The Godhood of God

By A. W. Pink

Isaiah 55:8,9

THe Godhood of God! What is meant by this expression? Ah, sad it is that such a question needs to be asked and answered. And yet it does: for a generation has arisen that is well nigh universally ignorant of the important truth which this term connotes. What is meant by the Godhood of God? This: the omnipotence of God, the absolute sovereignty of God.

When we speak of the Godhood of God we affirm that God is God. We affirm that God is something more than an empty title; that God is something more than a mere figurehead; that God is something more than a far-distant Spectator, looking helplessly on at the suffering which sin has wrought. When we speak of the Godhood of God we affirm that He is King of kings and Lord of Lords' When we speak of the Godhood of God we affirm that He is the Almighty.

The sad truth is that man is utterly incompetent for forming a proper estimate of God's character and ways. God plainly declares in Isaiah 55:8,9:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Thankfully, we believers, when enlightened by the Holy Spirit, can indeed learn from Scripture and visualize the Godhood of God...

1. As it is seen in creation

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth (Gen. 1:1).

With whom took He counsel in creation? Whom did He consult when He determined the various and manifold arrangements, adjustments, adaptations, relationships, equipments of His myriad creatures? No one!

He did everything after the counsel of His own will. He alone decided that birds should fly in the air, beasts roam the earth, and fishes live in the sea. He alone determined to make a revolving world on the one hand, and a floating atom on the other. He was altogether undisputed sovereign in all His creative acts.

Yea, verily, for the Three Persons of the Godhead were all alone in their solitary majesty.

All sufficient. Why indeed should God take counsel? No one can add to His knowledge or correct His errors, not that He has any. God sovereignly assigned His myriad creatures their various habitations, members, movements, as it pleased Him.

And when it comes to the body of Christ, God never consulted anyone about its single member, nor about its size, color, or capacity. Instead, we read in I Corinthians. 12:18: But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him

Man is as truly the product of God's sovereign creation as any other of His creatures sovereign, we say, not arbitrary. 

2. As it is seen in administration

God not only created everything, but everything which He created is subject to His immediate control. God rules over the works of His hands. God governs the creatures He has made. God reigns with universal dominion.

When He pleased, the sun and moon stood still (Josh. 10:12,13); and at a word from Him the sun went backward ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz (Isa. 38:8). At His command the Red Sea ceased to flow, and at His command it resumed its normal course (Exo. 14). In response to the prayer of Elisha, He made iron to float on the top of the water (II Kings 6:5,6).

Yes, when He pleases, He reverses the order of nature, as when the fires of Nebuchadnezzar's furnace burnt not, as when the hungry lions touched not Daniel, as when the ravens, which are birds of prey, were made to minister to Elijah. At a word from Him who made it, a fish carried a coin to Peter, a fig tree withers suddenly, and the raging tempest becomes a calm.

Over men, too. So it is also with men; they, too, are ruled by God; ruled by an unseen Hand often unknown to themselves. Little did they know it, yet nevertheless, the sons of Jacob were but performing the pleasure of Jehovah when they sold Joseph into the hands of the Ishmaelites who carried him down into Egypt.

Little was she aware of it, but when Pharaoh's daughter went to the Nile to bathe, she was being directed by God, directed there to rescue from the waters the babe Moses. Little did he know it, but in issuing the decree that all the world should be taxed, Caesar Augustus was but setting in motion a movement which caused the word and decree of God to be fulfilled.

And so it is with Satan himself. He, too, is the (unwitting and unwilling) servant of God. He could not touch Job without first gaining Divine permission. He could not sift the apostles till he gained consent from Christ. At a word from the Lord Jesus, Satan Left Him. Of the devil, also, God has said, Thus far shalt thou go and no farther. Even death the King of terrors that which no arts of man can defy in absolutely subject to the bidding of the Lord. The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up (I Sam. 2:6).

Preaching on Psalm 68:20,21, the late C. H. Spurgeon well said:

The prerogative of life or death belongs to God in a wide range of senses. First of all, as to natural life we are all dependent upon His good pleasure. We shall not die until the time which He appoints: for our death-time, like all our time, is in His hands...We are immortal till our work is done, immortal till the immortal King shall call us home to the land where we shall be immortal in a still higher sense. When we are most sick, we need not despair of recovery, since the issues from death are in Almighty hands.

3. As it is seen in the giving of scripture

What part or lot did man have in the composition of the Bible? None whatever. Its very words are the words of God. All scripture is given by inspiration of God. (II Tim. 3:16). No part of it was of human origination, For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost (II Peter 1:21).

How did the holy men record what the Holy Spirit communicated to them? In words of man's selecting? Nay verily, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth (I Cor. 2:13).

Balaam longed to speak otherwise than he did; but he could not. Caiaphas prophesied not of himself. (John 11:51). Pilate was asked to make a change in the one sentence which God moved him to write, but he declared What I have written I have written. (John 19:22).

God acted sovereignly in the writing of the Scriptures as in everything else. The very words were chosen by Him; and did He not sovereignly choose? Did He take counsel with either angels or men as to the words He should select for the communicating of His thoughts? No indeed.

4. As it is seen in salvation

God's absolute and irresistible proprietorship has been and is being displayed in the spiritual realm as manifestly as in the natural. Isaac is blessed, but Ishmael is cursed. Jacob is loved, but Esau is hated. Israel is the people God works with, while all other nations are suffered to remain in idolatry.

The Savior took on Him the seed of Abraham (Heb. 2:16), not the seed of Adam. His ministry was not world ward, but confined to the people chosen of God.

Two thieves hung by Christ on the cross; they were equally guilty, equally needy, equally near to Him. One of them is moved to cry: Lord, remember me and is taken to Paradise, while the other is suffered to die in his sins and sink down into a hopeless eternity. Many are called, but few are chosen.

Election. Yes, Salvation is God's sovereign work. God does not save a man because he is a sinner, for if so He must save all men for all are sinners. Nor because he comes to Christ, for no man can come except the Father draw him; nor because he repents, for God gives repentance unto life; nor because he believes for no one can believe except it were given him from above; nor yet because he holds out faithful to the end, for we are kept by the power of God. 

But is God partial? We answer: That's not the issue; the issue is, Has He not a right to be? God declares in Romans 9:15, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. Shut up for death, as men are by reason of their sins, it rests with God to pardon whom He may reserve: none have any claim to His favour, and it must be exercised upon mere prerogative, because He is the Lord God, merciful and gracious, and delighteth to pass by transgression and sin.

Unreasonable? But is it reasonable to suppose that God, who is Love, has created billions of creatures to be lost, seeing that His elect constitute but a remnant in comparison to those who die unsaved? We reply: It is not a question of reason but of revelation. There are many things revealed in Scripture which are contrary to reason. Is it reasonable to think that God would give His only begotten Son to die for sinners? Ah, reason is ruled out entirely here.

And so in many other things. If it lay within the power of the reader, would you suffer your worst enemy to be eternally tormented? And if you are honest, you will promptly answer, No! But God will deal thus with His enemies, and the sentence will be a righteous one, whether we can now discern its justice or not, for the Judge of all the earth will do right. How far asunder then is carnal reasoning from the teaching of Holy Writ concerning Eternal Punishment!

Once more: here is Satan, the age-long enemy of God and many, the one who has wrought incalculable evil, securely imprisoned at last in the bottomless pit. There he remains chained for a thousand years. Now would you, my reader, suggest for a moment that the devil be released from that prison after the earth had been freed for a thousand years from his vile presence? Certainly you would not, and yet this is precisely what Divine revelation declares would come to pass.

The Scriptures of Truth make known how that God will cause the Serpent to be loosed for a little season, that God will suffer this even though He knows beforehand that the consequences will be the most dreadful revolt on the part of men, under Satan, revolt against God, which this earth has ever witnessed.

Conclusion

And now a few words of exhortation as I conclude. One of the most flagrant sins of this age is irreverence. By irreverence I am not now thinking of open blasphemy, or the taking of God's name in vain. Irreverence is also failure to ascribe the glory which is due the great and dreadful majesty of the Almighty. It is the limiting of His power and actions by our degrading conceptions: it is the bringing of the Lord God down to our level.

There are multitudes of those who do not profess to be Christians who deny that God is the omnipotent Creator, and there are multitudes of professing Christians who deny that God is absolute Sovereign. Men boast of their free will, prate of their power, and are proud of their achievements. They know not that their lives are at the sovereign disposal of the Divine Despot. They know not that they have no more power to thwart His secret counsel than a worm has to resist the tread of an elephant. They know not that God is the Potter, and they the clay.

This is the first great lesson we have to learn: that God is the Creator, we the creature; that He is the Potter, we the clay. This is the harvest of all life's lessons, and when we think we have learnt them, we soon discover that we have need to re-learn them.

God is God and He has the right to dispose of me as He sees fit. It is for Him to say where I shall live, whether in America or Africa. It is for Him to say under what circumstances I shall live, whether amid riches or in poverty, whether in health or in sickness. It is for Him to say how long I shall live, whether I shall be cut down in youth, like the flower of the field, or whether I shall live unto old age. Yes, and it is for Him to say where I shall spend eternity.

Pride vs. humility. The first sin of man was the refusal to be clay in the Potter's hand; Adam wanted to be something more; Ye shall be as God was the bait that Satan used to hurl him to his destruction. And a profound mystery revealed in Scripture is that the mighty God descended from highest heaven and took upon Him the nature of the creature and came down here to show us how to wear it.

That which differentiated the life of Christ from all other lives was His absolute and joyous submission to the Father's will. My meat is to do the will of him that sent me struck the keynote of the few decades that He tabernacled among men. Have you profited by the example left us by the Beloved of the Father? May Divine grace show you how to wear your creature nature so that you live not in self-assertion, but in self-renunciation, and say, Not my will, but Thine be done.

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