by Garrett Glende

Moving forward in Grudem’s Systematic Theology, we come to the study of the doctrine of God, theology proper. Last week, we covered the issue of God’s existence and learned that man is without excuse when it comes to acknowledging the reality of its Creator. All men know that God exists, but there are those who choose to suppress this truth and those who are illuminated by the Holy Spirit to submit to the Father. The question now is, “Can we truly know who God is?” Thankfully, God has not hidden Himself from us. In addition to general revelation through nature, God has revealed Himself to us through His word, where we are able to learn about who He is and how He has redeemed a people for Himself. Without this insight into God’s character, we would be left to ourselves to imagine exactly what God is like. Yes, we could look around at the vastness of creation and perceive that God is creative and powerful, but we would not necessarily understand His wrath or righteousness. For this kind of knowledge, we need Scripture to enlighten us. Our sinful natures are prone to misinterpret what we see in nature, so special revelation is necessary for a true knowledge of God. This is a different type of knowledge than one acquires in a chemistry class, a spectrum of facts and theories. We can look around and see things about God, but we still may not know Him in a way that leads to salvation. An encyclopedic knowledge is insufficient to have a true relationship with God. Instead, we must be reborn and quickened by the Spirit to see our need for a redeemer. When brought before the Scriptures, we will then be able to see God clearly and develop a personal relationship with Him.

Although we can learn many things about God through the Bible, there is certainly a limit to this knowledge. The infinitude of God implies that we, as finite creatures will never be able to fully grasp who He is, yet we can still know Him truly. At the end of Romans 11, Paul has just finished unpacking the wonderful truths of God’s plan of salvation and declares “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” The Psalms are filled with statements attesting to the vastness and incomprehensibility of God: “Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable”; “Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure”; “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it” (Psalm 145:3; 147:5; 139:6). In these verses we see that many different attributes of God are unknowable. We are able to understand certain aspects of the holiness of God or the justice of God, but we will never fully exhaust all there is to know about these things. In this way, even the man who has been studying Scripture his whole life cannot say that He fully knows God.

However, we are sure that what we do know about God is true knowledge. Grudem writes that “even though we cannot know God exhaustively, we can know true things about God. In fact, all that Scripture tells us about God is true.” It would not be false to say that God is holy, loving, just, or righteous, even though we don’t fully comprehend these aspects of God. The type of knowledge that the Christian has of God is intimate and personal. God is not just a list of facts stored away in our brains. We know God himself, not just things about Him.

Granted the fact that we will never be able to fully exhaust our knowledge of God, why then would we ever consider our knowledge sufficient? Just because “his understanding is beyond measure” does not mean that we should never seek to attain it. It should encourage us all the more to study all that we can about God and persuade us to draw closer to him. If we are ever satisfied with our current understanding of our Creator, then we don’t understand how glorious and satisfying He really is. It’s common for many to feel like they’ve come to firm understandings of the basic truths of Christianity (the gospel, God’s love, God’s mercy) and then never take the time to study them further. But the truth is that we will never be able to fully grasp any of these things, so we must continue to seek after a deeper knowledge of them. As we do, our relationship with God will grow deeper, strengthening our faith in our wonderful Lord and Savior. We should never be content with our present comprehension of God and we must be especially careful not to overlook the depths of His grace and mercy shown through the gospel.

by Garrett Glende

It is perhaps one of the most asked questions in our day, and certainly the most passionately debated. Is there a God? The answer has profound impact on the world and our daily individual lives, but do we often consider how we should live in light of the existence and knowledge of our Creator? The Bible testifies to the reality of this triune God, telling the story of His marvelous work of redemption through His Son, Jesus Christ.

America used to be a nation founded on principles that took into account the existence of this God, yet today there are many who would discount the truth altogether, claiming that Christianity is immoral and, in fact, harmful to the world. They challenge the Bible’s authority and suppress the knowledge in their hearts, all the while proselytizing their own stream of intense atheism. What should the Christian response be to the likes of Christopher Hitchens and Dan Barker, who claim that the God of the Bible is immoral and repulsive? More importantly, knowing that God does indeed exist, how are our lives affected?

If there is to be a response to the naturalistic materialist, then certainly our argument must be based on what the Scripture says about the existence of God. First, we know that God exists because of the inner testimony of our hearts. We have been created in the image of God and are therefore able to think and act in ways that no other created thing can. Having been made in this way, God has written on our hearts an innate knowledge of Him. Those who deny His existence only prove that the Bible is true when it says that those who do not believe “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” These men know that God exists, but they have “exchanged the truth about God for a lie” (Rom. 1:18, 25). The Bible’s stance on atheists is not that they are people who say “God doesn’t exist,” but rather as Douglas Wilson would say is the first tenet of atheism, “God doesn’t exist and I hate Him.” It is clear that our own sin causes us to deny God’s existence, a fact that our own hearts testify to.

Not only has God revealed Himself to us through our own inner knowledge, we are able to see Him through His creation. Psalm 19:1 says that “the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” When we look up and see the stars and the clouds, we cannot help but be amazed at the character of God. His majesty and glory shine forth simply through what He has created. We can know of His creativity when we see the vast amount of life in a coral reef, and His power when we stand at the base of a mountain. Thus, Paul can write in Romans 1 that the existence of God, “namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world. So they are without excuse.” Since God has so clearly shown Himself to us, we can only say that the fool does not believe in Him (Psalm 14:1, Rom. 1:21).

How then shall we live? It is the most necessary question of this article. If we take in our knowledge of God and leave it at that, then it’s really of no use to us at all. We might be able to win an argument with a sophomore biology student on campus, but does God’s existence really change our hearts?

What does it all matter?

That’s the issue. It does matter. Life matters. If God is just a man-made construction intended to soothe our fearful consciences, then why live with any care for the future? If there is no God, then there is no ultimate purpose in life. We live our three-score-and-ten and its over with nothing to look forward to. Our life as a collection of living cells is over and no one cares because that’s all we were – a lump of cells. But no, God does exist and there is purpose in life. As God, He is necessarily the ultimate end of all things. We exist because of Him and we exist for Him (Col. 1:16). In this way, every aspect of our lives has meaning and we should use the greatest to the smallest parts of it to glorify Him (1 Cor. 10:31). The decisions about what to buy at the grocery store matter because God exists. What car we drive, what house we live in, what we watch on TV – it’s all significant in light of the existence of God. Ultimately, we will all stand before God and give an account for our lives here on earth. It is my prayer that we all can say that our lives were lived with a purpose – the glory of the true and living God.