Knowledge of God: Attributes of God, Part 7-Spirituality

(the picture in the video is from Tim Challies)

III. Communicable Attributes

            A. Spirituality or Incorporeality (being)

                        1. Definition

a. God’s spirituality means that God exists as a being that is not made of any matter, has no parts or dimensions, and is unable to be perceived by our bodily senses. (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, pg. 188)

b. no parts = simplicity or unity

c. no dimensions = omnipresence

                        2. Scriptural Data

a. John 4:24: God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

b. Luke 24:39: See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.

c. God is omnipresent: Psalm 139:7-12; Jeremiah 23:23-24; 1 Kings 8:27; Acts 17:24

d. 1 Timothy 1:17: To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

e. 1 Timothy 6:16: who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

f. 1 Corinthians 2:7-9: But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.  None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.  But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”

g. Exodus 20:4-5a: You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.  You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God,

h. Deuteronomy 4:15-19: Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.  And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.

                        3. Consideration and Reflection

                                    a. God is nothing like His creation

i. By teaching the spirituality of God theology stresses the fact that God has a substantial Being all His own and distinct from the world, and that this substantial Being is immaterial, invisible, and without composition or extension. (Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, pg. 66)

                                    b. God’s image in man is not physical

                                                i. God isn’t physical, so man’s physical image can’t be like Him

                                    c. God’s spirituality also implies life and personality

                                                i. Life: thinking, loving, willing

                                                ii. Personality: self-consciousness and self-determination

                                    d. The issue of anthropomorphisms

                                                i. Why does the Bible describe God with human features?

                                                            -metaphorical in most cases

-visionary experiences of God are not physical viewings of God

                        4. Practical Application

                                    a. That which is ultimate in life is not material

                                                i. ultimate reality is spiritual and thus, personal

                                                ii. this puts the ultimate value of life in personal, spiritual beings

                                                iii. God and Man

-Matthew 22:36-40: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

                                                iv. One person is worth more than the entire material universe

                                    b. We ought to have a spiritual focus in life, not a material focus

i. Matthew 6:19-21: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

                                    c. Our most important needs are spiritual, not physical

i. 1 Timothy 4:7b-8: Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

ii. Similarly, in 1 Corinthians 9:25 Paul makes this athletic comparison: “Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath [an Olympic wreath, a garland], but we an imperishable.” We train ourselves in godliness because we have an imperishable reward in the life to come. Now think of how much time we lavish upon our physical bodies. Working out. Trying to eat right. The whole cosmetics industry – millions and millions of dollars invested in cosmetics. Hair salons and hair treatment. We do so much to try to make our physical body in appearance to be all that we would like it to be. But how much time by comparison do we spend on our soul? On nurturing our spiritual self, our spiritual lives? Do we exercise this same sort of rigor and discipline that the athlete does in his bodily training when it comes to training our souls in Bible study, in prayer, in corporate worship, in other spiritual disciplines? I think that we need to remind ourselves that ultimately our most important needs are not our physical needs. We shouldn't neglect those, but nevertheless we need to attend to our spiritual needs and the nurture and care of our souls because this is going to have promise for the life to come. (William Lane Craig, Defenders, part 12, www.reasonablefaith.org/defenders)

Knowledge of God: Attributes of God, Part 6-Omnipresence and Immensity

(the picture in the video is from Tim Challies)

G. Omnipresence and Immensity

                        1. Definition

                                    a. Immensity: space does not contain God

b. Omnipresence: God does not have size or spatial dimensions and is present at every point of space with His whole being

                        2. Scriptural Data

a. Psalm 139:7-12: Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

b. Jeremiah 23:23-24: “Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away?  Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord.”

c. 1 Kings 8:27: “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!”

d. Acts 17:24: The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man

                        3. Consideration and Reflection

                                    a. Error #1: God is localized in one, earthly spot

i. A major point of Stephen’s in Acts 7 is that God works everywhere, not just the temple

-v. 2-4: Mesopotamia

-v. 9-10: Egypt

-v. 30-34: Sinai

-v. 44-45: Tabernacle in and out of the promised land

-v. 47-50: Temple not needed

                                    b. Error #2: God is localized in heaven

                                                i. God’s everywhere presentness is only possible if He is…

-part of space itself and thus, diffused everywhere physically

-not possible, God is spirit (John 4:24) and spirit does not have flesh and bone (i.e. physicality; Luke 24:39)

-made of some kind of other-worldly material that allows Him to be materially present everywhere

-no biblical warrant for thinking God is of an other-worldly (i.e. another universe) material

-good reason to think God is not material, since He created the material universe

-a non-material being that is not constrained by physical limitations

                                    c. 3 implications (Augustus Strong, Systematic Theology, pg. 278)

                                                i. God is without extension (no height, length, width)

                                                ii. God is not subjected to limitations of space

iii. God contains within Himself the cause of space

-Hebrews 11:3: By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

d. Is God everywhere in space or does God transcend space altogether?

                                                i. God not an ether diffused in space

                                                            -makes Him finite

                                                            -makes some of Him more in one place than another

                                                ii. Traditionally, God is thought to transcend space

-Certainly the Bible speaks as though God is everywhere in space. Think of Psalm 139 again – that God is everywhere in space. But traditionally Christian theology hasn’t understood God to be diffused throughout space, but rather to transcend space altogether. Since God is spirit (that is to say, he is incorporeal – God does not have a body) so obviously he is not in space in the sense of having extension or being a three-dimensional object. But neither should we think of God as some sort of invisible ether or vapor that is spread throughout space so that we are, so to speak, moving through God as we move about in the world. This would have, I think, a number of mistaken consequences. It would mean, for example, that if the universe is finite then God is finite because God would only fill the finite universe – the finite space that there is. And it certainly is possible that the universe and space is finite in which case God would be finite, not infinite. Also, this conception of God as spread out like an invisible ether would mean that God is not entirely present at every point in space. It would mean there is sort of like a portion of God inside my cup of tea and then the rest of him is outside. Or there is a certain cubic amount of God in this room but then the rest of him is outside of the room. That surely isn’t correct. What one would want to say is that God is entirely present everywhere in space. If God exists in space, he would have to be somehow related to the physical universe in such a way that he would be wholly present at every point in space rather than just partially present at every point in space…Since God is the creator of the universe there is a state of affairs of the actual world of God existing alone without time or space. Since God is not a physical object his existence doesn’t require space. If we think of God “prior to” creation or “without” the world, God would exist without space. He would be spaceless. There would be no space. Space would come into being when God creates the physical world. Perhaps, as I’ve suggested, time as well comes into existence at that point. At the moment of creation both time and space come to exist…In that case, what omnipresence amounts to is that God is cognizant of and causally active at every point in space. That is what omnipresence means. It doesn’t mean that God is literally in space. God transcends space. But he knows what is happening at every point in space, and he is causally active at every point in space, causing things to happen there and causally sustaining them in existence. So God, on this conception, is a non-spatial, transcendent, infinite mind who is conscious of and active at every point in space. (William Lane Craig, Defenders, part 8, www.reasonablefaith.org/defenders)

                        4. Practical Application

a. We can contact God at every location

i. John 4:16-24: Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”  The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”  The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.  Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”  Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.  You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.  But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

                                    b. We should be constantly practicing the presence of God

                                                i. He is there when we sin

-Psalm 32:1-4: ​ Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.

                                                ii. He is there in times of trouble

-Psalm 23:4: Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

                                                iii. He is there in times of plenty

-Acts 14:17: Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.

                                                iv. He is there for guidance

-James 1:5: If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

                                                v. He is there to lovingly discipline His own

-Hebrews 12:5-7: And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

c. When you wish to do something evil, you retire from the public into your house where no enemy may see you; from those places of your house which are open and visible to the eyes of men you remove yourself into your room; even in your room you fear some witness from another quarter; you retire into your heart, there you meditate: he is more inward than your heart. Wherever, therefore, you shall have fled, there he is. From yourself, whither will you flee? Will you not follow yourself wherever you shall flee? But since there is One more inward even than yourself, there is no place where you may flee from God angry but to God reconciled. There is no place at all whither you may flee. Will you flee from him? Flee unto him. (Quote from unknown source in Herman Bavinck, The Doctrine of God, pg. 164 in Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, pg. 177)

d. Everywhere in the Old and in the New Testament, God is represented as a spiritual Being, without form, invisible, whom no man hath seen or can see; dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, and full of glory; as not only the creator, and preserver, but as the governor of all things; as everywhere present, and everywhere imparting life, and securing order; present in every blade of grass, yet guiding Arcturus in his course, marshalling the stars as a host, calling them by their names; present also in every human soul, giving it understanding, endowing it with gifts, working in it both to will and to do. The human heart is in his hands; and He turneth it even as the rivers of water are turned. Wherever, throughout the universe, there is evidence of mind in material causes, there, according to the Scriptures, is God, controlling and guiding those causes to the accomplishment of his wise designs. He is in all, and over all things; yet essentially different from all, being over all, independent, and infinitely exalted. This immensity and omnipresence of God, therefore, is the ubiquity of the divine essence, and consequently of the divine power, wisdom, and goodness. As the birds in the air and the fish in the sea, so also are we always surrounded and sustained by God. It is thus that He is infinite in his being, without absorbing all created beings into his own essence, but sustaining all in their individual subsistence, and in the exercise of their own powers. (Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:384–385)