Chapter 3

Job 42:2.(R. V.)--"I know that thou canst do everything (all things), and that no purpose of thine can be restrained." The mighty review of all God's works as it passes before Job (context) brings forth this confession: "There is no resisting thy might, and there is no purpose thou canst not carry out." Gen. 18:14--"Is anything too hard for the Lord?" What had ceased to be possible by natural means comes to pass by supernatural means.

(2) Scriptural declaration of the fact; In detail:

_aa) In the world of nature:_

Gen. 1:1-3--"God created the heaven and the earth. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light." Thus "he spake and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast." He does not need even to give His hand to the work; His word is sufficient. Psa. 107:25-29--"He raiseth the stormy wind ... he maketh the storm calm." "Even the winds and the sea obey him." God's slightest word, once uttered, is a standing law to which all nature must absolutely conform. Nahum 1:5, 6--"The mountains quake at him ... the hills melt ... the earth is burned at his presence ... the rocks are thrown down by him." If such is His power how shall Assyria withstand it? This is God's comforting message to Israel. Everything in the sky, in sea, on earth is absolutely subject to His control.

_bb) In the experience of mankind:_

How wonderfully this is illustrated in the experience of Nebuchadnezzar, Dan. 4; and in the conversion of Saul, Acts 9; as well as in the case of Pharaoh, Exod. 4:11. James 4:12-15--" ... For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that." All human actions, whether present or future, are dependent upon the will and power of God. These things are in God's, not in man's, power. See also the parable of the Rich Fool, Luke 12:16-21.

_cc) The heavenly inhabitants are subject to His will and word:_

Dan. 4:35 (R. V.)--"He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven." Heb. 1:14--"Are they (angels) not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" It has been said that angels are beings created by the power of God for some specific act of service, and that after that act of service is rendered they pass out of existence.

_dd) Even Satan is under the control of God_

Satan has no power over any of God's children saving as God permits him to have. This fact is clearly established in the case of Job (1:12 and 2:6). and Peter (Luke 22:31,32), in which we are told that Satan had petitioned God that he might sift the self-righteous patriarch and the impulsive apostle. Finally Satan is to be forever bound with a great chain (Rev. 20:2). God can set a bar to the malignity of Satan just as he can set a bar to the waves of the sea.

c) The Omnipresence of God.

By the Omnipresence of God is meant that God is everywhere present. This attribute is closely connected with the omniscience and omnipotence of God, for if God is everywhere present He is everywhere active and possesses full knowledge of all that transpires in every place.

This does not mean that God is everywhere present in a bodily sense, nor even in the same sense; for there is a sense in which He may be in heaven, His dwelling place, in which He cannot be said to be elsewhere. We must guard against the pantheistic idea which claims that God _is_ everything, while maintaining the Scriptural doctrine that He is everywhere present in all things. Pantheism emphasizes the omnipresent activity of God, but denies His personality. Those holding the doctrine of pantheism make loud claims to philosophic ability and high intellectual training, but is it not remarkable that it is in connection with this very phase of the doctrine of God that the Apostle Paul says "they became fools"? (Rom. 1.) God is everywhere and in every place; His center is everywhere; His circumference nowhere. But this presence is a spiritual and not a material presence; yet it is a real presence.

(1) Scriptural statement of the fact.

Jer. 23:23, 24-"Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord." Did the false prophets think that they could hide their secret crimes from God? Or that He could not pursue them into foreign countries? Or that He knew what was transpiring in heaven only and not upon the earth, and even in its most distant corners? It was false for them to thus delude themselves--their sins would be detected and punished (Psa. 10:1-14).

Psa. 139:7-12--"Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence," etc. How wondrously the attributes of God are grouped in this psalm. In vv. 1-6 the psalmist speaks of the omniscience of God: God knows him through and through. In vv. 13-19 it is the omnipotence of God which overwhelms the psalmist. The omnipresence of God is set forth in vv. 7-12. The psalmist realizes that he is never out of the sight of God any more than he is outside of the range of His knowledge and power. God is in heaven; "Hell is naked before Him"; souls in the intermediate state are fully known to Him (cf. Job 26:2; Jonah 2:2); the darkness is as the light to Him. Job 22:12-14--"Is not God in the height of heaven? . . . . Can he judge through the dark cloud? Thick clouds are a covering to him that he seeth not," etc. All agreed that God displayed His presence in the heaven, but Job had inferred from this that God could not know and did not take notice of such actions of men as were hidden behind the intervening clouds. Not that Job was atheistic; no, but probably denied to God the attribute of omnipresence and omniscience. Acts 17:24-28--"For in him we live, and move, and have our being." Without His upholding hand we must perish; God is our nearest environment. From these and many other scriptures we are clearly taught that God is everywhere present and acting; there is no place where God is not.

This does not mean that God is everywhere present in the same sense. For we are told that He is in heaven, His dwelling-place (1 Kings 8:30); that Christ is at His right hand in heaven (Eph. 1:20); that God's throne is in heaven (Rev. 21:2; Isa. 66:1).

We may summarize the doctrine of the Trinity thus: God the Father is specially manifested in heaven; God the Son has been specially manifested on the earth; God the Spirit is manifested everywhere.

Just as the soul is present in every part of the body so God is present in every part of the world.

(2) Some practical inferences from this doctrine.

First, _of Comfort:_ The nearness of God to the believer. "Speak to Him then for He listens. And spirit with spirit can meet; Closer is He than breathing, And nearer than hands or feet."

"God is never so far off, As even to be near; He is within. Our spirit is the home He holds most dear. To think of Him as by our side is almost as untrue, As to remove His shrine beyond those skies of starry blue."--_Faber._ The omnipresence is not only a detective truth--it is protective also. After dwelling on this great and awful attribute in Psalm 139, the psalmist, in vv. 17, 18, exclaims: "How precious are thy thoughts to me..... When I awake I am still with thee." By this is meant that God stands by our side to help, and as One who loves and understands us (Matt. 28:20).

Second, _of Warning:_ "As in the Roman empire the whole world was one great prison to a malefactor, and in his flight to the most distant lands the emperor could track him, so under the government of God no sinner can escape the eye of the judge." Thus the omnipresence of God is detective as well as protective. "Thou God seest me," should serve as warning to keep us from sin.

d) The Eternity and Immutability of God.

The word _eternal_ is used in two senses in the Bible: figuratively, as denoting existence which may have a beginning, but will have no end, e. g., angels, the human soul; literally, denoting an existence which has neither beginning nor ending, like that of God. Time has past, present, future; eternity has not. Eternity is infinite duration without any beginning, end, or limit--an ever abiding present. We can conceive of it only as duration indefinitely extended from the present moment in two directions--as to the past and as to the future. "One of the deaf and dumb pupils in the institution of Paris, being desired to express his idea of the eternity of the Deity, replied: 'It is duration, without beginning or end; existence, without bounds or dimension; present, without past or future. His eternity is youth, without infancy or old age; life, without birth or death; today, without yesterday or tomorrow.'"

By the Immutability of God is meant that God's nature is absolute|y unchangeable. It is not possible that He should possess one attribute at one time that He does not possess at another. Nor can there be any change in the Deity for better or for worse. God remains forever the same. He is without beginning and without end; the self-existent "I am"; He remains forever the same, and unchangeable.

(1) Scriptural statement of the fact: The Eternity of God

Hab. 1:12--"Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One?" Chaldea had threatened to annihilate Israel. The prophet cannot believe it possible, for has not God _eternal_ purposes for Israel? Is He not holy? How, then, can evil triumph? Psa. 90:2--"Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." Short and transitory is the life of man; with God it is otherwise. The perishable nature of man is here compared with the imperishable nature of God. Psa. 102:24-27--"I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are throughout all generations. Of old thou hast laid the foundations of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end." With the perishable nature of the whole material creation the psalmist contrasts the imperishable nature of God. Exod. 3:14--"And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM." The past, present and future lies in these words for the name of Jehovah. Rev. 1:8--"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty."

(2) Scriptural statement of the Immutability of God:

Mal 3:6--"1 am the Lord, I change not." Man's hope lies in that fact, as the context here shows Man had changed in his life and purpose toward God, and if God, like man, had changed, man would have been destroyed. James 1:17--"The Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." There is no change--in the sense of the degree or intensity of light such as is manifested in the heavenly bodies. Such lights are constantly varying and changing; not so with God. There is no inherent, indwelling, possible change in God. 1 Sam. 15:29.--"And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent." From these scriptures we assert that God, in His nature and character, is absolutely without change.

Does God Repent?

What, then, shall we say with regard to such scriptures as Jonah 3:10 and Gen. 6:6--"And God repented of the evil, that he said he would do unto them." "And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart." In reply we may say that God does not change, but threatens that men may change. "The repentent attitude in God does not involve any real change in the character and purposes of God. He ever hates the sin and ever pities and loves the sinner; that is so both before and after the sinner's repentance. Divine repentance is therefore the same principle acting differently in altered circumstances. If the prospect of punishment answers the same purpose as that intended by the punishment itself, then there is no inconsistency in its remission, for punishment is not an end, it is only a means to goodness, to the reign of the law of righteousness." When God appears to be displeased with anything, or orders it differently from what we expected, we say, after the manner of men, that He repents. God's attitude towards the Ninevites had not changed, but they had changed; and because they had changed from sin unto righteousness, God's attitude towards them and His intended dealings with them as sinners must of necessity change, while, of course, God's character had in no wise changed with respect to these people, although His dealings with them had. So that we may say that God's _character_ never changes, but His _dealings_ with men change as they change from ungodliness to godliness and from disobedience unto obedience. "God's immutability is not that of the stone, that has no internal experience, but rather that of the column of mercury that rises and falls with every change in the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere. When a man bicycling against the wind turns about and goes with the wind instead of going against it, the wind seems to change, although it is blowing just as it was before." --_Strong_.

2. THE MORAL ATTRIBUTES.

a) The Holiness of God.

If there is any difference in importance in the attributes of God, that of His Holiness seems to occupy the first place. It is, to say the least, the one attribute which God would have His people remember Him by more than any other. In the visions of Himself which God granted men in the Scriptures the thing that stood out most prominent was the divine holiness. This is clearly seen by referring to the visions of Moses, Job, and Isaiah. Some thirty times does the Prophet Isaiah speak of Jehovah as "the Holy One," thus indicating what feature of those beatific visions had most impressed him.

The holiness of God is the message of the entire Old Testament. To the prophets God was the absolutely Holy One; the One with eyes too pure to behold evil; the One swift to punish iniquity. In taking a photograph, the part of the body which we desire most to see is not the hands or feet, but the face. So is it with our vision of God. He desires us to see not His hand and finger, denoting His power and skill, nor even His throne as indicating His majesty. It is His holiness by which He desires to be remembered as that is the attribute which most glorifies Him. Let us bear this fact in mind as we study this attribute of the divine nature. It is just this vision of God that we need today when the tendency to deny the reality or the awfulness of sin is so prevalent. Our view of the necessity of the atonement will depend very largely upon our view of the holiness of God. Light views of God and His holiness will produce light views of sin and the atonement.

(1) Scriptural statements setting forth the fact of God's Holiness.

Isa. 57:15--"Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place." Psa. 99:9--"Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy hill: for the Lord our God is holy." Hab. 1:13--"Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." 1 Pet. 1:15, 16 --"But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation. Because it is written, Be ye holy: for I am holy." God's personal name is holy. John 17:11--"Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me." Christ here contemplates the Father as the Holy One, as the source and agent of that which He desires for His disciples, namely, holiness of heart and life, being kept from the evil of this world.

Is it not remarkable that this attribute of holiness is ascribed to each of the three persons of the Trinity: God the Father, is the Holy One of Israel (Isa. 41:14); God the Son is the Holy One (Acts 3:14); God the Spirit is called the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30).

(2) The Scriptural meaning of Holiness as applied to God.

Job 34:10--"Be it far from God, that he should do wickedness; and from the Almighty that he should commit iniquity." An evil God, one that could commit evil would be a contradiction in terms, an impossible, inconceivable idea. Job seemed to doubt that the principle on which the universe was conducted was one of absolute equity. He must know that God is free from all evil-doing. However hidden the meaning of His dealings, He is always just. God never did, never will do wrong to any of His creatures; He will never punish wrongly. Men may, yea, often do; God never does. Lev. 11:43-45--"Ye shall not make yourselves abominable with any creeping thing that creepeth, neither shall ye make yourselves unclean with them, that ye should be defiled thereby. For I am the Lord your God; ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.... Ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy." This means that God is absolutely clean and pure and free from all defilement.

The construction of the Tabernacle, with its holy and most holy place into which the high priest alone entered once a year; the Ten Commandments, with their moral categories; the laws of clean and unclean animals and things--all these speak to us in unmistakable terms as to what is meant by holiness as applied to God.

Two things, by way of definition, may be inferred from these Scriptures: first, negatively, that God is entirely apart from all that is evil and from all that defiles both in Himself and in relation to all His creatures; second and positively, by the holiness of God is meant the consummate holiness, perfection, purity, and absolute sanctity of His nature. There is absolutely nothing unholy in Him. So the Apostle John declares: "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all."

(3) The manifestation of God's Holiness.

Prov. 15:9, 26--"The way of the wicked is an abomination unto the Lord. The thoughts of the wicked are an abomination unto the Lord." God hates sin, and is its uncompromising foe. Sin is a vile and detestable thing to God. Isa. 59:1, 2--"Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear." Israel's sin had raised a partition wall. The infinite distance between the sinner and God is because of sin. The sinner and God are at opposite poles of the moral universe. This in answer to Israel's charge of God's inability. From these two scriptures it is clear that God's holiness manifests itself in the hatred of sin and the separation of the sinner from himself.

Herein lies the need of the atonement, whereby this awful distance is bridged over. This is the lesson taught by the construction of the Tabernacle as to the division into the holy place and the most holy place.

Prov. 15:9--"But he loveth him that followeth after righteousness." John 3:16--"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son," etc. Here God's holiness is seen in that He loves righteousness in the life of His children to such a degree that He gave His only begotten Son to secure it. The Cross shows how much God loves holiness. The Cross stands for God's holiness before even His love. For Christ died not merely for our sins, but in order that He might provide us with that righteousness of life which God loves. "He died that we might be forgiven; he died to make us good." Do we love holiness to the extent of sacrificing for it?

For other manifestations see under Righteousness and Justice of God.

(4) Practical deductions from the doctrine of God's Holiness.

First, we should approach God with "reverence and godly fear" (Heb. 12:28). In the story of Moses' approach to the burning bush, the smiting of the men at Bethshemesh, the boundary set about Mt. Sinai, we are taught to feel our own unworthiness. There is too much hilarity in our approach unto God. Eccl. 5:1-3 inculcates great care in our address to God.

Second, we shall have right views of sin when we get right views of God's holiness. Isaiah, the holiest man in all Israel, was cast down at the sight of his own sin after he had seen the vision of God's holiness. The same thing is true of Job (40:3-4; 42:4-5). We confess sin in such easy and familiar terms that it has almost lost its terror for us.

Third, that approach to a holy God must be through the merits of Christ, and on the ground of a righteousness which is Christ's and which naturally we do not possess. Herein lies the need of the atonement.

b) The Righteousness and Justice of God.

In a certain sense these attributes are but the manifestation of God's holiness. It is holiness as manifested in dealing with the sons of men. Holiness has to do more particularly with the character of God in itself, while in Righteousness and Justice that character is expressed in the dealings of God with men. Three things may be said in the consideration of the Righteousness and Justice of God: first, there is the imposing of righteousness laws and demands, which may he called legislative holiness, and may he known as the Righteousness of God; second, there is the executing of the penalties attached to those laws, which may be called judicial holiness; third, there is the sense in which the attributes of the Righteousness and Justice of God may be regarded as the actual carrying out of the holy nature of God in the government of the world. So that in the Righteousness of God we have His love of holiness, and in the Justice of God, His hatred of sin.

Again Righteousness, as here used, has reference to the very nature of God as He is in Himself--that attribute which leads God always to do right. Justice, as an attribute of God, is devoid of all passion or caprice; it is vindicative not vindictive. And so the Righteousness and Justice of the God of Israel was made to stand out prominently as contrasted with the caprice of the heathen gods.

(1) Scriptural statement of the fact.

Psalm 116:5--"Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful." The context here shows that it is because of this fact that God listens to men, and because having promised to hear He is bound to keep His promises. Ezra 9:15--"0 Lord God of Israel, thou art righteous." Here the Righteousness of Jehovah is acknowledged in the punishment of Israel's sins. Thou art just, and thou hast brought us into the state in which we are today. Psa. 145:17--"The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works." This is evident in the rewards He gives to the upright, in lifting up the lowly, and in abundantly blessing the good, pure, and true. Jer. 12:1--"Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee." That is to say, "If I were to bring a charge against Thee I should not be able to convict Thee of injustice, even though I be painfully exercised over the mysteries of Thy providence."

These scriptures clearly set forth not only the fact that God is righteous and just, but also define these attributes. Here we are told that God, in His government of the world, does always that which is suitable, straight, and right.

(2) How the Righteousness and Justice of God is revealed.

In two ways: first, in punishing the wicked: retributive justice, second, in rewarding the righteous: remunerative justice.

_aa) In the punishment of the wicked._