it’s not merely a label. Each of the names of God are revelations of God—of God’s nature and of God’s character. And so the name of the Lord stands for God Himself. So when we speak about the name of God, we’re talking about the revelation of who God is. And so in Exodus 34 in that verse that I just read earlier in another context, the name of the Lord was proclaimed to Moses when God passed before Him. And that was an announcement of His nature. Let me read it again. Exodus 34 verses 5 and 6, “Now the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him, and proclaimed,” [and here’s the name of the Lord] “’The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth.’” So this is the announcing of the name of the Lord and His nature. To call upon the name of the Lord is to worship God as Lord and to worship Him as God. So when you talk about calling on the name of the Lord, you’re worshipping Him as God. To forget the name means to depart from the Lord. To take the name of the Lord in vain is to affront God’s divine majesty. So when we talk about the name of God, it encapsulates the full glorious nature and the character of God and it points to His total manifestation—the manifestation of Himself to His people. So the name of God is His manifest nature, His revealed nature as is always the case seen in His activity.
And that brings today’s teaching on Knowing the Father to an end. I pray that as you’ve been watching today and throughout all these programs, God will be drawing you closer and closer to His love, that you will really get to know the Father. We’ll be back next time with more in this Sword of the Spirit series on Knowing the Father. God bless you.