IIb. “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.
