The Godhood of God # 4

The Godhood of God # 4

He is One who "sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing!" (Isaiah 40:22, 23).

He is the One who declares, "Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, and He who formed you from the womb. I am the Lord who makes all things; who stretched forth the heavens alone; who spreads abroad the earth by Myself. I am the One who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense!"

I am the Lord who says to the deep: Be dry, and I will dry up your rivers - who says of Cyrus (a heathen idolater) - he is My shepherd, and shall perform all My pleasure! (Isaiah 44:24-28).

Such is the God of the Bible, the God who throws out the challenge, "To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness will you compare unto Him?" (Isaiah 40:18). And as though that were not enough, in the same chapter He asks again, "To whom then will you liken Me, or shall I be equal? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and behold who has created these things, who brings out their host by number. He calls them all by names by the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power, not one fails. Have you not known? Have you not heard - that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary?"

The God of Scripture is infinite in wisdom. No secret can be hidden from Him, no problem can baffle Him, nothing is too hard for Him.

God is omniscient, "Great is our Lord, and of great power - His understanding is infinite!" (Psalm 147:5). Therefore is it said, "There is no searching out of His understanding" (Isaiah 40:28). Hence it is, that in a revelation from Him, we expect to find the truths which transcend the reach of the creature's mind - and therefore the presumptuous folly and wickedness of those who are but "dust and ashes" undertaking to pronounce upon the reasonableness or unreasonableness of doctrines which are above their reason, and of speculating upon things that are a matter of pure revelation.

Instead of coming to the Scriptures to be taught thereof, men first fill their minds with objections, and then instead of interpreting the Divine Oracles according to their obvious meaning, they submit and twist them according to the dictates of their own finite reason.

Surely if we are unable to comprehend the mode of God's existence, because it is infinitely above us - then for the same reason we are unable to comprehend the counsels of infinite wisdom. Such is the explicit assertion of Holy Writ itself, "The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14).

The God of Scripture is infinite in Holiness. The "only true God" is He who hates sin with a perfect abhorrence, and whose nature eternally burns against it.

He is the One who beheld the wickedness of the antediluvians, and who opened the windows of Heaven and poured down the flood of His righteous indignation.

He is the One who rained fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and utterly destroyed these cities of the plain.

He is the One who sent the plagues upon Egypt, and destroyed her haughty monarch together with his hosts at the Red Sea.

He is the One who caused the earth to open its mouth and swallow alive Korah and his rebellious company.

Yes, He is the One who "spared not His own Son" when He was "made sin for us - that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

So holy is God and such is the antagonism of His nature against evil, that for one sin He banished our first parents from Eden; He cursed the posterity of Ham; He turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt; He sent out fire and devoured the sons of Aaron; Moses died in the wilderness; Achan and his family were all stoned to death; the servant of Elisha was smitten with leprosy!

Behold therefore, not only the goodness, but also "the severity of God" (Romans 11:22). And this is the God that every Christ-rejector has yet to meet in judgment!

~A. W. Pink~

(continued with # 5)