The Great Mystery of God’s Divinity

As I was looking at our texts for this evening I was having to myself a bit of a chuckle to myself, pondering upon the age-old question that Atheists love to ask. If your God is supposedly omniscient, and all-powerful, and supposedly so great that He can do all things, then, let me ask you this! (they say) Can God create a rock so big that even He can’t lift it?

Lots of apologists have wasted their time trying to answer that question. But – you know what? They missed the answer that God Himself gave. Didn’t they?

See for all the grandiosity (which is real) of God’s own character, of God’s own nature, of God’s own reality, – for us, for our sake, for our salvation, we teach, we proclaim, we confess – He did not enjoy for Himself, but rather, as the Philippians hymn goes; He, though being Himself God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. ⁷ Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, ⁸ he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

And so I ask again – , like an atheist, – can God create a rock so big He can’t lift it? IDK. But what I do know, is that God has made Himself so small, taking on the form of a man, yes, even the form of a little baby, unable to lift even the smallest of rocks. Unable even, to hold a pebble.

And really this is the greater mystery. That the God who is so big and lofty, so High and lifted up, for our sake lowered Himself down not only to our state, but lower still to needy infancy. And not only that but lower still to death. And not only that, but lower still even down to death on a cross.

And so we hear lots in our readings this evening about the glorious nature of God, and His divine attributes, and yet – in the backdrop of this, the greater mystery is not how unknowable and unsearchable are the mysteries of His great glory – but, is that being what He was, He gave up all that He had, to become like us, to dwell with us, to redeem us, and to save us, and to restore us.

And yet even still this is where we begin, with the nature of God itself.

Timeless (eternal)

Creator

the only God

Omniscence

Omnipotent

Omnipresent

And yet, what does He use that for?

He uses all of these attributes for our salvation.

Psalm 139 speaks to us of the omniscience of God. He knows all our hearts, He knows all our thoughts, He knows our deepest, our darkest depths. And yet? – and yet? What of it? Does He hate us for it? Does He abandon us, upon seeing and knowing what we are? No – rather He, seeing all of us, forgives all of us. Knowing all that we’ve done, pardons the whole. And absolves the blackest abyss within us, letting nothing in us, go un-redeemed, unforgiven, or unloved.

By His omnipotence, He works our salvation

He creates and He recreates

He brings water to the parched desert lands

He restores the fallen

all this He does by His omnipotence. All this He does in His power and might. All this He does through His divinity

Omnipresence (He is with us)

Righteousness (freely gifted to us)

t’s by this divine nature of God, and BY THESE divine attributes that the Gospel is true.

All of these things that He is, they are gifts for us. Of these things in Him, are in a sense, in Him FOR US. And it’s this exactly this characteristic for-usness of God that shapes His character. And truly, that is His greatest attribute of all. His love. And that love with which He loves is so all-encompassing, and so complete, and so beyond all comparison with anything else that He is, that He Himself, actually IS – love. And

this love of God takes all other divine attributes captive to it, and pulls them into its service, making these divine attributes agents of His love,. Even in the incarnation, victims of His love, if you will, through His giving up of His own glory, and His lowering of Himself down into His humiliated state in the incarnation.

And that really is the great mystery of the doctrine of God

See, the greatest mystery of the doctrine of God, is not about His nature. It isn’t about His omnipotence, or, His Holiness, or, His omnipresence, or , His perfection, or His omniscience, no – it’s actually this; that even being all of those things that He is. That is, even knowing all things. And being present in all places, being so High as He is, glorious and righteous as He is, – and… knowing exactly what we are, have done, are doing, and will doing, that He loves us anyway in spite of what we are, and in spite even, of what He is, if you’ll allow me to say so. It’s precisely this mystery of the God who knows our thoughts, our hearts, our deeds, and our actions, and yet, chooses us in spite of all of it. That is the great mystery of God. It is that an all knowing God, who is Himself perfect, righteous, Holy, blameless, and without blemish, chooses to not only create those He knows will fall BUT – to save them after they do so. And to again, repeatedly act in grace, mercy, forgiveness, and compassion to them again and again and again as they rebel repeatedly.

And that is good news. Because that means that God knows everything about you even more deeply than you know yourself. And He still loves you. Because that means that He knows the very worst things in you, about you, and of you, and yet He still chose you. And that means that there is nothing that can ever, will ever, or could ever separate you from the love that He has loved you with in Christ Jesus. It means that there is nothing you can do, say, or think to make Him change His mind. He knows all things. He knows all thoughts. He knows all hearts. He knows all deeds. He is the first and the last. He is present everywhere. He knows all before it happens. He sees all before it occurs. And yet He loves. That is His timeless, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent declaration. And that declaration is unchanging.

And that is good news.

God loves you. And that means that He always has. And that means that He always will.

That is His nature, that is His character, that is His promise, and that is the truth.

+ F, S, HS. Amen.