College Study #14: "God's Pure Actuality"

‘Behold, the Lamb of God’s

ide o amnos tou theou

College Study

14^th teaching

11.5.2012

 

“Theology Proper – God’s Pure Actuality”

 

          So tonight is our first actual study in Theology Proper! Yays!

          Each night as long as the Lord wills us to continue this series, we’ll take an in-depth look at one of God’s attributes. Since everything specific that we know about God comes from His specific Revelation in Scripture, every attribute of God must be biblically founded.

          We could say all sorts of things about God all we like. But if God has not said it about Himself than we have no way of verifying any claim about God. Truly, the only way we know anything specific about God, again, is because He has revealed it, made it known, through His Word.

          With that in mind, turn to Exodus 3:1-14.

          Up until this story here in Exodus, Moses’ career was at a low point. A Hebrew adopted into the Egyptian palace, Moses was once a prince of Egypt. But he killed a man and fled for his life. At this point, he had been a shepherd in the middle of nowhere, tending sheep that weren’t even his. They belonged to his father-in-law. Moses had gone from on top of the world to the bottom-most rung of society. He had gone from upper-class to outcast.

          But after 40 years of living this shepherd’s life, God appears to Moses to call him to his true life’s-work.

          The Angel of the LORD, God Himself, appears to Moses in the form of fire in a bush and calls out to him and gives him the mission of returning to Egypt no longer as a fugitive, but now as a deliverer. God had heard the cries of Israel in slavery in Egypt and the time had come to deliver them.

          God tells Moses that he knew his ancestors: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Therefore, God has already identified to Moses who He was. This was not a new God. This was the God of the covenant, the God of the promises, the God of his fathers.

          But Moses ventures to ask God His name. Moses wanted specificity, as he knew the people of Israel would want as well.

          Before Moses, God had revealed Himself to the patriarchs, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, through various names. And in this way, He had revealed who He was. For example, to Abraham in Genesis 17:1 God revealed Himself as El Shaddai, Almighty God.

          See in those ancient days, someone’s name had more significance than it does today. Parents today usually choose names for their children based on current trends or how the name sounds. Sometimes we might name our children after someone else.

          But in the ancient times of the Bible, someone’s name was descriptive of who they were or who their parents desired them to be. Sometimes a name might come from the circumstances surrounding that child’s birth. For example, Jacob was named Jacob (which means heel-catcher, or a usurper) because he came out of the womb holding on to his brother’s heel, and indeed Jacob went on to usurp the blessing of his elder brother.

          Another example: Jacob’s wife died in childbirth, and before she died she named her son Ben-Oni, which means Son of my Sorrow. Jacob later changed the name to Benjamin, which means Son of my Right Hand, a name of honor. Benjamin’s name had significance. It was descriptive of his person.

          Back to our story in Exodus…

          Moses asks God what His name is. God replies “I AM WHO I AM”. Moses is like “Well, WHO are you?”

          Did this answer Moses question? It certainly does! God is not playing around with words. He’s not being cheeky. He reveals a name to Moses that is incredibly profound. This name of God descriptive not only of WHO God is but it’s descriptive of WHAT God is.

          The name I AM WHO I AM simply means I EXIST.

          Our most common title for God is the word God, but how very un-descriptive that English word can sometimes be. Our English word God doesn’t so much define God anymore. It doesn’t really give us an idea of what God is, because the word god gets thrown around for everything.

          I feel like Job who said “Indeed these are the mere edges of His ways, and how small a whisper we hear of Him!” (Job 26:14). How little we think about what God is actually like.

          What is God? Who is God? God is the I AM. God is the Self-Existing, the Ever-Existing One. All kinds of English words flow into our minds: He is infinite, everlasting, eternal, undying and so on.

          But to some it all up simply, God did not give Moses a tremendous amount of words to define Himself. He simply said the sacred words: I AM. For all that we know about God, this describes Him perhaps the best, for it describes His Being as being always.

          Elsewhere, in Revelation 1:8, God says “I AM the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End… who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

          There, at the opposite end of the Bible we find the same idea. God was and is and always will be. His existence never began and His existence will never end. He simply IS.

          And even smack dab in the middle of the Bible, the psalmist writes in Psalm 90:1,2 “LORD, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.”

          Jesus Christ several times took up this same name and applied it as a description of Himself.

          In John 8, Jesus is arguing with the Jews. At the climax of His argument He tells them in v.56: “‘Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.’ Then the Jews said to Him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”

          Jesus was not just taking God’s name, He was taking the description that belonged to that name. In claiming to be I AM, Jesus is saying He has pure existence, unending and unbeginning, uncaused and uninterrupted. He claimed that He was Self-Existent and Ever-Existent.

          *Note this is a clear proof for the deity of Christ. You may meet someone someday who doesn’t believe Christ is God and who claims that the Bible and Jesus never claimed He was God. On the contrary, Jesus not only claimed He was God, but He claimed the most basic metaphysical description of God’s Being for Himself when He said ‘Before Abraham was, I AM’.

          Remember John 8:58, write it down at the back of your Bible if you need to. It’s a great proof-text for the deity of Christ.

 

          Now briefly I’d like to introduce you to two important terms. These are two theological terms that will help us to better understand the significance of what God’s describing of Himself.

          The two terms are: Actuality and Potentiality.

          Actuality is in the title of tonight’s study. We’re talking about God’s Pure Actuality. But what does Actuality mean?

          It simply means some that is actual. We say an actual fact of a fact that is real. The word Actuality means existing. The object with Actuality is actual, it exists, it is real, it is fact.

          Now what about Potentiality. Potentiality comes from the word potential. Potentiality means the potential of something to change, develop or come into existence.

          So Actuality means something which IS. But Potentiality means something which CAN BE.

          Let’s put this practically. Let’s think about our own existence as human beings. Do we have Actuality? Yes. We exist. If we did not exist, we could not have this bible study… but that’s another story.

          So we have Actuality. We IS. We ARE. We exist. But what about Potentiality? We certainly have that too. In fact, our actuality is mixed with our potentiality. We have the potential to exist, because at one time we did not exist, and we have the potential to not exist, because at one time we did not exist.

          We exist now (actuality) but we certainly could not exist and we once did not exist and someday we will not exist as we do now after we die (that’s potentiality).

          This is true of all living human beings. We have a mixture of actual exist and potential to not exist. In fact, this is true of everything in creation. At one point in time, the Sun did not exist as it does now. At one point in time, Outer Space, birds, trees, Pet Smart, Wal Mart, English, the Atlantic Ocean, Pirates, Japan, sea cucumbers and television shows all did not exist as they do now. Everything that is actual has potential. Everything that exists once did not exist and thus has potential.

          But it is not true of God. And this sets Him apart from literally everything outside of Himself.

          God has PURE Actuality. His Actuality, His existence has no potential. That sounds stupid right? It isn’t. We’re not saying God has zero potential as far as value. We’re saying that God has zero potential as far as His actuality goes. Simply: God has no potential to not exist. God never was not existent. God never could be existent because He always existed. He has Pure Actuality, not mixed with potentiality.

          This has been a theological fundamental for ages. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274AD) wrote: “…There is some first being, whom we call God; and that this first being must be pure act, without any admixture of potentiality.”

          The author Norman Geisler writes: “Pure actuality, then, is that which is… with no possibility to not exist or to be anything other than it is—existence, pure and simple. Pure actuality has no potential for nonexistence, and it has no potential for change.”

          God cannot lie, we’ve been told by Scripture, but God cannot cease to be. God cannot stop being Himself. He can never not exist because He is the I AM, the Ever-Existing, the Self-Existing One. God is perfectly real and perfectly true and perfect existence. He can never be unreal or untrue or nonexistent.

          Remember the cosmological argument from waaaay back? The cosmological argument states:

1.    Everything that had a beginning had a cause

2.    The universe had a beginning

3.    Therefore, the universe had a cause

          We can apply this argument to anything:

1.    Everything that had a beginning had a cause

2.    Moses Norton had a beginning

3.    Therefore, Moses Norton had a cause

          But if we go back to the beginning of the universe and find that God was that First Cause of the Universe, then He must be the First uncaused Cause.

          God always existed. He never had a beginning and nothing caused Him to be. It makes no sense for people to ask ‘Well, who created God?’ because nothing created God. He was the First Cause and the uncaused Causer. If something created God then He would not be God. He would be subject to a greater reality than Himself. He is not.

          God has always been. And it is necessary that God has always been. You can’t have an infinite chain of causes. There must be a First Cause which itself was NOT caused. That was God and it is necessary that that was God.

          *If all this technical terminology has your head swimming, don’t worry! Let’s conclude by thinking about how this teaching on God’s IS-ness, His Ever-Existence… how it effects our lives.

          I mentioned before that the primary purpose of the Bible is as a revelation of who God is and His plan of salvation. I mentioned before that the main theme of the Bible is Jesus Christ and the salvation provided through Him. We know then that the Bible is not merely a how-to book. It’s not simply a self-help book. It is firstly and foremostly a book which tells us what God is like and what His plan is.

          Everything which comes out of the Bible which is ‘self-help’, which is application, is all based upon the Bible’s teaching on who God is. The application stems from the revelation. We are taught how to live based on what we’re told God is like.

          Therefore, every attribute and every description of God will give us application on how to live the Christian life.

          So… the question is: how does God’s Pure Actuality have any bearing upon our lives?

          It does in this way.

          We live in a world and a society that constantly changes. We’re at an age as young adults in which our lives are undergoing tremendous change. Our friends and families are sometimes moving on. We’re learning new things about how to be a part of this world. And often times, our own world seems upside-down.

          There’s no stability in life. We outgrow the protection of our parents. We often can’t depend on friends. We cannot provide total financial stability for ourselves. We can hardly trust authority at all. We can’t even trust ourselves most of the time.

          It’s been said that the only certain thing about the future is uncertainty.

          Even the German physicist Albert Einstein said “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”

          C’mon! If not even mathematics are certain, if 2 + 2 isn’t even sure, than what is? Money isn’t. Love isn’t. Friendships aren’t. Family isn’t. Power isn’t. Not even Creation is certain. It all has potential for change. Everything has potentiality.

          Listen to Psalm 102:25-28, “Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You will endure; Yes, all of them will grow old like a garment; like a cloak You will change them, and they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will have no end

          Everything has potentiality. Everything changes… except for God. God says I AM WHO I AM. God always IS. God is the only constant in our unstable world.

          God was around when our parents were our age. God was around for Einstein, for Lincoln, for Washington, for King Henry, for Alexander the Great, for Paul the Apostle, for Abraham, for Moses there in that desert. Remember Psalm 90:1 “LORD, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.”

          It’s a tremendous comfort to me that my God was around before I existed and He will be around long after my death. Someday, if it’s God’s will, I will grow old and I will die. Even further down the road one of my children’s children might look at a photograph of me and wonder who I was. But God will have outlived me. And God does not change.

          There’s so much change we’re dealing with now. And it can get stressful. But remember that God does not change.

          Malachi 3:6 “For I am the LORD, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.”

          Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.”

          That’s stability, people! That’s a sure foundation. That’s why God is likened to a Rock or to a Tower. That’s why God can be our refuge when our ever-changing lives are stressful and tiresome. God is ALWAYS. He always IS.

          Should our relationships change, God will not change. Should college get difficult, God will not change. Should friends and family abandon us, God will not change. Should our bank accounts empty, God will not change. Should we be diagnosed with a disease, God will not change. Should we die, God will not change. Should our futures be uncertain, should they be happy or sad, full or short, long or brief… God will not change.

          Martin Luther was someone we may not be able to relate with much. He was a German theologian who helped begin the Protestant Reformation. Because of his biblical ideas and desire for a reformation of doctrine in the church, he was branded a heretic and excommunicated. But he was invited by the Emperor to attend an assembly in Worms, Germany to defend himself. On April 16^th, 1521, as he entered the city of Worms to face his accusers, he sang these words in an old hymn: “A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing. Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.”

          Sometimes we face difficulties, hazards, new ground we’re not familiar with. Sometimes we face a changing world. Sometimes we face stress. Remember that God will always be our mighty fortress.

          What fools we’ve been to ignore the very stronghold of safety and protection and sanity we have in God. We can rest in peace in every moment of our lives knowing that the great I AM is unchanging and that He will always be our God.