GOD DISPLAYS PERSONALITY

GOD IS FREE, SELF-CONSCIOUS, EMOTIONAL

 

It has been clearly established in the Scriptures that God is spirit (John 4:24), and that personality is grounded in and centers in spirit. Certain qualities of spirit display personality, such as life, intelligence, purpose, and activity. But in addition there are three qualities that Christians in general and theologians in particular are convinced belong to God, which qualities dis­play personality. These three are self-determination, self-consciousness, and emotion.

Inasmuch as man has been made in the image of God, and these three qualities are not only present in men but also distinguish them from the impersonal, it is a valid conclusion that these very qualities must be present in God. But the validity for this conclusion does not rest on mere human reason. Divine revelation also makes clear statements to this effect. God is self-determining, for "he works all things after the counsel of his own will" (Eph. 1:11). God is self-conscious, for He recognizes the existence of Himself and refers to Him­self as "I AM" (Exod. 3:14). And God is emotional, for He is moved by love for the object of His affection and by anger at sin (Hosea 14:4).

GOD IS ACTIVE

GOD IS ACTIVE

 

 

 

At this point another attribute in that collection of qualities that go to make up personality, namely, that GOD IS ACTIVE, must be discussed. God is not merely "living," and therefore potentially able to do things, but God actu­ally does do things. Activity is a mark and function of life and personality. Critics have complained that God does not do anything. But quite contrary to such affirmations, the Bible presents God as a God who is continually active,

The opening chapters of the Bible clearly picture God as a God of activity. He is described as one who is exercised in the actual performance of deeds. He "created" (Gen. 1:1, 21, 27; 2:4), "moved" (Gen. 1:2), "said" (Gen. 1:3), "divided" (Gen. 1:4), "made" (Gen. 1:16, 25, 31: 2:22), "set"

(Gen. 1:17), "work" (Gen. 2:2, 3), "Formed" (Gen. 2:7), and "planted" (Gen.2:8). To Him is ascribed the expulsion from the garden of Eden (Gen. 3:23-24), the overthrow of the flood (Gen. 6:17), the confusion of tongues at Babel (Gen.11:7-8), the overthrow of the cities of the plain (Gen. 19:24-25), the conception of Isaac (Gen. 21:1-2), the protection of Joseph in Egypt (Gen. 50:20), the judgment of the ten plagues on Egypt (Exod. 11:1; 12:29), the deliverance of Israel at the Red Sea (Exod. 14:27,30), the great works of the Lord through the 40 years in the wilderness (Heb. 3:9). One could go on and on, recounting the deeds of the Lord that bear testimony to the fact that God possesses the attribute of activity.

But it is important at this point to outline the principle of this attri­bute in relation to the activity of God. Creation stands as the monumental symbol of God's activity in the past (Psa. 8:3; 19:1-4). But that activity of God is finished (Gen. 1:31-2:1). However, it is the work of preservation which God has been pursuing ever since creation (Neh. 9:6). This aspect of God's work covers the material and moral creation. This is what Christ referred to when He defended His miracle of healing before the Jews. "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work" (John 5:17).

In relation to the world of material things, God is constantly carrying on a work of preservation so that they will continue to exist (Acts 17:28). God upholds all things by the word of His power (Heb. 1:3). God holds the soul in life (Psa. 66:9). When Christ was confronted with a man born blind, He was reminded that preservation as a work of God was sufficient justification for restoring the sight to this man (John 9:1-4).

But sin wrought havoc in the moral order, so that the work of God in salvation was initiated and has been in progress as a part of the activity of God. This work is centered in Christ (Matt. 1:23). He came to do the will of the Father and to finish His work (John 4:34). The works that the Father gave Him to do bear testimony to His origin (John 5:36). This work was for the central purpose of leading men to believe on Him, that they might have everlasting life, and that He might raise them up at the last day (John 6:39-40). With a cry of triumph, "It is finished," His substitutionary work was performed (John 19:30), and He rose from the grave as evidence of His identity (Rom. 1:4), and the value of His atonement for believers (1 Cor. 15:17). God is today working in believers by means of the indwelling Spirit (John 14:23), so that Christ dwells in them (Gal. 2:20), and they experience regeneration (Phil. 1:6). Their daily life of willing and doing is actually a result of God working in them (Phil.2:12-13).

Obviously, there is much more in the work of God in the present and in the future, depicting the fact that He is active.

GOD IS PURPOSIVE

GOD IS PURPOSIVE

 

The Bible further declares that GOD IS PURPOSIVE. This is another aspect of the personality of God. This fact is not only implicit through­out the entire fabric of Scripture, but it is also clearly declared in passage after passage.

1. The Biblical testimony is abounding. Some passages make a clear declaration. "This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?" (Isa. 14:26-27). "And we know that all things work to­gether for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28). "According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Eph. 3:11).

In expressing this fact, the Scriptures do not always use the word purpose. But there are many other words that express the same idea. In ad­dition to the word purpose (Isa. 46:11), there are the words pleasure (Eph. 1:5, 9), please (1 Cor. 12:18), determine (Acts 17:26), will (Eph. 1:11). But this list does not by any means exhaust the list of words that serve in some way to set forth the idea of purpose.

Since the idea of purpose can be expressed by the relation of words in many ways, it is important to realize that such introductory expressions as "that" (Dan. 4:25, 32), "to the intent that" (Dan. 4:17), and "to" (Eph. 1:6), to say nothing about many like expressions that are also used.

2. Purpose is one of the distinctive marks of personality and is therefore expected as distinguishing God from His creatures, from the brute creation in kind and degree, and from men in degree though not in kind.

Though it may be said of the animal that it has purpose of a kind, yet in the strictest sense of the word it does not possess purpose. Certain natural endowments lead it to make some provision for the future, but its general responses consist of reaction to external stimuli constituting an immediate situation. This falls far short of what is meant by purpose in its highest degree as present in God.

With man purpose begins to approach that in God, at least in kind, though not in degree. Men react not only to the stimuli of an immediate situa­tion, but also to the stimuli of some future goal which exists only within the context of his own mind. This is purpose. But within the mind of man the future goal may be very indistinct and vague, and his moral responses may be dull, so that purpose is limited mentally in conception and by laxity in moral constraint.

Men differ widely from animals in this respect. Both man and ani­mal may be hungry. The animal eats without regard to the essential quality of the substance, without consideration of any ethical values, and without any con­cern for the eventual outcome. But at this point man differs from the animal because of purpose. The man will be concerned for the essential quality of the substance of the food. There may be matters of morality related to eating that he must consider. The eventual outcome of eating may be such that he must measure his eating or perhaps even desist altogether. All this grows out of his concern for a future goal as controlled by purpose, unless perhaps he is like Esau (Gen. 25:29-34).

3. At this point a working definition of purpose is in order. The following is suggested as tentative and generally true. Purpose is the reaction of an intelligent being to some future goal, a goal which exists only in the mind, as if that goal were already present. The God of the Bible is purposive in this personal sense. God has an ideal in His mind for the world and for each one of us. That goal for believers is that they be saintly, and therefore He calls them saints. God reacts to that future goal and treats believers as such in the pre­sent.

In the area of purpose God is the perfect personality. Men never rise completely above the immediate and the temporal. But God always reacts to the stimulus of eternal purpose. Through Peter, believers are urged to display growth in grace, for those who display such virtues are neither barren nor unfruitful. Those who lack such are blind and cannot see afar off. Diligence will make calling and election sure, and will guarantee an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 1:5-11). God reacts to this goal for the believer by exercising long-suffering toward His own in the seeming delay of the return of Christ, so that all may have plenty of time in which to come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:8-9, 15).

GOD IS INTELLIGENT

GOD IS INTELLIGENT

The Bible also makes it clear that GOD IS INTELLIGENT. By this term it is meant that God possesses a mind or the mental capacity for acquir­ing knowledge; that is, He has the ability to think, reason, understand, com­prehend, discern, engage in mental activity, and thus to formulate ideas and communicate those ideas to other beings possessing like faculties. God is said to possess a mind, knowledge, understanding, wisdom. God is said to know things, that He knew things, that they are known to Him.

In analyzing the quality of intelligence in God, five things are affirmed by the Scriptures: mind, knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and words.

1. Mind: the capacity for acquiring information and reflecting upon that information. Early in the Scriptures, this quality of God is affirmed. A man is apprehended for blasphemy of God, that is, the affirmation of untruth a­bout God. So he is put in prison so that the "mind of the Lord" might be re­vealed to him (Lev. 24:12). In the New Testament, several references are made to the mind of the Lord. God knows the "mind of the Spirit," which is all encompassing, and this comes as encouragement to the praying saint (Rom. 8:27). So infinite are the methods and movements of God in salvation that there is no one "who hath known the mind of the Lord" (Rom. 11:34; 1 Cor. 2:16). The Spirit of God alone is capable of searching out the depths of the divine mind (1 Cor. 2:11). It was left to the divine Son to reveal that mind, which mind has been communicated to the believer by the Spirit (Phil. 2:5; 1 Cor. 2:16).

2.       Knowledge: the complete mass of information in possession of the divine mind providing the material upon which God reflects. This is in­finite in extent. In the prayer of Hannah, she ascribes to God the fact that "the Lord is a God of knowledge" (1 Sam. 2:3). The word knowledge is in the plural which is her way of affirming that God's knowledge is infinite, that is, without an end. God is omniscient. He knows everything. Balaam, though earnestly desiring to perform the wish of Balak for hire, found himself arrested by the infinite knowledge of God in his prophecy against Israel (Num. 24:16). Elihu, even in his immaturity, was capable of apprehending in a limited way that God is "perfect in knowledge" (Job 37:16). But it was left to Christ to reveal that in Him "are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:3).

3.       Understanding: the comprehension of information in possession of God as to its precise meaning. God is not a mere depository for vast quan­tities of information. He also knows its qualitative significance. Complete un­derstanding is hidden from all living. Some think it all issues in destruction and death. But "God understands the way thereof, and he knows the place thereof" (Job 28:20-23). It is this quality imparted to man in his creation that enables man to understand (Job 32:8). When filled with the Spirit of God, men are endowed with the quality of understanding to a marked degree. This was true for workmen whom God qualified for special tasks in the building of the tabernacle (Exod. 31:3; 35:31).

4.     Wisdom: the control exercised in the use of knowledge so that it serves a good and useful end. These points to the method God employs in the application of knowledge, so that it accomplishes good for men and ultimately brings glory to Himself. By wisdom God created the heavens and the earth (Prov. 3:19-20). "And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1:31). The creation was not only good in itself, but it was intended for the good of mankind (Gen. 1:28-30). But in the most ultimate sense, His wisdom led Him to create for His own glory (Rev. 4:11). In anticipation of the human possibility of sin, God devised the plan of salvation, the wisdom of which cannot be searched out (Rom. 11:33), and even to the angelic hosts this plan is a manifestation of the manifold wisdom of God (Eph. 3:10). As a part of the method of making this great plan known to men, God in His wisdom sent pro­phets and apostles (Luke 11:49). All this and much more calls for the ascription of praise that He is "the only wise God" (1 Tim. 1:17; Jude 25).

5.     Words: the communication of the message to men from the divine mind. Once mankind was created, and in the image of God, in the very nature of the case it is implicit to the intelligence of God that He would establish a means of communication with intelligent creatures. The highest form of com­munication is words. "For the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding" (Prov. 2:6). "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law" (Deut. 29:29). To Israel, as to no other people, God revealed Himself and His will in words (Deut. 4:32-33). God spoke in times past to the fathers in the prophets and as a result we have the word of God written (Heb. 1:1; 2 Pet. 1:20-21; 2 Tim.3:16). But in a way that perfectly reveals the mind of God, He has spoken in His Son, who is the word of God living (John 1:1, 14, 18).

In modern terms, ideal intelligence involves intuitive knowledge a­part from the tedious steps of logic, reflective thought weighing the facts of knowledge and experience, creative intelligence combining facts into new forms and expressions, and ethical considerations displayed in bringing about the greatest good. All this is true of God to an unlimited and highest degree. God sees all things as they are. He weighs all the facts at one time. He creates an endless variety of new forms. And God always uses His mental activity for good (Job 28:25-28).

Certain practical values grow out of this attribute of God. On the one hand, evil doers are warned to forsake their evil. Inasmuch as God is in­finite in knowledge, there is no indulgence in sin that will escape Him (1 Sam. 2:3). Great comfort comes to the godly, on the other hand, when he realizes that God knows the way that he takes and the end will be for good (Job 23:10).

GOD IS LIVING

GOD IS LIVING

Having established the fact from the Bible that God is spirit, it must be understood that this affirmation is basic to the conception that God is personal. But even though this fact includes all the qualities that constitute personality, spirit extends far beyond personality to include all that God is in His being. And what is even more significant, as spirit God is larger than the sum total of all His attributes.

In fact, even the attributes that men isolate and classify as personal do not exhaust all that God is when it is affirmed that God is personal. Some small approach to this fact may be apprehended when an effort is made to narrow down the meaning of personality in man. What is true of man in finite measure is infinitely so with God. This comparison is appropriate, for man was made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27; 5:1-2; 9:1; 1 Cor. 11:1; Jas. 3:9).

Theologians will vary as to those qualities that should be classified as depicting personality. But certainly, all will agree that the following attributes should be included in this category. In general, conservative theologians will agree that in personality God is living, intelligent, purposive, active, free, self-conscious, and emotional. For this particular article, attention will be centered on the first four attributes of personality: living, intelligent, purposive, active.

By the clear statements of the Bible, GOD IS DECLARED TO BE LIVING. Thirty-one times this categorical statement is made in the Bible. Allusions to this fact, clear implications, and contextual settings of this truth abound within the Scriptures. The first statement appears in the address of Moses to the children of Israel on the plains of Moab, as recorded in the book of Deuter­onomy: "For who is there of all flesh, that hath heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived?" (Deut.5:26). In the same forceful vein, Paul declares this fact: "For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe" (1 Tim. 4:10).

It is the meaning of the fact that God is living that calls for explana­tion. "He is the living God"(Jer. 10:10). He "hath life in himself" (John 5:26). But having made the affirmation, it is almost impossible to explain its mean­ing. Life is a simple idea, but it is incapable of clear definition. Every effort of men falls short of the full significance or the exact meaning involved. Men recognize the presence of life in themselves and are conscious of its importance, but they find themselves lacking in ability to fully comprehend its nature and extent. What is true for man is infinitely true in relation to God. Still, there has been imparted to men some measure of ability to understand intuitively this quality in man and God.

With reference to God, as set forth in the Bible, life is in part simply potential energy or activity directed by God to some purposeful end. God is living in the sense that He is able to do things, things which the non-personal cannot do. In organizing the 31 references of the Bible where God is declared to be living, there are at least eight categories of things which God is able to do as a result of being the living God. He can speak to men (Deut. 5:26). He works miracles (Josh. 3:10; Hos. 1:10; Rom. 9:26). He created and preserves the universe in contradistinction to idols which can do nothing (Jer. 10:10-17; Acts 14:15; 1 Thess. 1:9; 1 Tim. 6:17; 2 Cor. 6:16). God is also able to de­liver from perils and troubles (1 Sam. 17:26, 36; 2 Kings 19:4, 16; Isa. 37:4, 17; Dan 6:20, 26-27). Since God is living, He is able to save from sin and seal from harm (1 Tim. 4:10; Rev. 7:2). He is the kind of God who is able to im­part life (Matt. 16:16; John 6:69; 2 Cor. 3:3; 1 Tim. 3:15; Heb. 9:14). Because He is living, the saints thirst after Him for fellowship (Psa. 42:2; 84:2; Heb.12:22). Being what He is, God is able to judge men for their deeds and to punish evil doers (Jer. 23:36; Matt. 26:63; Heb. 3:12; 10:30-31).

The practical values that grow out of this attribute of God are many. It confirms the admonition of the second commandment against idolatry

(Exod. 20:4-6). Idols are a denial that God is living, for idols can do nothing for men. Ancient pagans worshipped the work of their hands and were thus guilty of idolatry; whereas modern pagans worship the work of their minds, which makes them guilty of idealolatry. But these are both the same thing, a denial that God is living. This truth about God is also a sufficient answer to panthe­ism which identifies God with His creation. Unlike pantheism, God is neither locked in nor out of the natural system, so that He could not introduce a miracle into the natural order nor answer the sincere prayer addressed to Him (Josh.3:10; Dan. 6:20, 26-27; Isa. 37:4,17). Such a God is a great encouragement to a saint who is in the midst of peril or trouble (Dan. 6:20, 26-27; 1 Tim. 4:10). This attribute of God provides the incentive on the one hand for good works, be­cause God is able to judge the deeds of men and reward them; and it provides a deterrent on the other hand to sin and encourages men to forsake evil, for God is able to punish evil doers (Jer. 23:36; Heb. 3:12; 10:30-31). Above all else, a living God provides for the child of God an infinite person who is able to respond to and provide the deepest satisfaction of the heart in fellowship. The soul of the Psalmist thirsts after the living God (Psa. 42:2). His heart and flesh cry out for the living God (Psa. 84:2). One day God became incarnate in flesh, and men immediately recognized in Christ that God is living (Matt. 16:16; John 6:69).

 

PERSONALITY OF GOD - 6

PERSONALITY CONCLUSION

 

 

In bringing to conclusion the discussion on the personality of God as it centers in spirit, the importance of this must be stressed again. God is spirit, pure spirit, immaterial substance, invisible, uncompounded, and indestructible. God is personal, and as such He is living and therefore able to do things. He is intelligent, possessing knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. He is purposive, always reacting to future goals. He is active and therefore is ceaselessly engaged in working. He is free and as such is bound by nothing outside Himself. He is self-conscious and in this area is always aware of Himself. He is emotional and sensitive to and sympathetic with others outside Himself.

This view of God becomes a most consoling revelation to men. It stands in contrast to that cold, impersonal, materialistic picture of God, drawn by Bertrand Russell in his writings under the title, A Free Man's Worship:

"In action, in desire, we must submit perpetually to the tyranny of outside forces; but in thought, in aspiration, we are free, free from our fellow men, free from the petty planet on which our bodies impotently crawl, free even, while we live, from the ty­ranny of death.... To abandon the struggle for private happiness, to expel all eagerness of temporary desire, to burn with passion for eternal things -- this is emancipation, and this is the free man's worship. ...The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, toward a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent death.... Brief and powerless is main's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for man, condemned today to lose his dearest, tomorrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it re­mains only to cherish, ere yet the blow fall, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day; disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at the shrine that his own hands have built; undismayed by the empire of chance, to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate, for a moment, his knowledge and his condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power."

But the Biblical description ministers hope to the man who is struggling with the problems of life. The highest revelation we know is personality, and that is found in God who is declared to be spirit. Though some men have imagined that something above and beyond personality must be impersonal, C. S. Lewis has wisely pointed out that the only thing beyond personality is triune personality, and that is found in God who is spirit.

Loss or modification of this great truth would prove to be a catastrophe for mankind. It would be far better to have an anthropomorphic God, than an im­personal God who is helplessly confined within the boundaries of matter. Loss of this truth would produce a sense of futility, a course of permissiveness, and sur­render to despair. This sort of reasoning moves in the direction of pantheism as a philosophy, and to some form of polytheism. It must ultimately climax in the worship of objects, which is to revert to the darkness and dread of all the paganism of the past.

It must never be forgotten that with the abandonment of the revelation of God, mere intellectual processes lead in the direction of idolatry. Men "became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things" (Rom. 1:21-23). The idol men create may be formed by the hands of men, or it may be the creation of the mind. In either case, it is idolatry when it turns away from that image of God described in the Scriptures as personal spirit.

PERSONALITY OF GOD - 5

PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH AREA OF SPIRIT

There are some inherent problems associated with the doctrine of God centering in the area of spirit. It is inevitable that these would present themselves to the finite mind. But even the most serious among them admit of solution.

1.     If spirit falls outside the realm of sense perception, that is, if spirit cannot be seen, felt, or examined by the senses, by what means can spirit be known? Is there any evidence which will guarantee the existence of spirit? The answer to this is simple. Spirit may be known by its effects, just as electricity. To Nicodemus, Christ made a statement of fact. "The spirit breathes on whom He wills, and you hear His voice, but you do not know from whence He comes or where He goes: in this manner is every one that is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). Men may hear His voice in their own spirits, and men experience new life in re­generation.

2.     Since God is invisible, how can such texts as Exod. 24:10-11 and Isaiah 6:1-5 be explained? In these texts it is declared that they saw God. The answer seems to be clear when the immediate and larger contexts are taken in­to consideration. Invisible spirit may manifest itself in visible form. As for instance, the Holy Spirit was seen descending in form like a dove (John 1:10). Moses saw a burning bush and out of the midst of the fire, God spoke. But he saw no similitude (Exod. 3:2-6 with Deut. 4:12). Isaiah saw the Lord like Daniel (Dan. 7:9-13 and Ezek. 1:1). There were manifestations of the glory of the Lord, but there was no actual seeing of the invisible person (Exod. 33:20). God had His goodness to pass before Moses, but all Moses saw was His glory or back parts (Exod. 33:21-23).

3.       Another strange circumstance develops when God, Who is spirit and without parts, is so often referred to in the Bible as possessing parts such as eyes, arms, hands, and feet. The explanation resides in the fact that God is en­deavoring to make an intelligible revelation to people who are incapable of com­prehending spirit. This method of expression is called anthropomorphism. It describes God in terms that are intelligible to men. God is said to have arms and hands, and thus is able to do things. "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut. 33:27). "My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand" (John 10:29). "Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" (Isa. 53:1). So God is said to have eyes, ears, nostrils, and a face. This is not intended to suggest that God has such members or bodily parts, but that He is able to perform such functions as are indicated by these parts. "He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see?" (Psa. 94:9).

4.     A final and conclusive argument to explain this method of referring to God is to be found in the incarnation. When God revealed Himself completely and finally, He did not resort to profound, abstract, philosophic terms, but He did so in human form. God was manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16). For "the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth...no man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath de­clared him" (John 1:14, 18). The temporary manifestations in human form pre­figured the final tabernacle of the Son of God in human flesh.