The Great Doctrines of the Bible - Rev. William Evans (summer reading list .TXT) 📗

then had thy peace have been as a river,” etc. God knows what our lives would have been if only we had acted and decided differently.

dd) God has a perfect knowledge of all that transpires in human history.

With what precision are national changes and destinies foretold and depicted in Dan. 2 and 8! Acts 15:18—“Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world (ages).” In the context surrounding this verse are clearly set forth the religious changes that were to characterize the generations to come, the which have been so far literally, though not fully, fulfilled.

ee) God knows—from, all eternity to all eternity what will take place.

The ominiscience of God is abduced as the proof that He alone is God, especially as contrasted with the gods (idols) of the heathen: Isa. 48:5-8—“I have even from the beinning declared it unto thee; before it came to pass I showed it thee…..I have showed thee new things from this time, even hidden things,” etc. 46:9, 10—“I am God….declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.” Here God is announcing to His prophets things that are to occur in the future which it is impossible for the human understanding to know or reach. There is no past, present, future with God. Everything is one great living present. We are like a man standing by a river in a low place, and who, consequently, can see that part of the river only that passes by him; but he who is aloof in the air may see the whole course of the river, how it rises, and how it runs. Thus is it with God.

(2) Certain problems in connection with the doctrine of the Omniscienc of God.

How the divine intelligence can comprehend so vast and multitudinous and exhaustless a number of things must forever surpass our comprehension. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” (Rom. 11:33). “There is no searching of his understanding; it is beyond human computation.” We must expect, therefore, to stand amazed in the presence of such matchless wisdom, and find problems in connection therewith which must for the time, at least, remain unsolved.

Again, we must not confound the foreknowledge of God with His foreordination. The two things are, in a sense, distinct. The fact that God foreknows a thing makes that thing certain but not necessary. His foreordination is based upon His foreknowledge. Pharaoh was responsible for the hardening of his heart even though that hardening process was foreknown and foretold by God. The actions of men are considered certain but not necessary by reason of the divine foreknowledge.

b) The Omnipotence of God.

The Omnipotence of God is that attribute by which He can bring to pass everything which He wills. God’s power admits of no bounds or limitations. God’s declaration of His intention is the pledge of the thing intended being carried out. “Hath he said, and shall he not do it?”

(1) Scriptural declarations of the fact; In general:

Job 42:2.(R. V.)—“I know that thou canst do everything (all things), and that no purpose of thine can be restrained.” The mighty review of all God’s works as it passes before Job (context) brings forth this confession: “There is no resisting thy might, and there is no purpose thou canst not carry out.” Gen. 18:14—“Is anything too hard for the Lord?” What had ceased to be possible by natural means comes to pass by supernatural means.

(2) Scriptural declaration of the fact; In detail:

aa) In the world of nature:

Gen. 1:1-3—“God created the heaven and the earth. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.” Thus “he spake and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast.” He does not need even to give His hand to the work; His word is sufficient. Psa. 107:25-29—“He raiseth the stormy wind … he maketh the storm calm.” “Even the winds and the sea obey him.” God’s slightest word, once uttered, is a standing law to which all nature must absolutely conform. Nahum 1:5, 6—“The mountains quake at him … the hills melt … the earth is burned at his presence … the rocks are thrown down by him.” If such is His power how shall Assyria withstand it? This is God’s comforting message to Israel. Everything in the sky, in sea, on earth is absolutely subject to His control.

bb) In the experience of mankind:

How wonderfully this is illustrated in the experience of Nebuchadnezzar, Dan. 4; and in the conversion of Saul, Acts 9; as well as in the case of Pharaoh, Exod. 4:11. James 4:12-15—” … For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that.” All human actions, whether present or future, are dependent upon the will and power of God. These things are in God’s, not in man’s, power. See also the parable of the Rich Fool, Luke 12:16-21.

cc) The heavenly inhabitants are subject to His will and word:

Dan. 4:35 (R. V.)—“He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven.” Heb. 1:14—“Are they (angels) not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” It has been said that angels are beings created by the power of God for some specific act of service, and that after that act of service is rendered they pass out of existence.

dd) Even Satan is under the control of God

Satan has no power over any of God’s children saving as God permits him to have. This fact is clearly established in the case of Job (1:12 and 2:6). and Peter (Luke 22:31,32), in which we are told that Satan had petitioned God that he might sift the self-righteous patriarch and the impulsive apostle. Finally Satan is to be forever bound with a great chain (Rev. 20:2). God can set a bar to the malignity of Satan just as he can set a bar to the waves of the sea.

c) The Omnipresence of God.

By the Omnipresence of God is meant that God is everywhere present. This attribute is closely connected with the omniscience and omnipotence of God, for if God is everywhere present He is everywhere active and possesses full knowledge of all that transpires in every place.

This does not mean that God is everywhere present in a bodily sense, nor even in the same sense; for there is a sense in which He may be in heaven, His dwelling place, in which He cannot be said to be elsewhere. We must guard against the pantheistic idea which claims that God is everything, while maintaining the Scriptural doctrine that He is everywhere present in all things. Pantheism emphasizes the omnipresent activity of God, but denies His personality. Those holding the doctrine of pantheism make loud claims to philosophic ability and high intellectual training, but is it not remarkable that it is in connection with this very phase of the doctrine of God that the Apostle Paul says “they became fools”? (Rom. 1.) God is everywhere and in every place; His center is everywhere; His circumference nowhere. But this presence is a spiritual and not a material presence; yet it is a real presence.

(1) Scriptural statement of the fact.

Jer. 23:23, 24-“Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.” Did the false prophets think that they could hide their secret crimes from God? Or that He could not pursue them into foreign countries? Or that He knew what was transpiring in heaven only and not upon the earth, and even in its most distant corners? It was false for them to thus delude themselves—their sins would be detected and punished (Psa. 10:1-14).

Psa. 139:7-12—“Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence,” etc. How wondrously the attributes of God are grouped in this psalm. In vv. 1-6 the psalmist speaks of the omniscience of God: God knows him through and through. In vv. 13-19 it is the omnipotence of God which overwhelms the psalmist. The omnipresence of God is set forth in vv. 7-12. The psalmist realizes that he is never out of the sight of God any more than he is outside of the range of His knowledge and power. God is in heaven; “Hell is naked before Him”; souls in the intermediate state are fully known to Him (cf. Job 26:2; Jonah 2:2); the darkness is as the light to Him. Job 22:12-14—“Is not God in the height of heaven? … . Can he judge through the dark cloud? Thick clouds are a covering to him that he seeth not,” etc. All agreed that God displayed His presence in the heaven, but Job had inferred from this that God could not know and did not take notice of such actions of men as were hidden behind the intervening clouds. Not that Job was atheistic; no, but probably denied to God the attribute of omnipresence and omniscience. Acts 17:24-28—“For in him we live, and move, and have our being.” Without His upholding hand we must perish; God is our nearest environment. From these and many other scriptures we are clearly taught that God is everywhere present and acting; there is no place where God is not.

This does not mean that God is everywhere present in the same sense. For we are told that He is in heaven, His dwelling-place (1 Kings 8:30); that Christ is at His right hand in heaven (Eph. 1:20); that God’s throne is in heaven (Rev. 21:2; Isa. 66:1).

We may summarize the doctrine of the Trinity thus: God the Father is specially manifested in heaven; God the Son has been specially manifested on the earth; God the Spirit is manifested everywhere.

Just as the soul is present in every part of the body so God is present in every part of the world.

(2) Some practical inferences from this doctrine.

First, of Comfort: The nearness of God to the believer. “Speak to Him then for He listens. And spirit with spirit can meet; Closer is He than breathing, And nearer than hands or feet.”

“God is never so far off, As even to be near; He is within. Our spirit is the home He holds most dear. To think of Him as by our side is almost as untrue, As to remove His shrine beyond those skies of starry blue.”—_Faber._ The omnipresence is not only a detective truth—it is protective also. After dwelling on this great and awful attribute in Psalm 139, the psalmist, in vv. 17, 18, exclaims: “How precious are thy thoughts to me….. When I awake I am still with thee.” By this is meant that God stands by our side to help, and as One who loves and understands us (Matt.

28:20).

 

Second, of Warning: “As in the Roman empire the whole world was one great prison to a malefactor, and in his flight to the most distant lands the emperor could track him, so under the government of God no sinner can escape the eye of the judge.” Thus the omnipresence of God is detective as well as protective. “Thou God seest me,” should serve as warning to keep us from sin.

d) The Eternity and Immutability of God.

The word eternal is used in two senses in the Bible: figuratively, as denoting existence which may have a beginning, but will have no end, e. g., angels, the