by Garrett Glende

Continuing on in the study through Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, we come to a portion that I believe many of us lack a clear understanding of. Perhaps this is because the nature of the issue is completely spiritual, so it seems almost irrelevant to our daily lives. However, this could not be further from the truth, as the doctrines of angels and of Satan and demons have immense consequences for our daily living. Grudem deals with the topics in two separate chapters, but I have chosen to combine them into one article because of how closely linked the principles of application are.

The inclusion of these issues at this point in the book stems from the theme of creation. This is the first important point to understand about angels, Satan, and demons. They are all created beings. Explicitly, this means that God has complete sovereignty over them, just as He does the rest of His creation. Spiritual beings never rival God in His power or deity because they lack the very essence that makes God who He is. Angels are defined by Grudem as “created, spiritual beings with moral judgment and high intelligence, but without physical bodies.” Colossians 1:16 tells us that “by [God] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities…” This is an all-inclusive declaration of the totality of God’s creative act. He has indeed created all things, including angels. The purpose of God in creating these angels is diverse, but we are given clear pictures of the ways that angels act in Scripture. We see a beautiful picture of worship in Revelation 5, the Apostle John describing the scene:

“Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, ‘worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

From this passage, we see that angels spend much of their time worshiping Christ. Specifically, they praise Him for His worthiness as the sacrificial Lamb of God. Because of this, they attribute to Him all power, wealth, wisdom, might, honor, glory, and blessing. Scripture also shows us that angels are used directly to carry out God’s plan. They bring about judgment on the enemies of God as well as provide blessings to God’s people. One example of the ministry of angels is seen in the life of Christ Himself. Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus was helped and comforted by angels from God. After He was tempted in the wilderness by Satan angels came to minister to Him (Matthew 4:11) and while He was suffering in the garden an angel was there to give Him strength (Luke 22:43). It was during these two crucial points in Jesus’ life on earth (the initiation and climax of His ministry) that God saw it fit for angels to intervene. From these passages, we can infer that angels surely have some sort of special abilities that have been given to them from God. They are unique beings, specially and purposefully created by God to carry out His works.

Angels are not the only spiritual beings that inhabit the spiritual realm. God has also created angels who have fallen from their original state. We call these beings demons. Grudem defines them as “evil angels who sinned against God and who now continually work evil in the world.” They were at once in communion with God, being completely sinless, but followed the rebellion of the chief of all demons, Satan himself. Satan was the first being to sin, thus bringing evil into existence. Since God’s purpose is to magnify Himself, specifically His holiness, Satan does all that he can to oppose this work. His desire is that people be blinded to the hope of the gospel and the glory of God. The main way that he tried to do this was to stop Jesus from accomplishing the Father’s will. As we see Jesus getting closer to the cross, we see Satan’s attacks intensify and Jesus draws away from the crowds to go to the Father in prayer. The main tactics that Satan will use against people today are lies and deception. He wants people to believe something other than the truth about God and himself. So long as people are unaware of his influence over their lives, they will not see the greatness of God and the problem of their own sinfulness. Satan also tempts believers so that their usefulness for the kingdom is limited. The Christian’s witness in the world is hindered when Satan causes “doubt, guilt, fear, confusion, sickness, envy, pride, [and] slander” to enter into their lives. He is not the cause of all of the evil in the world, for our very natures are prone to sin. We don’t necessarily need to be tempted by Satan to fall into sin because our own flesh wages war against us. However, we must be aware of his influence in the world so that we can properly fight against Him.

This is the real challenge that we face as Christians. We must understand that the battle we face is not against the things of this world, but against spiritual forces (Eph 6:12). Satan and demons are real and we must be on guard against them. It’s important to understand the different ways that Satan works so that we can recognize attacks when they come. Just as Satan’s works increased when important events in God’s plan were taking place, so he works in our lives today. Whenever we endeavor to do something meaningful (at least more than usual) for God, we should be especially alert to attacks from the devil. He does not want our plans to succeed and will try hard to stop us from bringing glory to God. This is particularly relevant to our church today, as we seek to plant a church in San Jose. Obviously this would be an advancement of the gospel around the world, something that Satan despises. He will surely bring about trials in the life of our church, so each and every member must be walking in the Spirit and clothed in the full armor of God in order to withstand his attacks. On our own we will fail, but God has given us the power of the Holy Spirit to stand firm in the face of temptation, knowing that God has ultimate control over Satan and his demons. This battle is not between two equally powerful opponents. God will ultimately crush the devil, as He promised in Genesis 3:15, and there will cease to be evil in the world. Praise God for He alone is God and there is no one like Him!

by Garrett Glende

It took me a while to figure out how to start writing this post. My usual format, if you haven’t noticed, is to refer back to the previous week’s article and give some sort of linking phrase to tie it all together. I felt like being a tad more creative tonight, but nothing really came to mind immediately. Then it hit me – maybe I should pray! I know what you’re thinking, “God obviously doesn’t answer prayer cuz that sure ain’t creative.” Maybe so, but at least it’s something. Plus it goes to show how often I fail to seek God’s help in my own life and I have a feeling many of you can relate as well.

In chapter eighteen of Grudem’s Systematic Theology, he defines prayer and fleshes out some of the basic concepts of the practice. He writes that prayer is “personal communication with God” and includes “prayers of request for ourselves or for others, confession of sin, adoration, praise and thanksgiving, and also God communicating to us indications of his response.” The concept is simple: we converse with God. But there is much more to it than just that. We aren’t just hanging out talking with God over a cup of coffee. We are communing with the sovereign Lord of the universe. He is a righteous and holy God, so we must not approach Him flippantly. He demands respect and reverence for no other reason but that He alone is God and we are not.

But what does prayer actually do? Does God hear our prayers? And what is its purpose? Personally, I often find myself wondering if God really does hear my prayers. It’s easy to think that my performance determines the generosity of God in responding to my prayers, but this is not a biblical perspective. Prayer does change the way God acts, as we see in the life of Moses when he prayed that God would not bring His judgment against the people and God “relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people” (Ex 32:11-14). Grudem writes of James 4:2 (“you do not have, because you do not ask”) that “failure to ask deprives us of what God would otherwise have given us.” Surely God does hear our prayers, for He is omnipresent and omniscient, seeing and knowing our every thought. But this does not mean that all prayers are answered in the way we would like. We must seek God’s will in prayer, as a means of laying aside our own desires and trusting that God’s plan is perfect. Many times God’s will may be obvious if it is illustrated in Scripture, but there are other circumstances that the Bible is silent about. We must do our best to pray in accordance with the things that God has revealed to us, trusting them to be true and relying on God to give us wisdom about things that are not present in His word. In this way, the purpose of prayer is to increase our dependence on God and to develop an attitude of humility. The proud person does not often pray because he believes that He does not need to go to God for daily sustenance. Not only is a humble heart cultivated, but we can also express our thankfulness to God through prayer, giving Him the praise that He deserves. These elements, along with the confession of sin, are a basic outline of what we do when we pray and are explained by the familiar model ACTS (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication). In prayer, we come before God and praise Him for who He is, confess our sins, express our gratitude, and ask for His will to be done in our lives.

The application here seems obvious. We need to pray. If we think we pray enough, we should pray more. JC Ryle, in his pamphlet titled “A Call to Prayer,” challenges the prayerless man with the following thoughts: “I warn you that you are in a position of fearful danger. If you die in your present state, you are a lost soul. You will only rise again to be eternally miserable. I warn you that of all professing Christians you are most utterly without excuse. There is not a single good reason that you can show for living without prayer.” So I would just want to echo the same question that Ryle asks: Do you pray? It should be as natural for a Christian to pray as it is for a husband to talk with his wife or for a son to speak with a father, but so often professing Christians fail in this area. If someone claims to have an intimate relationship with another person, yet never speaks with them, does this relationship truly exist? I would venture to say that it doesn’t. So how can a person claim to know God, yet rarely come before Him in prayer? It may be that there really isn’t a true relationship at all. These are somber words, but I fear it to be the case for many.

We must seek to understand the riches and blessings that God provides us through prayer. It is through prayer that we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to be useful for God’s kingdom purposes. All effective Christian ministry is fueled by an intense devotion to seeking God’s will in communion with Him. It is my own prayer that we would all humble ourselves, recognizing that we need to pray without ceasing, fully aware of our own insufficiencies, and trusting in Christ to provide all that we need.

by Garrett Glende

“It’s a miracle!” The expression is heard often in our culture, but do we ever pause to give much thought to what is actually being expressed by these few words? Most likely the person really just means that something highly unlikely just happened, maybe by luck or good fortune, but for the Christian the term “miracle” has a much more profound significance. When we think of miracles in the US, thoughts of defeating the Russians in Olympic hockey or something that happened on 34th street at Christmas time come to mind. But are these really miracles? Did God really have anything to do with an underdog US squad defeating the mighty pros from Russia? What is a miracle anyway and does God still work this way? Most importantly, how should we respond as Christians?

As we make our way through Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, it may seem like a weird time to bring up this topic, but he places it here because it is under the larger umbrella of God’s interactions with the world, two of which we looked at earlier (creation and providence). Grudem defines a miracle as “a less common kind of God’s activity in which he arouses people’s awe and wonder and bears witness to himself.” The qualifying phrase “less common” is necessary, as everything in the world is brought about by God’s action or decree, so there has to be some sort of distinction between a normal action of God and a miracle. Miracles are used specifically to make God’s name known and bring people to worship Him. Jesus and the apostles performed miracles so that their message would be authenticated and we often see that the crowds react in fear and amazement at what they have witnessed.

There are three words used in Scripture to speak of miracles. The first is “sign” (semeion) which is something that distinguishes itself from something else, usually referring to God’s power and omnipotence. The word “wonder” (teras) is also used when an extraordinary act causes people to be amazed and awe-struck. Thirdly, “mighty work” (dynamis) is used to describe the great power behind the miracle. These three words fit well into the definition that Grudem provides, showing that miracles are powerful events that point to the majesty and wonder of God, leaving the audience astonished.

Do miracles have anything to do with us today though? We don’t see seas parting, people feeding thousands with a few loaves and fish, or men rising from the dead. So is it logical to think that God doesn’t act in this way anymore because we never see it? We must first recognize that the high concentration of miracles throughout the period of biblical revelation was purposeful. The many miracles that Jesus and the apostles performed were done with the intent of authenticating their message. We no longer see these things performed by believers today because we have something more sure than signs and wonders, the holy word of God. Still, we must not think that God could not intervene in this way if it was pleasing to Him to do so.

We don’t see the same spectacles that the Israelites and early church members saw, but we still can see God’s hand working every day in our lives. Surely God does intervene directly throughout our time here on earth, but many times we might not notice. He could allow a car to swerve just in time to stay clear of you on the freeway or bring about a generous friend in a time of need. If we acknowledge the doctrine of God’s providence, then we know that He really has a chief role in all of life’s events, but there are certainly things that happen that are out of the ordinary. We should not presume on God that He is unable to get us out of seemingly impossible situations, as we so often do. When tough times come, it’s easy to give lip service to God’s faithfulness and provision, but do we really believe in our hearts that God can work miracles? Hopefully our knowledge of God’s power and sovereignty will cause us to trust Him more in all circumstances.

by Garrett Glende

Continuing on in the study of God’s interaction with His creation, we will now consider the issue of God’s providence. Grudem defines the term as “God being continually involved with all created things in such a way that he (1) keeps them existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them; (2) cooperates with created things in every action, directing their distinctive properties to cause them to act as they do; and (3) directs them to fulfill his purposes.” A full discussion of this topic would require a lengthy article (Grudem’s chapter alone is about 40 pages), so we’ll only cover the essentials.

The doctrine of God’s providence starts with the fact that He is creator of all things, thus giving Him lordship over all (for further insight, check out last week’s article). Providence basically boils down to the nature of God being God. If He were not in control of any single molecule, then He really isn’t its God. Scripture affirms that every act of creation happens under the sovereign hand of God and we see that inanimate creation such as rain and snow obey the voice of God (Job 37:6) and that animals are dependent on the goodness of their creator (Psalm 104:27-29, Matt. 10:29). While there are “natural” explanations for why it rains and why the grass grows, we know that God is truly behind it all, working ultimately for His own glory. Moreover, God has sovereignty over all aspects of our lives. Grudem writes, “our words, our steps, our movements, our hearts, and our abilities are all from the Lord.” While we do make real choices, we must also submit to the clear teaching of Scripture: that God’s providence extends into our own lives completely. Psalm 33:14-15 says that God fashions the hearts of the world and Acts 17:28 says that it is in Him we live and move.

It’s not difficult to admit the truthfulness of Scripture at this point, but the next question for many is a challenging one to tackle. What about evil? If God is in control of everything, doesn’t that mean He knows and allows all the bad things in the world? What we believe about God and His relationship with evil will strongly influence our lives when tough times do come, so we must believe rightly about what is called theodicy. First, it is imperative to note that God is in no way the author of sin. He tempts no one (James 1:13-14), bears no responsibility for the sinful actions of man (Luke 22:22), and will judge all sin. However, Scripture is clear that God uses evil for His own perfect purposes, His own glory, and our own good. A clear example of this is in the story of Joseph, where the many sinful actions of Joseph’s brothers landed him enslaved in Egypt, yet he was still able to say that “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Gen 50:20). Evil actions such as the brothers’ hatred of Joseph, their desire to kill him, and their selling him into slavery, ultimately were meant for a greater good by God. Later on in the verse we read that this purpose was “to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” Even more than Joseph’s story, we see that God uses evil in the crucifixion of Christ, an event that ultimately leads to our salvation. Acts 2:23 says that Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God [and] crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” The ultimate evil act, the murder of Jesus Christ, is also the most glorious event in all of history because of the divine providence of God in working out all things for His glory.

The most important thing that this means for us is that God has a purpose to everything that goes on in this world. Nothing is meaningless. When devastating news comes, when cancer strikes, when earthquakes kill thousands, or whenever we see evil in this world, we can rest on Gods promise in Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” We can have hope in knowing that there is not one atom in this universe that is outside of God’s sovereign control. As John Piper says, “God doesn’t do things willy-nilly.” There is always a purpose to what He does and His ultimate purpose is the glorification of Himself, most beautifully seen through the gospel. Many want to argue that God can have no involvement in the evil things that happen in this world. “What kind of good God allows such horrors?” they ask. Well, consider the alternative. If God does not permit evil and use it for His glory, then there really isn’t any purpose in the countless atrocities that happen every day. So when a family member gets cancer we just have to call it bad luck, because God certainly couldn’t have any purpose in such a trial. This view of God is unbiblical and unhelpful in dealing with many counseling situations, as we will not be able to offer any sort of reason or purpose for someone’s suffering. Hard times will undoubtedly befall us, but we must confront them with a biblical worldview. Our understanding of the providence of God will help us respond to evil, knowing that God is working in our lives to conform us to the image of His Son. In this way we can have hope even in the darkest of hours.

by Garrett Glende

When it comes to doctrines, there aren’t many more crucial or life changing than the doctrine of creation. As we open the Bible and begin to read, we are challenged immediately as to how we will consider our lives in light of creation. Did God really create the world and all that exists in six days or is this some sort of poetic device? This is a serious question, as the manner in which we interpret Genesis 1 will actually influence our hermeneutics going forward in our study of Scripture. While this article is not intended to cover all the details of creation (i.e. age of the earth theories), it will provide a summary and defense of the Bible’s teaching (hopefully in much less words than it took me last week to explain the Trinity).

The first foundation of Biblical creation is that God created the world ex nihilo or out of nothing. When God made the universe, there was no pre-existent material that He used to form everything that we see today. John 1:3 says that “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” Even things that we cannot see have been created by God. Colossians 1:16 tells us that “by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible…” There are many more verses attesting to this truth, but we should ponder the idea of something existing that has not been created by God, such as time. Wouldn’t this diminish the sovereignty of God? For if He has not created time, then how is He able to exercise any sort of authority over it? Would God then be at the mercy of anything that He has not created? Certainly, the Bible teaches otherwise and we can know that God has indeed created everything and uses it all to fulfill His good purposes.

Secondly, the Bible presents the creation of the world as an event that took place over the course of six literal twenty-four hour days. Many will try to explain this account away, citing modern science and logic, but we must remain faithful to the Scriptures. Nothing else in the book of Genesis allows us to interpret chapters one and two as anything but historical narrative. Genesis is as much history as Psalms is poetry and Daniel is prophecy. We must be faithful to a sound hermeneutic and take God’s word at face value. The reality is that God’s act of creation was a miracle and that it cannot be explained any other way. If we question Genesis 1, then what happens when we read about Jesus walking on water, feeding 5,000, or rising from the dead? Science cannot explain these things, so we must believe that God has interceded and done the miraculous. I should add that even though science does attempt to explain away miracles, the Christian must take the Bible as authoritative above all else. All that is genuinely true about science is because God has made it that way.

Lastly, it is important to understand that God has created all things for His own glory. Being the most wonderful and supreme being that He is, there is no greater purpose than to create a world in which His own beauty is mirrored. We see that nature and all that fills the earth has been intended to bring glory to God (Psalm 19:1, Isa. 43:7, Rev. 4:11). All we need to do is take a ten minute drive to the cliffs in La Jolla to realize what a wise and powerful God we have. This simple act of worship is exactly the response that God intends us to have in light of His creation.

As Christians living in view of the vastness of God’s works, we realize how small we really are. When we understand that we are just one of millions of things God has made, we should be truly humbled. He has made so many things that have little association to our lives. We should look around and sense that God has not created the world to center around us, but rather that He has made everything to point back to His own glory. A healthy humility and submission to the authority that God has as Creator are character qualities that are essential to living out the Christian life as it ought to be. May the words of Steven Curtis Chapman resound: “God is God and I am not.”

by Garrett Glende

After spending two weeks covering a few attributes of God, we now take a closer look at the essence of who God is. Although it is a difficult (actually humanly impossible) doctrine to fully comprehend, we still must seek to understand the trinity because it lies at the core of the doctrine of God. Many Christians discount it as something only theologians and seminary professors need to worry about, but the reality is that we are all theologians. We all have our own views about who God is, but the matter is not what we think of God, but rather what God says about Himself. If the Bible does reveal God to be trinitarian (which it does), then we must believe what it says and have our lives transformed in light of it.

Grudem supplies us with a simple definition of the trinity to work with for our purposes. He writes, “God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God.” The definition is clear and to the point, each word deliberate and purposeful. It declares the eternality of the Godhead, the deity of all three persons, the equality of all three persons, and the oneness of God. I think it would be helpful to follow along with Grudem’s outline, as he gives three statements regarding the nature of the trinity and defends them all using Scripture.

1. God is Three Persons

This is to mean that there is distinction among the three members of the trinity. God the Father is not God the Son. God the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and so forth. We know this from passages where we see interaction between the different persons, such as the baptism of Jesus where we see the Father speaking from heaven, the Son being baptized, and the Spirit descending as a dove (Matthew 3:16-17). Moreover, when Jesus institutes the great commission in Matthew 28:18-20 He tells the disciples to baptize them “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” signaling the diversity and triune nature of the Godhead. If all three were the same person, then Jesus is really saying to baptize “in the name of God, and of God, and of God.” There are also instances where the Son prays to the Father (John 17) and is empowered by the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:1, Matt. 12:18). These things would not be if it were the case that God is one, yet simply expresses Himself differently at different times. God has always existed as three distinct persons, each one unique from the others.

The personhood of the Spirit has often been challenged, posing the idea that He is some sort of force or power. However, the Bible describes the Holy Spirit as a person, attributing to Him many personal qualities, such as the ability to be grieved (Eph. 4:30), the power to distribute gifts (1 Cor. 12:11), and the fact that He prays for all believers (Rom. 8:26-27).

2. Each Person is Fully God

It almost goes without saying the God the Father is God. The Bible doesn’t give any argument for His deity or existence. It simply opens with the statement, “In the beginning God…”

The foremost heresy among many cults is a denial of the deity of the Son. Here the Bible is also clear that Jesus Christ is God in human flesh, come down to save His people from their sin. John opens his gospel account testifying to the eternal deity of the Son: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Later on in verse 14 it is revealed to us that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John explains that the eternal logos has now exegeted the Father through His earthly ministry. The author of Hebrews extols Christ as “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3). The Son’s role in creation also attests to His divinity. Colossians 1:16 says that “…all things were created through him and for him.” We see that “all things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3). Coupling these verses with the creation account in Genesis 1, it becomes clear to us that Christ was the agent through which the world has come into being, bestowing upon Him the title of God.

As mentioned above, it is common for many to degrade the Holy Spirit to someone less than God, when Scripture is quite clear on the issue. The Holy Spirit is mentioned alongside the Father and the Son as Jesus gives the great commission in Matthew 28. We also see the deity of the Spirit in Acts 5 when Ananias and Sapphira “lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back for [themselves] part of the proceeds.” Peter tells them that they “have not lied to men but to God” (Acts 5:4). The Holy Spirit, along with the Father and the Son, was involved in creation, as He “was hovering over the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:2). There are many other passages to point to, but the purpose of this article is not to exhaust what the Bible offers, but rather to provide a summary.

3. There is One God

The last basic truth that Grudem deems essential to understanding the trinity in a true way is that there is only one God. Christianity is a monotheistic religion at its core. God is one, and splitting Him into three Gods creates idol worship, as our devotion would be divided. This is not a difficult claim to defend, as Scripture provides more than ample support for monotheism. We see Moses’ call to Israel in Deuteronomy 6: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4). “I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God” declares the Lord in Isaiah 45:5. The New Testament also advocates that “there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). We worship one God.

Application

A true Christian will not deny any of the above truths. People who profess faith in any other God but the triune God of the Bible are seriously mislead and will ultimately pay the penalty for their false worship. We, as Christians, know that there is one God in three persons, yet the challenge comes when we examine our lives and see if they match up with what we confess. As many of the singles at LBC have been learning recently on Friday nights, our view of the role of the Holy Spirit is often much lower than it should be. In essence, we say with our lips that He is God, but our lives reflect that we believe Him to be an impersonal force. The Holy Spirit is just as much God as the Father and the Son are God, and we must treat Him as such.

The nature of the trinity affects the way we live our everyday lives especially as it relates to our prayers. We should pray (and live) by the Spirit, through the Son, and to the Father. Each member of the Godhead plays a specific role. Our prayers are empowered and guided along by the Spirit’s work in our lives, while the Son is the One through whom we have access to the Father (Heb. 4:14-16, 1 Tim. 2:5), to whom we live to glorify in all things (1 Cor. 10:31). So when we pray we must depend on the Holy Spirit to fill us and help us to pray in the Father’s will, but we can only do so because of the work that Christ has done on our behalf. In this way, we can reflect a proper understanding of the trinity in our prayer life.

The doctrine of the trinity should also influence the way we interact with others. The essence of it all is that God is in a relationship with Himself, so to speak. Although our relationships are different (two people as opposed to three), we can still mirror God in some sense. The marriage between a man and a woman reflects the relationship of the Father and the Son in that there is authority and submission, yet mutual love and equality between persons. When the husband does not love his wife or the wife lovingly submit to her husband, then their marriage reflects a faulty understanding of the nature of God. This principle can be applied broadly to all in the sense that God desires us to be in communities with one another where we can glorify Him and make known His character to others.

However confusing this doctrine might seem to us, we must submit to the teaching of Scripture, not our own understanding. If anything, the fact that we cannot fully grasp the mystery of the trinity should make us bow down in worship to God, for He truly is high above us. We must seek to live lives that honor God and mirror the fullness of truth revealed to us, specifically as it relates to the members of the Godhead. May our hearts and minds eagerly yearn glorify the triune God of Scripture, as He is most deserving of all our praise.

by Garrett Glende

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” These are Paul’s words in Romans 11:33, proclaimed in response to eleven chapters of recounting the wonderful plan of salvation through faith in Christ’s atoning sacrifice. What Paul is admiring here is the wisdom of God in bringing about His redemptive plan, which will also be our focus of study this week as we look at one of God’s communicable attributes. The wisdom of God is communicable insofar as we are able to make wise decisions that would bring glory to Him. We cannot fully know the wisdom of God (some things will happen without us knowing why), but the Christians do have the ability to seek after and apply godly wisdom to their lives.

Throughout Scripture, the quality of wisdom is ascribed to God. According to Wayne Grudem, the wisdom of God “means that God always chooses the best goals and the best means to those goals.” Not only does God know all things, but He also acts in such a way that the best possible outcome occurs. We see the wisdom of God in creation, as the psalmist writes, “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures” (Psalm 104:24). Job calls God “wise in heart” (Job 9:4), and Paul says that He is “the only wise God” (Rom. 16:27). We simply need to direct our eyes to the world around us and see the greatness of God’s wisdom in creating such a place. It was wise of God to make us with hands to hold things and mouths to eat with, yet this wisdom stretches far beyond our human existence. All of creation is purposefully and deliberately molded in such a way so that it works the way it does.

The pinnacle of the wisdom of God is seen through the events that took place on a hill called Golgotha. Here it was the will of the Lord to crush His Son for the sins of His people, providing a solution to the problem of sin, but all the while maintaining His holiness and justice. It is through the cross that we see most clearly the full spectrum of God’s character. We see His righteousness, justice, and wrath in punishing sin. And we see His love, grace, and mercy in providing a means of salvation for those who were once His enemies. Working off of Grudem’s definition of the wisdom of God, we can see clearly that the redemption of sinners was ultimately the most God glorifying goal and He chose the most God glorifying means to accomplish this goal. The cross is the apex of the glory of God because it so marvelously reveals the character of God without diminishing any one of His attributes. This is why Paul can make such an exclamation at the end of Romans 11 and say that he preaches Christ, the power and wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:23-24). The world says a man dying on a cross to save sinners is a foolish message, but we know that Christ has risen from the dead and we are able to see the incredible wisdom of God in the gospel.

The doctrine of the wisdom of God should have a direct influence on the way we live our lives. As Christians, we seek to live with wisdom, but how can we decide what is wise and what is not? Often times, there doesn’t seem to be a right or wrong choice, so it comes down to the amount of wisdom you can offer. We can extrapolate helpful guide to making these types of decisions by looking at the wisdom of God. Seeing that God expressed His wisdom most vividly through the cross, we must apply the same sort of rubric to our decision making process. We must evaluate each possible action in light of its reflection of the gospel. Ask yourself, “How does this choice magnify the death and resurrection of Christ?” In this way we walk in the wisdom of God by choosing to live guided by what God sees at wise, namely the exaltation of the glory of the cross.

First Corinthians 15 provides us with another similar principle. There were some in the church at Corinth who apparently denied the reality of the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. 15:12). Paul makes the case that if there is no resurrection, then not even Christ has been raised, therefore “we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19). Times haven’t changed much since then and there are still many who deny the resurrection. They deny all things supernatural and live their lives with no regard for eternity. But Christians must have the opposite perspective, setting their minds on things above. Unbelievers should look at our lives and pity us because we will not gather our treasures here on Earth. They’ll look at the choices we make and think we are fools. But all of it depends on whether or not Christ has indeed been raised. So the question to ask is, “Is this choice foolish if Christ has not come back to life?” Granted, there are some choices that are foolish regardless of Christ’s resurrection, but it isn’t difficult to identify those. We should seek to live foolishly in the eyes of the world, counting all as loss in view of knowing Christ and proclaiming His gospel to the nations.

by Garrett Glende

Last week we looked at our ability to know God, concluding that although God is ultimately beyond our finite minds, we can still know Him in a true way. This brings us to the next chapter of Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology which focuses on the incommunicable attributes of God. There are about 25 attributes listed over the next three chapters and if I spent an article on each attribute of God mentioned this series would become even that much longer. Needless to say, I think it’s going to be long enough already. So the next two articles will each focus on a single attribute of God, one incommunicable and one communicable. The term “incommunicable” is meant to distinguish certain aspects of God’s character, specifically those that cannot be shared by man. One example of an incommunicable attribute is omnipresence, which man cannot even come close to relating to. Something such as love or mercy would certainly be able to be expressed in some capacity by humans, thus qualifying them as communicable attributes. We can also think about these as either shared (communicable) or unshared (incommunicable) attributes. One of God’s incommunicable attributes is His immutability, or unchangeableness. This attribute of God will be the focus for now, and we’ll look at a communicable attribute next week.

Grudem defines the immutability of God, writing that “God is unchanging 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.” A biblical basis for this definition comes from verses like Psalm 102:26-27 where the psalmist thinks of all creation and declares that “they will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end.” God proclaims His longsuffering and patience with the people of Israel in Malachi 3:6, saying, “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob are not consumed.” Even more, James relates the fact that all good gifts are from God to His immutability when he writes, “every good 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” (James 1:17). All of these verses describe the fact that God does not change in His person or character. We can always be sure that God is a loving, faithful, and just God because He is unchanging in His being.

God is also unchanging in His purposes, as everything that He has purposed will come to fruition. He does not decide to do one thing and then not follow through with it. We see this clearly in the person of Christ, as He was tempted many times to avoid the cross, but always was faithful to the eternal plan of the Father. In fact, there are many instances throughout the ministry of Christ where He does something in order to fulfill the prophecy spoken long before. Psalm 33:11 says, “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.” Isaiah 46:9-11 wonderfully demonstrates the unchanging purposes of God, saying “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.”

Although the Bible is clear that God does not change in His person or purposes, there are many passages that speak of God changing His mind or feeling sorry for an action that He had done. So does this mean that we cannot trust what Scripture says about God’s immutability? Grudem responds to this challenge, saying that “these instances [God being sorry for making man on earth, withholding judgment on Nineveh, etc.] should all be understood as true expressions of God’s present attitude or intention with respect to the situation as it exists at that moment…God responds differently to different situations.” For example, God promised judgment would fall on the wicked city of Nineveh, but the situation changed once the city became repentant. Seeing the new circumstances, God chose not to cast judgment upon them. “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it” (Jonah 3:10).

Because God’s law and standards never change, then neither should ours. It’s common for us to mold our morality to our circumstances rather than keeping it in line with God’s unchanging truth. This happens often in dating relationships where as the couple grows closer, their standards for purity become more and more loose until they fall into sin. God’s requirements regarding sexual purity have never changed, but some couples claim that certain sins become permissible because they’ve been in the relationship long enough. Just because you think you’re going to marry someone doesn’t give you the right to act like a married couple, ignoring God’s commands about premarital sex. This is just one way in which we shift God’s law to meet our desires, and there are many others.

The immutability of God is a wonderful truth for the Christian to come to grasps with. Imagine if it were the case that God did change who He is. What then would be our basis for our salvation? Could we even be sure that we are still saved, or has God decided to change the methods and requirements for salvation? We would live in constant fear and insecurity because we would not be able to rest on the unchanging nature of the gospel. Seeing that the canon is closed and God does not give any new revelation, we would not even know if He changed at all. Thankfully, God does not deal with us in this way. We can stand before the throne confident that He will receive us as His own because of the constant truth of the gospel. Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice on our behalf has always been and will always be the only way to secure eternal life.

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.