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he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” (Matt. 26:52–54). There you have it, God’s absolute and ordinate power in two sentences.
the cross for the forgiveness of sins. So yes, Jesus could exercise such power, but it would then be at the expense of the Father’s plan to redeem his people.
For God to do anything that would violate his other attributes does not complement his power but destroys it.
In a world in which doing things (doing everything) has become a sign of authority, we struggle to understand that there are situations in which not
doing something is a far greater signi...
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Self-control is not a weakness but a sign that one is more powerful than those who cannot control themselves or their actions.
He is omnisciently omnipotent and omnipotently omniscient, so that when he “thinks,” things happen. His knowledge is causal, not merely contemplative, like ours.
God’s omnipotent knowledge brought creation into existence out of nothing (ex nihilo). “By thinking He creates,”
the trinitarian nature of creation. It is the Triune God who, by thinking, creates, the Word fulfilling his Father’s command and the Spirit perfecting what the Father has spoken through the Word, his Son.
Second, God’s omnipotent knowledge not only brings about creation but also sustains creation.
God is omnipotent, so everything exists by his causal power. God is simple: his power is his knowledge; his knowledge is his power. Therefore, all that exists only exists because God knows it to exist.
God’s knowledge is not dependent on our knowledge, nor is it reliant on our actions, let alone our existence.
God experiences no succession of moments. But that also means God experiences no succession of knowledge.
If anything exists or acts, it exists and acts ultimately because of him (Acts 17:28).
First, God is equally in control of evil and of good, but we should not assume that he relates to both in the same way. While he dispenses the good from his hand directly and proximately, he ordains evil and sees to it that it occurs indirectly, mediated through someone else from whom that evil originates.
No event in history so models this asymmetrical control like the cross.
“Just as a father forbids a child to use a sharp knife, though he himself uses it without any ill results, so God forbids us rational creatures to commit the sin
that he himself can and does use as a means of glorifying his name.”
Second, although we are not always told the reasons why God ordains evil (Job never was), we are told in Scripture that God has done so for our good and his glory (Rom. 8:28).
Truly, then, you are merciful because You are just.
“I AM,” but it does reveal at least two crucial aspects of God’s nature. First, it means God is set apart.
Second, the divine name also communicates God’s covenant presence.
D. A. Carson outlines five different shades of God’s love in Scripture: “The peculiar love of the Father for the Son, and the Son for the Father” (John 3:35; 5:20; 14:31) “God’s providential love over all that he has made” (Matt. 6) “God’s salvific stance toward his fallen world” (John 3:16; 15:19; 1 John 2:2) “God’s particular, effective, selecting love toward his elect” (Deut. 4:27; 7:7–8; 10:14–15; Mal. 1:2–3; Eph. 5:25) “God’s love . . . directed toward his own people in a provisional or conditional way—conditioned, that is, on obedience” (Exod. 20:6; Ps. 103:8; John 15:9–10; Jude 21)13
Isaiah experiences God’s love not apart from God’s holiness but through it and because of it. It is God’s love—a love that provides the atonement needed
for forgiveness—that not only upholds but fulfills the conditions of divine holiness.
As much as our culture protests a God of retributive justice, we dare not imagine a society without it.
envy is always considered a sin. Envy is tied to coveting, lusting after something that does not belong to you,
Jealousy, on the other hand, is an “ardent desire to maintain exclusive devotion within a relationship in the face of a challenge to that exclusive devotion.”
intolerant is sometimes the most loving thing we could be.
he is most importantly jealous for his own name and his own glory.
He will not give his glory to another (Isa. 42:8).
God wants the whole world to “know that [he is] the LORD.”
Remembering may be one of the most common themes in the Old Testament; Israel is to constantly recall who the Lord is: a consuming fire.
God’s jealousy, however, is not restricted to wrath. At other times his jealousy is manifested in loving pursuit. The book of Hosea compares God’s relationship with Israel to a marriage with a prostitute.
The pricelessness of this divine glory is what moves Jesus to be jealous whenever he sees that glory dragged through the mud.
As those created in his image, we were put here on earth to mirror him, draw attention to him, and reflect his glory.
Christianity frames human existence in the perpendicular direction—that is, vertically: you are not a god but made by God, and your purpose in life is to live for his glory.
“Man’s chief end is to glorify God by enjoying him forever.”
jealousy should characterize us,
A Christian without godly jealousy needs a serious identity check. To have Baal on the left and God on the right, and remain silent, limping between the two, is to invite God himself to spit you out of his mouth. It is to welcome the wrath of the God who is a consuming fire.
A “sincere and pure devotion to Christ”—that is the type of godly jealousy that is to define every Christian and every church.
Atonement is made in that moment, and God’s wrath is appeased
