1999 issue 3 - the perfections of god - counsel of chalcedon
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8/12/2019 1999 Issue 3 - The Perfections of God - Counsel of Chalcedon
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What do the
Scriptures
make known
o f
God? The
Scriptures make
known
what
God is the persons
in the
Godhead
His de
crees, and the execution of
His
decrees.-
Larger
Cat
echism Q. 6
What
is God? God is a
Spirit in and o f Himself
infinite ill being glOl y,
blessedness
and
perfec
tion; all-sufficient
eternal
unchangeable
incompre
hensible
every
where
present almighty
know
ing
all
things most wise,
most
holy
most
just
believe
anything. The
Marxists learned
this
long
ago.
In regions
such
as
Central America and South
Africa, they began their
revolutions, not with
guns
and bullets,
but with the
pulpits, altering the
people's
understanding
of
God.
Their ideological
weapon
is
Liberation
Theology,
the
covert rede
fining of Christian terms
with Marxist content.
Our views of God will
shape our views of poli
tics,
human
nature,
family
II. THE SOURCE OF OUR
KNOWLEDGE OF
GOD:
THE HOLY BIBLE
One
of
the
basic prin
ciples of Christianity is
that
the God who
really
is
there has revealed Himself
in creation,
Psalm 19;in
the
Bible, II
Timothy
3:16;
and in Jesus Christ, He
brews 1:1-4.
n
the Bible
as
the
written
Word
and in
Christ, the
living
Word,
God has
revealed
what He
is like and what He de
sires of
us. In
the Bible,
we can obtain
a
true and
most
merciful and
gracious long-suffer
ing and abundant in
goodness and truth.
Larger
Catechism Q.7
The erfect ions
accurate view of
God,
because
the
Bible is God's verbal
description of His
own character and
will. f our under-
o f od
Rev oe Morecrafi: III
I THE VITAL
IMPORTANCE OF
WHAT WE BELIEVE
ABOUT
GOD
What difference
does
it
make
what we believe
about
God,
just
as
long
as
we believe
in
Him?
I t
makes all the difference in
the world Our under
standing of
God
is founda
tional
to
our
understand
ing
of everything and
anything else. The fear
of
the
Lord is the
be
ginning of
wisdom,
and
knowledge
of the Holy
One
is
understanding,
Proverbs
9:10.
f
we
are
mistaken in our views of
God,
we
will
be off-track
in our views of ourselves,
the Bible, life and
the
universe. Moreover, i f a
person can be dissuaded
from a true understanding
of God,
he
can be
led
to
life, art, agriculture,
law,
economics,
ecology,
theol
ogy, and everything else.
Therefore,
it is of vital
importance as
to
what we
believe
about
God. The
question
then
arises:
Where
can
we obtain a
true and
accurate
under
standing of the one, true
God
as
He really
is?
Where
has God revealed
His character and will
so
we
may
know Him? Ol;:>vi-
ously,
this
is
a question of
critical
importance
be
cause,
i f our
views of God
are
not in
accord
with
God's actual
being
and
character, with God's
views of Himself,
then
whatever we
believe
is
meaningless
for we believe
in an
empty, impotent,
mute idol,
a figment
of
our own imagination.
standing
of God is
out
of accord with the
Bible, then we are mis
taken in
our
understand
ing of God. We must,
then, readjust our thinking
according
to
the revealed
truths about God in the
Bible, because the God of
the
Bible
really is
there
and He
is
not silent. Ac
cording
to the
first
three
commandments of Exodus
20, God cares greatly what
we
think
about
Him and
how we understand Him.
He forbids us
with
the
threat
of
punishment,
i f
we think of
Him
or wor
ship Him in any
other way
than what He has
re
vealed. He
is
as He has
revealed Himself to be.
He is God
and
besides
Him
there
are no other
gods,
Isaiah
45:5.
Throughout
this
cen-
April/May,
1999 - THE COUNSEL of
Chalcedon
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8/12/2019 1999 Issue 3 - The Perfections of God - Counsel of Chalcedon
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tury, America has
been in
the process of changing
gods. This was also true
of Israel
in
Jeremiah's
days. He wrote: Has a
nation changed gods,
when they
were not
gods?
But My
people
have changed their
glory for that which
does
not
profit. Be
appal led, 0 heavens, at
this, and shudder,
be
very desolate , ' declares
the
Lord. For
My
people have committed
two evils: they have
forsaken
Me, the foun
tain of l iving waters, to
hew
for themselves
cis terns , broken
cis
terns,
that can hold no
water,
Jeremiah 2:9-13.
Jehovah
considered
this
idolatrous
crime
enor
mous, incredulous
and
unparalleled in history.
Israel changed
gods
And
they changed gods by:
1). Turning
from Jehovah
and worshiping
man-made
gods; 2). Trusting
in man
made
gods
and man-made
political
alliances
for
security, although no
idol
can protect
or provide
for
our deepest needs; and
3). Turning from
Jehovah's revelation of
His character and His will
for their
lives in
His law
to man-made laws. Be
cause
the source of
law
for
any
society is the god of
that
society, to change
sources
of law is to change
gods. However, when one
leaves Jehovah, the foun
tain of l iving
waters,
the source and sustenance
of life and prosperity, and
turns to false gods, those
gods, like dry,
broken
cisterns, will
always
fail
him.
God
takes
all idolatry
seriously In fact,
God
hates
idolatry
He de
stroys
all
idols
and
all
those
who worship
them,
unless they repent, be
cause
He will
not share
His
glory with another.
In
holy anger
Jehovah
destroyed Judah, Jeremiah
5:19, Egypt, Jeremiah
47:25, and Babylon,
Jer
emiah
51:47,
because their
understanding
of
God was
different from
God's
revelation of Himself and
they refused to submit to
that revelation. In I Kings
20:28,
we
read that God
allowed Israel
to
destroy
the Syrians simply because
of their faulty
doctrine
of
God--Then
a
man of
God came
near and
spoke
to
the
king
of
Israel
and
said, 'Thus
says
the
Lord,
Because
the
Syrians have
said,
The
Lord
is a god
of
the mountains,
but He
is
not
a
god
of
the
valleys' therefore I
will
give
all
this great mul
t i tude
into your hand,
and you shall
know
that I
am
the Lord. '
When
a
society changes
gods,
and
turns
from
the
living God in Christ to
an
idol,
that
society dies
spiritually, ethically, po
litically,
economically,
agriculturally,
and
in
every other way. The
Twentieth Century is
proof
of
that fact. The
22 - THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon -
April/May,
1999
past ninety years have
been the bloodiest era
in
the
history
of
the world.
During that
period in
which nation after nation
has turned
from
the
God
of
the Bible to idols, more
people
have
died,
as
a
result
of
the
anti-Chris
tian, humanistic revolution
away
from God
to idols,
than in all the rest of
history put together.
Since
the Bolshevik Revo
lution in the early part of
this century, over 150
million
people
have
died,
and
are
still dying, as
in
southern Africa, as a result
of the
spread
of idolatrous
Marxism, i e. collectivistic
humanism with
total
po
litical
power. In the
United
States, since
the
Roe v. Wade decision
of
the
Supreme Court
in
1973
legalizing abortion,
more
than 40 million babies
have been
brutally mur
dered in
abortion
with
the
full approval of the civil
government
and
of most
Americans.
t
does
matter
what
you
believe about God "There
is a way that seems right
to a man, but
the end
thereof
is the way of
death,"
Proverbs 14:12. In
Proverbs 8:36, God
says,
All
those who hate
Me
love death." Therefore,
more
than anything else, i f
America is to
survive
the
future, we must pray that
God
would
graciously
grant
to us a mighty dis
play
of
Himself
in
our
hearts and minds
so that
we will
confess
with Israel
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8/12/2019 1999 Issue 3 - The Perfections of God - Counsel of Chalcedon
3/4
of old: "Jehovah,
He
is
God Jehovah, He
is
God "
Our
constant
prayer must
be that of
Elijah: 0
Lord,
the
God
of Abraham, Isaac
and
Israel,
today,
let
i t be
known
tha t Thou art
God
in
Israel
(or
America) ....
Answer
me, LORD, answer
me, that this
people
may
know tha t
Thou,
LORD, art God,
and
tha t
Thou has
turned
their
heart
back
again,"
I
Kings 18:36-39.
The Bible is
a
book
about
God. t is
God's'
book
about
God-who
He
is,
what He
is
like,
what
His plans
are and
how
He
is
executing
those
plans,
what is on His
mind,
what
He
is
doing
in
this world,
and what His will
is
for
us. Or as our Larger
Catechism
says,
"The
Scriptures make
known
what
God is,
the persons
in the Godhead, the de
crees and the execution of
His
decrees."
When the
Bible speaks
of God, it is not talking
merely
about the word,
"God," or the idea,
"God." t
is
talking about
the
reality
of
the God who
really is there. t
is talk
ing
about Someone
who
actually
lives. On the
other hand, when
a
non
Christian man
speaks
of
God, he
is
not saying
the
same thing the
Bible is
saying. f the
non-Chris
tian bases
what
he be
lieves about God on
his
own
experience,
he is
saying,
"God
is what I
FEEL
him
to
be " f he
bases what he
believes
on
his own reason, he
is
saying, "God is what
I
THINK him to be " But,
in both
instances,
when
the unbeliever speaks of
God, he is really saying,
"Man " with
a
loud voice,
beca
use
his
god
is
only
an
extension of
himself,
a
figment of his imagination.
He creates his god in his
own image.
The
Christian
says
that the God Who is
there,
the Creator of the
universe, is
as
the Bible
reveals Him,
because
the
Bible
is His self-revela
tion.
The
Larger
Catechism
speaks of
God
as in nd
o
Himself infinite
in -
ING. Question
7.
When
we speak of
the
"Being" of
God
we
are
simply saying
that
God
IS.
"He
IS
in the
most absolute and ultimate
sense of existence. With
Him
there is no
becoming.
He
IS
necessarily and
eternally. He alone
IS
in
this way.
He
did not
begin
to be.
He
always
has been and
IS. His
existence
is of
Himself.
He
is
of
Himself
existent
and
of Himself sufficient.
All other
beings ultimately
have
their
existence as
the
result of
creation. They
have
become. Only
God
has
not
become,
but
has
always been.
This is what
He asserted
in
Exodus
3:14,
I
AM that
I
AM. t
is
from the verb
to be'
that
the
tetragram
(YHWH), [Yahweh],
is
derived.
Whenever this
name is used
of
God i t
refers to His eternal exist
ence.
There is no
more
ultimate
truth
about God
than this, God
IS.
God is
absolute,
ultimate, inde
pendent and unoriginated
Being.
The
Scripture
asserts the uniqueness of
His Being:
I am the
first
and
the last ; and beside
Me
there
is
none
else,
Isaiah 44:6.... When
we
speak
of the Being of
God,
therefore, we are
speaking
of
someone
who
is
unique
in
His
Being.
He
alone
is
self-contained and
self
sufficient."
-
Morton
Smith,
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY,
Vol.
I,
pg.
125
I I I THE CREATOR
CREATURE
DISTINCTION
Basic
to Biblical
Chris
tianity
and
to
a proper
view
of
life
in this world
is the distinction
between
the
Creator and
His
cre
ation, between Uncreated
Reality, (God), and created
reality,
(the
universe in
cluding human beings).
This distinction preserves
the
major difference be
tween truth
and
error,
light and
darkness, Chris
tianity and all other reli
gions. "Christians
strive
to
see
everything in
light
of crea tion'
s
dependence
on God while
the
non
Christian tries to
deny
creation's dependence. As
strongly
as
it may be
denied by some
non-Chris
tians, in
one
way or an
other, every
person
who
has
not trusted in
Christ
April /May,
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for salvation fails
to
ac
count
for the
Creator
creature distinction and
somehow puts God
and
His creation in mutual
dependence
on
each other
and ascribes
to
creation a
degree
of independence.
With all the diversity
of
opinion
among non-Chris
tians, this is one uniting
factor: the Creator-crea
ture
distinction is de
nied."
-
Richard
1. Pratt,
Jr.,
EVERY THOUGHT
CAPTIVE, pgs.
12-13.
After
pointing
out the
absolute
dependence of
all
angels
and
men
upon
God,
James H. Thornwell
writes:
"But how
differ
ent with God He leans
upon nothing. He lives no
borrowed
life. He
asks no
leave
to be. He
is
because
He
is.
His
throne is stable
as
eternity.
- Strike
out
all the creatures,
and
He
still
is ...glorious,
holy,
majestic
and
blessed
as
when the morning stars
sang
together and
the
sons
of
God shouted for joy.
The
universe has
added
nothing
to
His bliss and
can subtract nothing from
His
fullness." - THE COL
LECTED WRITINGS OF
JAMES HENLEY
THORNWELL, Vol. I p.
203.
The distance between
God and man is
infinite.
God
made man from dust,
and
He
made dust from
nothing "He who is
conscious
of his
insignifi
cance before his
Maker,
and in comparison with his
Maker, is thereby exalted
to
a height that can
be
reached in no other way.
We see
this
in the act
of
worship. When we
adore
the
infinite Jehovah, and
give
Him the glory
that
is
due unto
His
name,
our
whole mood
and
temper is
lowly.
And we are in our
right place. We ought to
lie low at the footstool of
the Eternal. And having
done
this; having
wor
shipped the King eternal,
immortal and
invisible; we
are
exalted in
the very
act.
Our feeble, finite, created
nature
is never
clothed
with
such
dignity,
as when
we are showing reverence
to
our
Sovereign." - source
unknown.
Because God
is there,
He must
always
be ac
knowledged as being
there, or we will think and
act as fools; for all men
know
that He is there,
Romans 1:18f. He must
always be
taken into
ac
count in
everything.
He
is
the
greatest and
loftiest
Being
Who
can fill our
thoughts
and
affections;
therefore,
He should
be in
all
of them.
But, what is
this Creator like? What
are we
to
believe about
Him?
What
has
He
told
us
about Himself
in the
Bible?
Our
Larger
Cat
echism,
reflecting
the
self
revelation of God in the
Bible
answers
these
ques
tions:
"God is a Spirit, in
and of Himself, infinite in
being,
glory, blessedness,
and
perfection, all-suffi
cient,
eternal, unchange
able, incomprehensible,
4
- THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon - April/May 1999
every where present,
almighty, knowing
all
things,
most
wise, most
holy,
most just, most
mer
ciful
and gracious, long
suffering,
and
abundant
in
goodness and truth."
But
as we
study
this
confession
of faith
in
God
we
must keep in mind that
"it
is
impossible for any
one
to
give a
perfect de
scription of
God; since He
is incomprehensible. No
words can fully
express,
or set forth, His perfec
tions.
- But though
God
cannot be perfectly de
scribed,
yet
there
is some
thing
of Him
which we
may know, and ought to
make
the
matter
of
our
study
and diligent
inquir
ies.
When His glory is set
forth
in
Scripture,
we are
not
to look upon
the
ex
pressions made use of, as
words without any
ideas
affixed
to
them...
-
When
we
thus order
our
thoughts concerning
the
great God,
though we are
far from comprehending
His
infinite
perfections,
yet
our
conceptions are
not to be concluded
erro
neous, when directed by
His Word." - Thomas
Ridgeley, COMMENTARY
ON
THE LARGER CAT
ECHISM,
Vol. I
pg.
79f.
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