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In this message we shall consider further aspects of God’s person revealed in the New Testament.
First Corinthians 11:3 says, “I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God.” Christ is God’s anointed One, appointed by God. Hence, He is under God, and God as the Originator is His Head. This refers to the relationship between Christ and God in the divine government. In the universe, especially in God’s governmental administration, there is order. God is the Head over Christ, Christ is the Head over every man, and man is the head over the woman.
In 1 Timothy 1:1 Paul says, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, according to the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope.” God our Savior (1 Tim. 4:10; Titus 2:13) and our Savior God (1 Tim. 2:3; Titus 1:3; 2:10; 3:4) are titles particularly ascribed to God in the three books of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, books that take God’s salvation as a strong base for the teachings concerning God’s New Testament economy (1 Tim. 1:15-16; 2:4-6; 2 Tim. 1:9-10; 2:10; 3:15; Titus 2:14; 3:5-7). It was according to the command of such a saving God, a Savior God, not according to the command of the law-giving God, a demanding God, that Paul became an apostle.
First Timothy 2:3 says, “This is good and acceptable in the sight of our Savior God.” In 1 Timothy Paul emphasizes the Savior God. Hence, in this verse he speaks not of the God of grace nor of the God of mercy, but of the Savior God, the God who saves us. In 1 Timothy 4:10 Paul goes on to speak of “the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.”
In Titus 1:3 Paul again speaks of “the command of our Savior God.” Then in Titus 2:10 he speaks concerning “the teachings of our Savior God.” Our Savior is not only Christ, but God Triune embodied in Christ, as indicated in Titus 2:13. Our Savior God desires not only to save us, but also to teach us the full knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). Hence, there is the teaching of our Savior God, which may be adorned, beautified, by the transformed character of the most vile persons saved by His grace.
In Titus 3:4 Paul tells us that “the kindness and love to man of our Savior God appeared.” It is the kindness and love of our Savior God that has saved us and made us different from others.
Jude 25 also speaks of God our Savior: “To the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority before all time, and now, and unto all eternity. Amen.” Here we see that the only God is our Savior. To such a Savior may there be glory, majesty, might, and authority throughout all ages. Glory is the expression and splendor; majesty, the greatness in honor; might, the strength in power; and authority, the power in ruling.
In His person God is Abba Father of the believers. “Abba” is an Aramaic word, thus a Hebrew word, and “Father” is the translation of the Greek word pater. Such a term was first used by the Lord Jesus in Gethsemane while praying to the Father (Mark 14:36). The combination of the Hebrew title with the Greek expresses a stronger affection in crying to the Father. Such an affectionate cry implies an intimate relationship in life between a genuine son and a begetting father.
The Father is the source of life. This is indicated by the Lord’s word in John 5:26: “The Father has life in Himself.” In the New Testament, especially in the Gospel of John, the Father denotes the source of life. Even in a human family the father is the source of the life of that family. As the father of a family is the very source and origin of life, so the name Father reveals the Father as the source of life.
The Father, the source of life, is for propagation and multiplication of life. The Father’s life is for propagation and multiplication. Of the Father, who is the source of life, and who is for the propagation and multiplication of life, many sons are born for His expression (John 1:12-13).
The name Father is very much related to the divine life. Without having the divine life, God could not be the Father. How is it possible for a man to be a father? It is possible only by life. A father is a producer. A father produces not by manufacturing but by begetting. A father has a begetting life. Likewise, the Father has begotten us through His life. Whenever we call Him Father, we need to understand that this title is realized by the divine life. Without His life, the name Father is merely an empty term, without content or reality.
What is the revelation behind the name Father? Father is the name for the relationship of life. When I say, “Abba Father,” I indicate that I have His life and that I was born of Him. In the New Testament God is revealed as the Father who regenerates many sons. He is the source of life;
hence, He is the Father. It is His intention to bring forth many sons by regenerating them with His life. In the book of Matthew the Lord taught His disciples to call God Father, saying, “Our Father who is in the heavens” (6:9). Whenever we call God our Father, we should realize that He is our genuine Father. He is not our father-in-law, and we are not His adopted children. Our Father is our Father in life, our genuine Father. We call Him Father because we were born of Him and have His life.
When the two terms “Abba” and “Father” are put together, the result is a deep, sweet sense, a sense that is exquisitely intimate. “Abba, Father” is sweetness intensified. Therefore, the sense we have when calling in this way is very sweet and intimate.
Although the Spirit of sonship has come into our spirit, the Spirit cries in our hearts, “Abba, Father.” This indicates that our relationship with our Father in the sonship is sweet and intimate. For example, when a son calls his father “daddy,” there may be a sweet and intimate sense deep within him. However, the sense is not the same if he tries to say the same thing to his father-in-law. The reason is that with the father-in-law there is no relationship in life. How sweet it is when little children, enjoying a relationship in life with their fathers, tenderly say, “daddy.” In like manner, how tender and sweet it is to call God, “Abba, Father!” Such an intimate calling involves our heart as well as our spirit. The Spirit of sonship in our spirit cries, “Abba, Father,” from our heart. This proves that we have a genuine, bona fide relationship in life with our Father. We are His real sons, His genuine sons, and He is our genuine Father.
In the New Testament God is clearly revealed as being the only God. First Timothy 1:17 says, “Now to the King of the ages, incorruptible, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory unto the ages of the ages, Amen!” In Romans 16:27 Paul declares, “To the only wise God through Jesus Christ be the glory forever and ever! Amen.” Jude 25 says that God our Savior is the only God. Furthermore, in 1 Corinthians 8:4 and 6 Paul says that “there is no God but one” and that “to us there is one God, the Father.” Our God is uniquely one; He is utterly distinct from the many false gods.
Colossians 1:15 speaks of the invisible God. Although God is invisible, the Son of His love (Col. 1:13), “the effulgence of His glory and the express image of His substance” (Heb. 1:3), is His image, expressing what He is.
Other verses that tell us that God is invisible are 1 Timothy 1:17; 6:16; Hebrews 11:27; and I John 4:12. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” According to chapter one of the Gospel of John, although God is invisible, the Father’s only begotten Son has declared God by the Word, life, light, grace, and reality. The Word is God expressed, life is God imparted, light is God shining, grace is God enjoyed, and reality is God realized. The invisible God is fully declared in the Son through these five things.
A number of verses in the New Testament reveal that God is the living God. In Matthew 16:16 the Lord Jesus is called the Son of the living God. In this verse the living God is in contrast to dead religion. The living God, who is embodied in Christ, has nothing to do with dead religion.
In 1 Timothy 3:15 we see that the church, the house of God, is the church of the living God. In speaking of the church as the house of God, Paul specifically refers to God as the living God. The living God who lives in the church must be subjective to the church rather than merely objective. An idol in a heathen temple is lifeless. The God who not only lives but also acts, moves, and works in His living temple, the church, is living. Because God is living, the church is also living in Him, by Him, and with Him. A living God and a living church live, move, and work together. The living church is the house and the household of the living God.
In 1 Timothy 3:15 Paul refers not merely to God but to the living God. God is living, and now He lives, dwells, moves, and works in the church. Therefore, the church is the church of the living God.
In Hebrews 3:12 there is a warning with respect to the living God: “Beware, brothers, lest there be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief in withdrawing from the living God.” Our God is the living God. Unbelief is evil because it insults Him as the living One.
Regarding the living God, Hebrews 9:14 says, “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself spotless to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” Hebrews is not a book which teaches religion, but a book which reveals the living God. If we would have contact with this living God, we need to exercise our spirit (Heb. 4:12) and have a blood-purified conscience. The blood of Christ purifies our conscience to serve the living God.
Hebrews 9:14 speaks of dead works and of the living God. Before we were regenerated we were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1; Col. 2:13). Therefore, whatever we did, bad or good, was dead works before the living God. But now we may serve the living God with a conscience purified by the blood of Christ.
Hebrews 10:31 says, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Hebrews 10 charges the Hebrew believers to come forward according to God’s New Testament economy and not to drift back to the old Judaism. Then it warns them that if they would fall away from God’s New Testament way, they will be dealt with by God who is living. Since He is living He will judge His people.
Hebrews 12:22 speaks of the city of the living God. As a book dealing with the dead Judaism, Hebrews reveals God as the living God from different angles. Here it tells us that the New Testament believers have come to the city of the living God, which is the heavenly Jerusalem, in contrast with the earthly Jerusalem, which has been given up by God in His New Testament economy (Matt. 23:37-38). Since God is living in every way, the Hebrew believers should remain only in the things which fit in with the living God.
God is also the immortal One dwelling in unapproachable light. Concerning this, 1 Timothy 6:16 says, “Who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen nor can see, to whom be honor and eternal might. Amen.” Although the Father dwells in unapproachable light, we not only can approach Him in Christ, but we also can have fellowship with Him. We can approach the Father because we are no longer in darkness. He is in the light, and we are in the light also (1 John 1:5, 7). Furthermore, this immortal One who dwells in unapproachable light is being dispensed into us.
Hebrews 12:29 says, “Our God is also a consuming fire.” He is a consuming fire in His holiness and severity. God is holy; holiness is His nature. Whatever does not correspond to His holy nature He, as the consuming fire, will consume. Thus He is severe, expressing His holiness in severity. If the Hebrew believers, to whom the Epistle of Hebrews was addressed, would have turned aside to Judaism, which was common, unholy, in the sight of God, it would have made them unholy, and the holy God as the consuming fire would have consumed them.
God is not only righteous but also holy. To satisfy God’s righteousness we need to be justified through the redemption of Christ. To meet the demands of His holiness we need to be sanctified, to be made holy, by the heavenly, present, and living Christ. Romans emphasizes the matter of justification (Rom. 3:24) for God’s righteousness (Rom. 3:25-26), whereas Hebrews emphasizes the matter of sanctification (Heb. 2:11; 10:10, 14, 29; 13:12) for God’s holiness (Heb. 12:14). For this it was necessary for the Hebrew believers to separate themselves from unholy Judaism unto the holy God who has fully expressed Himself in the Son under the New Testament. Otherwise, they would defile themselves with their old profane religion and suffer the holy God as a consuming fire.
A number of verses tell us that God is the almighty One (Rev. 1:8; 4:8; 19:6, 15; 2 Cor. 6:18). The book of Revelation unveils God as the Almighty. In the Hebrew language the title “God” means the mighty One, the One who is mighty, powerful. But in Revelation we see that God is not only mighty but also almighty. As the almighty One, He is powerful in every way, in every aspect, in everything, and with everyone.
In John 17:3 the Lord Jesus addresses the Father as “the only true God.” This indicates that only God is the reality, the truth. Anything that is without Him is not true, not a reality. The Lord came with God as the truth, the reality (John 1:14), to make our life real. In order that we may know this reality, the true God, the Lord has given us the eternal life. His word in John 17:2-3 implies that eternal life has the ability to know the true God. In order to know the true God, we need His divine life, the eternal life. Because as believers we have been born of His divine life, we are able to know Him as the true God. The life of the true God certainly is able to know the true God. Since we have the life of the true God, we have the ability to know the only true God.
First John 5:20 says, “We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding that we might know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” In this verse “Him who is true” denotes the true God. To know Him who is true actually means to experience, enjoy, and possess the true God. We need the true God’s life, the eternal life, in order to experience, enjoy, and possess Him as the true One.
In 1 John 5:20 the expression “Him who is true” is used twice. A better translation would be “the true One.” To speak of God simply as God may be to speak in a rather objective way. However, the term “the true One” is subjective; it refers to God becoming subjective to us. The God who is objective becomes the true One in our life and experience subjectively. The true One is the reality. The Son of God has, through His incarnation, death and resurrection, given us an understanding so that we may know, that is, experience, enjoy, and possess, this divine reality. Now the God who was once merely objective to us has become our subjective reality.
The last part of 1 John 5:20 says, “This is the true God and eternal life.” The word “this” refers to the God who has come through incarnation and has given us the ability to know Him subjectively as the true One, making us one with Him organically in His Son Jesus Christ. All this is the true God and eternal life to us. All that this true God is to us is eternal life to us so that we may partake of and enjoy Him as everything to our regenerated being.
In 1 Timothy 6:15 Paul, when he was under Caesar’s rule, tells us that God is the only Sovereign, indicating that God is the only Ruler, the only Potentate, who has the most absolute and the highest authority and power. Hence, He is the King of those who reign as kings and Lord of those who rule as lords. Caesar was under Him. Undoubtedly the apostle who was imprisoned under Caesar was encouraged by knowing God as such a Sovereign.
In Revelation 6:10 the martyred saints called God the “sovereign Lord, holy and true.” The Greek word for “sovereign Lord” is despotes, denoting a slave’s master who has absolute sovereign power over the slave, as in Acts 4:24; Luke 2:29; Jude 4, 1 Timothy 6:1-2. The saints who suffered martyrdom for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus recognized the very God, whom they served and who allowed them to be martyred, as such a sovereign Master, who is holy (distinct from all things) and true (truthful) in His nature and character and has made them holy (sanctified, separated) and true (truthful, faithful) to Him (cf. Rev. 3:7 and note 3).
In 1 Timothy 1:17 Paul speaks of God as the King of the ages. Here “ages” actually means eternity. This word needs to be understood in relation to the decline of the church. When Paul was in prison, the churches began to decline, and the situation was very disappointing. Many
were discouraged. Even some of Paul’s co-workers left him. But he had a strong faith with an absolute assurance that the very God in whom he believed, the One who had entrusted him with the gospel of glory, is the King of the ages, the One with the absolute authority for eternity, who never changes. No earthly king can be called the King of the ages. Caesar was a temporary ruler, but how different is our God! The God whom Paul served truly is the King of the ages, the King of eternity. The One whom we serve and who is being dispensed into us is the King of the ages.
In 1 Timothy 6:15 Paul also tells us that God is “the King of those who reign as kings and Lord of those who rule as lords,” indicating that God is the highest Authority in the entire universe. Hence, He is the only Sovereign in whom the apostle trusted.
In 1 Timothy 1:17 we see that as the King of the ages, God is the incorruptible. He never changes in His nature, power, and any kind of His attributes; He always remains the same. Everything except Him is corruptible. The church may decline, deteriorate, and become degraded, but God is incorruptible.
Romans 16:25 to 26 tells us that God, who has given the command to make the hidden mystery known to all the nations, is eternal. This indicates that God remains immutable, not subject to any change due to any kind of environments and circumstances. Since the God who gives this command is eternal, remaining unchangeable forever, so is this command.
