When you begin a new chapter in the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 2, and if you have your confessions, please turn with me to the second chapter, and if you don't have your confessions, shame on you. You might want to remember to bring them, because that's what we're studying on our Thursday night get-togethers. Chapter 2 deals with the subject of God and the Holy Trinity, and I don't expect we're going to get through all of it tonight, but I'd like to read Let's just take the first two sections and if things go well we'll get through at least one of those two sections before we continue in our next meeting. The confession says there is but one only living and true God who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible without body, parts, or passions, immutable immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will, for His own glory, most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, the rewarder of them that diligently seek him, and with all most just and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty. God hath all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself, and is alone in and unto himself all sufficient. not standing in need of any creatures which he hath made, not deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto, and upon them. He is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things, and hath most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them whatsoever himself. In his sight all things are open and manifest. His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature. So as nothing is to him contingent or uncertain, he is most holy in all his counsels, in all his works, and in all his commands. To him as due from angels and men and every other creature whatsoever, worship, service, or obedience, he is pleased to require of them. That's a long list of attributes of God, isn't it? And just reading it out loud like that gives us a real sense of the wonder of God, the awesomeness of God, and the respect that the Puritans have for the Almighty when they get around to finally describing who God is and what He is like. And I think that's a good note on which for us to begin tonight as we begin a study of God. I want to just reflect for a few moments on our attitude in studying God. Isn't there something a little bit wrong about the whole notion of studying God? After all, those of you who have been students take it very seriously. You know that when you study a subject, you really try to systematically analyze and understand it, and in that sense come to have a kind of mastery of the subject, right? And that's the goal. And if you're learning math, you want to master the times tables and so forth. And if you're learning accounting, you don't want accounting to remain some kind of mystery that's beyond your ability to control. You want to be able to control your ledgers and to know how to balance things. and properly into things and so forth. And in chemistry, the same way. You don't want to completely stand in awe of the world of chemicals and all. You want to learn something about them and how they interact and be able to predict what's going to happen when you bring things together. We study literature in the same way. We want to gain some kind of, well we can put it this way, sovereignty over the subject, some kind of dominion over the subject. When I study philosophy, I'm not happy when somebody brings up something from a philosopher that I'm supposed to study, and I'm supposed to know that material. So you want to gain a kind of, I don't know if ascendancy is the right word, but you want to get on top of the material, you want to know your stuff, right? Doesn't it seem just a bit inappropriate to have that attitude toward God? Kind of like, we're going to put God out here on the table and slice and dice and dissect and and we're going to learn everything there is about God. Treat God like any other object maybe, like biology or chemistry or literature or math or whatever it may be. Now, that question that I'm posing to you, it seems to me, people can respond to it in two ways which are equally wrong and misguided. The first way to respond to it is to say well that's exactly right, God is not an object for study at all. We don't study God, we don't have any theology. What does theology mean? Theos, logos in Greek, theos is God, logos, to have a reason or an understanding or a word for theology then is the study, the mastery of God. Some people say no theology, all we want is devotion, all we want is an attitude of of worship and service and awe and wonder. So away with theology, what we want is heart commitment. And I think that is a mistaken way of responding to the problem that I pose, that the study of God seems like we're making him an object that we want to master or dominate, in some way exercise sovereignty over. God himself has revealed his own character and he's done so in human language. In fact, he's even done so in human form. He came in the person his own son. And God expects us to know him. I mean, it really would be the height of impiety, it seems to me, to have God reveal himself in language that we can understand and then we say, oh no, that wouldn't be appropriate for us to understand that. God gave his word that he might be known. So the first mistake would be to say, well, since the study of God might lead to really kind of a bad spiritual attitude where we think we're dominating the subject, God's like any other object to study, so we won't study him at all. That would be completely wrong. And the other mistake would be to think that somehow we do have that kind of mastery over God and when we come to this, we can study the subject of tonight and other nights as well. We can study who God is and it'd be no different than say a course in auto mechanics. I mean, you might go somewhere else on Thursday night and learn about how to fix a carburetor or you can come here and learn how to fix your theology. You know, just kind of put them on the same level. But that isn't true at all. And it's important, especially in churches and theological circles that emphasize a knowledge of scripture, I think it's important for us in our circles to know that when we study God we need to do so in a worshipful spirit. That what we're going to be studying tonight and all these attributes, it's going to take us a while to get through them, that in each and every case our heart attitude must be one of reverence and of responding with a sense of not only the awesomeness of God but also joy in knowing him. This shouldn't be just one of these rote outlines, you know, where we've got all the parts of the car down, now here are all the parts of God that you can study. God is all-knowing, God is all-powerful, and so forth. In each and every case, we're not going to do this, but hypothetically, in each and every case, it'd be great every time we take one of these attributes, after we've studied it and come to understand it, we should stop and pray about that. And praise God for who He is. And I hope that you'll approach the study tonight with that spirit. I wouldn't want to jump into this and have us think that we're just doing normal study of any other object. This is an object which is unlike every other object. This is the object who made us. And his attributes are so glorious that we should not ever look upon them and go, oh yeah, big deal. It should really change us as we study. Alright, chapter 2 of God and the Holy Trinity begins, there is but One only living and true God. And then it goes on to describe this living and true God as infinite in being and perfection, the most pure spirit, etc. What's missing? We live in the late 20th century. Can you begin by simply saying there is but one only living and true God? Can we just say God exists and go along with it? What's missing here? Or what might appear to be missing? Proof! Exactly. That's what people want to know. How do you know that God exists? You'll notice that the Puritans did not look upon their task as that of proving that God exists. The assumption of the confession of faith throughout is that God exists. Chapter 1 tells us about the speaking of God or how God has revealed himself. So the Puritans assumed the existence of God, they began by looking at the revelation of God, and now what they do is simply look to see what God tells us about himself. There is no place in the Confession where the existence of God is up for grabs. Where it's just a question out there that could be answered yes or no, and then the evidence is marshaled for saying, well most likely or very probably God exists. A confession of faith takes the existence of God for granted. Now somebody could say, yes that's true because they were writing for Christians after all, they took the existence of God for granted. But now we can't take the existence of God for granted. If that question arises then there's got to be some kind of answer given for that. Or if we wanted we could supplement the confession of faith and put in a chapter on how we know that God exists or we could have a new section introducing this one showing how we know God exists. However, my own conviction is that the reason the Puritans did not bother to try to prove God's existence is because whether they had worked it out philosophically as well as say Dr. Van Til in our century has or not, I do believe that from the heart their own belief was that there was no question about God's existence. That if anyone, if anything, someone's going to have to prove the opposite. Because God's existence is everywhere to be seen. Well, not really seen. Turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 1. While you're turning, I might just share an anecdote with you. A few weeks ago, as you know, I debated an atheist lawyer at the University of California, Davis. And one of the things that he was pressing in the debate is, well, so where is God, or where is the evidence for God? And my response to him was, the evidence for God is everywhere. It's not as though we need to look for some special manifestation, like a miracle here, or some odd event there, or God finally showing up and revealing his glory in a particular situation. It's that everything we see in the world gives evidence of God. Of course he didn't have a clue as to what I was getting at there and I think even at the end after I'd shown a few things he still didn't catch on to what I was getting at. Most people think you can take this world for granted, you can take your own life for granted, you can take your rationality for granted and your moral standards for granted. Everybody takes those things for granted. Now the question is, where's God? But from a biblical standpoint, you can't take this world for granted, the order of this world for granted, human rationality, human morality for granted. Those are things which are only possible because we know God. And so that every time we think through something, every time we have an experience which is intelligible, every time we make a moral judgment, every time we look at the world and we see its orderliness, we are seeing evidence for God. Paul says in Romans chapter 1, This is verse 18. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Why is God revealing His wrath from heaven? Because they hinder the truth in unrighteousness. The word hinder here literally means to suppress. They hold down or they mishandle the truth in unrighteousness. Well how is it that men suppress the truth about God? Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. How can you be sure that every man has it manifest in him that God exists? For God manifested it unto them. Sometimes, you know, we try to put through calls to people and we get busy signals or they're not in or something. But when God puts in a call, it always goes through. When God manifests himself, there can never be any doubt about it. And God has manifested himself so that all men have that manifestation within them. Verse 20, for the, you're going to like this paradox, for the invisible, the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen. God's invisible attributes are clearly seen. How can you see what is invisible? Well what Paul means here obviously is even though God himself is invisible, he's not like a table or a chair you can reach out and touch or kick or see, nevertheless, he is clearly known and experienced. He's clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made. And so when we look at what God has made, we know God and we know his everlasting power and divinity. And how well do we know these things? That they may be without excuse. Some people I think would say, well, I look at the world, well, in some cases I look at the world. I go out and I look at the Pacific Ocean, say down at Dana Point out there. I look at that and I say, yeah, there's a sense of, you know, this is a very big world. The power and the beauty and the grandeur of the sea suggests a power that goes beyond it. Or people maybe in the mountains on a summer night look up and they see the stars and say, wow, what a universe this is. There's some sense of the depth or or something that goes beyond, you know, in that experience. Some people say, well, so there's some evidence for God, I guess. Some feeling for there being a God. But then there's a lot of other stuff that doesn't make any sense, like the evil in this world and bad things that happen and on and on. And so people will say, well, if God would just make himself clearly known. I mean, God has kind of hinted that he's there. I have some sense that he's there. but it's not very clear, it's not very extensive, it's not real obvious, and so if I turn out to be wrong about this on the day of judgment, I'm going to have some excuse. I'm going to say, God, I would have believed in you. I wanted to believe in you. All I wanted was the evidence and I would have believed in you. I don't want you to think that I was hesitant about that, it's just that it was ambiguous. You know that what I'm describing, although you can tell that I don't really believe it, that is the most common attitude imaginable in our day and age. And here's what Paul says a bit about that. The invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen being perceived through the things that are made, even as everlasting power of divinity, that they may be without excuse. No one will stand before God and be able to say, well, I have a little bit of an excuse, God. It wasn't real clear. God's going to say it was absolutely without qualification. Inescapably clear that I made this world and the kind of God that I am and that's why my wrath is revealed from heaven Because you took that evidence and you suppressed it in your sin and rebellion and your excuse-making You pretended that you didn't know me, but you knew me all along Verse 21 because knowing God they glorified him not as God neither gave thanks But became vain in their reasoning and their senseless heart was darkened Verse 21 Paul says, all men know God. He doesn't say all men have a sense or an inkling or some kind of vague belief about God, but they know God. And then they go on to do what? Not live in a God-glorifying way? Now, what is God going to do with those who refuse to honor Him and glorify Him? You know, I mean, from the Bible. that God is not going to have anything to do with it. He's going to say, since you wanted to live your life without me, live all eternity without me. To put it very simply, God says this taste of hell that you have right now of living without me is going to become your eternal fate. It's going to be what you have without mitigation, without any grace, without any kind of blessing holding it back. I'm going to turn you over to your own sin. You don't wish to be with me? You will not be with me forever. We know that is coming. And the people who are going to undergo that judgment from God are going to be in terror and shame. Now that being true, do men in this world generally want to own up to what they should be guilty about? Or do they want to admit their inadequacy? No, they don't. They don't want to admit that they're guilty. And so they suppress the truth and unrighteousness. Easier to say, well God, you didn't make yourself clearly known, than to say I'm under the wrath and curse of God. But Paul tells us all men know God, but they don't glorify him as God, and so they become vain in their reasoning and their senseless hearts are darkened. Verse 22, professing themselves to be wise, they become fools. The men in this world who are reputed to be wise, who not only would puff themselves up with their own intellectual vanity, but also be regaled with praise for how smart they are and so forth. These men who profess themselves to be wise nevertheless become fools. I'll give you a real quick contemporary example. The scientist and researcher Francis Crick who is well known, Crick and Watson of course are the ones who speculated the DNA molecule had a double helix configuration and that really is what opened up the door to modern molecular biology and so forth. So he was world-renowned even without his latest research and so forth. But Francis Crick has done, at least the last ten years, I think it may be even longer than that, has been doing advanced work in the understanding of the brain and the neural connections within the brain and so forth. Well, he's recently written a book in which he argues that man has no soul, and what we call the soul of man is really nothing more but a complex of very complicated neural connections in the brain tissue up here. And he admits in his book, he openly admits, that he is prejudiced against not a scientific explanation that gets down to the things that you can deal with in natural science. And then he turns around and says that religious people have their presuppositions when you openly admit you have your presuppositions as well. And let's take this a step further. If what Engines break. Because the reason you believe that man is nothing more but neural connections to do with the consideration of evidence and affirmation of the truth. It only is a result of what your own biological and chemical condition. Here's the irony. Here's this very intelligent man who doesn't even recognize that his own presuppositions have led him to the convictions that he has. But he tells us that man is nothing more but gray matter up here. And if that's true, then the only reason Frank Crick is saying that is because his great matter is subject to the laws of chemistry and physics and biology, and he can't help but disagree with what I'm saying. See, there is nothing left if man is nothing more than neural connections in the brain. If that's the uniqueness of man, then man is the cause of science, isn't he? free choice to follow this rather than that, it's just whatever happens for you. So here's this man who is so wise in a worldly sense, so smart, so intelligent, world-renowned, and he writes nonsense. I mean, he undermines the credibility of his own thesis in arguing for his thesis. If he offers reasons, he shows that he doesn't believe that he's only neural connections in his mind. So what Paul is getting at, I use the 20th century illustration, but what Paul is getting at in Romans 1 is that the evidence for God is inescapable and everybody knows God, it doesn't need to be argued. Because when people deny God, they cut off any ability to be wise. Refraining from proofs of God because they were writing to Christians. I think the Puritans had a godly and a biblical attitude and they said that God's existence doesn't need proof. That if anything it's those who dispute the existence of God that need to do some accounting. Hebrews 11.6 The author of Hebrews tells us what the precondition of coming to God is. And without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing unto him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him. Hebrews 11.6. If we would come to God, the precondition of coming to God, hopefully it's obvious to you, is he must believe that he exists. And he must also believe that he's a certain kind of person, that he rewards those who seek after him. And so the presupposition of theology, the presupposition of the Christian life and of writing his confession, is that of course God exists. As we come to him, we begin with that as our elementary assumption. Now what does the confession of faith tell us about this God that we presuppose to exist and which all men know to exist in their heart? We all got that, now we can go home. You understand that, right? So what do you mean, absolute person? We don't usually talk that way, Dr. Bonson. We also look at each one of the terms. First of all, the term person. a person, not an abstract axiom, not the sum total of everything, but God is a person. were held back, he would not be God. And as a person, God is moral. There are many pagan religions that have gods or a concept of God where God has something to do with the origin of the universe or the working of the universe or something, but there is no moral character in God. Or in the case of Hinduism, There can be no moral character in God. God is the all, Brahman, and good and evil are artificial distinctions in Hinduism. All distinctions are artificial, because according to Hinduism, all is one. And so there's no moral character in God. Or in many pagan religions, like Greek mythology, the gods, or if you want to look at one of them, a god, doesn't have very high moral standards at all. The gods don't get along with each other, they're guilty of incest and immorality and lust and murder and greed and jealousy and on and on and on. The Bible presents God as a person and, as I said, an absolute person. What do I mean by absolute? The word absolute means without qualification. Or we can put it this way, without limitation and restriction. God is a person. He is free, knowledgeable, He has feelings, if I can use an anthropomorphic way of putting it. God makes decisions. God is a moral character. God is a person, but not like us. Because we're persons too, you know. We have freedom. We think. We make decisions. We have a certain moral character. But everything that we do as persons is limited, always subject to some kind of restriction. For instance, if I could do what I wanted to do as a person, to take a probably sinful illustration, I'd eat all the things that I enjoyed eating and as much of them and never get overweight. But that is impossible for this person. My personality is restricted by the laws of science, right? or by the facts of biology and anatomy and so forth. Moreover, sometimes I want to get places and the traffic is in the way and I get frustrated, you know, if you use a valium or something, right? As a person, I am restricted. I can't go as fast as I want. But the Bible teaches us that God knows no such restrictions. God is absolute, without qualification. Nothing keeps him from doing what he wishes to do. He is sovereign. He never makes mistakes. He knows everything. He's present everywhere. He has all power. No one can thwart him from doing what he wants to do. So to put it very simply, Christianity has a conception of God which is unique, really, in all the other religions of the world. Those that come anywhere close are really just aping what God has revealed of himself in the natural order and through the scriptures. Our view of God is that he's an absolute person. There is no competition that God has to face, no limits that He has to face. He is free, sovereign, and moral. Let's start working through this section of the confession and deal with each of the attributes that it's brought up. Ok, the confession says there is but one only living and true God. If we look down at the proof text, the idea that there is only one God, we have Deuteronomy 6.4. Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Also 1 Corinthians 8.4. As concerning, therefore, the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one. But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him. This is what's known as monotheism. Mono meaning one, theism God. There is but one God. And the Bible teaches that. There are no other gods. The significance of Israel's confession of faith, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one, is that Israel doesn't have an authority that it answers to in any area of life but God. God is ultimate. God is universal. God stands alone as the authority. How about Israel's neighbors though? Did the pagan tribes round about Israel have that view? No, they had many gods, didn't they? God of the ocean, God of the military campaign, God of travel, God of family and fertility, they had gods of Well, you name it, every area of life has its own God. But here, O Israel, the Lord, our God, is one. So that everything that we do, everything that we say, everything that we think, is unified under the authority of this one, living and true God, Jehovah. Paul says, though there are gods many out there in the world, as far as the way the world sees things, for us, there's but one God. Ironically, we're going to talk about the Trinity down the line in our lessons here, but let me just point out, ironically, Paul stresses the oneness of God in the very passages where he talks about the multi-personality, if you will, of the Godhead. He says, for us there's but one God, the Father, you know, and the Lord Jesus Christ. You might say, now wait a minute, Paul, which is it? Is it the Father or the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, the whole point is, because Paul was Trinitarian, That didn't even faze him to say there's but one God and then mention two persons as being God. So there is something of an irony there. But it's important for us to know, and especially since we are Trinitarian, we do not believe in many gods. Mormons believe in many gods. I want you to be aware of that. Many Mormons don't know that they believe in many gods. I've actually had people on my porch talk to me about Mormonism And I'll tell them, you know, I can't go to the Mormon Church because they're polytheists. And they'll say, what? I'll say, you believe in many gods. No, we don't. Then I pull out the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Christ and other things that are there, authoritative documents, and show them. See, you believe in many gods. But they believe there's only one God for this universe. That's what is known in comparative religion as henotheism. There are many gods, but we have our one special god. And that's what Mormons believe. There are many gods, but there's one god for this universe. And by the way, if you work at it, you can become a god and you'll have your own universe someday. So Mormons are polytheists. Pagan religions like around ancient Israel and many religions today are polytheistic. Muslims say that we Christians are polytheists. Muslims say you believe in three gods, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Is that true? Not at all. We believe, even though it's mysterious, not contradictory, it's very deep, it's incomprehensible maybe, but it's not a contradiction. We believe that the one true God has within himself the principle of society. If I can put it that way. That there's a many-ness to God mutual personality and relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and yet God himself is but one. There aren't many societies that are God, there's but one, and this God is not three persons that work against each other, but three persons who are the same God. There is but one only living and true God. Now the confession gives a proof text for the living and true God. That's B down below. 1 Thessalonians 1 9, for they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God. There's that explanation of God. Living and true over against what? Idols. You know what's characteristic of idols? They don't do anything. They don't have personality. I know it's just outlandish, almost funny if it weren't spiritually tragic. People get tools and they cut down trees and they break rocks out of the earth and then they take their tools and they fashion the wood and the stone and they polish them and set them up and after they've exercised all this sovereignty over things, then they bow down to them and say, this is my God. It's just preposterous. Now speak to your God. You know, as the Old Testament prophets say, is there anything in their throat? Do your gods ever speak to you? You know, you cut down your trees and you polish your rocks and you call them God, but they never talk to you. They never do anything. They never deliver you in war. They don't do miracles. What good is a God like that? But God, the living and true God over against the idol, is alive. That's the frightening thing about God. Most people wouldn't have trouble with Christianity if Christianity just had an idol that you could, you know, have some kind of dominance over and put away in your closet at night or ignore when you don't want to deal with it. But God's alive, you know? And I don't at all mean to be disrespectful, but you know, there's this sense when in horror movies, you know, you have this line, it's alive, you know? We're supposed to have that sense when we realize we're dealing with a God that's alive. He rules over all, he made the world, he knows everything, and he's alive! The living and the true, the genuine God. Jeremiah 10.10, but the Lord is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting King. So the confession begins by teaching us monotheism, but remember it's God, the one God as an absolute person. He's alive. He's a person. He's not a rock, or a stick, or a stone. He's not some impersonal principle, or the force, or energy, or the sum total of everything. He's a living person. There's only one living and true God. And now we have God described. This living and true God is infinite in being and perfection. Infinite, not finite. Finite means restricted, right? What did I tell you? God is an absolute personality without qualification, without restriction, without limitation. And so already the confession has given you my summary. God is alive, he's a person, and he's unlimited, he's absolute. There is but one only living and true God who is infinite in being and perfection. What if God were not infinite? What if God were not The only God. What if there were two gods? I want you to put on your philosophical thinking caps here for a minute. If there were two gods, would either one of them be God? Now if you stop and think about it, if there were two gods, now the best scenario, or the toughest one to deal with intellectually would be, they're roughly the same power, right? and they cover roughly the same territory in their sovereignty. But how could that be? If there were a god, let's say we had a god that controlled planet earth, just to make this a simple illustration. If there were another god of roughly the same sovereignty and power, that god might interfere with the god of planet earth, right? But if that God interfered with the God of planet Earth, then that means that God wouldn't be able to do what he wanted to do. Even if he could beat up the other God, to use a childish image here, even if he could push him away and say, leave me alone, I'm running the world, the fact is he would never be able to do whatever he wanted because he'd always have to be warding off this other God, this other force, right? But then that's the best scenario. It might be that every once in a while the other God gives the upper hand and thwarts his plans. So now he's not running the universe. Sometimes he is, sometimes he isn't. Now would he be God if he was subject to that situation? No he wouldn't. So if you stop and think about it, the idea that there are two gods destroys the idea that either one of them is God. There can only be one supreme person. Only one. So the confession teaches us there is but one only, the living and true God. who is infinite in being. You see, this God doesn't have any limitations. He's infinite in being. If God were finite, then that which is outside of God might interfere with his plans, might trip up things, might thwart him, might fight against him. So there's but one God, and if there's only one God, then that God must be infinite, of course. Infinite in being and perfection. Proof text C, Job 11.7. Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as the heaven, what canst thou do? Deeper than hell, what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth and broader than the sea. These Bible verses and all these attributes, you know what? We will not have measured out the Almighty. He's infinite. Job 26, 14. Lo, these are parts of his ways, but how little a portion is heard of him. But the thunder of his power, who can understand? God is perfect in all that he does. There are no flaws, no glitches, no inconsistencies. There's no loss of ability to control things, to know things. He is infinite in being and perfection. And then the confession says, God is a most pure spirit. Remember, personality, spiritual things come first. They're original. The physical world is real, but it's secondary. It's not primary. And God, who is the origin of all things, the living and true God, is not a material being. By the way, are you aware of the fact that Mormons teach that God is a material being? Of course it's kind of a philosophically silly view, but what Mormons say is that God is made up of matter, but it's such a refined matter that it's not like matter as you know it. So it's the immaterial, material God, sort of denounced in Mormonism. And then of course the pagans have their material gods, or pantheists. Is God material if you're a pantheist? Well, in crude versions of pantheism God is the trees and the birds and the bees and the seas and everything, so in that sense God is material. But philosophical Hinduism says that God is not material, but God is not spiritual either, because that distinction is an illusion. You can't say anything about that kind of God. For Christians, God is a spirit. What is a spirit? We all know from the children's catechism. God is a spirit and has not a body like man. God is a person, we've already talked about that in our lesson tonight, but God's personality is not tied to a body. How would your personal interaction with Dr. Bonson be if I didn't have a mouth and eyes or a body of any sort to interact with you? Well, you'd be kind of at a loss, right? But God is a person without a body. Our proof text is John 4, verse 24. Jesus says to the woman at the well in Samaria, God is spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. God doesn't have a body, God isn't localized. As I am, I'm in Fountain Valley tonight, I can't be in Irvine at the same time because my body limits me. But God is unlimited. God is a spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions. We get through these three things, that'll be enough for our lesson tonight. God is a spirit, meaning he does not have a body, parts, or passions, and he is invisible. Our proof text for the invisibility of God, 1 Timothy 1.17, Now unto the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. God cannot be seen, Romans 1, we said a few minutes ago. Paul tells us that the invisible things of God are clearly seen, but he doesn't mean by that you can see like the eyes of God or the hands of God. But doesn't the Bible speak of God having eyes and hands? How do you account for that? What do we call that in terms of literary analysis? That's right, it's an anthropomorphism. It's a figure of speech, and specifically it's a figure of speech that likens God to a man. So, in order for us to understand what God is saying about Himself, He speaks to us in our terms. And so He speaks of His eyes looking over all the earth. Or how His arm cannot be turned back. Well, what does that mean to us? What does that figure of speech mean when a person's arm can't be turned back? Well, that means God is so powerful that He stretches out His arm to do what He wants and no one can stop Him. But that doesn't mean that God literally has an arm or that God literally has eyeballs and so forth. He speaks anthropomorphically as though he were a man. God is a spirit and God is invisible. But there's a problem. When you read the Bible, God isn't always invisible, is he? I'm waiting for someone to... Did God show himself at the burning bush? Did God show himself when he appeared in three strangers who came to Abraham one day? Do you remember how Jacob once wrestled with the angel of the Lord? When he got done he said, I have wrestled with God. God shows himself. The technical theological term is theophany, a manifestation of God, phaena, phaenaeo, to manifest, and theos. Theophany is a manifestation of God, and God manifests himself. Moses in fact was told that God would grant to him, that Moses would see him, but God said only my backside. He said, I will pass before you and I'll put my hand over the cleavage in the rock. I'll put my hand over because you cannot see me and live. But that's something. I mean, just reflect on that. God says if you were to see me in my glory in your sin, you would die. So I will put my hand there, but I will in some measure let you see me anthropomorphically. I'll let you see my back. As I pass by, I'll take my hand away and you can see just in some sense the fleeting of my glory. When Moses went up on Mount Sinai, he there in the Shekinah glory of God knows God's glory in such a way that when Moses came down from the mountain, you remember what happened? His face shone with such glory that the people were scared of him. They said, go away, we don't want to hear you. He had to put a veil on his face because he had seen God, just a measure of God. So God does show himself. is able to do so. But it's not just Old Testament illustrations, where did God show himself most obviously? In the incarnation, right? Jesus said, anybody who has seen me has seen the Father. Which by the way is another, anybody doubts that the Bible presents Jesus as divine, use that verse. Do you know anybody, if they're not God, who could make the point and not be a lunatic? If you look at me, you're looking at God. I mean, he says, you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Whoa! Jesus is the exact impress of God, according to Hebrews chapter 1. So God has shown himself in the person of his Son. So is God invisible or not? I'm going to draw a distinction for you. I think we should say that God is not essentially invisible. God is not essentially invisible, but rather God is sovereignly invisible. What do I mean by that distinction? When we look at the attributes of something, I always use the illustration of a mermaid because that gets people's attention. Y'all know what a mermaid is like? You know the attributes of a mermaid? So I'm going to ask the guys now. Do mermaids have fish tails? Now the mermaid you were thinking about, does she have red hair or blonde hair? Or brunette? Red? Really? Okay, I think blonde is the color of choice for mermaids, but we'll take your red-headed mermaid. Now let's ask about fishtail-ness and red hair-ness. Is red hair-ness essential to being a mermaid? No, because you could have the very same mermaid you're thinking about without the red hair, but blonde hair, she'd still be a mermaid. How about this though? What if you're red-headed or blonde-headed mermaid didn't have fishtail but she had human legs, would she be a mermaid anymore? No. So a fishtail is essential, is an essential attribute of mermaids. But the color of hair is not essential. What I'm saying is that God's invisibility is not essential to being God. And the reason you have to say that is that if you think that God is essentially invisible, whenever God manifests himself, he's no longer God, because that would be contrary to the essence of God to show himself. In the same way that it would be contrary to a mermaid being a mermaid to have legs instead of a fishtail. So God is invisible, but not essentially so. He is sovereignly invisible. That is to say, he determines when where and how he will manifest himself. God determines, well, whether he will manifest himself, when, where, and how. First of all, whether. If he doesn't want to manifest himself, he doesn't have to show himself. And that's why we tend to think of God as invisible, because he doesn't choose to show himself in the burning bush, or at the alchemy, or at the incarnation. After all, Jesus was incarnate for thirty-some years, and then ascended to the Father. Most of us have not seen God then in that way. God isn't sovereignly chosen to do so, but he chooses when he will, where he will, and in what way he will. So, God is a most pure spirit, invisible, and now to understand further what it means that he's a spirit, he's without body, parts, or passions. Without body, I don't have to say much about that. You understand, God's invisible, he's spiritual, he doesn't have a physical body. He doesn't have parts either. I think this will help you remember. God is not a Mr. Potato Head. God's not made up of, okay, well a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Let's put eyes here and ears here. Oh no, let's shift this around. God's not made up of parts. He is one simple, by simple I mean non-complex being. What God is, He is totally, it's a package deal and you can't change the package, let me put it that way. And so we can think of aspects of God, we can say God is love, God is just, God is all-knowing, God is all-powerful, but you mustn't think of any of those as somehow existing as Mr. Potato Head features. What God is, He's all of those things. for limited purposes we can speak of this or that about God, but the God who is love is the all-knowing God who is love, the all-powerful, all-knowing God who is love. And the God who is all-knowing is the loving, all-powerful God who knows all things. You have to have all those things. He does not have parts. Nothing's optional here. God doesn't have a body. He doesn't have parts. And here's the thing that Confuses a lot of people. The Confession says he doesn't have passions. Ah, there's our cold, icy Calvinism, right? We don't want a God that's emotional. He doesn't have passions. Well, we have to go back to the archaic English use of that day and age to understand this properly. The Puritans did not for a moment think God was without emotions. They're not using the word passions here for emotions. Though I've known people to appeal to this and say, see, God is beyond feeling anger or love or compassion or whatever. He's without passions. The word passions, if you look in the Oxford English Dictionary, you'll see evidence of this, was often a term used in that day and age for the attributes of a body. the attributes of a body. I know we don't have anything, I've tried and tried, I can't think of anything even similar to that in contemporary English, so I'm not going to be able to help you much. But you'll find expressions like the passions of a triangle. You'll have discussions of the passions of a triangle. Now if you read that in modern 20th century terms, boy that must be bizarre, you know. I'd like to know about the anger of this triangle, you know, or the lust of this triangle, whatever it may be. But the passions of a triangle or the passions of physical bodies is just the way of speaking of their attributes. And so God does not have the attributes of a physical body. He doesn't have parts. He's not like a car or an engine you can build up. He doesn't have a body at all. He's invisible. He's a spirit. And that's going to be as far as we get. I didn't even do the first section tonight. But then none of you thought that I would, I guess. Any questions you'd like to ask about tonight's lesson? The person we saw in the physical human body of Jesus was God. But there is no such thing as divine flesh. Flesh is human. I would have said maybe that what you see is not God, but God is showing himself in that. Well take me with the charitable spirit that I intend this way. Maybe that's the way you'd put it. But Jesus said, anybody who's seen me has seen God. And so that's what we have to wrestle with, is what Jesus said. He didn't seem to be real careful about that, as we might understand care. He didn't seem to be bothered by saying, you look at me, you're seeing the Father. But it is true, he didn't mean this is the Father's body, flesh and bones. God does show himself, he can be seen, and when he is seen, it's by his sovereign choice and in the manner the manner in which he wishes it to be. Is it kind of like saying, you see me get angry, you've seen my anger, but anger is not really a thing you see. Yeah, I don't think it's adequate to say that it's a matter of seeing a person's anger, by that you mean seeing the manifestation, the red face, the clenched fist, whatever it may be. The Shekinah glory of God is something that people look upon and the day is coming when we will see God in all his glory. You're going to have to wrestle with this. I'm not sure I can help you much more. Mike? I was just going to say, when you said without passions, were they referring to also the the view of the before Harvey about that we have this vial and that was the seed of the emotions and the blank vial and the four humors basically. Is that the... No. No, although some people have suggested that there are really three different interpretations of this because of time I didn't go through them all. Some take the word passion there to mean to undergo an experience, to suffer something. And so we speak of the passion of Jesus. Have you ever wondered why the crucifixion is called the passion of Jesus? Well, passion means to suffer something, to undergo something in Latin. And so people have said, well, the Puritans thought that God doesn't undergo anything. It's not like he's a passive object of experience. Or that God doesn't have emotions which are sinful. But again, I really think that what they mean here, in context, you can see this, that they're referring to the word passion as a property or attribute of a body. I have in my notes here, the Oxford English Dictionary mentions the passions of metals, the passions of water, the passions of parallelograms and other bodies and so forth. And I think that's the way the word passions is used here. I didn't quite understand what you meant when you were talking about a society. A society. God is not just a singular isolated lonely person. But God doesn't have to go out and get other gods to be his buddies in order to have a society. That within his own singular being there is the principle of society or corporate reality, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. who know each other from all eternity. And so many people, both inside and outside of theological circles, have written about how human beings don't become fully personal until they have a significant other, or outside of marriage, or outside of civil society, or outside of the workplace where you know other people. That in order for man to be fully personal and human, He needs to have other human beings. Well, God doesn't have that kind of situation, that within God there is that principle of society, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That's what I was getting at. If you haven't thought about it that way in the past, I hope it doesn't disturb you, but it really is part of the incomprehensible mystery of God's person, that God has society. For all eternity, God was love. even before there was a world to love. And so you have to ask yourself, who did God love for all eternity before he made the world? Well, within himself there was that principle of society. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit loved each other. The one God for all eternity. That's what I'm trying to say. And humanly it's going to be difficult to express it without creating maybe some other misgivings because it is a mystery. The Trinity is a mystery. Is it appropriate to think of the invisible attribute as being invisible to us on earth, but visible to angels and to saints who preceded us and to the prophets who were able to look into heaven? Is he visible now to that group? To be honest Doug, I think that those attributes are invisible to angels too, and to the departed dead as well. I think God is only seen when he chooses to be seen and in the way that he chooses to be seen, even to disembodied souls or to angels as well. It's not a feature just of our physical body that God is invisible to. So like if we were angels or if we were in heaven with God, then we would see everything. No, God will still be sovereignly invisible If they see God in His glory, it's because He has chosen to manifest Himself. It's not something where God didn't want to be seen today and yet people can still look over there. It's only when God wishes to be seen that He will be seen, even by the 24 elders of the ranks of angels. I was going to ask, to follow up on this question, you said that God is not essentially invisible, but he's sovereignly visible and invisible. I don't understand why he couldn't be essentially visible. Your argument seemed to be that if he was essentially invisible, then he could make himself visible. But why couldn't he just have an ax in his pocket, becoming manifest? Well, if God were essentially invisible, when he makes himself visible, that's contrary to his essence. So whatever is visible cannot be God. That's just what the word means, essential. It's like if some girl was walking around with blonde hair and claimed to be a mermaid, and you said, well, but you've got legs. He'd say, yeah, well, I'm still a mermaid, even though fishtail-ness is essential to mermaid-ness. You're not the kind of mermaid that we think of, that's not the essence of mermaid in the ordinary use of the term. In the same way, if we say God is essentially invisible in the ordinary use of the term, that means he cannot show himself. You're presupposing a whole view of God that these theophanies, if you took Glenn's view, I don't know if that's your view, but that they were kind of pointers to God and not really God and that's how you get around that. So what you would say is God did not manifest himself? He manifested an image that was helpful to man. I mean, I don't believe that. Yeah, and I understand the distinction in Glenn's question, and I think that is the most common way for us to think of it, and it's helpful as far as it goes, but I don't think it goes far enough. Jacob wrestled with God, not just something that was an indicator of God, or a body that God used. When Jesus says, when you've seen me, you've seen the Father, I think we have to go beyond just saying, well, the body was in some sense the conduit for showing the Father. And so that's why I prefer to put it as sovereign rather than essential in disability. Well we've got plenty of things in theology that we could talk about tonight. I'm going to stop here and encourage you to come back next week and bring your friends with you and we'll continue the Confessions description of God.