What We Believe: God (Part 2)

“God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience.”

In revealing His name to Moses, God chose to use “I AM.” That name expresses the infinity of His existence, for God always was, is, and always will be. Because God “is,” everything that He is also is infinite. This statement singles out His holiness, an attribute that tells us why sin cannot endure in His presence. Since God is infinitely holy, all sin is an infinite offense against His very person. This has implications for some of the doctrines we will see later in this statement of faith.

Although this article doesn’t spell out all of God’s attributes, it does state that all of them are infinite perfections. We see here a statement about God’s power and knowledge. The theological terms we use for these are “omnipotence” (all-powerful) and “omniscience” (all-knowing). Since He possesses these infinite attributes, God knows all things in all times. We don’t know exactly how God interacts with time; He created it, and stands outside of what we call “history,” yet He also chooses to act in that history. I like the way this article presents both sides of the ongoing debate over God’s sovereignty and human will, by stating what I believe is the Biblical teaching that our decisions are free, yet God knows from all eternity exactly what those decisions are.

There are many others attributes of God that are not listed in this article. In my next post, I will list and define some of these attributes. What is said here is that whatever God is and whatever He is like, He is the perfect expression of that attribute. He has always been and always will be who and what He is. Some contemporary theologians suggest that God changes along with His creation, and that He interacts with humanity so that we progress together to the ultimate goal of the universe. The Bible, however, presents us with an eternal, unchanging God, giving us grounds to trust that He will always be who He is when we come to Him, and that He will be faithful to His word.

Because God is infinite in holiness, power, and knowledge (not to mention everything we’ll look at later), He is not only worthy of our praise, but is owed our praise. One day every creature will indeed bow their knee to Him (Philippians 2:10-11), but it is the duty of every one to honor and glorify their Creator. It is also our duty to obey God. I am teaching on Psalm 119 at my church right now, and throughout that psalm we see the benefits of reading, knowing, studying, and obeying the Word of God. We are free to choose to disobey, however, but all disobedience is not only breaking God’s law, but rejecting our relationship to our Creator.

Certainly we understand that we don’t always obey God perfectly, and that growing to be like Christ is a lifelong process. As we get to know God better, and more fully understand who He is and what He is like, we should find it easier to give Him the honor and obedience He is due. Looking at our lives, we need to evaluate if we are learning to know God better, loving Him more, and honoring and obeying Him more consistently. Our knee should bow willingly, not under compulsion, as we see the infinite perfection of our God.