1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,506 All right, so moving forward, Christ is the revelation of God. We learn about God in Christ 2 00:00:06,506 --> 00:00:12,445 and we see what God is about when we see Christ. We also talk about the attributes of God. 3 00:00:12,645 --> 00:00:19,552 So let's do that here because this is a traditional thing to do in a, talking about God. The attributes 4 00:00:19,552 --> 00:00:29,062 of God. What is God like? What do we know? How do you know anything about God? What do 5 00:00:29,062 --> 00:00:35,969 you know anything about God? He's had to tell you, right? Anything we know because He's 6 00:00:35,969 --> 00:00:40,407 made Himself known. Everything is based on revelation. Maybe it's from general revelation, 7 00:00:40,707 --> 00:00:44,811 more likely from specific revelation, but He's got to show Himself. And the height of 8 00:00:44,811 --> 00:00:50,050 God's self-disclosure is, of course, Christ. So what we know about God is what we see in 9 00:00:50,050 --> 00:00:54,387 Christ. So the attributes of God really are growing out of what we understand of God. 10 00:00:55,488 --> 00:00:59,225 Now, there are lots of ways to talk about the attributes of God. A small catechism does 11 00:00:59,225 --> 00:01:02,829 it. And so that's just ticking off the list. And there are lots of ways we can do this 12 00:01:02,829 --> 00:01:07,033 and we can start thinking about how we understand the attributes of God. You can categorize 13 00:01:07,033 --> 00:01:13,006 them into positive, negative. You can categorize them into human traits versus divine traits. 14 00:01:13,139 --> 00:01:16,509 Things that we see glimpses of in humanity and things we don't see glimpses of. There 15 00:01:16,509 --> 00:01:19,712 are lots of ways of categorizing them. It really doesn't matter. But the main thing 16 00:01:19,712 --> 00:01:26,686 is we want to realize is when we're thinking about God and His attributes is God's self-revelation 17 00:01:26,686 --> 00:01:32,625 showing Himself to us. So we start making some of the attributes. And we'll do ours. 18 00:01:32,759 --> 00:01:38,965 Let's just talk about what God – God sorts of things versus things we'll see also in 19 00:01:38,965 --> 00:01:44,637 humanity. For example, goodness. That would be listed over here. Is God good? Yeah, He's 20 00:01:44,637 --> 00:01:48,808 ultimately good. Will you see glimpses of God's goodness in humanity? Yeah, glimpses. 21 00:01:50,610 --> 00:01:57,250 Glimpses. Omniscience. Okay? That one also kind of comes over here because we know things. 22 00:01:57,817 --> 00:02:03,690 God knows it better. All right? And God's the peak of it. And we can have a few others 23 00:02:03,690 --> 00:02:12,332 we might list over here. Omnipotence. Which of course means what? All powerful. Okay? 24 00:02:12,332 --> 00:02:19,072 And, yeah, people have the ability to do things. God's got the most. There are also 25 00:02:19,072 --> 00:02:25,011 though attributes that only God has. Oh, another one over here might be love. Okay? There are 26 00:02:25,011 --> 00:02:29,382 attributes that only God has. One of the things that would be the most important is that God 27 00:02:29,382 --> 00:02:34,954 is simple. The simplicity of God. And we'll spend some time on this. What does it mean 28 00:02:34,954 --> 00:02:46,332 to say that God is simple? What we're saying is that God is not the sum of His parts. And 29 00:02:46,332 --> 00:02:50,270 this is where we have to be really careful because even the catechism falls into this 30 00:02:50,270 --> 00:02:57,677 trap where we tend to kind of make the list good, omnipotent, loving, holy, almighty, 31 00:02:58,244 --> 00:03:04,017 eternal. Okay? Now there's another one. Actually that one belongs way over here. Eternal. Only 32 00:03:04,017 --> 00:03:08,288 God is eternal. Only God is holy. So these things are not underneath the human category. 33 00:03:08,655 --> 00:03:11,624 These things are human because we can have glimpses of them or tastes of them in our 34 00:03:11,624 --> 00:03:17,463 own life. These things, no way. Only God has His stuff. But we have the sense that, okay, 35 00:03:17,730 --> 00:03:22,702 add all of these things up. Just. That one does go over here. God's justice. Add them 36 00:03:22,702 --> 00:03:33,246 all up. That's God. That's wrong. Because God is simply God. We call that a topology. 37 00:03:34,180 --> 00:03:43,590 Run across that word yet? Okay. A topology is a statement in a language where you're 38 00:03:43,590 --> 00:03:48,995 simply saying what is self-evident. Two is two. But how do you express it any differently? 39 00:03:48,995 --> 00:03:53,700 It's just the way it is. Okay? A topology. It's just axiomatic, we would say. It's just 40 00:03:53,700 --> 00:03:59,639 fundamental the way it is. So God is God. You're not saying much here, but you're saying 41 00:03:59,639 --> 00:04:05,511 a lot. Because what we mean is this. You don't take all of the different things, add them 42 00:04:05,511 --> 00:04:08,982 up, and now you have God. Because what you've done is you've made God in your own image 43 00:04:08,982 --> 00:04:15,154 by doing that. And Kolb talks frequently about a guy named Ludwig Feuerbach who lived in 44 00:04:15,154 --> 00:04:19,826 the middle of the 19th century. And Feuerbach was very concerned that all that God was was 45 00:04:19,826 --> 00:04:25,465 a man's projection of his highest aspirations and he named it God. And it's very tempting 46 00:04:25,465 --> 00:04:30,169 when we start doing the attributes thing, all the very best. The best in the world. 47 00:04:30,470 --> 00:04:35,508 Most just. Most wise. Most powerful. Most loving. Most holy. Most eternal. That's God. 48 00:04:36,175 --> 00:04:42,515 But see we've made God what we think he should be. God in fact is simply God. And the simplicity 49 00:04:42,515 --> 00:04:48,554 of God means he is not the sum of his parts. He's just all these things at once. All the 50 00:04:48,554 --> 00:04:54,460 attributes do is they point to aspects of God's reality that we encounter when he deals 51 00:04:54,460 --> 00:05:00,400 with us. And so when God comes to Moses and he knows everything, we say, whoa, omniscience. 52 00:05:01,301 --> 00:05:08,541 And when God does his ten plagues thing to Egypt we say, whoa, power, omnipotence. And 53 00:05:08,541 --> 00:05:12,478 we start identifying the things we see in God by him doing his things in his revelation. 54 00:05:13,012 --> 00:05:19,952 But in reality God's simply God. He is all of this stuff all at once. And he's not the 55 00:05:19,952 --> 00:05:26,492 sum of his parts. He's just God. That's what we mean by the simplicity of God. And the 56 00:05:26,492 --> 00:05:34,434 reality is that God is not us. We don't work on the same categories with God. He's wholly 57 00:05:34,434 --> 00:05:41,708 other. He doesn't follow our rules. He doesn't play our games. He's just God. He's the creator. 58 00:05:42,642 --> 00:05:46,346 We're the creation. And that's one of the most important distinctions we need to make. 59 00:05:48,047 --> 00:05:55,254 God's the creator. We are the creation. He makes us. And now we are simply living as 60 00:05:55,254 --> 00:06:04,030 his creatures. The gulf between creator and creation is immeasurable. He's God. That's 61 00:06:04,030 --> 00:06:10,269 what one of my colleagues likes to say. God's God and you're not. And only he is God. We're 62 00:06:10,269 --> 00:06:20,913 creatures. So we need to keep that in mind. All right. Okay. So some of these characteristics, 63 00:06:21,047 --> 00:06:25,685 these attributes grow out of some of the Greek world in which they were shaped. That's fine. 64 00:06:25,952 --> 00:06:29,756 We might have others we would add to the list. It's okay too. There's no like definitive 65 00:06:29,756 --> 00:06:33,192 list of the attributes of God, even though the small catechism makes it seem that way. 66 00:06:34,227 --> 00:06:38,598 Keep in mind also when I'm denigrating the small catechism as I admittedly have just 67 00:06:38,598 --> 00:06:43,736 done, I'm not running down Luther's contribution. You are all fully aware of the fact how much 68 00:06:43,736 --> 00:06:51,444 of this did Luther write? He wrote about eight pages. All the rest is written by a committee 69 00:06:51,444 --> 00:06:58,384 down at CPH over countless hundreds of years of fine tuning. So the part that Luther did 70 00:06:58,384 --> 00:07:04,824 ends after here. That's Luther's contribution. All the questions and answers, that's just 71 00:07:04,824 --> 00:07:10,229 done by a committee downtown. Okay? So there's nothing sacred about it. It's helpful and 72 00:07:10,229 --> 00:07:17,870 it's good, but it's not sacred. Even Luther's is wow. No, yeah, it probably is. Would Luther's 73 00:07:17,870 --> 00:07:22,175 part rise to the level of sacred? Well, pretty close. So in other words, Luther just did 74 00:07:22,175 --> 00:07:25,945 the six chief parts. The catechism and the commandments in their meeting, the creed in 75 00:07:25,945 --> 00:07:30,483 the meetings, the three articles, the petitions in their meetings, and then the questions 76 00:07:30,483 --> 00:07:34,420 for baptism, Lord's Supper, and confession absolution. That's Luther's contribution. 77 00:07:34,587 --> 00:07:39,325 And the table of duties, he edited those scripture verses. That's it. Everything else in the 78 00:07:39,325 --> 00:07:43,596 small catechism, a little blue, was just done by, well started by Dietrich and then others 79 00:07:43,596 --> 00:07:47,633 down through the ages have fine tuned it and nuanced it. And the latest revision was back 80 00:07:47,633 --> 00:07:51,604 in the 80s I think when they redid the whole thing and putting stuff on abortion and homosexuality, 81 00:07:51,604 --> 00:07:56,375 which wasn't in the one I went through. And so that's not Luther. None of that's Luther. 82 00:07:56,876 --> 00:08:00,947 So even the attributes discussion, Luther had his discussions about this. But see there's 83 00:08:00,947 --> 00:08:05,852 nothing sacred about the number of attributes or how we list them. We're just simply trying 84 00:08:05,852 --> 00:08:10,289 to give expression to what we know about God because he's revealed Himself to us. But ultimately 85 00:08:10,289 --> 00:08:16,696 he's not the sum of his attributes. He's just God. Okay? Just God. See another one of his 86 00:08:16,696 --> 00:08:23,870 attributes. Eternal. What does it mean to say God's eternal? No beginning, no end. We're 87 00:08:23,870 --> 00:08:30,510 not that. You and I have a beginning. Mine was nine months before December 11th, you 88 00:08:30,510 --> 00:08:35,615 know, whenever it was. I have a marked beginning when I started. God doesn't. No beginning, 89 00:08:35,748 --> 00:08:40,820 no end. That's pretty incomprehensible. Another one we talk about with God is we say that 90 00:08:40,820 --> 00:08:49,562 God has, is aseity, which means doesn't change. Doesn't change. Or going along with that would 91 00:08:49,562 --> 00:08:59,805 be immutable. Unchanging. Stays the same. Aseity is untouched by emotions. He's not 92 00:08:59,805 --> 00:09:05,745 feeling emotions up and down kind of stuff. Now some of these attributes give us problems. 93 00:09:06,379 --> 00:09:11,884 Because like for example the attribute of immutable or of aseity, not feeling, does 94 00:09:11,884 --> 00:09:21,727 that fit with what you see in the Bible? Yeah, there's a problem here. You know, Moses has 95 00:09:21,727 --> 00:09:27,333 his conversations with God. What about Abraham and the whole Sodom and Gomorrah thing? God 96 00:09:27,333 --> 00:09:31,904 says we're going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. And Abraham says, oh you can't. And he bargains 97 00:09:31,904 --> 00:09:40,146 him down to ten. But God changes his mind? Kind of looks that way. And so, you know, 98 00:09:40,413 --> 00:09:44,317 but wait a minute. He's immutable. He doesn't change. So these things create problems. Some 99 00:09:44,317 --> 00:09:49,889 of these attributes actually grew out of Greek thought more than Christian thought. Aristotle 100 00:09:49,889 --> 00:09:55,728 was the one who had the unmoved mover. And so for him, immutability and aseity were absolutes 101 00:09:55,728 --> 00:10:00,700 about God. But some of these ideas about these attributes really have more history in the 102 00:10:00,700 --> 00:10:05,404 Greek thought than in scriptural thought. So when we talk about the immutability of 103 00:10:05,404 --> 00:10:09,775 God, usually you go to the reference that says I am the Lord, I change not. All right, 104 00:10:09,775 --> 00:10:14,614 so God doesn't change. Well what's that really mean? Does that mean it doesn't respond to 105 00:10:14,614 --> 00:10:18,751 our prayers? Because if he responds to our prayer, then he's changing. And you have even 106 00:10:18,751 --> 00:10:23,990 bigger problems. Because if he becomes human at the incarnation, hasn't he just added something 107 00:10:23,990 --> 00:10:29,929 to the Godhead? Yeah, he has. That seems to imply change. So what do we mean by immutable? 108 00:10:29,929 --> 00:10:36,135 And probably the best way to understand immutability is that God's character is unchanging. He's 109 00:10:36,135 --> 00:10:40,506 not fickle. He doesn't show love one time and not love another time. No, his character 110 00:10:40,506 --> 00:10:46,379 is unchanging. So the attributes of God are traditional kind of a, we like to dig into 111 00:10:46,379 --> 00:10:50,216 these and spend a lot of time, but I'm saying probably it's not that valuable to do that 112 00:10:50,216 --> 00:10:55,554 much. They have their value to a point, but they're not the end all here. The simplicity 113 00:10:55,554 --> 00:11:00,226 of God, God's just God. He does his thing. Does his God thing.