‘Behold, the Lamb of God’s
ide o amnos tou
theou
College Study
15th teaching
11.12.2012
“Theology Proper – God’s Aseity”
God’s Aseity is an attribute which is closely tied in to
His Actuality. God’s Pure Existence leads us to God’s Aseity. Before we
discover what that is, turn to Acts 17,
where we will be able to see it in Scripture, in God’s revealed portrait of
Himself.
In Acts 17, Paul
is on his second missionary journey. At the point in which we’ll pick up his story,
he has already left Thessalonica and Berea because of the unbelieving Jews
there. After Berea, he heads for the city of Athens. Once there, he decides to
send for Silas and Timothy and he waits at Athens for a little bit.
Now Athens was the New York city of ancient Greece. Today
it is the largest city in Greece, with a recorded history spanning 3,400 years.
It has a rich heritage of arts, learning and philosophy. Plato founded an
academy in Athens. Aristotle founded a school in Athens. It was the hip and
happenin’ town in Paul’s day. Athens has been called the cradle of Western
civilization. It was the birthplace of the concept of democracy.
It is in this
Athens that we pick up Paul’s story:
Acts 17:16-34
So the apostle stood there in the Areopagus amid
all these thinkers and philosophers of the ancient world and delivers his
sermon. The point we’d like to focus in on tonight was in v.24-25: “God, who made the
world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not
dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He
gives to all life, breath, and all things.”
Keeping in mind that Paul spoke to a Greek audience who
were used to worshiping statues in temples which represented gods, He lays out
three things:
1. God is separate from Creation.
He made the world and everything in it. He is therefore not a part of anything
in Creation.
2. God does not dwell in temples
like Zeus or Ares or any of the other Greek or Roman gods.
3. God is not worshiped with men’s
hands, meaning he cannot be truly represented by anything men could build, like
the statues which the ancient world was so fond of.
The apostle Paul shows them who God really is: beyond the
universe, immaterial and infinite. And He mentions that because of these facts,
God needs nothing. Though He gives life to all, God does not need anything to
be given to Him.
This is the attribute of God with which we’re concerned
tonight: God’s Aseity. Obviously, the Bible doesn’t use the word Aseity. No one
did till the Middle Ages. But the concept is there.
Aseity comes from
a Latin word which literally means “from
self”. Aseity then refers to the property by which a being exists in and of
itself. Obviously, again, this is an attribute which can only be ascribed to
God Himself.
God Aseity metaphysical attribute which means He exists of
Himself.
Last week we talked much about God’s Pure Actuality. We
talked also about how God was the First Uncaused Cause. He began everything and
gave life. Of necessity, no one and nothing began God. God has no cause.
Nothing started God and nothing now keeps God in being. He sustains Himself.
While He gave life to Adam, no one gave life to God. God has life within
Himself. His own nature sustains Him.
So when we talk of God’s Aseity we’re talking about His
Self-Existence. Again, this closely ties in with God’s Pure Actuality, His
unchanging Ever-Existence, His eternal Existence. But God’s Aseity isn’t about
the length or the unchanging-ness of His Being. Aseity is about God’s
sustaining of Being.
Aseity isn’t saying that God is Self-Caused. Again, God is
Uncaused. But Aseity is saying that God’s life is in Himself, His Existence is
“of Himself”.
Tonight we’ll consider God’s Aseity in relation to five
points:
1. God’s Aseity Biblically
2. God’s Aseity and Church History
3. God’s Aseity and Biology
4. God’s Aseity and Apologetics
5. God’s Aseity and you Personally
1.
God’s Aseity Biblically
Now we just saw that Paul the apostle knew about God’s
Aseity. He described the concept when he said that God needs nothing from
anyone. God is Self-Existent.
But did Paul pull a fast one? Did he make it up? Or is
there further evidence in the Bible that God is Self-Existence, has Aseity?
For sure!
The Bible says that God holds all things together, that He
preserves and sustains Creation. Revelation
4:11, the twenty-four elders before the throne cry out: “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and
honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and
were created.”
At God’s will, the universe sprung into existence. But also
by God’s will, the universe maintains existence. The beginning of the universe
demands the Creativity of God and the presence of universe demands the
Sustaining power of God. God needs nothing, but all things currently exist
because He sustains them.
This concept is again found in Col 1:16-17. “For by Him all
things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and
invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things
were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him
all things consist.”
See also Isaiah
40:12-26.
God created and God sustains. Everything that we
know is completely and totally dependent upon God for its beginning and for its
presence. Everything needs God. Everything is dependent upon God. But God alone
is the only truly Independent Being.
No wonder John wrote “In
Him was life” (John 1:4). No one
gave God life. Life existence eternally as self-sustaining within Him. God’s
Life is of Himself.
As the Word cries out “Who is like Him?” Who is there like
God? God is the most unique Being, the only unique Being. Nothing caused Him.
No one gave Him life. He exists in and of Himself.
2.
God’s Aseity and Church History
We see now that the Bible clearly teaches God’s Aseity,
that His existence is unique and different from the existence of any other
being, because He sustains all things and gives life to all things, yet His
existence is of Himself. Scripture clearly teaches God’s Aseity.
Likewise, history clearly shows that believers throughout
the ages have believed God’s Aseity. There is not only biblical evidence for
God’s Aseity (most importantly), but there’s also historical evidence for God’s
Aseity.
Let me give you a few quotes:
A man who
lived circa 130AD, who identified himself as “Mathetes” which means “a
disciple”, wrote: “For while the Gentiles, by offering such things to those
that are destitute of sense and hearing, furnish an example of madness; they,
on the other hand, by thinking to offer things to God as if He needed them,
might justly reckon it rather an act of folly than of divine worship. For He
that made heaven and earth, and all that is therein, and gives to all the
things of which we stand in need, certainly requires none of those things which
He Himself bestows on such as think of furnishing them to Him.”
Thomas Aquinas described the being of God as “self-subsisting”.
He saw that God exists in and of Himself, needing nothing.
The Reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) wrote: “From
the power of God we are naturally led to consider His eternity, since that from
which all other things derive their origin must necessarily be self-existent
and eternal. Moreover, if it be asked what cause induced Him to create all
things at first, and now inclines Him to preserve them, we shall find that
there could be no other cause that His own goodness.”
John Miley was a Methodist theologian who died in
1895. He wrote “God is for human thought an incomprehensible Being, existing in
absolute soleness, apart from the categories of genus and species.”
William G. T. Shedd, a Presbyterian theologian who
died in 1894, wrote: “The self-existence of God denotes that the ground of His
being is in Himself. In the reference, it is sometimes said that God is His own
cause. But this is objectionable language. God is the uncaused Being, and in
this respect differs from all other beings.”
Hey, there’s nobody like God. He needs nothing.
3.
God’s Aseity and Biology
For the sake of simplicity,
let’s stick with Human Biology.
What do you and I need to physically survive? Let’s see how
many things we can count…
Of all these things that we human beings need to survive
physically, does God need any one of these things Himself? Does God need air or
sunlight or food or water? Certainly
not. God solely existences because of Himself. He literally needs nothing.
We often think that God not needing anything means that he
doesn’t need our energies or our planning or our money or our wisdom. But He
really has it all in and of Himself.
4.
God’s Aseity and Apologetics
Remember way back when we first started this study? Our
first night’s study was on the Existence of God and I gave you three classical
arguments for God’s existence. Anyone remember what they were?
a. Cosmological Argument – argues
from a beginning to a Beginner
b. Teleological Argument – argues
from design to a Designer
c. Moral Argument – argues from a
moral law to a moral Lawgiver
Now that we have these fresh in our minds, I’d like to
bring your thoughts back to the Cosmological Argument.
The Cosmological Argument goes:
a. Everything that had a beginning
had a cause
b. The universe had a beginner
c. Therefore, the universe had a
cause
And we identify God as that First Cause, the Uncause
Causer, who caused the universe to begin. This is what’s known as the
horizontal form of the cosmological argument. It has a horizontal and a vertical form. The horizontal form
argues from the past origin of the
cosmos to the original First Cause, which is God. The vertical form argues from
the present existence of the cosmos
to a present Being upon which it’s dependent.
Briefly, here’s the vertical Cosmological Argument:
a. Every part of the universe is
right now dependent for its existence
b. If every part is right now dependent
for its existence, then the whole universe must also be right now dependent for
its existence
c. Therefore, the whole universe
is dependent right now for its existence on some Independent thing beyond
itself
This is not the same thing as putting two triangles
together to make a square or like pieces in a mosaic forming a picture that is
different from each piece. Two dependent beings put together cannot form
anything but dependent beings.
Let’s put this in a picture:
Let’s say I jump out over a pit onto a chair that is
suspended over the pit, in dead air, and the chair holds me. Now I am dependent
upon that chair. But what about that chair, suspended over that pit? What would
you say about the chair? Well, you would automatically believe that something
else is holding up that chair, just as it is holding me up. Magnets or
particles or wind or even another chair. But if that chair is holding up that
chair upon which I’m standing, then what’s holding up that second chair? A
third chair upon which it’s stacked? And on and on and on till you get to the
bottom of the pit.
And the universe is just like that. Every part of it is
dependent upon another part, but there must be something beneath it or beyond
it which holds the whole thing up. That’s God. God holds up the chair. God is
the bottom of the pit. God is beyond the universe and holds it all up, holds it
all together.
5. God’s
Aseity and you Personally
We’ve seen that God needs nothing, that His existence is in
and of Himself, in Him is Life, and that He sustains all things. All these
ideas are tied in with God’s Aseity.
God needs nothing, but you and the people around you need
everything from Him. We can challenge others with logic, with Scripture, with
God by telling them that all they need is found in Him. Contrariwise, without
God you have nothing. He may have given you life and being, but without Him
there can be no meaning, no hope and no purpose for your life.
But this isn’t only the time for preparing us to speak with
others. This is a time for us, to be prepared by God as He sees fit. And so I’m
not just going to give you this application for others. I’m going to give you
one for yourself:
God sustains everything. We know that.
But have you asked God to sustain you lately? I’m not
talking about physically. As little as we focus on making our heart beat, so
too we rarely think of God holding us together particle by particle.
But have you asked God to sustain your job, your ability to
work, your health? Have you asked God to sustain your family, your parents,
your siblings, their faith, to keep them together? Have you asked God to
sustain your sanity through college, to sustain your education? Have you asked
God to sustain your friendships when so often we can ruin them because we’re
human? Have you asked God to sustain your church, your pastors, your
congregation when all the cunning of the Enemy is turned against them? Have you
sought out God’s sustaining upon your life?
We need to commit all these things to God. We need to
entrust these areas of our life to our Lord. He holds everything together. Upon
that statement rests our hope for living in this world.
How desperately and truly we need God, for everything in
our lives.
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