"God has no origin," Novatian
said, "and it is precisely this concept of no-origin which distinguishes
That-which-is-God from whatever is not-God."
Of what practical value is it then
to try to understand God to the degree that He has revealed Himself to us, and to the
degree that we can understand Him? Of much value!
Consider these five alone
Unless we have a clear and firm concept of the nature of God,
set as concrete in our hearts and minds, we won't understand or accept many of the
statements about God and His acts recorded in the sacred Scriptures. Also, we will
vacillate continually in what we think God is like, and will adjust constantly His nature
so that He more easily, and more acceptably, fits into the religious doctrines and beliefs
by which we conduct our daily lives.
2. We can only determine the truth of any Bible interpretation or religious doctrine by
measuring it against a true knowledge of what God is as He has revealed Himself to us. God's unchanging nature is the only lodestar against which we can
measure teachings about Him and His ways and acts.
3. Knowledge of the nature of God is essential if we are to comprehend and accept God's
"eternal purpose" and His reason for creating us and our time/space universe.
Understanding God to the degree that He
has revealed Himself to us, and to the degree that we can understand Him, is necessary if
we are to understand His ways; and having understood, accept them when His ways and acts
conflict with what we have believed or would like to believe.
To do so, we must return God in our thinking to the
transcendency of His consuming fire, return Him in our minds and hearts to that high and
holy God who dwells in an unapproachable light. (Hebrews 12:29, 1 Timothy 6:16)
4. Since we are the creation of God, it naturally follows that all
our problems and their solutions have to do with God. This is the teaching of the
Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, and the understanding and acknowledgment of those
men and women of whom the Bible speaks. All the way from the first man, Adam: Then the man
said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I
ate," to the last apostle, John: "Even so, come Lord Jesus."
Therefore, to be fully human and fulfill the purpose of our
being, we must live our lives in the light of the knowledge of God. God, as He truly is, must be a constant
equation in the daily decision-making processes of our lives.
(Genesis 3:12, Revelation 22:20)
5. The spiritual level of Christianity is in direct relation to the level of of the
awesome and glorious nature of God. Throughout history, whenever the Church has lowered
her opinion of God, her spiritual climate has grown cold and she has reduced her standard
of holiness to acceptable humanistic and materialistic levels.
Only the transcendent God of Isaiah and Moses, "sitting upon a throne, high and
lifted up," can warm the cockles of a frosty spiritual heart and return the Church
and individual Christians to the burning bush to worship with unshod feet: "for the
place whereon thou standest is holy ground." (Isaiah 6:1, Exodus 3:5, KJV)
We have lost the wonder of God's nature
Today's casual Christianity has lost the wonder of the nature
of God. It appears most prominently in the way we speak of Him and to Him. We now have a
colloquial God who requires no special effort of thought, and whom we can easily
understand because we both speak the same language. Our God no longer talks in the
transcendent language of the Bible, or lofty King James English. He now "talks
Texan" or Brooklynese or Cockney or whatever local or current idiom we use.
To a modern Moses, "I AM THAT I
AM" would be an unacceptable reply. And "put off thy shoes from off thy feet,
for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground," would definitely require an
explanation and at least a cursory examination of the ground underfoot.
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