And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,
- Exodus 34:6
“I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.
- Malachi 3:6
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
- John 4:24
Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the whole world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
- Psalm 90:2
“7. Next, what they teach, or, what is the nature of Godin himself, and in the creation and government of all things.”
- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Aphorisms
John Calvin did not write these aphorisms. They are a summarization of what he wrote in Institutes of the Christian Religion. There are 100 aphorisms.
I have written about how Sunday School is important for adults. We can look at the same Bible stories from a mature point of view, hopefully. We can look at the Bible stories that are not in the children’s curriculum. But we can look deeply into who God is and what is His nature, or the Attributes of God.
The Stinker Sunday school class went into these attributes.
I recently watched a podcast, I think. One person said that he is constantly confronted with how Christians do not like the God of the Old Testament. That God is always angry. They like the loving God of the New Testament. The person’s reply was, “Have you ever read the Bible?”
I used Old Testament references above on purpose. There is the one from John 4, but the rest are Old Testament references. God does not change. If you read the Old Testament, you see a rebellious people. But we also see a God that loves His people and gives them hundreds of years to repent. They just go further into depravity.
We are doing the same thing today.
But don’t we have that within our homes? The child tests the boundaries. If you have a line that cannot be crossed, the child will campout against that line and then they’ll step over the line. If they got away with it, they take two steps over the line. Before long, if you do not react, they will be dancing on the wrong side of that line.
God sent prophets to remind the Chosen People what the punishment would be unless they repented. If you want to know what long suffering is, think of God giving them chance after chance and they go from stepping over the line to dancing on the wrong side.
That is why we need to understand the nature of God. He is slow to anger. But He has set rules. When we accept Jesus into our heart, God will forgive our sins, even the future sins. But when we go against God’s nature and step across that line, God is upset that we have yet another sin to be forgiven.
But we must ask ourselves if the truth is in us, when it does not bother and sadden us when we sin.
If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.
Soli Deo Gloria. Only to God be the Glory.
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