The Attributes of God

Lesson Nine: The Truthfulness of God

Review:

Attributes that are God’s alone:
- God is Self-Existing
- God is Self-Sufficient
- God is Constant
- God is Infinite (in time and space)
Attributes that God shares (in limited manner) with His Creation:
- Personality – God is not a thing, force, it.
- God is Spirit.
- Intellectual Attributes:
  - The Knowledge of God
  - The Wisdom of God
- The Truthfulness of God

Definition: God is perfectly reliable in His revelation to mankind.

He is true in His revelation of Himself.

He is true in His being.

Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a human being, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it happen?

All other gods are lies.

Psalm 96:5 For all the gods of the nations are worthless, but the Lord made the sky.

Psalm 115:4-8 4 Their idols are made of silver and gold – they are man-made. 5 They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see, 6 ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell, 7 hands, but cannot touch, feet, but cannot walk. They cannot even clear their throats. 8 Those who make them will end up like them, as will everyone who trusts in them.

Isaiah 44:9-10 9 All who form idols are nothing; the things in which they delight are worthless. Their witnesses cannot see; they recognize nothing, so they are put to shame. 10 Who forms a god and casts an idol that will prove worthless?

He reveals himself as He really is.

Romans 3:3-4 3 What then? If some did not believe, does their unbelief nullify the faithfulness of God? 4 Absolutely not! Let God be proven true, and every human being shown up as a liar, just as it is written: “so that you will be justified in your words and will prevail when you are judged.”

Hebrews 6:18 18 so that we who have found refuge in him may find strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us through two unchangeable things, since it is impossible for God to lie.

His revelation in Creation is true (logic). God did not create the universe in a manner which should deceive man.

Things within the creation have an objective existence, they are as they appear to be.

Our faculties (senses) in their normal exercise do not deceive us. Under normal conditions our senses “give us true and accurate information regarding objects which God would have me recognize” (Lewis S. Chafer).

Logic and science are possible as a result of the truthfulness of God. Apart from this perfection of God “there would be no certainty whatsoever in this life, and men would wander on in comfortless perplexity not knowing whence they came or whither they are going ” (Chafer).

His revelation is in itself true. It can be logically deduced from the above. It is taught in Scripture.

Psalm 12:6 The Lord’s words are absolutely reliable. They are as untainted as silver purified in a furnace on the ground, where it is thoroughly refined.

Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a human being, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it happen?

Questions:

As Christians should we test Scripture with science, or should we test science with Scripture?

Do you believe that science (in the true since) supports or contradicts the Bible?