The Being, Names, and Attributes of God

Opening Text: Isaiah 40

I. Why this study?

A. There is no truth higher, more glorious, or more essential for us to know. Nor is there any teaching of Scripture more needed in our day, as we are guilty of idolatry by embracing and proclaiming ideas about the One, True, Triune God that are unworthy of His glorious Being, Name, and Attributes [WSC Q/A#1 flipped; God made in our image]

1. “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” -John Calvin (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1559)

2. “The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted it for one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshiping men...The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us. A whole new philosophy of the Christian life has resulted from this one basic error in our religious thinking.” - A.W. Tozer (The Knowledge of the Holy, 1961)

3. “A right conception of God is basic not only to systematic theology but to practical Christian living as well. It is to worship what the foundation is to the temple; where it is inadequate or out of plumb the whole structure must sooner or later collapse. I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts aboutGod.” (Ibid)

4. “The foundation of all true knowledge of God must be a clear mental apprehension of His perfections as revealed in Holy Scripture. An unknown God can neither be trusted, served, nor worshipped.” -Arthur W. Pink (The Attributes of God, 1975)

5. God is incomprehensible, thus undefinable; yet, He is knowable because He has revealed Himself to us in creation, our conscious, and His Word - In Scripture and Incarnate“...the truth, that is the secret of the Most High God, who created all things, cannot be attained by our own ability and perceptions. Otherwise there would be no difference between God and man, if human thought could reach to the counsels and arrangements of that eternal majesty.” -Augustine[Scripture References: Deut 29:29; Job 11:7-9; 26; 36:24-33 (v.26); 40:1-5; 42:1-6; Ps 19; 90:2; 102:12-28; Is 43:8-13; Mt 11:27; Jn 1:1-14; 8:12; 9:5; 12:44-46; 17:3;Rom 1:18-23; 8:5-8; 11:33-35; 1Cor 2:10-14; Col 2:8-9; 1Tim 6:11-16; Heb 1:1-4]

B. As our highest calling/chief end/purpose on this earth as well as in the new heavens and earth is to glorify and enjoy God, we must be able to answer the questions: 1) What is God? (His being/essence), 2) Who is God? (His Name), and 3) Of What Kind is God? (His attributes). Consider problems/dangers distinguishing these (as well as II.C.1 and 2)

[Scripture References: Ps 4; 73:25-28; Lam 3:21-24; Hab 3:17-19; Rom 11:36; 1 Cor 10:31; Eph 3:20-21; Col 3:17, 23-24; 1Tim 1:17]

C. We have the responsibility to embrace, defend, declare, and pass on these truths to our descendants[Scripture References: Gen 18:19; Deut 4:9; 6:1-9; 11:18-23; Ps 78:1-8; Prov 22:6;Eph 6:4; 2Tim 3:14-15]

II. What will we study?

A. God’s Being/Essence: What is God?B. God’s Name(s): Who is God?C. God’s Attributes: Of What Kind is God?

1. Attributes often called “Incommunicable” - Aseity, Sovereignty, Simplicity, Infinity, Omnipresence, Immutability, Omnipotence, and Omniscience

2. Attributes often called “Communicable” - Goodness, Holiness, Wisdom, Love, Grace, Mercy, Patience (Long-suffering/Forbearance), Righteousness

“Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued, investigation of the great subject of the Deity. The most excellent study for expanding the soul is the science of Christ and Him crucified and the knowledge of the Godhead in glorious Trinity.” AND “The proper study of the Christian is the Godhead. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can engage the attention of a child of God is the name, the nature, the person, the doings, and the existence of the great God he calls his Father. There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subjects we can comprehend and grapple with; in them we feel a kind of self-contentment, and go on our way with the thought, ‘Behold I am wise.’ But when we come to this master science, finding that our plumbline cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the thought, ‘I am but of yesterday and know nothing.’” - C.H. Spurgeon

Questions to Consider and Discuss:1) What should this study teach us/work in us?

“Still we do not know. We save face by repeating frivolously the popular jargon of science. We harness the mighty energy that rushes through our world; we subject it to fingertip control in our cars and our kitchens; we make it work for us like Aladdin’s jinn, but still we do not know what it is. Secularism, materialism, and the intrusive presence of things have put out the light in our souls and turned us into a generation of zombies. We cover our deep ignorance with words, but we are ashamed to wonder, we are afraid to whisper ‘mystery.’” -A.W. Tozer

2) What are we able to know in the light of nature? Scripture/the Gospel? Glory?

3) What should this study teach us/work in us when we pray? (Consider Eph 3:14-19 and Phil 4:4-7)