My Personal Opinions about God

In one of my previous postings entitled … "Who God Really Is" … I pointed out four or five important things about God's nature that makes Him who He is. I guess you could say this discourse or dissertation is an extended elaboration in greater detail of who God is in four doctrinal categories.

This body of work is written in the old masters style, in that I have tried to copy several other … "Christian Confessions of Faith in Jesus Christ." These are not only my personal opinions from the Holy Scriptures, but also many time honored doctrines about God from hundreds of Bible scholars throughout many hundreds of years.

I would like to start with … God Himself.

There is but one living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, (total and all-embracing, having no limits or boundaries) a spirit, invisible, without body or parts, immutable (not subject to change) immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, holy, free, absolute, working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and righteous will; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin.

God has all life, glory and goodness in and of Himself and is all-sufficient in and of Himself, not standing in need of anything or any creature which He has made. He is the cause of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things; and has sovereign dominion (self-governing, supreme, authority and power) over them, for them, or with them, in whatsoever He pleases.

In His sight all things are open, naked and manifest (revealed); His knowledge is infinite (having no limits in time, space, extent or magnitude), infallible (incapable of failure or error), and independent (free from external control); so as nothing to Him is uncertain or contingent on circumstances. He is most holy in all His counsels, in all His works, and in all His commands. To him is due from angels, men and every creature, whatever worship, service, or obedience He is pleased to require of them.

Second … God's Providence.

God, the Creator of all things, upholds, directs, disposes, and governs … all … creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest event to the least, by His wise and holy providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, goodness, grace and mercy … forever.

All things come to pass immutably and infallibly according to the foreknowledge and decree of God … the first cause; yet, by the same providence, He has also ordained them to fall away, change or dissolve according to the nature of … second causes; either by necessity, freely or contingently (determined by conditions or circumstances).

God, in His providence, makes use of means; yet is free to work within those means, outside those means or against those means, at His pleasure. He has a right to give whatever He so chooses, in whatever proportions, at whatever times, and with whatever conditions He pleases. He may therefore give or withhold any or all of His blessings, as He pleases.

The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, infinite goodness and providence of God, becomes clearly apparent with the evidence that even before the first sin and continuing to all other sins of men; by what looks like permission to sin by giving man a free will that might lead to sin … yet even so, the sinfulness proceeds only from the creature, and not from God; who being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.

God may for a season lead His own children into various trials to test the integrity and honesty of their own hearts; to help them discover any strongholds of sin hidden in their hearts so they may be humbled; and to bring them to a closer and constant dependence on Him for their support and care, and to make them more watchful against that sin.

As for unrepentant, sinful and ungodly men, God not only withholds His grace, but exposes them to their own lusts and gives them over to their moral perversions, the temptations of the world and the power of Satan; whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves under the same means which God uses for the softening of others.

Third … God's Eternal Decree.

God, from all eternity, by the counsel of His own will, freely ordains whatsoever comes to pass; but yet … God is not the author of sin; but has decreed the evil in nature and its second causes be established as a result of sin.

Although God knows what will come to pass in all future conditions; He has not decreed any such thing because He foresaw it in the future, as that which would come to pass, upon such conditions. Those that choose life have been chosen out of His free grace and mercy alone, without any foresight of faith, good works or any other thing in the creature, such as conditions or causes moving God to do so.

As God has chosen those in Christ only through His mercy and grace, He has also foreordained all the means to that end. Therefore they, who are redeemed by Christ, are called to faith in Christ only by the Holy Spirit.

As to mankind in general; God extends or withholds His grace and mercy as He pleases in accordance with His will and sovereign power over His creatures. By doing so He ordains them to honor or dishonor in the same manner as seems good to the potter over the clay.

And last … Free Will.

God has endued the will of man with a natural liberty and freedom of choice that is not predisposed or made susceptible to good or evil.

Man, in his state of innocence, had the freedom of choice and the power to will, to do that which was good and pleasing to God; but yet also mutable (able to change) so that he might fall from that innocence.

Man, by his fall into a state of sin, lost all ability to will himself by nature to spiritual good; so as a natural man, being altogether adverse to that spiritual good, being dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself or to save himself from that sin.

When God converts such a man and translates him into the state of grace, He frees him from his natural bondage under sin and by His grace alone, enables him freely to will and do that which is spiritually good; yet because of his remaining fleshly nature, man does not perfectly, nor only … will that which is good … but also that which is evil.

And so we are today.


Comments welcome.