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The Complementary Attributes of God - Part 4
Episode 102 – The Complementary Attributes of God Part 4
Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.
Script:
Each of the four living creatures had six wings ... Day and night they never stop saying: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,’ who was, and is, and is to come.”
Revelation, Chapter 4, verse 8, New International Version
The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him; we have not obeyed the Lord our God or kept the laws he gave us through his servants the prophets.
Daniel, Chapter 9, verses 9 and 10, New International Version
********
VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. Today on Anchored by Truth we’re going to wrap up our series that we’ve called “The Complementary Attributes of God.” With me in the studio is RD Fierro, author and founder of Crystal Sea Books. As we’ve mentioned throughout this series, we wanted to do this series to spend some time just focusing on God. After all, the primary purpose of the Bible is to give us information about God. The Bible is God’s special revelation to His people. As such, we thought it was appropriate to take a few episodes of Anchored by Truth and look at some of what we learn from that revelation. RD, why did you decide to call this series “The Complementary Attributes of God?”
RD: As many theologians have noted it’s possible to discern the need for God to exist just by observing the universe and applying logic and reason to what we see. Even pagan philosophers like Aristotle have been able to use their reason to determine that there must be an “Unmoved Mover.” And the Bible reaffirms that we can know that God exists just by looking at the created order.
VK: You’re thinking of verses like Psalm 19, verses 1 and 2: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.”
RD: Yes. And Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” So, we can know God exists just from what we can see and reason. But the knowledge of God that we obtain by using our human abilities is general in nature. That’s why theologians refer to this kind of knowledge as “general revelation.” By contrast the knowledge that we get about God from the Bible is particular knowledge about God – His attributes, His plans, His purposes, His nature. So, theologians refer to this as “special revelation.” We called this series “The Complementary Attributes of God” because we want to discuss the fact that part of the special revelation the Bible provides is demonstrating how all of God’s attributes harmonize perfectly.
VK: So, the word “complementary” in the series title is “complementary” with an “e” not “complimentary” with an “I.” Complementary with an “e” refers to the fact that two or more different things complement the other in such a way as to fulfill or complete their purpose. As an example of this we’ve noted that if God were just a God of justice when Adam and Eve rebelled in the Garden of Eden God would have expelled them with no hope of redemption. But because God is a God of mercy, not merely a God of justice, after the rebellion God immediately began a plan to redeem a people for Himself. God’s mercy and justice complement one another in such a way that it makes our redemption possible. Well, before we get too much deeper into our discussion let’s listen to a meditation from Crystal Sea’s book, Purposeful Prayers, on one of the attributes of God we want to think about today: God’s holiness.
-- Meditation on God’s holiness
RD: We chose that meditation because it helps set the state for the set of attributes of God that we want to discuss today: God’s holiness and God’s willingness to forgive sinners. In my mind nothing displays God’s love for His people and His unfathomable greatness than to think about the fact that the perfectly holy God who created the universe is also so compassionate that He is willing to forgive offenses that are committed by His people even when those offenses are committed directly against Him.
VK: That is a staggering thought. I don’t think in our day and age a lot of people spend much time meditating on God’s holiness. In our time we tend to talk more about God’s love and role in our salvation than think about why that love and salvation are necessary. We tend to focus more on the blessing than the Blesser. But you really can’t appreciate the magnitude of the blessing that our salvation represents if we don’t understand what goes behind it all. In order to really appreciate the greatness of God’s grace we need to remind ourselves occasionally of why that salvation was necessary in the first place – and of what God had to do to make salvation possible.
RD: Exactly. One way to think about the implications of the complementary nature of God’s attributes is to think about what happens in our own lives when we need deliverance from unexpected troubles.
VK: Like car troubles. Most of the time, when we get in our car and turn the key, the car starts right up. That’s what we get used to. But when we walk out to the car and the battery is dead all of a sudden it’s a different issue. Something we take for granted all of a sudden becomes a source of immediate concern. Something we never think twice about has suddenly become the central focus of our life. This is particularly true if it’s dark out or we’ve gone to some unfamiliar place where we don’t know anyone or where to turn for help. So, when a helpful stranger helps us jump start the car or the roadside auto company truck shows up we have a brand new appreciation for something and someone who was completely unimportant to us just minutes earlier. The immediacy of a previously unknown need has a way of commanding our attention and making us grateful for a deliverance that we didn’t know we needed?
RD: Yes. Most of us are so busy with our daily lives just putting food on the table, taking care of the people we love, or preparing for the future we don’t think very much about eternal realities. Like our cars starting when we turn the keys Christians can get so used to knowing that we’re saved that we can forget that desperate need that all of sinful humanity has for a Savior. I don’t want to say that we take our salvation for granted. I don’t think we do that. But we can get so used to knowing that we’re saved that even devoted Christians can begin to lose that deep and abiding appreciation of what God and Jesus have done for us. We can get so used to saying the words “grace,” “mercy,” and “salvation” that we can lose the deep sense of gratitude we had for those words when we first understood what they meant to our lives and destinies. That’s why it’s important to stop every now and then and then and refocus ourselves on the source and reason for our salvation.
VK: I see what you’re saying. That makes me think of the admonition that Christ gave to the church in Ephesus that’s recorded in Revelation, chapter 2, verses 4 and 5. “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.” In his initial comments to the church Jesus commended the Ephesians for their hard work and perseverance on behalf of the gospel. But he reminded them that good doctrine was not enough by itself. Good doctrine had to be combined with a genuine love for the One who had made the gospel “good news.”
RD: Right. As we’ve said before, for genuine spiritual growth and development it’s not enough just to read scripture. We must also mediate on it. We need to consistently remind ourselves that our salvation was free to us but not free to God. God paid an enormous price, an unfathomable price, to redeem us from our sins. God had to pay the price because He’s the only one who could. Burk Parsons has said, “God saved us by Himself from Himself to Himself for Himself.” One of the things people often miss is that God’s holiness is so pristine that God can’t even tolerate looking upon evil.
VK: You’re thinking of Habakkuk 1:13 which says of the Lord “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.”
RD: Yes. So, the question then becomes how can a God who is so holy that His holiness is emphasized in two different places in the Bible by triple repetition, so holy His eyes can’t bear to look upon evil – how can a God like that also be a God who forgives sinners?
VK: Well, of all the mysteries in the Bible – and there are a lot – that mystery is without doubt among the most profound.
RD: Exactly. And some portions of the answer to that question will undoubtedly remain mysterious until we stand face to face with God after the second coming. But, of course, the key to what we can perceive about how a holy God can also be a God of forgiveness is expressed in perhaps the best known verse in the Bible.
VK: John 3:16 – and we’ll add verse 17. In the New International Version it says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” In the Contemporary English Version it says, “God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn its people. He sent him to save them!”
RD: Absolutely. When God created the world He was not only expressing His creative power He was also expressing His love. We often talk about God’s love in our culture and church today but if we don’t first understand God’s holiness we cannot possibly fathom the height, depth, and breadth of God’s love. God’s love for His created order and especially the one creature God created in His image, man, allowed Him to design a plan to redeem a people for Himself even after that creature resisted God’s love by rebelling against Him.
VK: And that’s why we wanted to do this series about how all of God’s attributes complement one another. God is infinite and perfect so all of the attributes He possesses are themselves perfect. But, if we just focus on the individual attributes then the sheer perfection of one of them might leave us with a distorted picture of who God is. Unfortunately, you see that happen sometimes. Well-meaning Christians may focus so much on one of God’s pleasing attributes – say God’s love or mercy – that create the impression that God is not a God who judges sin or punishes evil. Critics may focus so much on one of God’s ominous attributes – like God’s wrath or judgment – that they create the impression that God is not a God who so loves mankind that He was willing to sacrifice His only Son to make redemption possible. To have a mature, well-informed opinion of God we have to ensure we develop a complete picture of the God we love and serve.
RD: Exactly. In chapter 10 of Luke Jesus was having a discussion with someone the Bible describes as an expert in the Jewish law, the scriptures they have. The man asks Jesus what he has to do to have eternal life. In response, Jesus asks the man “what do the scriptures say?” The man says, “the Scriptures say, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind.’ They also say, ‘Love your neighbors as much as you love yourself.’ ” Jesus then affirms the man’s answer by saying “You have given the right answer. If you do this, you will have eternal life.” Jesus affirmed several important things in this brief discussion. First, eternal life is tied to our knowing the scriptures, and second, we are to love the Lord with all our hearts, soul, strength, and minds. But how can we love God with all our mind if we don’t know who God is?
VK: We can’t. So, the point you’re making is that we have to diligently pursue an ever increasing knowledge of God to properly comply with Jesus’ command. But as we observed earlier we must not let that knowledge steal our genuine affection for Jesus. This is a super important point. People who aren’t Christians often hear Christians speak about being obedient to Christ and they assume the Christian faith is about following rules. But the Christian faith is all about a relationship – with Jesus. We obey Jesus because we know what He had done for us and we know what our salvation cost Him. Just as, in a good marriage, a husband and wife seek to develop a deeper relationship over time, that’s what growing in the Christian faith means – developing a deeper relationship with Christ. And part of building that deeper relationship is coming to understand God better. In this series we’ve sought to do that by studying God’s attributes.
RD: Yes. It’s important as we wrap up to note that we have by no means tried to cover all of God’s attributes.
VK: In part, because if we tried we’d fail. God is infinite. We are not.
RD: Yes, again. But we picked out the attributes we did because we wanted to point back to the reason God gave us His special revelation in the Bible. The Bible is a single story about a single plan focused around a single person – the unfolding of God’s plan to redeem a people for Himself by Jesus’ atoning death. God’s attributes, His complementary attributes, show us why and how he was able to do that.
VK: We first looked at the complementary attributes of God’s justice and mercy. God’s justice meant He had to punish evil and sin when it entered the Garden of Eden by Adam and Eve eating from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But God’s mercy meant He immediately launched a rescue plan.
RD: Exactly. Next we looked at God’s transcendence and immanence. God’s immanence meant that He not only continually superintended His creation and the rescue plan but also that He could enter the created order at the right time and place to complete the plan. God’s transcendence meant that when Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross His sacrifice could transcend time and space so it could apply to all believers anywhere in the world and anywhere in history.
VK: After transcendence and immanence we looked at God’s exaltation and humility. God is high and lifted up and sovereign over all of creation. God’s sovereignty meant that there wasn’t and isn’t any power anywhere who could derail His rescue plan. But God is also humble, lowly in heart so that when it was necessary for Jesus to temporarily set aside the glory that He is due He did it. Jesus took on a human nature so He could become the perfect mediator between God and man.
RD: Right. And as we’ve seen today God is a holy God but God’s perfect holiness does not mean that He will not forgive us for our sins when we confess them to Him. God is so pure His eyes cannot look upon evil but when God looks at us – at you and me – God doesn’t see our sin He sees Jesus’ righteousness. As 2 Corinthians 5:21 says “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
VK: I think that’s a great note to close on. As we’ve said before God is not only a God of promise but also a God of peril. He’s a God of mercy and deliverance to those who trust in His son, but He is a God of justice to those who don’t. That’s the rugged truth that we have to accept and proclaim. And that is, of course, why we wanted to launch this series on The Complementary Attributes of God. We have to be faithful to what the Bible tells us about God. And that’s also why we labor so hard on Anchored by Truth to help people build a solid foundation about the fact that the Bible is demonstrably the word of God. If the Bible weren’t the word of God, it might be a sort of interesting book of history and philosophy but you could safely ignore the parts about commandments, judgment, eternity, and hell. But if the Bible is the word of God, and we certainly believe that it is, then anyone who ignores those aspects of the Bible are in the same kind of danger Adam and Eve put themselves in when they ignored God’s commandment about the tree in Eden.
RD: Yes. As we have worked our way through God’s attributes we continue to see this same dynamic at work. It is absolutely true to say that God loves people. God is a God of love. But God’s love is not divorced from his holiness or justice. So, to properly understand God’s attribute of being loving we must keep God’s entire character in mind. And if God were not both transcendent and immanent it would be hard to see how he would have been able to arrange the transaction that allowed God’s love to be expressed as mercy to those people who return His love. This points out that the deeper our understanding of God’s character the better able we are to worship Him, as the Bible says, “in spirit and in truth.”
VK: Well, in our next episode of Anchored by Truth we’re going to begin an entirely new series. So, we hope you’ll join us then. This sounds like a great time to go to the Lord in prayer. Today let’s listen to a prayer for wisdom and direction for our government officials – those people who direct and support many activities that are essential for us to have stable and vibrant communities. Let’s remember always to pray regularly for our nation and communities. The Bible assures us that “greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world” and that God hears and responds to the sincere prayers of His faithful children.
---- PRAYER FOR GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”
If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!”
(Bible Quotes from the New International Version)
Deuteronomy, Chapter 31, verse 6, New International Version
Joshua, Chapter 1, verse 5, New International Version
A Meditation on God’s Holiness
As R. C. Sproul points out in his classic work, The Holiness of God, although the Bible talks about many different attributes of God, the Bible emphasizes only one attribute by triple repetition. In Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8, God is described as being “holy, holy, holy.” While we tend to think of “holy” as meaning “sacred” or “worthy of reverence” the primary biblical meaning of the term, is “different” or “other.”
The nature of His being reflects God’s holiness. God is unlike every other entity that has ever existed because He alone is uncreated. As difficult as it may be to comprehend, God does not owe His existence to any other being or thing. He is not “derived” from anything or anyone else. God is transcendent. He created time and space and the universe, but He is not bound by any of them. He is “other” than His creation.
God is also “other” in that He has no needs--not one. He depends on no other being or thing for anything at all. As mentioned earlier, sometimes you might hear a preacher or ministry leader say, “God needs our praise and worship” or “God needs the prayers of His people.” While it is true that God wants those things, He is not any greater for having received them, nor any lesser without them. No one can add anything to God or take anything away from Him.
God has no flaws, weaknesses, or deficiencies. He is perfect. He makes no mistakes. He knows and does everything perfectly. God is completely “other” from any type of error.
God’s holiness can be a source of terror or comfort to His creatures. The terror comes when we realize that we are not fit to approach God on our own merits. As Sproul has said, “God is holy and we are not.” But those who have put their trust in Christ should be comforted from knowing we don’t have to approach God on our own. We have access to the Father through the Son. He is our mediator. Christ’s meritorious work (His sinless life and sacrificial, atoning death) and our faith in Him are the means through which we can approach a holy God. Those who come to God through Christ can stand confidently before a throne that would otherwise be a holy terror.
Because God is holy and perfect, we need not fear that He will act arbitrarily or capriciously. Unlike the “gods” of pagan mythologies, the God of the Bible is not tempted (indeed cannot be tempted) by spite, malice, or any lesser motive. He is worthy of complete confidence and trust.
God’s holiness, His otherness, is our assurance that He cannot fall prey to temptations that were the downfall for Satan, the demons, and, ultimately, for Adam and his children. God’s holiness is the surest of foundations for our prayer and our lives.
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By R.D.Fierro
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Episode 102 – The Complementary Attributes of God Part 4
Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.
Script:
Each of the four living creatures had six wings ... Day and night they never stop saying: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,’ who was, and is, and is to come.”
Revelation, Chapter 4, verse 8, New International Version
The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him; we have not obeyed the Lord our God or kept the laws he gave us through his servants the prophets.
Daniel, Chapter 9, verses 9 and 10, New International Version
********
VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. Today on Anchored by Truth we’re going to wrap up our series that we’ve called “The Complementary Attributes of God.” With me in the studio is RD Fierro, author and founder of Crystal Sea Books. As we’ve mentioned throughout this series, we wanted to do this series to spend some time just focusing on God. After all, the primary purpose of the Bible is to give us information about God. The Bible is God’s special revelation to His people. As such, we thought it was appropriate to take a few episodes of Anchored by Truth and look at some of what we learn from that revelation. RD, why did you decide to call this series “The Complementary Attributes of God?”
RD: As many theologians have noted it’s possible to discern the need for God to exist just by observing the universe and applying logic and reason to what we see. Even pagan philosophers like Aristotle have been able to use their reason to determine that there must be an “Unmoved Mover.” And the Bible reaffirms that we can know that God exists just by looking at the created order.
VK: You’re thinking of verses like Psalm 19, verses 1 and 2: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.”
RD: Yes. And Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” So, we can know God exists just from what we can see and reason. But the knowledge of God that we obtain by using our human abilities is general in nature. That’s why theologians refer to this kind of knowledge as “general revelation.” By contrast the knowledge that we get about God from the Bible is particular knowledge about God – His attributes, His plans, His purposes, His nature. So, theologians refer to this as “special revelation.” We called this series “The Complementary Attributes of God” because we want to discuss the fact that part of the special revelation the Bible provides is demonstrating how all of God’s attributes harmonize perfectly.
VK: So, the word “complementary” in the series title is “complementary” with an “e” not “complimentary” with an “I.” Complementary with an “e” refers to the fact that two or more different things complement the other in such a way as to fulfill or complete their purpose. As an example of this we’ve noted that if God were just a God of justice when Adam and Eve rebelled in the Garden of Eden God would have expelled them with no hope of redemption. But because God is a God of mercy, not merely a God of justice, after the rebellion God immediately began a plan to redeem a people for Himself. God’s mercy and justice complement one another in such a way that it makes our redemption possible. Well, before we get too much deeper into our discussion let’s listen to a meditation from Crystal Sea’s book, Purposeful Prayers, on one of the attributes of God we want to think about today: God’s holiness.
-- Meditation on God’s holiness
RD: We chose that meditation because it helps set the state for the set of attributes of God that we want to discuss today: God’s holiness and God’s willingness to forgive sinners. In my mind nothing displays God’s love for His people and His unfathomable greatness than to think about the fact that the perfectly holy God who created the universe is also so compassionate that He is willing to forgive offenses that are committed by His people even when those offenses are committed directly against Him.
VK: That is a staggering thought. I don’t think in our day and age a lot of people spend much time meditating on God’s holiness. In our time we tend to talk more about God’s love and role in our salvation than think about why that love and salvation are necessary. We tend to focus more on the blessing than the Blesser. But you really can’t appreciate the magnitude of the blessing that our salvation represents if we don’t understand what goes behind it all. In order to really appreciate the greatness of God’s grace we need to remind ourselves occasionally of why that salvation was necessary in the first place – and of what God had to do to make salvation possible.
RD: Exactly. One way to think about the implications of the complementary nature of God’s attributes is to think about what happens in our own lives when we need deliverance from unexpected troubles.
VK: Like car troubles. Most of the time, when we get in our car and turn the key, the car starts right up. That’s what we get used to. But when we walk out to the car and the battery is dead all of a sudden it’s a different issue. Something we take for granted all of a sudden becomes a source of immediate concern. Something we never think twice about has suddenly become the central focus of our life. This is particularly true if it’s dark out or we’ve gone to some unfamiliar place where we don’t know anyone or where to turn for help. So, when a helpful stranger helps us jump start the car or the roadside auto company truck shows up we have a brand new appreciation for something and someone who was completely unimportant to us just minutes earlier. The immediacy of a previously unknown need has a way of commanding our attention and making us grateful for a deliverance that we didn’t know we needed?
RD: Yes. Most of us are so busy with our daily lives just putting food on the table, taking care of the people we love, or preparing for the future we don’t think very much about eternal realities. Like our cars starting when we turn the keys Christians can get so used to knowing that we’re saved that we can forget that desperate need that all of sinful humanity has for a Savior. I don’t want to say that we take our salvation for granted. I don’t think we do that. But we can get so used to knowing that we’re saved that even devoted Christians can begin to lose that deep and abiding appreciation of what God and Jesus have done for us. We can get so used to saying the words “grace,” “mercy,” and “salvation” that we can lose the deep sense of gratitude we had for those words when we first understood what they meant to our lives and destinies. That’s why it’s important to stop every now and then and then and refocus ourselves on the source and reason for our salvation.
VK: I see what you’re saying. That makes me think of the admonition that Christ gave to the church in Ephesus that’s recorded in Revelation, chapter 2, verses 4 and 5. “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.” In his initial comments to the church Jesus commended the Ephesians for their hard work and perseverance on behalf of the gospel. But he reminded them that good doctrine was not enough by itself. Good doctrine had to be combined with a genuine love for the One who had made the gospel “good news.”
RD: Right. As we’ve said before, for genuine spiritual growth and development it’s not enough just to read scripture. We must also mediate on it. We need to consistently remind ourselves that our salvation was free to us but not free to God. God paid an enormous price, an unfathomable price, to redeem us from our sins. God had to pay the price because He’s the only one who could. Burk Parsons has said, “God saved us by Himself from Himself to Himself for Himself.” One of the things people often miss is that God’s holiness is so pristine that God can’t even tolerate looking upon evil.
VK: You’re thinking of Habakkuk 1:13 which says of the Lord “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.”
RD: Yes. So, the question then becomes how can a God who is so holy that His holiness is emphasized in two different places in the Bible by triple repetition, so holy His eyes can’t bear to look upon evil – how can a God like that also be a God who forgives sinners?
VK: Well, of all the mysteries in the Bible – and there are a lot – that mystery is without doubt among the most profound.
RD: Exactly. And some portions of the answer to that question will undoubtedly remain mysterious until we stand face to face with God after the second coming. But, of course, the key to what we can perceive about how a holy God can also be a God of forgiveness is expressed in perhaps the best known verse in the Bible.
VK: John 3:16 – and we’ll add verse 17. In the New International Version it says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” In the Contemporary English Version it says, “God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn its people. He sent him to save them!”
RD: Absolutely. When God created the world He was not only expressing His creative power He was also expressing His love. We often talk about God’s love in our culture and church today but if we don’t first understand God’s holiness we cannot possibly fathom the height, depth, and breadth of God’s love. God’s love for His created order and especially the one creature God created in His image, man, allowed Him to design a plan to redeem a people for Himself even after that creature resisted God’s love by rebelling against Him.
VK: And that’s why we wanted to do this series about how all of God’s attributes complement one another. God is infinite and perfect so all of the attributes He possesses are themselves perfect. But, if we just focus on the individual attributes then the sheer perfection of one of them might leave us with a distorted picture of who God is. Unfortunately, you see that happen sometimes. Well-meaning Christians may focus so much on one of God’s pleasing attributes – say God’s love or mercy – that create the impression that God is not a God who judges sin or punishes evil. Critics may focus so much on one of God’s ominous attributes – like God’s wrath or judgment – that they create the impression that God is not a God who so loves mankind that He was willing to sacrifice His only Son to make redemption possible. To have a mature, well-informed opinion of God we have to ensure we develop a complete picture of the God we love and serve.
RD: Exactly. In chapter 10 of Luke Jesus was having a discussion with someone the Bible describes as an expert in the Jewish law, the scriptures they have. The man asks Jesus what he has to do to have eternal life. In response, Jesus asks the man “what do the scriptures say?” The man says, “the Scriptures say, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind.’ They also say, ‘Love your neighbors as much as you love yourself.’ ” Jesus then affirms the man’s answer by saying “You have given the right answer. If you do this, you will have eternal life.” Jesus affirmed several important things in this brief discussion. First, eternal life is tied to our knowing the scriptures, and second, we are to love the Lord with all our hearts, soul, strength, and minds. But how can we love God with all our mind if we don’t know who God is?
VK: We can’t. So, the point you’re making is that we have to diligently pursue an ever increasing knowledge of God to properly comply with Jesus’ command. But as we observed earlier we must not let that knowledge steal our genuine affection for Jesus. This is a super important point. People who aren’t Christians often hear Christians speak about being obedient to Christ and they assume the Christian faith is about following rules. But the Christian faith is all about a relationship – with Jesus. We obey Jesus because we know what He had done for us and we know what our salvation cost Him. Just as, in a good marriage, a husband and wife seek to develop a deeper relationship over time, that’s what growing in the Christian faith means – developing a deeper relationship with Christ. And part of building that deeper relationship is coming to understand God better. In this series we’ve sought to do that by studying God’s attributes.
RD: Yes. It’s important as we wrap up to note that we have by no means tried to cover all of God’s attributes.
VK: In part, because if we tried we’d fail. God is infinite. We are not.
RD: Yes, again. But we picked out the attributes we did because we wanted to point back to the reason God gave us His special revelation in the Bible. The Bible is a single story about a single plan focused around a single person – the unfolding of God’s plan to redeem a people for Himself by Jesus’ atoning death. God’s attributes, His complementary attributes, show us why and how he was able to do that.
VK: We first looked at the complementary attributes of God’s justice and mercy. God’s justice meant He had to punish evil and sin when it entered the Garden of Eden by Adam and Eve eating from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But God’s mercy meant He immediately launched a rescue plan.
RD: Exactly. Next we looked at God’s transcendence and immanence. God’s immanence meant that He not only continually superintended His creation and the rescue plan but also that He could enter the created order at the right time and place to complete the plan. God’s transcendence meant that when Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross His sacrifice could transcend time and space so it could apply to all believers anywhere in the world and anywhere in history.
VK: After transcendence and immanence we looked at God’s exaltation and humility. God is high and lifted up and sovereign over all of creation. God’s sovereignty meant that there wasn’t and isn’t any power anywhere who could derail His rescue plan. But God is also humble, lowly in heart so that when it was necessary for Jesus to temporarily set aside the glory that He is due He did it. Jesus took on a human nature so He could become the perfect mediator between God and man.
RD: Right. And as we’ve seen today God is a holy God but God’s perfect holiness does not mean that He will not forgive us for our sins when we confess them to Him. God is so pure His eyes cannot look upon evil but when God looks at us – at you and me – God doesn’t see our sin He sees Jesus’ righteousness. As 2 Corinthians 5:21 says “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
VK: I think that’s a great note to close on. As we’ve said before God is not only a God of promise but also a God of peril. He’s a God of mercy and deliverance to those who trust in His son, but He is a God of justice to those who don’t. That’s the rugged truth that we have to accept and proclaim. And that is, of course, why we wanted to launch this series on The Complementary Attributes of God. We have to be faithful to what the Bible tells us about God. And that’s also why we labor so hard on Anchored by Truth to help people build a solid foundation about the fact that the Bible is demonstrably the word of God. If the Bible weren’t the word of God, it might be a sort of interesting book of history and philosophy but you could safely ignore the parts about commandments, judgment, eternity, and hell. But if the Bible is the word of God, and we certainly believe that it is, then anyone who ignores those aspects of the Bible are in the same kind of danger Adam and Eve put themselves in when they ignored God’s commandment about the tree in Eden.
RD: Yes. As we have worked our way through God’s attributes we continue to see this same dynamic at work. It is absolutely true to say that God loves people. God is a God of love. But God’s love is not divorced from his holiness or justice. So, to properly understand God’s attribute of being loving we must keep God’s entire character in mind. And if God were not both transcendent and immanent it would be hard to see how he would have been able to arrange the transaction that allowed God’s love to be expressed as mercy to those people who return His love. This points out that the deeper our understanding of God’s character the better able we are to worship Him, as the Bible says, “in spirit and in truth.”
VK: Well, in our next episode of Anchored by Truth we’re going to begin an entirely new series. So, we hope you’ll join us then. This sounds like a great time to go to the Lord in prayer. Today let’s listen to a prayer for wisdom and direction for our government officials – those people who direct and support many activities that are essential for us to have stable and vibrant communities. Let’s remember always to pray regularly for our nation and communities. The Bible assures us that “greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world” and that God hears and responds to the sincere prayers of His faithful children.
---- PRAYER FOR GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”
If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!”
(Bible Quotes from the New International Version)
Deuteronomy, Chapter 31, verse 6, New International Version
Joshua, Chapter 1, verse 5, New International Version
A Meditation on God’s Holiness
As R. C. Sproul points out in his classic work, The Holiness of God, although the Bible talks about many different attributes of God, the Bible emphasizes only one attribute by triple repetition. In Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8, God is described as being “holy, holy, holy.” While we tend to think of “holy” as meaning “sacred” or “worthy of reverence” the primary biblical meaning of the term, is “different” or “other.”
The nature of His being reflects God’s holiness. God is unlike every other entity that has ever existed because He alone is uncreated. As difficult as it may be to comprehend, God does not owe His existence to any other being or thing. He is not “derived” from anything or anyone else. God is transcendent. He created time and space and the universe, but He is not bound by any of them. He is “other” than His creation.
God is also “other” in that He has no needs--not one. He depends on no other being or thing for anything at all. As mentioned earlier, sometimes you might hear a preacher or ministry leader say, “God needs our praise and worship” or “God needs the prayers of His people.” While it is true that God wants those things, He is not any greater for having received them, nor any lesser without them. No one can add anything to God or take anything away from Him.
God has no flaws, weaknesses, or deficiencies. He is perfect. He makes no mistakes. He knows and does everything perfectly. God is completely “other” from any type of error.
God’s holiness can be a source of terror or comfort to His creatures. The terror comes when we realize that we are not fit to approach God on our own merits. As Sproul has said, “God is holy and we are not.” But those who have put their trust in Christ should be comforted from knowing we don’t have to approach God on our own. We have access to the Father through the Son. He is our mediator. Christ’s meritorious work (His sinless life and sacrificial, atoning death) and our faith in Him are the means through which we can approach a holy God. Those who come to God through Christ can stand confidently before a throne that would otherwise be a holy terror.
Because God is holy and perfect, we need not fear that He will act arbitrarily or capriciously. Unlike the “gods” of pagan mythologies, the God of the Bible is not tempted (indeed cannot be tempted) by spite, malice, or any lesser motive. He is worthy of complete confidence and trust.
God’s holiness, His otherness, is our assurance that He cannot fall prey to temptations that were the downfall for Satan, the demons, and, ultimately, for Adam and his children. God’s holiness is the surest of foundations for our prayer and our lives.