The Christian Conception of God
by R.A. Torrey (1856-1928)
God is light.
1 John 1:5
God is love.
1 John 4:8, 16
With God all things are
possible.
Matthew 19:26
His understanding has no limit.
Psalm 147:5
We are to consider again today the Christian conception of God. We have seen that God is spirit, that God is a Person and that God has a personal interest and an active hand in the affairs of men today, that He sustains, governs and cares for the world He has created, and that He shapes the whole present history of the world.
The next thing to be noted about the Christian conception
of God is that God is perfect and infinite in all His intellectual and moral
attributes and in power.
1. First of all, fix your
attention on our first text: "God is light." These three words
form a marvelously beautiful and overwhelmingly impressive statement of the
truth. They set forth the Absolute Holiness and Perfect Wisdom of God. The words
need rather to be meditated on than to be expounded. "In Him there is no
darkness at all." That is to say, in Him there is no darkness of error, no
darkness of ignorance, no darkness of sin, no darkness of moral imperfection or
of intellectual imperfection of any kind. The three words, "God is
light," form one of the most beautiful, one of the most striking, and one
of the most stupendous statements of truth that ever was penned.
2. To come to things more
specific, the God of the Bible is omnipotent. This great truth comes out
again and again in the Word of God. One direct statement of this great truth
especially, striking because of the connection in which it is found, occurs in
Jeremiah 32:17, 27, "Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the
earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for
you." Here it is Jeremiah who makes the statement, but in the 27th verse
it is the LORD Himself who says: "I am the LORD, the God of all mankind.
Is anything too hard for me?"
In Job 42:2, we read these words of Job, when at
last he has been brought to see and to recognize the true nature of the LORD:
"I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be
thwarted." In Matthew 19:26, our Lord Jesus says: "With God all
things are possible." Taking these passages together, we are plainly
taught by our Lord Himself, and by others, that God can do all things, that
nothing is too hard for Him, that all things are possible with Him. In a word,
that God is omnipotent. A very impressive passage setting forth this same great
truth is Psalm 33:6-9, "By the word of the LORD were the heavens made,
their starry host by the breath of his mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea
into jars; he puts the deep into storehouses. Let all the earth fear the LORD;
let all the people of the world revere him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he
commanded, and it stood firm."
Here we see God by the mere utterance of His voice
bringing to pass anything that He desires to be brought to pass. We find this
same lofty conception of God in the very first chapter of the Bible, that
chapter that so many people who imagine themselves scholarly are telling us is
outgrown and not up to date, yet which contains some of the sublimest
utterances that ever were written, unmatched by anything that any philosopher
or scientist or platform orator is saying today. The very first words of that
chapter read: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth" (Genesis 1:1), a description of the origin of things that has never
been matched for simplicity, excellency and depth; and two verses farther down,
in the third verse, we read: "And God said, 'Let there be light,' and
there was light." These words need no comment.
There is here a excellency of thought in the
setting forth of the omnipotence of God's mere word before which any truly
intelligent and alert soul will stand in wonder and awe. There is nothing in
poetry or in philosophical dissertation, ancient or modern, that for one moment
can be put in comparison with these sublime words. Over and over again, it is
brought out in the Word of God that all nature is absolutely subject to His
will. For example, we see this in Psalm 107:25-29, "For he spoke and
stirred up a tempest that lifted high the waves. They mounted up to the heavens
and went down to the depths; in their peril their courage melted away. They
reeled and staggered like drunken men; they were at their wits' end. Then they
cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and he brought them out of their
distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were
hushed."
Another description of a similar character is found
in Nahum 1:3-6, "The LORD is slow to anger and great in power; the LORD
will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the
storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea and dries it up;
he makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Carmel wither and the blossoms of
Lebanon fade. The mountains quake before him and the hills melt away. The earth
trembles at his presence, the world and all who live in it. Who can withstand
his indignation? Who can endure his fierce anger? His wrath is poured out like
fire; the rocks are shattered before him." What a picture we have here of
the omnipotence and awful majesty of God!
Not only is nature represented as being absolutely
subject to God's will and word, but men also are represented as being
absolutely subject to His will and word. For example, we read in James 4:12-15,
"There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and
destroy. But you--who are you to judge your neighbor? Now listen, you who say,
'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry
on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen
tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and
then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will
live and do this or that.'"
Happy is the man who voluntarily subjects himself
to God's will and Word, but whether we voluntarily subject ourselves to God's
will and Word or not, we are subject to His will and Word whether we believe it
or not. The angels also are subject to His will and Word (Hebrews 1:13, 14),
and even Satan himself, although entirely against his own will, is absolutely
subject to the will and Word of God, as is evident from Job 1:12 and Job 2:6.
The exercise of God's omnipotence is limited by His
own wise and holy and loving will. God can do anything, but will do only that
which infinite wisdom and holiness and love dictate. This comes out, for
example, in Isaiah 59:1, 2, "Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short
to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you
from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not
hear."
3. The God of the Bible is also omniscient.
In 1 John 3:20, we read, "He [God] knows everything." Turning to the
Old Testament, in Psalm 147:5, we read, "Great is our Lord and mighty in
power; his understanding has no limit." The literal translation of the
last clause of this passage is, "Of his understanding there is no
number." In these passages it is plainly declared that "God knows
everything" and that "His understanding is infinite." In Job
37:16, Elihu, the messenger of God, is represented as saying that the LORD is
"perfect in knowledge." In Acts 15:18, we read that God knows all His
works and all things from the beginning of the world. Known to Him is
everything from the vastest to the minutest detail. In Psalm 147:4, we are
told, "He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by
name." While in Matthew 10:29, we are told that not one sparrow will fall
to the ground apart from the will of God. The stars in all their stupendous
magnitude and the sparrows in all their insignificance are all equally in His
mind.
We are told further that everything has a part in
His purpose and plan. In Acts 3:17, 18, the Apostle Peter says of the
crucifixion of our Lord, the wickedest act in all the history of the human
race: "Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your
leaders. But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the
prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer." In Acts 2:23, Peter
declared on the day of Pentecost (although the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus
was the wickedest act in all history) that, nevertheless, the Lord Jesus was
"handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge."
According to the Psalmist (Psalm 76:10), God takes the acts of the wickedest
men into His plans and makes the wrath of men praise Him, and the remainder of
wrath He restrains. Even the present war [World War I] with all its horrors,
with all its atrocities, with all its abominations and all its nameless
wickednesses, was foreknown of God and taken into His own gracious plan of the
ages; and He will make every event in this war, even the most shocking things
designed by the vilest conspiracy of unprincipled men, utterly inhuman and
beastly and devil-inspired men, work together for good to those who love God,
for those who are the called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).
The whole plan of the ages, not merely of the
centuries, but of the immeasurable ages of God, and every man's part in it, has
been known to God from all eternity. This is made very clear in Ephesians
1:9-12,
He made known to us the mystery of his will
according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into
effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment--to bring all things
in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. In him we were
also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out
everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who
were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.
And in Ephesians 3:4-9, we read,
In reading this, then, you will be able to
understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to
men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's
holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the
Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and
sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. I became a servant of this
gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power.
Although I am less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given me:
to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain
to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept
hidden in God, who created all things.
God has no after-thoughts. Everything is seen,
known, purposed, and planned from the outset. Well may we exclaim: "Oh,
the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable
his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!" (Romans 11:33). God
knows from all eternity what He will do through all eternity.
4. God is also absolutely and
infinitely holy. This is a point of central and fundamental importance
in the Bible conception of God. It comes out in our first text: "God is
light; in him there is no darkness at all." When he wrote these words John
gave them as the summary of "This is the message we have heard from Him
[God]" (1 John 1:5). In Isaiah 6:3, in the vision of the LORD which was
given to Isaiah in the year that King Uzziah died, the "seraphim," or
"burning ones," burning in their own intense holiness, are
represented as standing before the LORD with covered faces and covered feet,
and constantly crying, "Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD Almighty." And
in 1 Peter 1:16, God cries to us, "Be holy, because I am holy."
This thought of the infinite and awe-inspiring
holiness of God pervades the entire Bible. It underlies everything in the
Bible. The entire Mosaic system is built on and about this fundamental and
central truth. Its system of washings; the divisions of the tabernacle; the
divisions of the people into ordinary Israelites, Levites, priests and high
priests, who were permitted different degrees of approach to God under strictly
defined conditions; insistence on sacrifices of blood as the necessary medium
of approach to God; God's directions to Moses in Exodus 3:5, to Joshua in
Joshua 5:15; the punishment of Uzziah in 2 Chronicles 26:16-26; the strict
orders to Israel in regard to approaching Sinai when the LORD came down on it;
the doom of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram in Numbers 16:1- 33; and the destruction
of Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10:1-3--all these were intended to teach,
emphasize, and burn into the minds and hearts of the Israelites the fundamental
truth that God is holy, unapproachably holy.
The truth that God is holy is the fundamental truth
of the Bible, of the Old Testament and the New Testament, of both the Jewish
religion and the Christian religion. It is the preeminent factor in the
Christian conception of God. There is no fact in the Christian conception of
God that needs more to be emphasized in our day than the fact of the absolute,
unqualified, and uncompromising holiness of God. That is the chief note lacking
in Christian Science, Occultism, Buddhism, New Thought, the New Theology, and
all the base but boasted cults of the day. That great truth underlies those
fundamental doctrines of the Bible--the Atonement by Shed Blood, and
Justification by Faith. The doctrine of the holiness of God is the keystone in
the arch of Christian truth.
5. God is also love. This
truth is declared in one of our texts. The words, "God is love," are
found twice in the same chapter (1 John 4:8, 16). This truth is essentially the
same truth as that "God is light" and "God is holy," for
the very essence of true holiness is love, and "light" is
"love" and "love" is "light."
6. Furthermore, God is not only
perfect in His intellectual and moral attributes and in power, He is also omnipresent.
This thought of God comes out in both the Old Testament and the New. In Psalm
139:7-10, we read: "Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from
your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in
the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on
the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand
will hold me fast." There is no place where one can flee from God's
presence, for God is everywhere. This great truth is set forth in a remarkable
way in Jeremiah 23:23, 24, "'Am I only a God nearby,' declares the LORD,
'and not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see
him?' declares the LORD. 'Do not I fill heaven and earth?' declares the
LORD."
We have seen that God has a local habitation, that
there is a place where He exists and manifests Himself in a way in which He
does not manifest Himself everywhere; but while we insist on that clearly
revealed truth, we must also never lose sight of the fact that God is
everywhere. We find this same truth set forth by Paul in his sermon to the
Epicurean and Stoic philosophers on Mars Hill, Acts 17:24-28,
The God who made the world and everything in it is
the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And
he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself
gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every
nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the
times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so
that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he
is not far from each one of us. "For in him we live and move and have our
being." As some of your own poets have said, "We are his
offspring."
From these passages we see that God is everywhere.
He is in all parts of the universe and near each individual. In Him each
individual lives and moves and has his being.
7. There is one other thought in
the Christian conception of God that needs to be placed alongside of His
omnipresence, and that is His eternity. God is eternal. His existence
had no beginning and will have no ending; He always was, always is, and always
shall be. God is not only everywhere present in space, He is everywhere present
in time. This conception of God appears constantly in the Bible. We are told in
Genesis 21:33 that Abraham called "upon the name of the LORD, the Eternal
God." In Isaiah 40:28 we read this description of the LORD: "Do you
not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of
the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding
no one can fathom." Here again He is called "The everlasting
God." Habakkuk, 1:12, sets forth the same conception of God. He says,
"O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One."
The Psalmist gives us the same representation of
God in Psalm 90:2, 4, "Before the mountains were born or you brought forth
the earth the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. For a
thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a
watch in the night." We have the same representation of God in Psalm
102:24-27, "I said: 'Do not take me away, O my God, in the midst of my
days; your years go on through all generations. In the beginning you laid the
foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will
perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing
you will change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and
your years will never end.'"
The very name of God, His covenant name, LORD, sets
forth His eternity. He is the eternal "I am," the One who is, was,
and ever shall be (Exodus 3:14, 15).
One more fact about the Christian conception of God
remains to be mentioned, and that is: There is but one God. The unity of
God comes out again and again in both the Old Testament and the New. For
example, we read in Deuteronomy 4:35, "the LORD is God; besides Him there
is no other." And in Deuteronomy 6:4 we read, "Hear, O Israel: The
LORD our God, the LORD is one." Turning to the New Testament in 1 Timothy
2:5, we read, "There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the
man Christ Jesus." And in Mark 12:29 our Lord Jesus Himself says,
"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one."
But
we must bear in mind the character of the Divine Unity. It is clearly revealed
in the Bible that in this Divine Unity, in this one Godhead, there is a
multiplicity of persons. This comes out in a variety of ways.
1. First of all, the Hebrew word
translated "one" in these various passages denotes a compound unity,
not a simple unity (1 Corinthians 3:6-8; 12:13; John 17:22, 23; Galatians
3:28).
2. In the second place, the Old
Testament word most frequently used for God is a plural noun. The Hebrew
grammarians and lexicographers tried to explain this by saying that it was the
"pluralis majestatis," (Greek) but the very simple explanation is
that the Hebrews, in spite of their intense monotheism, used a plural name for
God because there is a plurality of persons in the one Godhead.
3. More striking yet, as a proof
of the plurality of persons in the one Godhead, is the fact that God Himself
uses plural pronouns in speaking of Himself. For example, in the first chapter
of the Bible, Genesis 1:26, we read that God said, "Let us make man in our
image, in our likeness." And in Genesis 11:7, He is further recorded as
saying: "Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not
understand each other." In Genesis 3:22, we read: "And the LORD God
said, 'The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.'" And
in that wonderful vision to which reference has already been made, in which
Isaiah saw the LORD, we read this statement of Isaiah's, 6:8, "Then I
heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for
us?' And I said, 'Here am I. Send me!'"
4. Another illustration of the
plurality of persons in the one Godhead in the Old Testament conception of God
is found in Zechariah 2:10-11, where the LORD speaks of Himself as sent by the
LORD in these words: "'Shout and be glad, O Daughter of Zion. For I am
coming, and I will live among you,' declares the LORD. 'Many nations will be
joined with the LORD in that day and will become my people. I will live among
you and you will know that the LORD Almighty has sent me to you.'" Here
the LORD clearly speaks of Himself as sent by the LORD, thus clearly indicating
two persons in the Deity.
5. Another indication of the
plurality of persons in the Godhead in the Old Testament conception of God is
found in the fact that "the Angel of the LORD" in the Old Testament
is at the same time distinguished from, and identified with, the LORD.
6. This same thought of the
plurality of persons in the one Godhead is brought out in John 1:1, where we
reach the very climax of this thought. Here we are told in so many words:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God." When we study the Deity of Christ and the Personality and Deity
of the Holy Spirit, we shall see that the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit are
clearly designated as Divine beings and at the same time distinguished from one
another, and from God the Father. So it is clear that in the Christian
conception of God, while there is but one God, there is a multiplicity of
persons in the one Godhead.
This
conception of God runs through the whole Bible, is from the first chapter of
Genesis to the last chapter of Revelation. It is one of the many marvelous
illustrations of the Divine unity of the Book. How wonderful is this Book, in
that the unity of thought on this very profound doctrine pervades it
throughout! It is a clear indication that the Bible is the Word of God. It
contains a profounder philosophy than is found in any human philosophy, ancient
or modern, and the only way to account for it is that God Himself is the author
of this incomparable philosophy. What a wondrous God we have! How we ought to
meditate on His Person! With what awe, and, at the same time, with what delight
we should come into His presence and bow before Him in adoring contemplation of
the wonder and beauty and majesty and glory of His being!