Doctrine of the Angelic Conflict, part 10 – The personality and essence of God. Psa 33:5; Pro 6:16; 1Jn 4:8.

Title: Doctrine of the Angelic Conflict, part 10 - The personality and essence of God. PSA 33:5; PRO 6:16; 1Jn 4:8.

 

4. The essence of God, angels, and men.

 

Fallen man is incapable, apart from divine illumination, of comprehending the sovereign Creator.

 

The Sovereign will of God met the free will of man at the Cross and through the person and work of Christ provided divine illumination to fallen mankind. This is God’s solution to His fallen witnesses in the AC.

 

Can we understand Him? There’s no point in using the human race as witnesses of God’s +R and +J if we can’t even understand Him.

 

GEN 1:26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

 

GEN 1:27 And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

 

Certainly this is not our physical bodies; John 4:24

 "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

 

Obviously it isn’t our sins or flaws that are in His image, for He didn’t make those, we were created perfect. The permissive will of God allowed the fall. So then while it is not our physical bodies or our sins and flaws, it is our immaterial part or soul or really our personality that is infinitely lower than God’s yet in His image.

 

The human personality possessing intellect, sensibility [awareness of values, morals, and virtues], and will is made infinitely lower, yet in the image of God.

 

Therefore, God possesses infinite intellect, sensibility, and will all in perfection and justice.

 

Therefore, God is personality and in the CA He has given us His Spirit so that we can look into Him deeper than at any other time, 1CO 2:10.

 

God’s intellect must direct, His sensibility must desire, and His will must determine His perfect ends; all three working in perfect harmony.

 

So where finite minded humans may see chaos, God sees perfect harmony as He personally directs, allows, prevents, blesses, and judges and His good pleasure will be accomplished.

 

There can be no personality, either human, angelic, or divine, apart from this complex of essentials.

 

As the believer discovers more of God’s personality there will be variations that he did not anticipate, but that is to be expected. Just because God and mankind have personalities in a common image does not mean that the direction, desire, and end goals of both God and man are always going to be identical, in fact, we see and expect the opposite. Man did not make the image of God.

 

God has omniscience through which He decrees angelic and human history yet God’s program for history seldom lines up with man’s expectations. Yet the fact that man and God and angel have intellect does not change because of the substance of it.

 

By the cosmological argument [cause and effect] we see that the Creator has self-determining will.

 

By the teleological argument [the presence of order, design, and function] we see that the Creator possesses mental powers which design and determine means to an end.

 

And by the anthropological argument [the constitution of man] we see that the Creator possesses sensibility [awareness of values, morals, and virtues].

 

To this the Scriptures bear plentiful testimony. This witness of the Bible is that man, angels, and God are all possessed with those essential elements which together constitute personality.

 

Of God it is declared that He is intelligent or omniscient, PSA 147:5; ACT 15:18; HEB 4:13.

 

Ps 147:5 Great is our Lord, and abundant in strength;

His understanding is infinite [without number].

 

Acts 15:18

Says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.

 

HEB 4:13

And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

 

In like manner, it is declared of God that He possesses sensibility [awareness of values, morals, and virtues], PSA 11:7; 33:5; PRO 6:16; 1Jn 4:8.

 

Ps 11:7 For the Lord is righteous;

He loves righteousness;

The upright will behold His face.

 

Ps 33:5 He loves righteousness and justice;

The earth is full of the lovingkindness of the Lord.

 

Keep Lucifer’s fall in mind as you read these since each applies to his opposition to God.

 

Prov 6:16 There are six things which the Lord hates,

Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:

 

Prov 6:17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,

And hands that shed innocent blood,

 

Prov 6:18 A heart that devises wicked plans,

Feet that run rapidly to evil,

 

Prov 6:19 A false witness who utters lies,

And one who spreads strife among brothers.

 

His infinite love has moved Him to the supreme sacrifice by which redemption is provided for fallen man. “God is love” (1 John 4:16).

 

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

 

1 John 4:8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

 

1 John 4:9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

 

1 John 4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

 

And finally, the element of will is seen to be present in God, PSA 115:3; ISA 46:10; DAN 4:35.

 

Ps 115:3 But our God is in the heavens [exalted and supreme];

He does whatever He pleases.

 

ISA 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning

And from ancient times things which have not been done,

Saying,'My purpose will be established,

And I will accomplish all My good pleasure';

 

DAN 4:35 [Nebuchadnezzar after Lycanthropy]

"And all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,

But He does according to His will in the host of heaven

And among the inhabitants of earth;

And no one can ward off His hand

Or say to Him, 'What hast Thou done?'

 

Bearing on the fact of the personality of God, Dr. John Miley states: “If God is not a personal being, the result must be either atheism or pantheism. It matters little which. The dark and deadly implications are much the same. There is no God with self-consciousness or the power of rational and moral self-determination, no personal divine agency in the universe. A blind, necessitated force is the original of all. The existence of the world and the heavens is without reason or end. There is no reason for the existence of man, no rational or moral end. God has no interest in him, no rational or moral rule over him. The universal sense of moral obligation and responsibility must be pronounced a delusion. There should be an end of worship, for there is wanting a truly worshipful being. All that remains is the dark picture of a universe without divine teleology or providence” (Systematic Theology, 1, 173).

 

This personality is ascribed to each member of the Trinity, all co-equal and co-eternal. Together they are the one true God who has ever sought to reveal Himself to man, not as an influence or blind force, but as a living Person with whom man may hold communion.

 

Communion:

 

Because God created man in His own image it was possible for God to become a man, which was to lower Himself from rich to poor and from Sovereign to obedient slave.

 

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 

God has a personality and that personality was made incarnate in the humanity of Christ. Therefore, it was Christ that revealed that man could share in some of the very attributes of God. Some, but not all, since man can never be Sovereign, omnipresent, infinite, eternal [man can be imputed with EL, but he can never be self-existent], or immutable.

 

However man can be righteous and just. He can love with God’s love. He can have God’s power - a portion of omnipotence, as well as God’s wisdom - a portion of omniscience. And, man can share in God’s truth as we have the word and the word became flesh.

 

How can God share these wonderful things with fallen man? Man must be regenerated, his sins must be wiped clean, and he must be given a system by which he can continually cleanse himself from his unavoidable personal acts of sin.

 

God found a way to do this through the person of Jesus Christ; God the Son in the form of a man. He is true humanity and undiminished deity in one person forever.

 

His body must be the one true sacrifice for sin through the blood of His cross - His substitutionary spiritual death.

 

When He said tetelestai, the veil was torn and now whosoever could confidently approach what the cherubs once guarded - the mercy seat, the tree of life, the shekinah glory.  

 

What He completed opened the door for us to be complete in Him both in position and experience.

 

We studied this week that personality has intellect, sensibility, and will. Therefore, Jesus Christ has these in both natures. In His deity they are infinite but in His humanity He denied certain aspects of His nature. Which did He deny completely? The same as the ones that we have no hope of attaining - sovereignty, omnipresence, infinity, self-existing or eternal [virgin birth], and immutability [he grew in wisdom and in stature].

 

He became like us so that He could bring us to God in relationship of our personality and God’s personality.

 

His intellect:the Law, the prophets, the writings, the history of Israel and the nations - a portion of omniscience and veracity.

 

His sensibility:virtue love, righteousness, and justice.

 

His will:the omnipotence that is in the plan of God comprised of BD and the FHS.

 

Jesus asked the Father for the same ministry of God the Holy Spirit to be given to us as He Himself enjoyed, as well as the same plan that He Himself submitted to.

 

He became like us so that He could bring us into relationship with Himself of our personality and His personality as close as a bride is to her husband and in His body He destroyed our old husband, which was the flesh or the OSN.

 

No two people have identical personalities, but every member of the Church can have these characteristics of Christ’s personality. The wisdom, the love, the righteousness, the justice, and the power that was Christ’s has now been shared with every believer in Him.

 

However, under the unchangeable and perfect Justice of God, He had to substitute unspeakable and unknowable misery for His perfect personality that habitually and without interruption, gave Him perfect joy.

 

HEB 12:2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

 

Be concentrating on Jesus, the Prince Ruler and completer of doctrine, who instead of His present happiness endured the cross, having disregarded the disgrace, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. [HEB 12:2, corrected translation]

 

Jesus Christ had his personality taken away, His fellowship with the Father and His own deity taken away for three hours  as He hung nailed to a Roman cross, while He was judged for everything in you that was in opposition to God.

 

And when it all was restored to Him the veil was torn and His very personality [intellect, sensibility, and will] was offered to you.

 

It is no wonder that no matter what we are studying, we are always asked to return to this table in remembrance since His cross pertains to every doctrine that we study and being here, at His table of bread and wine, we are reminded of the reason that anything good has been offered to us.

 

1 Cor 11:24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." 

 

1 Cor 11:25 In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." 

 

1 Cor 11:26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.