Tonight I turned in one of my credo papers for my Theology class on the nature of God. I used as my theme a simple prayer I learned as a child. I thought that some of you might be interested in reading my work.
God is great.God is good.
Let us thank Him for our food.
Amen.
This simple child’s prayer I learned before I have distinct memories of learning. I have taught it to all four of my children and now I listen as my grandchildren recite it. Until this week’s study upon the attributes of God, I thought of the prayer as only a simple prayer for simple minds. Now I see the profundity hidden within the simplicity. Within this simple prayer I recognize the essential affirmations within the Christian faith about the being and nature of God and His relation to creation.
God is great.
As a child I knew that God is great. But, then, to a child, all things are great. As we grow and mature, what once was large becomes small. We return to a house or a yard or a school that we remember as being enormous, only to be surprised by its normality. It seems as though as we grow larger, everything around us grows smaller in comparison.
But this is not so with God. Surely if we are careless in out thinking, we may cordon away our childhood thoughts of the great God. This, however, is not the result of God becoming smaller, but rather our thinking of God becoming smaller. If we focus upon the greatness of God, as I have done this week, we find that our brains begin to hurt because our thoughts cannot contain God or His greatness. I wonder if Isaiah experienced a headache upon penning these words of God: “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9 ESV).
God is great in more ways than can be recorded here. However, for purposes of illustration, which admittedly only begin to scratch the itch of our thinking of the greatness of God, I will outline five examples of His greatness: (1) His spirit; (2) His person; (3) His life; (4) His infinity; and (5) His constancy.
First, God is spirit. He is spiritual. Jesus was most clear about this in his teaching on worship. “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24 ESV). Both John and Paul describe God as being invisible and unseen by man (John 1:18 and 1 Tim. 1:17). Unlike humans God is not limited by material nature, and thus as we will see, He has infinite characteristics of space, time, power, energy, and freedom. When we think of God as spirit, we think of something ethereal, without substance. This is almost exactly the wrong way to think, for there is nothing more real than God. While He is spirit, he can and does take on form for the sake of our knowing him, such as an angel (Genesis 18:1), a burning bush (Exodus 3:2), as the back of God walking away (Exodus 33:21-23), or even as a man (John 1:14). However, these forms never contain God; He is never limited by form.
Second, God is person. He has personality. This can be understood by the fact that God has a name (Exodus 3:14) and is pictured in Scripture as knowing and relating with people, from Adam and Eve, to Moses, to the prophets, and to the disciples of Christ. He is described as being as approachable as a daddy is to a child (Romans 8:15). We have relationship with God. We not only pray (speak, converse, relate) to Him but He answers (2 Chronicles 1:11, Mark 11:24, John 16:24). In fact, in the final discourses of Jesus recorded in John 14-17, we discover that the Spirit of God is given to Christ’s disciples specifically for the purpose of guiding and comforting and confirming Christ’s teaching after Jesus left the earth in bodily form.
Third, God is great because God is life. He not only lives, but is the very source of life itself. God’s name given to Moses in Exodus 3:14 demonstrates this idea. “I AM WHO I AM.” The rest of creation that depends upon God for its’ very breath of life (Genesis 2:7), but God IS life Himself (John 5:26). He has no beginning and no end (Rev. 1:8, 21:6, and 22:13). He is the very source of all other life (John 1:3-4) and he sustains all life (Colossians 1:17, Hebrews 1:3).
Fourth, God is great because God is infinite. As a finite being, this is where I often encounter a headache trying to conceive of an infinite being. We cannot really fathom the entirety of God’s infinity. Even the word, “infinite,” is a negation of our own finitude. We are finite, but God is not. We can think of God’s infinity in at least four dimensions:
- As I have already stated in the paragraph above, God is infinite in regards to time. He is everywhen. To Isaiah, God describes Himself as the first and the last (Isaiah 44:6). To John, God reveals Himself as the Alpha and Omega, a reference to the first and last letters in the Greek alphabet (Rev. 1:8).
- God is also infinite in regards to space. He is everywhere. To Jeremiah God asks, “Am I only a God at hand, ... and not a God far away?” (Jeremiah 23:23 ESV). The Psalmist declared that wherever he went, God would be there (Psalm 139:7-12). Yet even these descriptions of God as everywhen and everywhere do not fully begin to describe the infinity of God, for He not only exists in every time and in every place, but He also is beyond every time and above every place. (This concept is like eating a Popsicle too quickly - it submits my mind to brain freeze!) God not only is immanent (everywhere), but is also transcendent (what Erickson describes as “not anywhere”).
- God is infinite in regards to knowledge and understanding. The Psalmist declares God’s understanding as “beyond measure” (Psalm 147:5). We describe this “beyond measure” of God’s understanding and knowledge as omniscience. Paul rightly describes this idea. “Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out” (Romans 11:33 NIV).
- Finally, God is infinite in regards to His power. He is omnipotent. He describes Himself to Abraham as God Almighty (Genesis 17:1). Jeremiah declares that nothing is too hard for God (Jeremiah 32:17). Even Jesus states matter of factly that “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26 ESV).
Not only is God great because He is spirit, person, life, and infinite, but also because God is constant. He is unchanging (Malachi 3:6). His nature is permanent (Psalm 102:26-27) and his thoughts, plans and purposes stand forever (Psalm 33:11). The writer to the Hebrews describes the son of God in unchanging terms: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8 ESV). This constancy, sometimes referred to as God’s immutability, should not be understood as static and sterile, but as active and dynamic. God can be counted upon. He is faithful. He is dependable. What God promises, He deliversl
Fortunately for us, God is good. God’s goodness is inherent in who He is. We often misstate this concept by relating God’s goodness to good things that happen to us. There is nothing wrong with giving God glory when good things occur, but we must never forget that God is good and He is always good, even when bad things happen.
How do we divorce the goodness of God from the goodness (or badness) of the events in our lives? One way to accomplish this is to think of the innate goodness of God in three distinct ways: (1) His moral purity; (2) His integrity; and (3) His love.
First, God’s moral purity includes His holiness, His righteousness, and His justice. God is holy. He is unique. When someone describes something as “unique,” he or she is usually using hyperbole. Rarely is there truly something that is “one of a kind.” But this is not true with God. He is wholly other than anything else in all creation. The Song of Moses echoes this theme. “Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?” (Exodus 15:11 ESV). God is holy, not only in terms of being unique, but also in terms of absolute purity. He does not participate in, cause, or become sullied by evil in any way. Habbakuk even writes that God does not look upon evil (Hab. 1:13) and James writes that God is never tempted by evil (James 1:13). One of the earliest recorded statements in the Bible affirms God’s absolute goodness and is found in Job 34:12: “It is unthinkable that God would do wrong, that the Almighty perverts justice” (NIV).
God’s inherent moral purity includes not only His holiness, but also His righteousness. To think correctly about the distinction between God’s holiness and God’s righteousness, one should think of God’s righteousness as His holiness applied to relationships. Another way of saying this is that God does what God says. God is not a hypocrite. Abraham believed this to be true of God when he was negotiating for the people of Sodom. “Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Genesis 18:25). God claims for Himself that He actually delights in exercising kindness, justice and righteousness (Jeremiah 9:24).
God’s moral purity can be seen in His holiness, His righteousness, and finally in His justice. He not only keeps His own laws, but will require that all others live up to His standards of rightness as well. Erickson describes well this relationship between God’s righteousness and His justice. “God is, in other words, like a judge who as a private individual adheres to the law of society, and in his official capacity administers that same law, applying it to others.” The Bible in its entirety tells the story of how, in the end, wrongs will be righted. (For examples, read Psalm 73:17-20 and Revelation 21 and 22.)
A second way of appreciating God’s innate goodness, beyond His moral goodness, is to also consider His integrity. God is true, meaning that He is genuine (John 17:3, 1 Thess. 1:9, and Revelation 3:7). Further, God tells the truth; He does not lie. (1 Samuel 15:29, John 17:17, and Titus 1:2). Lastly, God proves Himself true. He is faithful. He can be counted upon (Numbers 23:19, 1 Corinthians 1:9, 1 Thessalonians 5:24, 2 Timothy 2:13, and 1 Peter 4:19).
A third way of appreciating God’s innate goodness is to consider His love. When we arrive at the topic of God’s love, I think of the gospel writer of John trying to describe all that Jesus did. Not all the seminary papers ever written could ever properly describe God’s love. In general, we can think of God’s love in terms of His benevolence - His concern for the welfare of those whom He loves (Deuteronomy 7:7-8), His grace - His undeserved favor (Ephesians 2:7-9), His mercy - His tender hearted, loving compassion for His people (Psalm 103:13), and His long-suffering - withholding judgment and offering salvation (Romans 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9).
God is great. This comes more naturally to us, even though we struggle to fully comprehend the extent of God’s greatness. God is good. This comes with more difficulty, for we are surrounded by evil and can only view God through the mist of the evil that surrounds and fills us. But when we do grasp that God’s goodness is as innate as God’s greatness, we can begin to fully appreciate the last part of the child’s prayer.
Let us thank Him for our food.
Amen.
The combination of God’s greatness and God’s goodness invites us to come to Him and to enjoy relationship with Him. Because of both God’s greatness and God’s goodness, we may discover that God is not so far away, not so far above, not so transcendent that He cannot be approached. Nor do we discover a God that is so much a part of everything that He cannot be discovered separate and apart from His creation. Nor do we discover a powerless God, who has set everything in motion and can now only watch as the world moves inevitably forward.
Rather we discover a God, Who interjects Himself into His creation. We find a God, Who loves us and gave Himself for us (Ephesians 5:2). We have a God, Who sacrifices His own Son so that we might be in relationship with Him eternally (John 3:16)! We have a God, Who not only call us to follow Him, but Who also calls us “friend” (John 15:15). We have a God, Who not only created all that ever was or that ever will be, but Who also prayed at one time, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11 ESV). We have a God, Who does not expect us to find our way to His door, but Who comes knocking on ours (Rev. 3:20).
So when, as a child or as an adult, we pray, “Let us thank Him for our food,” we know that we have a God, Who hears us and provides for us. We know that when we pray the “Amen,” the word meaning “I agree,” that it is not only prayed by us, but is also echoed by The Great and Good God Himself (Matthew 6:31-32). Amen!
