By Wendell Tenison
Lesson One: The Nature Of God
THE HEART OF GOD:
(Gen.6:5-6) "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.................And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart"
According to Gen.1:27, God made man in his own image. As the above verse 6 tells us that God has a heart, so has he given man a heart. It is not enough to stop right here and say that this is all we know. The heart of God is obviously the inner fiber of his being and his attributes he has instilled within us. However, he has left man with the option to cultivate his heart in the direction of evil also.
(Prov.23:7) "for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he,"
God also has emotions of the heart such as love, hate, anger, grief, repentance, joy, vengeance, jealousy, giver of blessings and possibly others. Man also has these same qualities, but his ability to perfectly control them does not equal his expectations. We must keep our relationship with God in the right perspective; God's foolishness is wiser than men and his weakness is stronger than men, 1Cor.1:25. This may be a figure of speech or it may not; either way, none have ever withstood him from the standpoint of strength or intellect.
We could spend several pages discussing how man rebels against God, but this one statement sums it up very well: man believes that God thinks like he does, Ps.50:21. It is no wonder that man has drifted so far from him. We see this in all walks of life, but unfortunately we see it in the church where of all places it should not be.
THE SOUL OF GOD:
(Lev.26:11) "And I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you."
(Isa.1:14) "Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them."
As I pointed out in "Heart-Soul-Spirit" soul means self, therefore, God was saying that his self would not abhor them. To my knowledge these are the only places in the bible where it mentions the soul of God. There is as much confusion about soul as there is about heart and spirit.
No place in the bible mentions that God has a body. However, Christ currently has a body that the apostle Paul describes as:
(Phil.3:21) "Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself."
It is safe and reasonable to assume that God does have a body since the apostle Paul again affirms that there is a spiritual body and a natural body. He also affirms that we are sown a natural body and raised a spiritual body, 1Cor.15:44.
I emphatically deny that body and soul are the same. However, heart, spirit and body do constitute a soul or being. In reference to God there are countless personal pronouns used to identify him, all meaning himself. One point that should be made regarding heart, soul, spirit, and body, is that only the body dies and that applies to natural or physical life. I have made this statement before and I will make it again; "everyone seems to have their own idea as to what soul is and they all believe they are right." We accept the common sense rule that we all could be wrong, but not all can be right, except in this case of heart, soul, spirit and body.
Here again, we are made in the likeness and image of God. When we stop and really think about it, we are made very close to God, but he has put some distance between us. It appears that God left out a major ingredient for man's eternal existence in the very beginning. It is very apparent that the tree of life is essential for eternal life. We find that it still exists and will serve those who are faithful in the hereafter with God, Rev.22:1-5. It also appears that man had not yet eaten of the tree of life in the garden even though he could have. God said that he could eat freely of every tree except the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Gen.2:16-17.
(Gen.3:22-23) "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:.........therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken."
The phrase "live for ever" does not mean that man or any other of God's creation whether spiritual or natural, is beyond the scope of God's power to correct and punish. Did Satan and his cronies eat of the tree of life? We do not know, but we do know that God has total power over them.
Faith is something that we are very weak in when it comes to understanding the awesome power of God. If God could cause Peter, James and John to witness the transfiguration of Christ, Moses and Elias before them; if he could cause Stephen to see the Son of man standing at the right hand of God (incidentally, this is the only place that we know about, although there may be others where our Lord arose from the seat of his throne and took grave notice of what was happening to his servant;) if he could cause the apostle Paul to be caught up to the third heaven or paradise and heard things not lawful for a man to utter; if he could cause the apostle John to see visions and revelations and write about them; then God can do anything he pleases where anything is concerned.
THE SPIRIT OF GOD:
(Jn.4:24) "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."
God not only is a Spirit, but he is Spirit. He is not just another spirit, but the father of all spirits, Heb.12:9. Spirits belong to the unseen by mankind. Our Lord said in Luke 24:39, that spirits have not flesh and blood as he had. Our Lord also said, that no man had seen God at any time, but only the begotten Son, Jn.1:18; 1Jn.4:12.
(Gen.6:3) "And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years."
(Septuagint Gen.6:4) "And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall not certainly remain among these men for ever, because they are flesh, but their days shall be an hundred and twenty years."
We learn as much about God by the works of his Spirit as any other thing that God has done. If we want to learn as much as we can about God, then we should devote a great deal of study to the law to the fathers, the law of Moses, the prophets, poetry, and the rest of the books. Certainly there is much to learn in the new testament, but God reveals more of himself in Moses and the prophets.
(Job 33:4) "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life."
It is not my intent to show the multitude of works done by the Spirit of God from the beginning of the creation to what he performs presently in and out of the church. Aside from the creation, the above scripture is very important in understanding how God works through his Spirit.
THE SEVEN EYES OF GOD:
(Rev.1:4; 3:1; 4:4; 5:6) "John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne..........And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.................And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God...............And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth."
Without any doubt there are seven spirits of God which are the seven eyes of God. With the reading of two more verses we shall see the purpose and the kind of spirits they are.
(Zech.4:10) "For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth."
(Isa.11:2) "And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord;"
Counting six kinds of spirits plus the Holy Spirit of God, now we understand just how the seven spirits of God work among men.
SEVEN THINGS THAT GOD HATES:
(Prov.6:16-19) "These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: ..........A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,.............An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,.............A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren."
THE IDENTITY OF GOD:
(Ex.3:14) "And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."
I do not have the words nor the intelligence to comprehend the identity of the majestic God of the universe. To me this reference of God unto himself is the epitome of everything attributed to him, including all of the attributes that he has revealed about himself unto us.
(1Cor.2:11) "For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God."
Here again, we are made in the likeness of God. The Spirit of God and the spirit of man are the focal points of the verse. Man does not know the things of God, meaning, his thoughts and reasoning. However, we can know God in many ways because he has intended that we know him.
(1Jn.2:3; 4:2; 5:20) "And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments..........Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God...............And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life."
The requirements for knowing God are: keeping his commandments and confessing that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. The same as Jesus said:
(Jn.14:15) "If ye love me, keep my commandments."
As we all know or all should know, we are his offspring, Acts 17:28-29. Is it any wonder that we refer to ourselves by the same expression of identity, I Am so and so? What greater glory could man bask in than that he is made in the image and likeness of God?
At this point it would be very easy for me to stray from the purpose of this book and spend many pages writing about what little I know about God. But I will not.