Spir Dynamics 1158 10/15/97
A. Are all of God’s actions toward His creatures arbitrary and indifferent? Definitely not.
B. God is governed by His own integrity, and He must act in accordance with His absolute righteousness, justice and love, that is, His integrity.
C. If God’s integrity requires punishment for sin, and it does, He is not free to disregard sin or omit punishment of it, even under the concept of personal love.
D. Can God forgive sin apart from satisfaction or propitiation of His righteous claims? Definitely not so long as He is righteous, and He is. To forgive without propitiation would be to fail in the proper function of divine integrity. This would deny the perfection and the proper function of the absolute attributes of divine integrity.
E. God’s propitiation cannot be satisfied and He cannot save or forgive sin apart from the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross. So why should Christ be judged for the sins of the world if other means of salvation were available? Why couldn’t God the Father spare His own Son if an alternate procedure was available? Because of the absolute integrity of God there was no alternative procedure.
F. The personality of God cannot be arbitrarily free from His own righteousness, justice, and love as absolute divine attributes. The integrity of God has everything to do with the freedom of God.
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