Enjoy the Attributes of God – Session 3

The Independence of God

Reading: Acts 17: 22-31 (the God who needs nothing)

AUDIO

Lecture Handout

Handout – Session 3

Lesson Notes

• Introduction
  • We begin to dig into the attributes of God, starting with a pair that help us put God and ourselves into proper perspective
  • They’re foundational to a proper understanding of God
  • In themselves, they are a rich and wonderful source of reflection and prayer on God, because they emphasize how different and beyond us He truly is
  • These are attributes of transcendence that properly understood let us better enjoy  God’s attributes of immanence
  • They can be summarized as the independence of God
  • Grudem’s definition: “God does not need us or the rest of creation for anything, yet we and the rest of creation can glorify him and bring him joy.”
    • We’ll be using many of Grudem’s definitions – introduce Systematic Theology
    • They are biblically accurate, accessible, and always include a balancing phrase that keeps us from running too far off the rails biblically
    • Theologians often have run off the rails
  • We’ll explore two related aspects of God’s independences: self-existence and self-sufficiency
• God is Self-Existent
  • Theologically this is sometimes called “aseity” (=”from himself”) – that God’s existence in no way, shape, or form depends on anything or anyone else
  • God exists by virtue of His nature – He was never created and never came into being
    • Genesis 1: 1a – In the beginning, God!
    • Exodus 3: 14 – I AM WHO I AM
    • Psalm 90: 2 – From everlasting to everlasting
    • Revelation 4 – The praise in heaven
  • God’s being is fundamentally, qualitatively different from our won
    • Our existence is contingent on His will
    • His existence is contingent on nothing
    • He is Creator; EVERYTHING else is creation
    • We can all pass away instantly, He necessarily exists forever because of who He is
  • God isn’t dependent upon a part of creation of His existence or nature
    • Without creation, our triune God would still be infinitely loving, infinitely just, infinitely holy, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, etc.
• God is Self-Sufficient
  • God possesses within Himself, intrinsically (by virtue of His nature) and eternally, every one of His qualities in infinite measure (holiness, beauty, knowledge, wisdom, etc)
    • Isaiah 40: 9-31 – God is immense, nobody informs or instructs Him, everything that can be known is known by Him, we come before Him as children
  • God doesn’t need people/creation for anything
    • Psalm 50: 7-15 – God doesn’t need us for anything, He already has it
    • He already had a relationship of love for all eternity within the Trinity – John 17: 24
    • Glory was present and shared in eternity – John 17: 5
• The Beauty of God’s Independence
  • God doesn’t need us – He chose to create us and make us meaningful to Him!
  • Our very individual life and existence is extraordinary, because of Who made us
  • Isaiah 43: 7 – He made us for His glory
  • This extraordinary, independent God delights in us despite our limitations and failings – Isaiah 62: 3-5
  • For God to love unconditionally, He must be self-sufficient
    • He loves because He is love, not because He needs something from us
  • God’s Independence & Our Worship
    • Our worship should give expression to God’s greatness
    • He doesn’t need our praise and worship to be praiseworthy
    • He demands that we worship because He alone is truly praiseworthy because of who He is
    • It’s our delight to worship Him and be satisfied in Him
• Categorizing the Attributes of God
  • God is infinite and His attributes are infinite in number and each is infinite in its nature
    • So we can profitably and richly study God all our lives and never stop finding more to appreciate, praise, marvel, and delight in!
    • That’s a major reason we’re doing this course, to jumpstart a lifelong journey of praise and worship
    • In fact, we’ll be doing that for all eternity and never stop growing in our marvel and delight
    • We’ll look at many attributes in the weeks to come, but it won’t be exhaustive – there’s always more we could talk about
    • This should certainly be a good start
    • Some attributes are very similar – could be viewed as a single attribute instead of two separate attributes – a matter of preference
  • To help organize our study, theologians of ten group God’s attributes into “comminicable” and “incommunicable”
    • There’s nothing sacred about this organization – there are other ways to organize, but this is a common one that is fairly helpful
    • Communicable – attributes God shares, to some extent, with others -> thing we can grow into to some extent – 2 Corinthians 3: 18
      • Because we are created in His image and filled with His Spirit, we’re able to experience some of these as a reflection of Him
      • Because He is infinite and we are finite, there will always be limits to what is communicated to us
    • Incommunicable – attributes God doesn’t share or communicate to others
      • Some attributes are on the line between the two – theologians debate – ultimately unimportant for our purposes
      • The two we highlighted tonight are incommunicable

Closing Praise & Prayer

Romans 11: 33-36 – from, through, and to Him are all things