Many people’s view of God is based on one aspect of His nature.  Many view God as wrath.  They look at His destroying all of the life on earth with water, and sparing only Noah, or they look at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire, and they see a God that punishes sin.  These people often are constantly in fear of what “God is going to do to them” if their lives don’t measure up to some standard they’ve set up in their mind.  Others view God as a God of love, and they define “love” as his kindness shown towards others, serving the poor, and forgiving sin.  These are the people that tell you to stop talking about the atonement of Christ’s death, that God didn’t really pour out His eternal wrath on His son.  Let’s move past all that Bible business, and just live like Jesus lived, and do what He did, they’ll say.

What these people both do not understand is that there is no difference between God’s love and His wrath.  God is not divided into parts, whereby one part will be present at one time, and another part will be present later. God simply is, as He has always been, is today, and will forever be.  If you cannot see this, ask yourself this question.  Why does a parent punish their child?  Is their motivation simply to assert their wrath over misconduct, or is the punishment also an act of love for the parent to guide their child for their good?  Sometimes a parent also chooses to show mercy.  Why?  Maybe wisdom is also acting in a parent’s decision, so that they can look to see whether punishment would serve the child, or if mercy should be exercised?

If man, being flawed as we are, is capable of having many points of our character acting in unison, and one-ness, how much more is a perfectly holy and just God capable of this, who knows everything past, present, and future?

Look at how Jesus responds to the question of his diety – John 8:57-58 – “So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

Jesus’s own description of Himself was to simply state that He is.

Exodus 8:22 (God as provider) – “But on that day I will set apart the land of Goshen, where my people dwell, so that no swarms of flies shall be there, that you may know that I am the LORD in the midst of the earth.

Exodus 10:1-3 (God’s Wrath) – “Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the LORD.“

Exodus 15:26 (God as Healer) – “saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer.”

Leviticus 11:44 (God’s Holiness) – “For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground.”

Leviticus 19:36 (God’s Justice) – “You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.”

I could go on, but you see that the foundation of God’s instruction, is that He is all of these things, and it is understood that these are all equal.  Another helpful way I’ve seen this explained is a prism.  A prism is one, yet when light is passed through it, many different hues of color are seen.  God reveals Himself to us such that we may understand all of Who He Is, yet at no point is one aspect of His nature, deficient to another.  God is not Love at the expense of Wrath, God is not Wisdom at the expense of Mercy.  God is all of these, at all times, equally, and perfectly.

My question today is how do you view God?  Do you love one aspect of God, or do you love all of God?  Can you delight in the love of God, even in rebuke?  When a brother or sister in Christ holds you accountable to something going on in your life, how do you respond?

When life get’s difficult, how do you respond?  Has your trust and faith in God reached the depth to delight in suffering as the plan of a perfectly good, and wise God, out of love?

Look to the cross, where every aspect of God’s perfect divine nature, was displayed in magnificent glory at once – Love, Wrath, Mercy, Wisdom, Justice, Healing, and on ad inifinitum.  Search your heart, and ask yourself if you worship the God of the Bible, or only one part of Him?  Unless you all are different from me, you’ll find that there is probably some aspect of God you have neglected over a period of time.  Know that your joy in salvation will be hindered where the delight of God is not found in all of Him.  My hope is that Christ would be fully formed in all of you, to delight and find joy in ALL of Who Christ is, for us.

Grace and Peace,
Adam