Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries |
The Essence of God is necessary to understand God’s Perfect Plan.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
The Doctrine of the Theology of God’s Perfect Plan.
Point 1. Definition and Description.
Theology –
theo [God] + logia [word, discourse] =
the study of God.
Christian theology is simply an attempt to understand God as He is revealed in the Bible.
No type of theology will ever fully explain God and His ways because God is infinitely and eternally higher than we are.
Any attempt to describe Him and His ways and plan will always fall short, ROM 11:33-36.
ROM 11:35 Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again?
Anyone who has done Him such a huge favor that God has to ask his advice?
Of course not.
ROM 11:36Â For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.
Point 2. The Essence of God is necessary understand the Theology of God’s Perfect Plan.
Whether we are looking at God from the standpoint of what He does, or from the standpoint of what He thinks, or from the standpoint of how He is motivated, it all adds up to perfection.
We need to think of God in terms of, not only His perfect attributes, but perfect coordination between the attributes or the essence.
God exists in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; each person has identical attributes and qualities, and when the attributes are in view, God is one.
When personality is in view, the persons of the Godhead are distinguished by the use of some form of the plural, such as Elohim, the name for God in the Hebrew.
DEU 6:4 “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!”
PSA 56:4 In God, whose word I praise, In God I have put my trust; I shall not be afraid. What can {mere} man do to me?
PSA 94:11Â The Lord knows the thoughts of man, That they are a {mere} breath.
In the Hebrew language, when the distinction is made between the three persons of the Trinity, when one person is discussed in distinction with others, He is identified by the sacred Tetragrammaton – JHWH
Greek –
Theos – the Father;
Pneuma – God the Spirit; Iesous Christos – the Son,
Kurios as His title of royalty, battlefield royalty, His third title of royalty.
None of the uses of the name of God, whether in the Old Testament or the New Testament, in any way conflict with the concept of the unity and equality of the Godhead, or the oneness of God, nor the distinction of persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
The Bible does not seek to prove the essence of God; it simply assumes it to be true.
Point 2. Understanding the Essence of God is Necessary to Understand the Theology of God’s Perfect Plan.
God is sovereign.
Sovereignty means that God is supreme in rule and has authority over all things.
DEU 4:39Â “Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other.”
1SA 2:6-8 “The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and rich; He brings low, He also exalts.” He raises the poor from the dust, He lifts the needy from the ash heap To make them sit with nobles, And inherit a seat of honor; For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, And He set the world on them.”
ISA 46:10Â From the very beginning telling you what the ending will be, All along letting you in on what is going to happen, Assuring you, “I’m in this for the long haul, I’ll do exactly what I set out to do,”
1TI 2:4 where He desires all men to be saved and to come unto the epignosis knowledge of the truth.
The very fact that all men are not saved and that all believers do not come unto the epignosis knowledge of the truth reveals that although God is sovereign He will not violate or coerce human volition.
All three members of the Trinity are ascribed sovereignty, the Father, PSA 83:18, the Son,
MAT 28:18, and the Holy Spirit, 1CO 12:11.