8/21/79; 1/2/80

DOCTRINE OF THE ESSENCE OF GOD RATIONALE

A. Misapplication.

1. Like all divine attributes, love is a divine attribute.

2. God is love, and always has been love. Therefore, God doesn’t fall in love. His love doesn’t increase or decline.

3. God’s love has two directions: objectively, towards the other members of the Trinity; subjectively, toward His own integrity.

4. In contrast to human love, God’s love doesn’t have to be sustained by emotion, physical stimulation, or require a visual object for perpetuation.

5. Human love is originated and perpetuated by four interrelated categories: thinking, emotion, sex and the spiritual factor means awe, respect, capacity, fulfillment of norms and standards.

6. The problem is that mankind tends to superimpose his own human love concepts on God. This causes misapplication in the second stage of the faith rest drill.

7. In time of testing the believer who malfunctions often remarks, “How can a loving God do this to me?” This misapplication results from assuming the love of God is like human love; that the love of God is the point of contact in our relationship to God.

8. This is a result of confusing the divine attribute of God’s love with the anthropopathism of God’s love. Anthropopathisms communicate divine motivation using man’s frame of reference. This doesn’t mean this is how God’s attributes work. Anthropopathisms state divine policy, Rom 9:13.

9. While love is an anthropopathism to explain divine policy, it is not the source of blessing or testing from God. God does love us because we possess righteousness, but the justice of God is our point of reference.

B. The Correct Application: the Integrity of God.

1. The source of all blessing, discipline, testing, and punishment is the integrity of God.

2. God is Holy, He has justice and righteousness, which have always existed and are incorruptible.

3. Righteousness is the principle of divine integrity, while justice is the function of divine integrity. Therefore, there is nothing man can do to corrupt the integrity of God.

4. Man’s self-righteousness, sinfulness, good deeds, or morality cannot influence the integrity of God. They don’t bring blessing. The integrity of God gains nothing from the function of any creature. On the contrary, creatures gain from the integrity of God.

5. God’s integrity is perfect, therefore, it is not subject to change or improvement. No one can promote the integrity of God.

6. God’s righteousness is the guardian of God’s justice. Justice guards the rest of the essence of God.

7. Divine attributes stand without help from any angel or human at any time. God doesn’t need our help, we need His help. This is why humility is so necessary in time of testing. Humility recognizes it needs help from God. In the function of the second stage of the faith-rest drill, God helps you.

8. Our help comes from the imputation of blessing from the justice of God to His indwelling righteousness. The correct application of the essence of God rationale is that all help, all blessing comes from the justice of God to the righteousness in us.

C. Divine justice can only bless perfect righteousness.

1. The integrity of God guarantees no compromise in dealing with creatures. God cannot bless us as individuals with an old sin nature.

2. Justice demands justice. Righteousness demands righteousness. What righteousness demands, justice provides.

3. Therefore, righteousness demands logistical grace whether you succeed or fail (the logistical grace rationale).

4. All blessing is from the justice of God directly to the righteousness of God, not to us personally. God blesses us because of what He is, not what we are.

5. We are not here to help man or to please others. God can help others better than we can, and we are here to please God. Sometimes pleasing God means doing nothing.

D. True Application of the Love of God.

1. God loves His own righteousness. His righteousness is perfect, therefore, demands love and receives love.

2. We possess righteousness at the moment of salvation. And God loves us because we have His righteousness.

3. God’s righteousness takes precedence. Therefore, whom the Lord loves He disciplines. Divine righteousness sometimes demands discipline, other times blessing. Heb 12:6, “We love Him, because He first loved us.”

4. You know God disciplines because He loves you, which should head off mental attitude sin reaction, i.e., bitterness, when you are disciplined. Because He loves us, our point of reference with Him is still the justice of God after salvation.

E. Application of Eternal Life.

1. Eternity means God has always existed. He has no beginning and no end.

2. God is not subject to time. Time and space are created by God, therefore, God is not in time; time is in God. God transcends creation. God is logical, and therefore does not need to be chronological.

3. Because of this we must be patient in testing.

4. The principle of eternal life results in the application of security under testing.

5. Eternal life eliminates fear that the world will be wiped out by sophisticated weapons.

6. God cannot be more or less than He is. In relation to space God is both imminent and transcendent, so that the application to man is removal of fear of being wiped out by disaster.

F. The Application of God’s Knowledge. Omniscience relates to the eternal decrees. Foreknowledge relates to the plan of God rationale. There is application from all three categories of God’s knowledge: self-knowledge, foreknowledge and omniscience.

G. Application of Omnipotence. God’s power, being greater than any creature power, causes Him to be able to overrule any form of tyranny or evil when it suits His purpose. Jesus Christ controls history. This offsets fear of tyranny, being in slavery, etc.

H. Application of God’s Veracity (Infinity).

1. God is infinite, without boundary or limitation, uniting those perfections which belong to His own character.

2. God cannot tempt, sin, or be complicated with ignorance.

3. God may be self-limited, such as our Lord was during the incarnation, but this is for the sake of a grace policy which benefits man to the maximum.

4. God is infinite energy and power. Infinity characterizes all that God does, which includes His function of integrity, His veracity, and His Word of truth.

5. The divine motive for His own glory is not self-praise. God recognizes His glory and claims it in the interest of absolute truth. God is true to Himself, His character.

6. God doesn’t hold the truth as something He acquires, since He is the truth from all eternity past.

7. The application of all of this is that there are absolutes. God is the source of truth. This attribute guarantees the genuineness of divine revelation.

8. God honors doctrine resident in the soul of the believer with spiritual growth.

9. Application of this avoids distraction from learning doctrine. God’s attribute of veracity is one of the most important in our understanding of what constitutes the Christian way of life. God provides logistical grace support so we can learn doctrine.

I. Application of Immutability. God is faithful. There has never been a time when God has not been faithful. Even though we are faithless, He must remain faithful for He cannot deny Himself (His righteousness dwelling inside of us).

_______________

R. B. Thieme, Jr. Bible Ministries 5139 West Alabama, Houston, Texas 77056 (713) 621-3740

---------------------------------------------------------------------------