Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Exodus 3:1-15 | Date: November 6, 2022 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

The Self-Sufficiency of God

All right, Exodus chapter three. You have heard me talk any number of times about the aseity of God—aseity of God. We’ll talk more about that today. But I’ve been wanting all this time to have a chance to get to it and give some devoted attention to the doctrine. And it came up most recently in our Wednesday evening Bible reading and prayer group. In Acts chapter 17, the Apostle Paul makes use of that doctrine, and I really wanted to get to it. And so when Eric said he would be away, I thought, well, that’s what I’ll do. We’ll call this the self-sufficiency of God, and I’ll explain it more as we go along, but I want to start with Exodus chapter 3.

Hopefully, we will have time to get to Acts chapter 17 as well to see how the Apostle Paul makes use of the doctrine, but we have to establish it first, and that’s Exodus chapter 3. I’ll begin reading with verse 1:

“Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, ‘I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.’ When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses.’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then he said, ‘Do not come near. Take your sandals off your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ And he said, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Then the Lord said, ‘I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their suffering. And I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of the land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to a place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.'”

Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” He said, “But I will be with you. This shall be a sign that I have sent you when you have brought the people out of Egypt. You shall serve God on this mountain.” Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever. And thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.'”

All right, it’s a familiar scene. We’ve all been familiar with this story since we became Christians, probably in early ages at Sunday school. It’s a famous story. 40 years after Moses has left Egypt, he’s tending his father-in-law’s sheep. He sees this sight on Mount Horeb. He calls it a great sight. Some translations call it a strange sight. That translation gets part of it, but the idea is it’s a great sight, that this is an amazing kind of thing that’s happening here. He sees a bush ablaze with fire, but the strange thing and the great thing is the bush is not consumed by the fire. It’s just this fire burning in the bush, but it’s not burning the bush. It’s just burning on its own inside the bush.

And so as Moses approaches the bush then, he realizes that the angel of the Lord is speaking to him. He says, “This is holy ground. Keep your distance. Take your sandals off. Don’t come too near.” It is obviously a very sobering kind of a scene for Moses to be in such close presence of God. And then in verses—well, verse six—he listens in fear and in reverence. Verses seven and following, God informs Moses then of his plan to redeem Israel, to take them out of their slavery in Egypt. And this, you’ll remember, is as promised, as we’ve seen now in Genesis—this is as God promised to Abraham. Descendants will go into Egypt and they’ll be there for a time, but then I will bring them out. And now he announces not only will he bring them out, but Moses is to lead them out. So this is a major turning point in Old Testament history.

The high point of the scene is when we come to verses 13 and following, when God reveals his name to Moses. Verse 13: “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” So he knows this is God. And here we have to come to understand some of the terminology that’s used. “God” is not a name. “God” is a title. We know what that means. It entails all that God is. Similarly with our English word, “Lord.” It’s a title. It’s not a name. When you see in the Old Testament capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, that is to signal that this is Yahweh—this is the divine name. This is not just a title of lordship, but is to reflect his name.

God tells him here that his name is “I AM,” “I AM WHO I AM.” The titles “God” and “Lord” are very important designations. They speak of God’s greatness, his supremacy, his ownership of all, his rulership in all, but it’s not his personal name. So presumably, if we could know God’s name, we would know more about him and who he is. And so in verses 14 and 15, God gives his self-revelation of his name. God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” So it’s a unique name. “I AM.” What’s your name? “I AM.”

Now the word that we have in our Bibles translated capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, all uppercase, that is a form of the verb “to be.” The pronunciation is probably lost to us. “Yahweh” is the best guess that we have. I guess I won’t get into that. But we have that four-letter word, Yahweh, Y-H-W-H, and that’s a form of the verb “to be.” So it’s related to what we have here in Exodus 3 when God says, “I AM.” That’s the be-verb. I am what I am. I am who I am.

Now God himself makes the connection between the name “I AM” and what we have translated in all uppercase L-O-R-D, Yahweh. He makes the connection between those in several places. You’ll notice in chapter 3 here, verses 14 and 15, he calls himself “I AM,” and then he tells this in verse 15: “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers… has sent you.'” So he himself makes the connection between “I AM” and this all uppercase “Lord.” They are related; they’re both translations of the be-verb in Hebrew. You’ll find that in other places in Exodus and other places as well where God would, at one time, say that “My name is I AM,” and other times he will say, “My name is Yahweh.” So they are connected by the Lord himself.

So this is his name: I AM. Some Old Testament scholars—most prominently Bruce Waltke, who’s sort of a legendary Old Testament scholar—when he writes his commentaries anymore, books on the Old Testament, when he comes to the passages that speak of the “Lord” all uppercase, he just translates it “I AM” to emphasize and to get us to think of this connection that the Bible makes.

All right, the question then is, how is that significant? God says, “My name is I AM.” How is that significant? Some people have translated that—tried to translate it this way: “I am who I will be,” or “I will be who I am.” The Hebrew actually allows that kind of translation. And what they’re trying to emphasize with that translation is the faithfulness of God. He is who he is in terms of his faithfulness and so on. And I think that captures some aspect of it. But I think we should be content to translate it the way it’s traditionally translated: “I AM.” And my authority for saying that is Jesus himself, because when we come to the New Testament, he translates it in the present tense in the Greek. And so there we have it. “I AM” is how we are to understand this.

First Significance: God Is Eternal

But still we’re asked the question, what’s the significance of that? God calls himself, “I AM.” Well, there are two hints in this passage that I want to point out that point out the significance of God’s name. First of all, in verses 14 and 15, God himself expounds the significance of his name. Verse 14, he says: “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ He said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.'” Then verse 15, he expounds on it. God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever. Thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.'”

“I am to be remembered as I am.” I was “I AM” to Abraham; I was “I AM” to Isaac, to Jacob, to you, and to all future generations, I’m still “I AM.” So what’s being emphasized, first of all, is God’s eternality. The God who now sends Moses to liberate the people from Egypt is the very same God who promised to Abraham that he would do that. So “I AM,” the first significance of it, is that God is eternal.

An amazing attribute. He’s not the God who became. He’s not the God who will fizzle out at some point. He’s the God who is. Now, there’s more to it than that, and it goes deeper, and we’ll see that in a moment, but just to park just a second on that aspect of the significance of God’s name—his eternality—it’s really an amazing attribute to think of one who has never had a beginning and never had an end.

I remember one time, how many years ago was this? More than 30 years ago, when the kids were young, we were looking at the scriptures for devotions with the family, and we ran into this doctrine of God’s eternality, and I explained it. He has no beginning. He has no end. And I said to the kids, “Do you understand that?” And Jimmy said, “No.” Well, that’s okay. This is not us. We’re finite people and we can’t grasp it. It’s not illogical; it’s just beyond us to think of someone who just is.

Now Moses himself was evidently impressed with this aspect or this attribute of God, that he is eternal. In fact, we know that he was impressed by it because he wrote a song about it, and that’s Psalm 90. Psalm 90, you remember: “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were formed, before anything was, you are.” And he goes on in that Psalm to expound the nature of Israel’s firm trust. It’s a lament psalm, but typical of the lament psalms, he expresses his trust in God, particularly in God as the eternal one. He’s the one who has always been Israel’s refuge and he always will be Israel’s refuge. It’s one thing to say that God is our help. It’s another thing entirely to say that God is our eternal help. And that’s what Moses celebrates in Psalm 90.

And actually we’ve been singing that song for quite a while now as well. This is Isaac Watts: “O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast and our eternal home.” That’s Psalm 90. And Moses then is clearly impressed with this attribute of God that he is eternal. “I am the eternal God.”

A Step Deeper: The Doctrine of Divine Aseity

But we have to go a step deeper than that. And this is more prominent in Exodus 3. Although it’s fundamental to that, it’s more prominent in the passage. And that is Exodus 3 verses 2 and 3 here. We have God appearing to Moses in this burning bush. And it’s emphasized twice that although the bush is burning, the bush is not consumed. Fire burning in the bush, but the bush itself is not burned. So verse two: “The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush. He looked and behold, the bush was burning and yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, ‘I’ll turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.'”

So we have a divine fire of some sort in the bush, but the bush itself is not burning. In other words, then, we could say the fire was self-sufficient. It doesn’t need fuel outside of itself to burn. It’s a fire that is self-perpetuating. It’s in the bush, but it doesn’t need the bush to burn. It needs no fuel to sustain it. It exists of itself. Now, that’s the doctrine of divine aseity. It’s a Latin phrase that’s been prominent in theological literature for centuries. We don’t do the Latin anymore; we come up with other things. I think probably the best way to say it is God’s independence.

But God’s aseity: A is from—the Latin preposition “from”—se, “self.” From himself, God exists. A se, “from himself,” the self-existence of God. Or we might say more easily, the independence of God. And this takes us a little deeper than just the eternality of God. It is to say then that God is uncaused. He’s not God because of anything outside of himself. He’s dependent on nothing outside of himself. The ground of God’s existence is himself. He exists from himself. He’s independent, he’s self-existent, he’s self-sufficient, he is utterly self-reliant, autonomous, independent of any other consideration.

And I think that’s pretty clearly the significance of the fact that this fire is burning of itself and the bush is not burned with it. Jesus reflects on this a bit. He may even have had this incident in mind when he said in John chapter five, speaking of God, that God has life in himself. God has life in himself. No one gave him life. He exists of himself. And that’s the fundamental distinction then between God and us. It is the fundamental distinction between God and everything else. Everything else, including us, we’re dependent creation. God is independent. He exists of himself. We are dependent creatures. God is independent. Put it another way: God is not contingent. He doesn’t depend on anything else. “I AM WHO I AM”—not just that he is eternal, no beginning and no end, but he is independent and self-existent.

That actually is one implication of Genesis chapter 1 and verse 1: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” and you have this fundamental creator-creation distinction. There’s one class, God, and he’s the only one in it. And you have everything else, and that’s what he made. Creator and creation and the distinction. So God is not more or less like us, only better or more improved or something like that. The fundamental distinction is that of uncaused versus caused. Creator versus creature. And this is the uniqueness of God.

I won’t take time to turn to it; you can do it quickly if you’d like. But Isaiah 57 verse 15 has a fascinating statement about God. This week I’ve been reading through Isaiah. I’ve been struck with the way he presents himself. And here’s one that I think is just outstandingly striking. Isaiah 57 verse 15: “Thus says the one who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit.'”

Now what’s striking to me is that phrase, “who inhabits eternity.” “Thus says the one who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity.” Some of the newer versions translate it, “who lives forever.” That captures one aspect of it, but I think the older King James and the ESV that we use get it better. The significance goes deeper than just “lives forever.” He dwells in eternity, he inhabits eternity. Well, now the question is, what in the world does that mean, to inhabit eternity? God dwells in eternity. What does that mean? And I’ve got to tell you, I don’t know. But I think this doctrine of divine aseity helps us quite a bit to understand it, and that is that God exists eternally of himself. And in that sense, at least, he inhabits eternity. He is dependent on nothing, in need of nothing, outside of himself.

Now this is unpacked in the scriptures in many different dimensions, and I don’t have time to even touch all of them, but I’ll give you a couple of samples. God is autonomous then—and we’ve already said this, but just to pinpoint it a little—God is autonomous in his very being. In his being, he is not dependent on anything else. One related doctrine here, in traditional Christian doctrine, is the doctrine of divine simplicity. God is simple. And that’s always a tough one for people to get their mind around at first. What does that mean, God is simple? It doesn’t mean that God is slow. It means that God is simple as opposed to complex. He’s not made up of so many parts. There’s not so much of this and so much of this and so much of this and you put it all together and you’ve got God. If that were the case, then God would not be ultimate. Those things would be ultimate and God would be dependent upon them for his existence. But God is simple in the sense that he exists simply of himself.

Also in Christian theology there’s been this emphasis that God is the perfect being—the perfect being. He exists of himself and is in need of nothing else outside of himself. A couple of verses here just to run past you in that regard. Job 41 verse 11: “Who has first given to me that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.” Who has first given to me? Has there ever been a time in God’s existence when someone gave him something? No. Or Isaiah 43 in verse 10: “Before me, no God was formed, nor shall there be after me.” So there is no one and there is nothing that ever preceded God, nothing that went ahead of him, nothing that contributed to him, nothing that made him what he is. He’s the God who exists of himself. We’re clearly over our heads here, but that much is clear.

There are some Trinitarian implications to this as well. God is perfect in his own being, in need of nothing outside of himself—let’s put it this way—to fulfill himself. God is in need of nothing outside of himself to fulfill himself. There’s an old question that sometimes is asked: if God is eternal, what was he doing for all of those ages before he created the world? Actually, that question is an old one. Augustine in the 5th century was asked that question, and his answer was something like, “He was creating hell for people who ask stupid questions.” But the answer to what was God doing for all of those ages before creation is: he was eternally content in the three persons of his infinite being.

There’s an old poem, part of the Negro spiritual heritage. It’s really a very moving poem in many ways. It’s James Weldon Johnson’s, “The Creation.” And it’s a poetic rendering of Genesis 1, and it’s imaginative, granted, but it is kind of moving. From the mire he scoops some clay and he made some man. Much of it’s really good. But it starts out in a way that just ruins the whole thing. It starts out like this: “And God said, ‘I’m lonely. I’ll make me a world.'” That never happened. Never has God been lonely. He’s been eternally content in the three persons of his infinite being. This is the self-sufficiency of God. I’d love to expand on that further too, but we’ve got to move on.

Another implication of this is God’s immutability. Another doctrine that is prominent, particularly in the Old Testament—we find it in the New Testament as well—is immutability. That is, he does not change. Malachi chapter 3 and verse 6: “I am the Lord, I change not.” And the implication is, of course, that God is perfect in his own being, and if he were to change in any way, it would mean that he is either improving—he’s already a perfect being existing of himself—or he’s getting worse, which is something you don’t want to say. So God says, “I change not.” He’s not in a process of change. Developing. Psalm 102 verses 25 to 27: “Of old you have laid the foundation of the earth. The heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain. They all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe and they will pass away. But you are the same, and your years have no end.” So God is not getting old. God is not becoming anything other than what he is.

God is also autonomous in his knowledge. There never was a time in God’s experience where God said, “But…” eternally self-sufficient in his omniscience as well. Isaiah chapter 40 verses 13 and 14: “Who has measured the spirit of the Lord? Or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult? Who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice and taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding?” The point is there that the ground of God’s knowledge is not anything outside of himself. The ground of God’s knowledge is himself. He’s eternally self-sufficient. He’s the God who exists a se, from himself. Well, he’s autonomous in his will, and there are other applications to this that we could see, but we should move on.

Now, all of this contrasts then with many false religions, even from the biblical days and then through to later as well. And let’s just take some contrasts that I think might be interesting. Pantheism, for one. God and nature are so inter-involved in pantheism that the distinction between God and creation, creator and creation, fades and it gets blurred. In biblical theology, God is the God who exists of himself and all of creation is dependent upon him. He himself is dependent on nothing. And there’s that fundamental creator-creation distinction.

Some of the pagan religions of the ancient Near East, they had their multiplicity of gods. They were all the product of creation and they’re struggling in various ways with their own limitations. All of that in stark contrast to the God of the Bible. The Psalmist loved to celebrate this. Isaiah does a lot of it as well. In contrast to that, those finite gods who struggle with their various limitations are themselves the product of creation or some process of it. God exists of himself, independent of all others.

There’s what’s called process theology. We don’t hear as much about that today. There are some professing Christians who have taught it in the past, and it became sort of an important thing for a while. There are some remnants of it still in open theism. But in process theology, God and the world were described in terms of mutual dependence, and so God was becoming. And he’s becoming in response to, as he’s contingent on, the creation. And there’s that give-and-take response that serves to the development of God. We have that somehow in the polytheism of the ancient Near East, where humans and gods would interact in various ways, and that had an effect on the humans, and it had an effect on the gods as well. But in the Bible, we have God not becoming anything. He is who he is, and he is existing of himself, self-divine, self-existing. And all of God’s excellencies, all of his attributes that we describe and we love to praise him for—all of his attributes are of himself.

I mentioned open theism; that’s another. In open theism, God is contingent on the creation. God created with risks involved because he doesn’t know the future and he will have to respond to what happens in the future to try to work out his purpose. Even some left-wing evangelicals have claimed—I’m not sure how you can claim to be a theist and hold to that view of God. But all that flies in the face of what we see of God as “I AM,” the one who exists of himself. So then, when God names himself, “I AM,” he reveals, he tells us something about himself. Unlike all created beings, all other things, God is the uncaused, uncreated creator. Independent and eternal, and he’s perfect in his own being.

How Paul Makes Use of This Doctrine

All right, I said I wanted to get to Acts chapter 17. What I’d like you to do is turn there, and I want you to see how Paul makes use of this doctrine. This is what we came across recently in our Bible reading on Wednesday evening. And I think I mentioned then that I’d like to expound on it further, and so here we go. And we don’t have time to do it in any depth, but we can point out the highlights.

You remember the scene here? Paul had come to Athens at Mars Hill; this is a center of pagan philosophers where they love to come and debate their various philosophies. And Paul then was there, eager of course to bring the gospel. I’ll pick it up with verse 16, Acts 17 verse 16:

“Now, while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicureans and the Stoic philosophers also conversed with him, and some said, ‘What does this babbler wish to say?’ Others said, ‘He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities’—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, ‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know, therefore, what these things mean.’ (Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing of something new.)

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said, ‘Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being. As even some of your own poets have said, “For we are indeed his offspring.” Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. And of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.'”

Now, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. Others said, “We’ll hear you again about this.” Paul went out from their midst, and some men joined him and believed, among whom were also Dionysius, the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

All right, interesting event in Paul’s ministry. We’ll just highlight some of the things here. Verse 23 speaks of the unknown God. They had an altar to all of their different gods, and one of them is named—imagine this, a tribute to their own ignorance—”TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.” We know he’s out there. Presumably, this is the God that they had concluded had to be behind all the other gods who got all the other things going. So he’s the real God, if we can put it that way, and so they’ve got an altar to him. And they don’t know him, but he’s got to be out there somewhere. And Paul says, “I know him, he’s revealed himself, and I’ve come here to talk to you about it, to tell you what he said.”

In verse 24 then, he reverts back to the doctrine of creation. God is the creator of all things and therefore the sovereign over all of it. He made the world, verse 24, made the world and everything in it. He’s Lord of heaven and earth. So God is the creator and therefore the ruler over all that is. And then verses 24 and 25, he draws the inference. He does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

So, because God is the author of all that is, he himself, number one, he says, is not contained in anything man-made. He doesn’t dwell in temples made by human hands. Does it make sense to think that the God who made everything that is needs or can be contained in something we make? Or do you think he’s just your God and not the God of all? You think somehow that you’ve domesticated him, putting him in a house? So number one, God is not contained in anything man-made. He does not live in temples made by man.

Number two, he’s not in need of anything from us. Verse 25: “He’s not served by human hands as though he needed anything.” Does it make sense that the God who gave us everything that we have needs anything from us? This flies right in the face of the view of the gods that they had there in the ancient Near East. You stroke the backs of the gods so that they will be nice to you. You stroke their back, they stroke your back, and you get along that way. God has certain needs that you need to fulfill. But Paul is just reasoning here. This is the God who made everything that is. Do you think that there’s… if he’s given us everything in the first place, that he needs anything back? It’s the God who made everything that is.

That is to say, God is eternally self-sufficient. He’s not in need of anything. He didn’t create because he needs it, and we don’t worship him because he needs it. We need to worship him. He doesn’t need it. From our hearts, we desire to worship him, but he doesn’t need it. He’s not lacking in some way. He’s not dependent on it like some of the pagan gods were. He’s in need of nothing, and so we serve God, yeah, but we don’t do it because he needs it. Don’t think that when you come to church on Sunday, he needs a building. Don’t think he needs the piano, the guitars, the drums, the preacher. He’s not in need of any of this, and we don’t do it because he needs it. We do it because, well, we need to, and because we want to, and he’s deserving of it, and there are plenty of reasons, but the reason is not something lacking in him. And Paul is attacking that kind of outlook then on the part of the Athenians.

So in those verses we have God then as transcendent over the creation. He’s above it all. Other than it all. Existing of himself with that fundamental distinction between creator and creation. Now when we get to verses 27 and 28, though God is transcendent, Paul says he is also immanent. He’s not far from each one of us. “For in him we live and move and have our being.” Okay, you know those two terms: transcendent—above all, other than all; immanent—not “imminent,” with an “I” in the middle. “Imminent,” that’s close with respect to time. This is “immanent,” with an “A” in the middle; that’s close with respect to space. God is transcendent, yes, but he’s also immanent.

So on the one hand, Paul is saying this God is not the God of the pantheists, where the distinction is blurred. But he’s also saying now God is not the God of the deist. God is so far removed that he makes no difference here in the creation. He is not far from each one of us. In him we live and move and have our being. That is, God the Creator remains active in his creation, ruling over it all, directing all things according to his own will. So Paul’s not a pantheist, Paul’s not a deist, but this is what he says theism is. God is both transcendent and immanent—above it all, but yet active in it all, performing his own will.

All right, now the question comes up in all of this. You have God who is in need of nothing, independent, eternally content in himself. The question comes up then: how can you have fellowship with a God who doesn’t need you? How can you gain acceptance with a God to whom you have nothing to offer? And the answer is, it’ll never be on your terms; it’ll only be on his. And this opens up the whole New Testament or the whole biblical doctrine of grace. What a ridiculous thought that we could ever earn a standing with this God, that somehow we would impress him so that he thought, “Oh, yeah, these people, I can accept them.” God doesn’t need it. We have nothing to contribute. But in grace, God has sent his Son for his own glory to redeem a people for his own namesake. And in him, we have what God requires for our acceptance of him—conditions that he has himself fulfilled.

We’ll see that more in the next hour. But it reduces us to that, that this God, if he is the exalted God that we see, who exists of himself, eternally independent, in need of nothing—you’re driven to this: to see that we have nothing to contribute, we have nothing to offer, we’ll never be able to do anything to earn a standing with him, for what we have is only what he’s given us in the first place. Hence the gospel of grace.

Uses of This Doctrine

So what are the uses then of this? Our time is about up. Uses of this doctrine:

Number one, this ought to have an impact on our worship. Recognizing that he’s the creator, recognizing his greatness, his majesty over all. And also in our worship, recognizing this doctrine of grace and salvation, that God saves us freely and not out of obligation or in response to anything on our part.

And also then, as we saw in Psalm 90, another use for this doctrine is simply our trust in God. If God is sufficient for himself, then certainly he’s sufficient for us, and he’s a God who can be trusted.

All right, any questions quickly before we go?