8.27.2014

Frame chapter 3 - Lordship as a Unique Worldview

God is unique.

He is unsurpassed and perfect in holiness, power, love, etc.  He alone is self sufficient.

Though He is great, He is personal.  We are not the product of impersonal forces, as naturalism claims, but of a personal being with His own will and intentions and desires.  He is a person who speaks to us.  Impersonal forces have no will or thought to communicate, but God does.

God is transcendent.  This doesn't mean He is literally "up there."  But He is "above it all" in that He made and rules it all.  Isaiah 6:1; Psalm 113:5-6.  This doesn't mean we can't know Him.  His thoughts and ways are above ours, but eternal life is knowing God and His Son Jesus (John 17:3).

God is immanent - present with us.  Again, this isn't just location.  Jesus is Immanuel, for our salvation.  Distortions of this lead to deism or pantheism.

Immanuel Kant distorted God's transcendence to see Him as unknowable.
Other modern "openness of God" theology distorts God's immanence such that He is not sovereign.
This is a spiritual battle here: will we submit to God's Lordship, or claim the right to choose and decide for ourselves apart from God's rule?

God is creator.  His creation is distinct from Him, and not identified with Him in any way (even in the Incarnation, the two natures of Christ are distinct and not mixed).  Immanence is not identity.  God is always close and present with His creation, yet sovereign over it - denying the Bible's creator/creature distinction gives autonomy to creatures, somehow, which is in error.

No comments:

Post a Comment