The OMNIPRESENCE of God

The Omnipresence of God; God is wholly present, not partially present, but completely present everywhere in and out of space. There is no place in space, no place you can run to escape His presence, and no place where His presence cannot be found. Believers take heart, there is no pit deep enough, no place of despair, no place so bad that our God is not there. Unbelievers take warning, and there is no rock big enough to hide under, no ocean deep enough to cover you, no cave to hide in where God cannot be present. David says in Psalm 139: 7-10 After explaining that God sees everything and knows everything he is doing and saying, even thing before he says it and that knowledge is too high for Him to understand, “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.”

As we discussed in the attribute of God’s eternity, God is not limited in time, in the same way, He is not limited by space. Wayne Grudem, in his Systematic Theology defines God’s Omnipresence in this way, “God does not have size or dimensions and is present at every point of space with His whole being, yet God acts differently in different places” (Grudem, 173).

God is not limited by creation. God created space. Therefore, even the immenseness of space cannot contain God, 1 Kings 8:27; But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less the house that I have built. Solomon is referring to the temple he built for God to dwell in. Solomon knew that God is far too (I hate to use a dimensional reference to describe God, but this is how we understand,) big to be contained in the small little house he built. Solomon also understood that God is so much more than all of creation, that creation itself could not contain him. We should not think of God in dimensional ways. God is Spirit.

Believers should rejoice that God will be with them at every turn, at every hill and valley. Unbelievers should fear the wrath of an angry God,

1)             Romans 1:18, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”  

2)             Psalm 2:12, “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”

3)              Ephesians 5:6 “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.”

4)             Romans 2:5, “But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”

5)              Revelation 14:10-11 “He also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.”

Unbeliever fee from the wrath of God and seek refuge in Christ the only salvation, the only redeemer, the only Son of the Living God.

May God almighty have mercy on those who read and the righter.

God’s incommunicable attribute of Eternity

ETERNITY. God’s eternity may be defined as follows: God has no beginning, end, or succession of moments in His own being, and He sees all time equally vividly, yet God sees events in time and acts in time.

Sometimes this attribute is also called God’s infinity. Being infinite God is unaffected by anything, in this case, time. Time does not modify or change God, He is unchangeable. God was perfect before He created time, and He remains perfect and unchanged by time.

God is timeless.

1)      Revelation 1:8 I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. (Just a small sidebar for those who continue to insist the Jesus is Michael the archangel. Who is to come but our blessed Lord Jesus?)

2)      Job 36:26 The number of His years are unsearchable.

So, I’m not trying to be exhaustive in this writing. It is just a blog after all. There are many more scriptures that show God is timeless and this timelessness also applies to Jesus. I will offer one verse to prove this, John 8:5-8 Before Abraham was I AM. There is no need to say more about that.

God sees all time equally vividly.

Before we get started, I just want to make it clear, God did not see into the future and decide who He would save based on some decision you made.

1)      Ephesians 2:9 Not by works so that any man may boast.

2)      1 Corinthians 1:26-29 For consider your calling brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

Never forget you were chosen before time began by the sovereign decree of God, not by anything you have done good or bad, not because you are prettier than others, but by God’s sovereign decree alone.

God’s memory is not affected by time. He remembers ten thousand years ago and all in-between as though it just happened, and the same is true with all eternity past, present, and future.

1)      Psalm 90:4 For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. (A watch in the night is like a four-hour guard duty.)

2)      2 Peter 3:8 that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

We see time as the ticking of the clock, each day is new and the farther we get away in years from something the harder it is to remember. For God, this is not true His memory never fades. He has not forgotten the names of His elect even though they were chosen before the foundations of the world were formed. This attribute is why Gods other attributes are everlasting because he is eternal and everlasting.

Having said all of this, God sees events in time and acts in time.

Time has no hold on God, He is outside of time. Just like the laws of physics do not apply to God. The law of time has no hold on God either. God acts both inside and outside of time. God created time; time is a part of creation. It does not matter to me if time is linear or curved, what matters is God is sovereign and in control of all things. Events in time do not happen outside of God’s control, and we see God act in perfect timing within these events because they are in God’s perfect sovereign control.

1)      Galatians 4:4-5 God set forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law.

God is in control and will continue in His perfect timing to act in time, again by His sovereign decree.

We will one day be with God for eternity; however, we are still finite, and time will still be measured at least as how it is related to us Revelations measures time in months and events are still happening one after the other. I can only conclude that time for us will be different but still exist. The difference will be that we will not be burdened by time, we will not age, and we will be in the presence of a wonderous God.

May God bless this study of His attributes as imperfect as it is, and as flawed as I am. It is my hope that this is a blessing to you and that God uses this in your life.

God's unchangeableness/Immutability

Immutability/unchangeableness; “We can define the unchangeableness of God as follows; God is unchangeable in His being, perfections, purposes, and promises, yet God does act and feel emotions, and He acts and feels differently in response to different situations. This attribute of God is also called God’s immutability”. (Gruden, Wayne, Systematic Theology, page163)

I want to deal with the second half of the definition first, “When speaking of Himself, God frequently accommodates His language to our limited capacities. He describes Himself as clothed with bodily members, as eyes, ears, hands, etc.” (Pink, Attributes of God, page38). Although God can see, He does not have an eye, He is spirit, not flesh, not like man. This is an example of God speaking in a way that we can understand. Now Gods emotions. In God decreeing the beginning from the end, all His emotions were involved and weighed out in the exact right proportions. God is not controlled by emotion, or desire like men are. God’s emotions are governed by His holiness, His all-knowingness, His Love balances His wrath, His mercy balances His justice. I hope you understand my point here. The created can lose control; God is under control.

God is Immutable;

1)      Psalm 102: 25-27, Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you endure; they will all wear out like a garment. You Change them like raiment, and they pass away; but you are the same, and your years have no end

2)      Malachi 3:6, For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.

3)      James 1:17, Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. ESV.

God is unchangeable in His attributes, unchangeable in His person, unchangeable in His purpose. To this generation, that thinks that somehow they have found a new and different God that is all the sudden tolerant of what He has always called sin. You are wrong. There is no shadow of turning with God. Jesus is not a new God; He is God incarnate. He is as much the God of the old testament as He is the God of the new testament, Mathew 1:23, Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, (Which means God with us).

Gods immutability is just another reason why God Chose His elect from before the foundations of the earth were formed. The creature is mutable and can not be trusted to make the right decision if he was able, evidence Adam in the garden. Adam had it all, and he walked in the garden with God and talked with God, Adam had a far more intimate relationship with God then any human can have before salvation, he still made the wrong choice.   So, you see that God would not send His son to die for undependable men to make a choice. He chose His elect before the foundations of the world. We will see more as we get into the other attributes of God.

May God have mercy on us, and Lord willing He will use this.

comments

This is what I've learned.
1) When you read my blog and want to say something in the comments you must go to the Bright Blue follow button in the top right corner and click follow.
2)  A window will open and then you must click Follow again.
3) At the bottom of the blog should be a comment section click on it and a text box should open.
4) At this point, I don't know if you have to leave an email or if you can sign in as anonymous.
5) If you have a google account I think it will take care of its self.

I would like to know who you are so if you sign in as anonymous please tell me who you are in the comment.

Thank you.

The Independence/ Solitude of God.

The Doctrine of Predetermination

When I consider the absolute independency of God, and the necessary total dependence of all created things on Him, their first cause, I cannot help standing astonished at the pride of impotent, degenerate man, who is so prone to consider himself as a being possessed of sovereign freedom, and invested with a power of self-salvation, able, he imagines, to counteract the designs even of infinite wisdom, and to defeat the agency of Omnipotence itself.

“Ye shall be as gods,” said the tempter to Eve in paradise; and “ye are as gods,” says the same tempter to her apostate sons.

One would be apt to think that a suggestion so demonstrably false and flattering, a suggestion the very reverse of what we feel to be our state, a suggestion alike contrary to Scripture and reason, to fact and experience could never meet with the smallest degree of credit.

And yet, because it so exactly coincides with the natural haughtiness of the human heart, men not only admit, but even relish the deception, and fondly incline to believe that the father of lies does, in this instance at least, speak truth. The Scripture doctrine of predetermination lays the axe to the very root of this potent delusion. It assures us that all things are of God; that all our times and all events are in His hand. Augustus Toplady

The Independence of God does not only hold true of the Father but also the Son and the Holy Spirit. His independence or solitude Has to be shared because it is in love and fellowship That God lived in eternity past sharing glory one with the other, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in triune glory.

Independence is one of God’s incommunicable attributes; in other words, these attributes can not be shared; it is uniquely God’s. Wayne Grudem says of God’s incommunicable attributes,

 “The incommunicable attributes of God are perhaps the most easily misunderstood, probably because they represent aspects of God’s character that are the least familiar to our experience. In this chapter, therefore, each of the incommunicable attributes of God is defined with a two-part sentence. The first part defines the attribute under discussion, the second part guards against misunderstanding by stating a balancing or opposite aspect that relates to that attribute” (Systematic Theology, Grudem, 160).

God’s independence is defined by Grudem in this way: God does not need us or the rest of creation for anything, yet we and the rest of creation can glorify Him and bring Him joy.

A.W. Pink in, The Attributes of God, speaks to the same attribute, only he calls it God’s solitariness. I shortened it to solitude in the title. Pink says, “His attributes, as these are revealed in Holy Scripture, is something which very, very few people in these degenerate times have attained unto, God is solitary in His excellency” (Pink, 9). “Who is like Thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? (ex. 15: 11). Most people don’t know that there are spiritual disciplines that need to be practiced, Pink is talking about the discipline of meditating on God; in this case God’s attributes.

The scripture in multiple places teaches that God does not need any part of creation to exist or any other reason.

1)      “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything since he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:24-25).

2)      “Who has given to me that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine” (Job 41:11).

3)      “every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand Hills. I know all the birds of the air, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world and all that is in it is mine” (Ps. 50: 10-12).

There was a time before time that God existed in his triune self. There was nothing else because it was before anything had been created. This is an unimaginable period that we, as finite humans, cannot imagine. God always was and always will be. If you believe that the universe is trillions of years old. Take those trillions and multiply it by trillions more and you will not be close, because God always was. He existed this way in perfect bliss and harmony, in perfect love Sharing their glory with each other in perfect triunity. There were no angels, no planets, no nothing. If God had needs that could be fulfilled by someone else then that would indicate that He was not the supreme being that he is, there would have been a higher being, and there is not. We needy humans are proof of this. He does not need us. There is nothing we can offer to make Him better or worse. He is complete perfection in and of himself.

Having said all this, we can bring Him joy and glorify His name with our lives. We can honor God Because He has decreed it to be so. The whole world is seeking after self-worth. I am here to tell you we have no self-worth of our own. Our self-worth is tied up in the fact that God created us. We have worth because God decreed it to be so. Our value will be found in the salvation that was wrought through Jesus Christ, The Godman, all God, and all man together as one. He became our substitute and took our punishment. He died and rose again and stands now at the right hand of the Father as our advocate. This is the only place of self-worth; it’s the only place to stand with meaning. God created all things, and He created us, our value is to glorify Him and enjoy Him for eternity.

The unknowable, unsearchable, but never reckless love of God

1 John 3:1; Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God: therefore, the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. KJV.

Behold, the Greek word ĕidō pronounced I-do, means to see or perceive, or to understand. When behold is cried out its often to catch attention. Here the Apostle is saying behold in the past tense as to say Understand what is yours already.

Manner, the Greek word pŏtapŏs pronounced pot-ap-os, means of what possible sort.

So, the apostle John here is saying to believers, Look, understand the not understandable love of God that the Father has bestowed upon you. NOTE, he is not saying this to unbelievers, he is speaking to believers. The behold being in the past tense makes it something you already have. He must be speaking to believers. Not only that the rest of the book of 1 John is written in a way that you cannot mistake that he is writing to believers. For instance, before this verse John says by the power of the Holy Spirit in chapter 2, switching to ESV here; I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his namesake. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one. 1 John 2:12-14. These verses cover just about every maturity level of the believer there is, it does not include unbelievers.

Now that we have cleared up who the Apostle John was writing to, we can return to what he is saying to the believers. Take note of what you have, take stock, know, understand the unknowable love of God that he has given you, that we should be called the children of God; and so we are. Emphasis mine. AND SO WE ARE. Again, this is a done deal if you are born again, you have this unsearchable, incomprehensible, Love of God. But unlike the song suggest it is far from a reckless love. It is a predetermine sovereign act, a decree by the holy, sovereign, almighty God.

The world does not know you because they do not know him. They cannot understand how you can be at peace when loved ones pass on. It’s because of the Love of God. How can you be at peace when someone you love is in the hospital? It’s the love of God. It is the reassurance that God loves us that keeps us going no matter what is happening in our lives.

To those who are believers you understand this unknowable love that only comes from God, ask God to show you how to show it to others. Showing the love of God to others is something we all could learn better, especially me.

To those who don’t know the love of God and desire to. Seek him always while He may be found and don’t stop until he gives you the assurance that you are saved. This doesn’t mean that you are choosing Him, it means He has begun a good work in you. SO, see it through.

As always, May God have mercy on all who read this and the writer.

This is to all who claim the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this is my confession.

For about 34 years, I have claimed to be a Christian. For a time, I had lots of zeal and felt on fire for the Lord, a brief period at the beginning of my walk. But soon I was living for all the wrong reasons and still claiming to be a Christian. My sins were many. For this, I will say the pride of the eyes and the pride of life. Details are a distraction at this point.

Many Of my friends on Facebook will remember me trying to tell them about Christ while at the same time using very unwholesome language. While claiming to be a Christian, I walked in the counsel of the wicked, I stood in the way of sinners, and I sat in the seat of scoffers. I did not take delight in the law of the Lord but in my ways. I could not understand what was wrong, why I could not do what was right before God. I cried out for God to help me restore my first love. I clung to Psalm 13, How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? (even now this brings tears welling up in my eye’s) How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my own soul (My sinful, broken, tainted soul) and have sorrow in my heart all the day? I searched for something more, did I need more of the Holy Spirit, did I need more grace, did I lack something that I needed from God? I spent most of my Christian life wallowing in this self-pity.

About 2009, I started to see the hope that was in Psalm 13, But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because He has dealt bountifully with me. At the time, I didn’t know why I just started trusting in those verses. That God, my Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ would not leave me to die this way. In the words of a dear friend of mine, “Anyway make a long story short,” and then he would laugh with a unique laugh that those who know him could identify from a mile away. Here I am in the present I have found a few things out that helped me in my walk, and here they are.

1)    When You’re born again, you have every spiritual blessing. There is no need to seek something else.

2)    Once God begins a work in you, He will not depart until it is finished. It is not finished until we are in heaven and ruling with Christ.

3)    Your Salvation is as sure as your calling and election. This is why I’ve posted a couple of time to make sure of you’re calling and election.

So, You’re probably wondering why I am telling you all of this. Because some of you may be feeling the same as I was all those years, yearning, to be able to live a godly and righteous life. I want you to take encouragement from my testimony. To know that no one can live a sinless life on this side of the grave. That is why Christ had to do it for us. Christ is why we can come to the Father in prayer. The Father does not see our sin; He sees Christ in us. He sees the righteous blood of His Son, making us righteous in His sight. Not because we can choose, but because He did it for us. Not by works that any man should boast. Ephesians 2:9.

This does not relieve you of responsibility, I thought God would do it all; however, once you are born again, you have the responsibility to strive to live in your new state. Just like I could not force my children to walk, they had to learn to walk on there own. I helped where I could, but some lessons are best to learn through trial. 

I am posting this on Facebook and in my blog, but I want you to know that I now have the assurance of my calling and election, of God’s love for me, that I am in Christ Jesus not because of God looking into the future but because of God’s Holy and sovereign decree. I am a sinner until I am released from this body of death; the flesh is exceedingly sinful. But my hope is in the things not yet seen, a new heaven and a new earth, this corruptible flesh being replaced by the incorruptible.

Ask for forgiveness as often as you need and ask God our Father and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to give you the Grace to understand the totality of every spiritual blessing and how to live in those blessings so that you will glorify the Lord with your life.

If you are not born again, then seek the Lord with everything you are until He assures you that you are saved.

May God have mercy on us all.

Why am I doing this?

Ephesians 1:17-23
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He Brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

Paul is praying for the Ephesians, that God would give them knowledge, wisdom, and revelation of all the blessings they have inherited in Christ. There is so much here and I am not going to try and unpack all of this. John MacArthur spent about 10 pages unpacking it, but know this. There is no need to seek something more, all has been given in and through Christ Jesus. So instead of pleading for more grace, more spirit, more fullness, seek the grace to live in the reality of what God our Father has already given you, seek the wisdom to use that understanding to glorify God in your life and pray that God would give you more revelation of what you already have in Christ. If we could live a thousand years we could never fully understand all He has blessed us with.
So, why am I doing this? Above, I pray with Paul that this understanding, that this wisdom and revelation is yours. That you don't waste a lifetime seeking what is yours in Christ, Instead you live for Him in the realization that you have every spiritual blessing in Christ.
My desire is for the reader of this blog. To know and understand who God is. To love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your strength, all of everything you are, every aspect of your being. In order to do this, you have to know him.
Someone might say, you're just trying to give us your theology. Well, to the extent that knowing and loving God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, to the extent that there is theology involved in the end, then you would be correct. I will make no apology for that. But in the spirit of brotherly love, please give this work a chance. Soon the post will turn to the attributes of God, we will start with what some call God's solitude and others call His independence.

Thank you for your time and for reading this blog.

What am I doing?

                                                               
        I am attempting, LORD willing, to start a conversation about who God really is. The first posting was from 2010, my resent restart, entitled Who is in Christ, is the first attempt at this conversation.
       Whenever I speak about God I am speaking about the triune God of scripture. If I speak about one of the three persons of the trinity I will call them by name, God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and God the Son or, the LORD Jesus Christ. So, don't be picky if I don't say it exactly that way because you will know who I'm referring to. 
       Please, please, please leave comments, even hateful ones, so I know I'm not the only one on this blog. One-sided conversations are no fun.

Who Is In Christ?

               

Because we are in Christ Jesus before the foundations of the world were formed, (Eph. 1:4; 1 Peter 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2). We were also in Him when He went to the cross. We were in Him when God the Father poured out His wrath for our sins on Christ while he hung on the cross. We were in Him when he died on the cross. We were in Him when He was buried. We were in Him when God raised Him from the dead; we were in Him when He ascended to the right hand of the Father in heaven.

For this reason, Christ only died for those who He came to save. If every man woman and child that ever lived was in that favored position from before the Foundations of the earth were formed, everyone would go to heaven, and everyone does not. If every individual that ever lived were in Christ, God's Justice would demand they all must be saved. 
What the false gospel of human decision leads to is universalism. Also, this false gospel is Pelagianism, which states that Christ was only a good example and that He did what He did to show us a better way, this has been a known heresy for hundreds of years.

If Christ died for every individual that ever live and people still, go to hell, then nobody has hope because in that case, his death was insufficient to fulfill what God sent him to do and He would not have been raised from the dead.

Praise be to God our Father that Christ was sufficient and was raised from the dead, that he secured God's elect and is still saving them today.