On January 9 we discussed three of our REFLECT and

RENEW points:
 Knowing Christ
 Faith in Christ
 Fruit from Christ
The emphasis here was on reading the Bible

January 16 we continued with two more REFLECT and

RENEW points.
 Preaching the gospel to yourself
 A look at a Martha and Mary type ministry
The emphasis was on having devotions in the Bible

Last week we emphasized how to study the Bible

 The book of Philemon
 Starting at Carmel on March 6 through April 24
The Gospel Story
 Creation
 Fall
 Redemption
 Restoration
This will be taught over a 7 week period and the 8th week
will conclude on Easter Sunday
 Change in our teaching curriculum
 Starting in May “sovereignty of God”
 Communicable Attributes of God

Communicable attributes are those attributes which He

communicates and this means shares in kind with His
creatures in part.

There is a finite representation of these attributes with

human beings:
 God is love, we are called to love
 God is wise, we are called to be wise
 God is merciful, we are called to be merciful
 God is holy, we are called to be holy

These attributes are true about God and to some finite

measure they are true of His creation
Three categories in the communicable attributes
This are not meant to be air tight categories and you will see
that there is a good bit of overlap between each of them.
There is a screen that separates them and not a brick wall.

Category #1 - Intellectual Attributes

Knowledge
Wisdom

Category #2 - Moral Attributes

Goodness
Holiness

Category #3 - Rulership Attributes

Sovereignty
 The holiness of God

When the Bible speaks of the holiness of God, it speaks

about;
 His apartness
 His otherness
 His majesty
 His transcendence
The primary use of this word in Scripture has to do with
separateness;

 The Israelites were told that they could not eat certain
kinds of food or wear certain kinds of clothes. Why?
Because they were to be set apart from other peoples of the
world.
 God wanted Israel to look different, to act different and
to be different than all the other nations of the world. This
was because they served a holy God.

A secondary use of holiness is moral purity;

 God has infinite moral excellencies
 God is eternally and immutably pure
God has as His nature moral standards of right and
wrong. Therefore God embodies what is right and rejects
what is wrong. The laws that flow out of God's nature are
not arbitrary.

They are universal because they attach to the eternal

nature of God because He embodies
all that is right.

Righteousness refers to God's own perfect conformity to

His own intrinsic moral law.
God's own nature is righteous in that it never violates in
word, thought or action God's intrinsic moral standards.
 Righteousness is the holy nature of God in action
whether in thought, word or action. God always acts in a
way consistent with His own moral nature.God always
thinks, speaks and acts in truth.

 Righteousness means right thought, right words, and

right actions.

 Righteousness means right thought, right words, and

right actions.
Under holiness we have the second category called
justice
 legislative (justice) - giving of the law
 distributive (justice) - enforcing of the law

Justice refers to two things:

 God establishes standards for His moral creatures that are in
conformity to the standards of His own moral nature.

 God judges His moral creatures by their conformity to those

standards.

This definition refers to the legislative justice of God in that He is

law giver. And it relates to the distributive justice of God in that He
is law enforcer.
The law of God is not negotiable or arbitrary. The 10
commandments are an expression from the moral nature of God.

God gives the law (legislative) and then God acts as judge over the
law (distributive) that has been given.

The Great Awakening in the 1700’s

 Jonathan Edwards
 George Whitfield
 John Wesley
The main theme of the preaching was two-fold as it dealt with the
holiness and justice of God.
The Regenerate man is a holy man - J.C. Ryle

He endeavors to live according to God’s will, to do the

things that please God, to avoid the things that God hates.
His aim and desire is to love God with heart and soul, and
mind and strength, and to love his neighbor as himself. His
wish is to be continually looking to Christ as his example as
well as his Savior, and to show himself Christ’s friend by
doing whatever Christ commands.

No doubt he is not perfect. None will tell you that sooner

than himself. He groans under the burden of indwelling
corruption cleaving to him. He finds an evil principle within
him constantly warring against grace, and trying to draw him
away from God. But he does not consent to it, though he
cannot prevent its presence.
In spite of all short-comings, the average bent and bias of
his ways is holy—his doings holy—his tastes holy—and
his habits holy. In spite of all his swerving and turning
aside, like a ship going against a contrary wind, the
general course of his life is in one direction—toward God
and for God.
And though he may sometimes feel so low that he
questions whether he is a Christian at all, in his calmer
moments he will generally be able to say, with old John
Newton, “I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I
want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world—
but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace
of God I am what I am.”
Consequences for offending the holiness of God
 2 Samuel 6:1-8
 Acts 5:1-13
 Leviticus 10:1-2

It is God who creates a human beings, gives those human beings life
and puts them in the ultimate environment in order to experience life.
And then those same human beings rebel against God and commit
cosmic treason.

Is there anything wrong with a God who would judge them and put
them to death?

The real puzzle and mystery is this, NOT that a righteous and holy
God should exercise justice but why God generation after generation
continues to tolerate rebellious creatures