The Nature of God

Techniques of the Christian Life

TL01-01

The purpose of this new series of studies on the techniques of the Christian life is to try to relate for you in an orderly fashion certain facts of doctrine which relate to Christian living which may be floating around loosely in your minds but which have not been related in an orderly fashion. This is easy to do as you study the Word of God. You learn this fact and this fact and this fact, and there comes a time when these things need to be coordinated and brought together in order that you can see the main thrust, the main direction, and the practical effect. That’s what we’re going to try to do in this course.

The Christian life, as you know, is a supernatural life, and therefore it is completely beyond the natural capacities of any Christian to live. Yet it is the duty of every Christian, moment by moment, to live this supernatural life. So, here on the one hand God calls us to live a supernatural life which on the other hand we have no capacity to live, and therefore we have something in the way of a dilemma. However, there is a solution. That solution is that the Bible has revealed certain divinely provided techniques or procedures that will enable the Christian to live this supernatural life. You will know many of these facts. You will hear some things which you have heard before, maybe with a little different emphasis, but certainly with a little different connection. But what you may know would be well for you to review, and what you don’t know, to add to this in order to get the picture and to bring all of these elements together as to how you may live the Christian life. We’re going to try to crystalize these in certain specific techniques… If you follow these techniques as a regular pattern of your life, it will ensure (with a positive response) that you will become stable spiritually, and that’s the thing we’re after.

The greatest problem among Christians today is spiritual stability. Until Christians become stable through the Word of God, they can’t tell when they’re being instructed in truth or in falsehood. They can’t tell whether they’re being conned; whether some professional preacher is playing on their emotions so that go home and feel that they’ve been in church and that they’ve received something when they’ve really received nothing. It takes spiritual stability to meet the problems that all of you face in your marriages. It takes spiritual stability to meet the problems that you face on your job, and the people you have to associate with. If you’re a college student, you need fantastic spiritual stability in order to be able to analyze the things that you’re taught, and to see things the way God sees them. The things we are going to deal with will lead you to that kind of spiritual stability in all areas of your life, and it will save you a lot of grief.

So, this study requires certain background to begin with about the nature of God and the nature of man and the issue of salvation itself. As a matter of fact, we want to deal with the issue of salvation at the beginning in order to explain to you, if you need that information concerning salvation, but also for those of you who are believers, to give you a little bit of an insight on how evangelism is something you teach people. Evangelism is part of the teaching work of every individual believer. Teaching evangelism is not what we generally have today. Instead, evangelism today is usually an emotional orgy by some highly personable and clever pulpit personality. It’s a high-powered operation. So, the average believer feels like he’s out of it when it comes to being an ambassador of Jesus Christ relative to the message of the gospel. But you are not out of it. Evangelism is a matter of having certain basic factors at your command that you understand about God, about man, and about the solution that God has provided. You teach people these factors. No matter what you see in the high-powered campaigns and the emotion that surrounds them and the glamour that surrounds them, that is not biblical evangelism. Evangelism is a matter of teaching something. We’re going to look at that.

The use of these techniques then will bring you to spiritual maturity and spiritual stability. We will not … seek to be tactful. We hope that we shall not be ill-mannered, but we are not particularly concerned whether your feelings are hurt or not. We hope your feelings will not be hurt. We hope you will play very straight-faced if your feelings are hurt. Please don’t get your handkerchief out and start crying. Please don’t turn to the person next to you and explain how you’re not guilty even though I’m talking about you in particular, in your opinion. We will not seek to be accommodating to you in order to be sure that you come back next week, because if you do come back next week, the advantage will be only to you, for you will again be exposed, I can assure you, to some very valuable information about the Word of God. You are only the loser if you don’t come back next week, so we won’t try to accommodate to be sure you come back. We’re not going to try to appeal to some lusts that are within your old sin nature in order to somehow get you to make some kind of a commitment to God. All we’re going to try to be in this series is informative.

If you want all these other things, there are churches all over town who specialize (in them) and they’re very good at it. We’re not very good at it. I confess. We’re not very good at accommodating or appealing to the old sin nature. We don’t have much of a knack for that. We don’t think that is God’s way so we don’t try to develop it. But if you are interested in information, this is the thing that we are out to bring you.

Psalm 119:11 puts it this way: “Thy word have I hidden in mine heart that I might not sin against thee.” That’s what we’re trying to do—to get God’s Word into your heart in such a way, to get God’s word into your thinking (which is your heart) in such a way, that you will be capable of moving through life with a minimum of actual sinning.

Light

We begin by looking at the fact that our God is a unity. The Bible compares God to light. In John 8:12, we read, “Then spoke Jesus again unto them saying, ‘I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life.’” In 1 John 1:5, John writes, “This then is the message which we have heard of Him and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.”

Light represents, here in the Scripture, light is used as an illustration of the oneness of God—the essence of God. A ray of light has actually in it seven basic colors. We find this in a science by using a thing called a prism which is just a little triangular shape of glass. If we take a ray of light and shoot this light ray into the prism, it will be refracted, come through the prism, and lo and behold, we discover that out here that light shoots out in a variety of colors. We find that it comes out red, yellow, blue, orange, green, purple, and indigo. All of these colors are in this light ray. Yet, as you look at that ray of light, it is a unity, but when it is separated into its essence, into its features, you discover that there are several colors.

When a ray of light strikes an object, these colors are either absorbed or they are reflected. So, here’s a piece of material, and here is a light ray. If this ray strikes the light and it bounces all of these colors back, you see white. If it absorbs all of these colors, what you see is black. In between are all the variations. Some of you are dressed in a yellow garment. That means that as the light rays strike you right now, all of the other colors are being absorbed by that piece of material you are wearing, and only yellow is being reflected, so we see yellow. You can just feel your body, if you think about it, absorbing all these other colors right through that garment.

Some of you are fittingly dressed in black, and all the colors are being absorbed so we see you as black. Some of you like to think of yourselves (differently) and you are dressed in white, and all the colors are being reflected. And here are reds, and here are greens, and there are colors all over. They were all there to begin with. You didn’t know that all these colors were in that single ray of light. But once that light ray struck the object and absorbed some colors and reflected others, you discover that that ray of light has more than just one color—white or black or whatever you happen to see.

This is significant. This is a scientific fact that we’re talking about. This is involved in this scriptural comparison that God is light. God is one in essence also. Thinking again of a prism: God strikes this prism, and let’s call it the prism of revelation, or the prism of information that we get from the Word of God. As God strikes the prism of revelation, we discover that God is made up of a variety of factors. God is sovereign. He is righteous. He is justice. He is love. He is eternal life. He is omniscient. He’s omnipotent. He’s omnipresent. He’s immutable, and He’s veracity. All of these factors or attributes are in God, but we wouldn’t know this about Him until God was revealed through the prism of the Bible. As we search the Word of God, we discover that God is all these different things.

There are certain circumstances in your life when some of these qualities are absorbed in your experience. There are times when you come up against experience, when God strikes a situation in your life, and a certain attribute will be reflected. You will discover in something that happens in your life that your God is sovereign, and that’s the characteristic which will stand out. Now He is all these other things, but at the moment these things are running through and being absorbed. Or you may discover in some situation that God is a god who is very just. So, justice is reflected back in your experience, and so on with the other attributes.

The character of God is made up of many attributes that compose the essence of God—the single quality of deity. These things are revealed by the prism of the Word. Let’s review these for a moment:

Sovereignty

We look at the fact God is sovereign. What does that mean? For example, Ephesians 1:5 says, “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” God acts entirely upon His own good pleasure. Psalm 115:3 says, “But our God is in the heavens, and He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased.” So, sovereign means that God has complete freedom to decide as His nature and as His desires direct. God is completely independent of any other will in the universe.

Righteousness

When we say that God is righteous, we are referring, for example, to Romans 3:22 that says, “Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe for there is no difference.” This is an absolutely perfect righteousness. Ephesians 5:21 speaks of this when it says, “For He hath made Him who know no sin to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” Human righteousness is relative. You are better some other people and so you are righteous in that respect, but God’s righteousness is absolute. You have to be as good as God in order to enter heaven.

Justice

God is also justice. Deuteronomy 32:4 says, “He is the rock. His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice, a god of truth and without iniquity. Just and right is He.” Then in 2 Chronicles 19:7 we read, “Wherefore now let the fear of the Lord be upon you. Take heed and do it, for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of bribes.” God is absolute fairness. He is no respecter of persons in His dealings with mankind.

Love

Another attribute in the essence of God is His love. In 1 John 4:7-8 we read, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love.” Then 1 John 4:16 says, “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is Love. He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” This means that God is free of all mental ill will in any form toward his created beings. It is the love of God that moves Him to act in grace toward us.

Eternal Life

God is also eternal life. In 1 Timothy 1:17 Paul says, “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” God is eternal. He is immortal. He has eternal life. That is, He has a life which never began and he has a life which never ends. In Revelation 1:8 we read, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” Then the psalmist in Psalm 90:2 says, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” God’s life has always been there. He shares this eternal life with us in salvation.

Omniscience

Then we find that God is also omniscient. That means that God knows everything and has always known everything. In 1 John 3:20: “For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things.” Proverbs 15:3 says, “The eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good.” Job 42:2 tells us that God reads our minds. Whatever we think is known to God. Whatever has always been or ever will be, God has known it all.

Omnipotence

We also find that God is omnipotent. In Matthew 19:26: “But Jesus beheld them and said unto them, ‘With men this is impossible, but with god all things are possible.” In Luke 1:37 again he says, “For with God nothing shall be impossible.” At the very end of the Bible, in Revelation 19:6 again stresses the omnipotence of God: “And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of mighty peels of thunder saying ‘Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. God has all power.

Omnipresence

God also is omnipresent. Jeremiah 23:24: “’Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him?’ saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth?’ saith the Lord.” God is omnipresent. Psalm 139:8 says, “If I ascend up into heaven. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold thou art there.” Acts 17:27 says, “That they should seek the Lord if perhaps they might feel after Him and find Him though He is not far from every one of us.” God is everywhere at the same time. Man can in no way hide himself or his acts from this God. He is omnipresent.

Immutability

Then God is immutable. We read in Malachi 3:6, at the end of the Old Testament, “For I am the Lord. I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” The word “immutable” means that God never changes. In James 1:17 we read that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the father of lights with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” God in His essence is unchangeable. This means, of course, that all of these qualities of which we have been speaking will never change. There can never come a time when God is not sovereign; when He is not justice or righteousness or love or omnipotence, and so on. He is unchangeable. Therefore, He will always be these things.

Veracity

Finally, one other very crucial thing to us in a world of uncertainty is the fact that God is veracity. That is, God is absolute truth. In John 3:33 we read, “And he that hath received this testimony hath set his seal to this: that God is true.” Then in Titus 1:2: “In hope of eternal life which God who cannot lie promised before the world began.” It is impossible for God to lie.

Now if God wrote the Bible, and you must decide whether you believe that or not: The liberal preacher says, “No He didn’t. It was just man-made.” The Christian who understands the truth about this realizes that God used man and directed their writings so that the Bible is a book of absolute truth. God is absolute truth. He cannot lie. Then the Bible that He wrote has to be absolute truth. Then the Bible is the guide book for us in spiritual things. Out of this book, because God is all of these things, and particularly because He is truth, we are going to draw the techniques for the Christian life. These are techniques which reflect what God is, and techniques which are compatible to His essence. When we operate on these techniques, we relate ourselves to what God is. Then we function.

Now having said this about what God is and having laid out the nature of God, the great issue of life is good versus good; that is, human good versus divine good. Here’s where we come to the matter of how a person can be related to this kind of a god—a god who reflects an essence like this. How can you who are an absolute sinner relate yourself to a god who is absolute righteousness? Human good production that stems from man’s efforts, or divine good production which will stem from a life which is functioning on the techniques of the Christian life, and so is properly related to this kind of a god.

Humanism

The philosophy of humanism summarizes what we call human good production. Humanism is an ancient approach to behavior and to reason. It is based solely upon human reason and upon experience.

Some years ago the humanist philosophy, and those who subscribe to it, wrote a declaration of what they believe. It was called the Humanist Manifesto I, and it came out in 1933. In it, it set forth the basic humanist attitudes which serve as the basis of modern liberalism in politics, in economics, and in religion. If you want to understand what is happening on the political scene of the United States and the world today, you need to study humanism because all that is controlling governments today stems from this quality of humanism and its production of human good. If you want to know what most churches are cranking out and the direction in which they’re leading people, study humanism. This is the basis of liberal theology. If you want to see why our economic system is going in the direction of socialism and the communal sharing concept, this stems from humanism. Humanism does not want to hurt people. Humanism is a sincere attempt to make things better for people, to make people happier, and to meet human needs that actually do exist. What stems from humanism is human good. Human good can never solve the problem.

For this reason human good will never solve your religious problems. It will never solve the economic problems of this nation, nor will it solve the social problems that this nation faces. It will absolutely not solve any political problems that we face. Humanism is the basis of man’s human good production.

Now the humanists have recently held another meeting. Some of the greatest humanist philosophers of our day gathered together, I think some 120 of them, and they signed a new manifesto, the Humanist Manifesto II. This is issued as the expression of the unregenerate mind for a society in which the divine viewpoint of the Bible is excluded. Now they don’t understand that that’s what they’re doing. All they understand is an expression of trying to make things better for people.

However, the humanist and the human good concepts all began the day that Cain was sent out from the rest of society that existed to his day after murdering his brother and was sent out from that society in which he had been living to form one of his own. From that day that Cain went out, the first thing Cain started to do was to make life pleasant, bearable, acceptable, fulfilling, significant, and profitable to people, all without God. That was the stinger. That was the thing that was underneath his motivation—life without God. Humanism is a philosophy that attempts to do the same thing, so out of it flows these human viewpoint solutions.

Central to humanism’s viewpoint is the conviction that man’s faith is entirely up to man. This is the basis of the principle of the whole United States liberal establishment. So, humanism follows its father Satan in the deception that there is no God to guide or to help mankind.

I want to quote from an article from National Observer of September, 1973, which quotes some passages from the new Humanist Manifesto that I think are significant against the kind of a God that we see in the prisms of the Bible reflected in the essence of God. This is the kind of a God that is out there. The humanist says that He’s not out there. From that concept flows certain viewpoints that we call human viewpoint. These eventuate in human good production. It will help you tremendously to understand the society that you’re living in, the instruction you’re getting at school, and the experiences that you’re having if you can understand that our society is governed by the principles of humanism.

For example, we are told that there is no one out there with divine essence to whom we are to account. The humanist belief is a conviction that man’s faith is entirely up to itself, and here’s how they state it: “We believe that traditional dogmatic or authoritarian religions that place revelation, God, ritual, or creed above human needs and experience do a disservice to the human species. Any account of nature should pass the test of scientific evidence. In our judgment, the dogmas and myths of traditional religions do not do so. We find insufficient evidence for the belief in the existence of a supernatural. It is either meaningless or irrelevant to the question of survival and fulfillment of the human race.

Furthermore, the divine viewpoint of God is declared to be a hindrance to human welfare: “Promises of immortal salvation or fear of eternal damnation are … harmful. They distract humans from present concerns, from actualization, and from rectifying social injustices. There is no credible evidence that life survives the death of the body. We continue to exist in our progeny and in the way their lives have influenced others in our culture.”

You can see what happens with certain basic misconceptions. These misconceptions are concerning first of all that there’s no God out there that moves you in one direction… If there is no life after death that we are to face, that moves our sense of values in another direction. The concept of the ethics that consequently stems from this idea that there is no god and no life after death is expressed in this way: “Humanists say that they rely solely on reason and experience. The Manifesto proclaims that ethics stems from human needs and interests. To deny this distorts the whole basis of life. Human life has meaning because we create and develop our futures. We strive for the good life here and now. The goal is to pursue life’s enrichment despite debasing forces of vulgarization, commercialization, bureaucratization, and de-humanification.”

Furthermore, again quoting, the Manifesto states in the area of sexuality: “We believe that intolerant attitudes often cultivated by orthodox religions and puritanical cultures unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized. While we do not approve of exploitive denigrating forms of sexual expression, neither do we wish to prohibit by law or by social sanction sexual behavior between consenting adults.”

These are phrases that you have constantly heard. These are points of view that you constantly hear justified. Maybe now you will understand a little better where they originate. This is humanism’s point of view. It is from Satan. It is what we call human viewpoint. It is in contrast to the kind of a god that the Bible reveals exists out there.

Another factor about the ethics: Paul Kurtz is editor of The Humanist, a publication of the humanist group, and he’s a professor of philosophy at the University of Buffalo. When professor Kurtz was asked, “If the behavior regulating laws were not designed in the first place to assure a more orderly and satisfying society, Professor Kurtz told me, with technology and social change so rapid, the old principles don’t always apply. Rules should not be ends in themselves.”

Now that all sounds very well and good. What the professor is saying is that there was one time when these certain rules stemming from the Bible as being reflective of a god whose essence demanded this kind of a moral conduct for the preservation of humanity were alright. But we have now advanced with our technology to where they are not alright. They’re not acceptable. We change them according to what we believe is good for man, not according to what somebody says that a god out there demands.

It is very natural that humanism should express itself in the form of socialism and one-world government. Quoting again, “The humanist looks forward to a world community in which the best option is to transcend the limits of natural sovereignty, and by so doing develop a system of world law and a world order based upon transitional federal government. In addition, the problems of economic growth and development can no longer be resolved by one nation alone. They are worldwide in scope. It is the moral obligation of the developed nations to provide through an international authority that safeguards human rights, massive technical, agricultural, medical, and economic assistance including birth control techniques to the developing portions of the globe. World poverty must cease. Hence extreme disproportions in wealth, income, and economic growth should be reduced on a worldwide basis.”

Now that paragraph alone is very revealing concerning the thinking of Satan because Satan wrote the paragraph. This is where Satan is moving the world. He is moving it to a one-world economic control. We know that from the revelation of the Word of God. He is moving it toward socialistic ends. He is moving it to where there is going to be a worldwide attempt by humanity to provide what human beings need—again, a life without God.

So, the humanist in his manifesto fantastically reflects exactly what the Word of God tells us is the characteristic of man and his human good production. We know from the Word of God, because we know what God is like, that this human good production is useless. It will never solve the problem, and in time it will only become worse. We know it will become worse because the world is finally going to be willing to accept one worldwide dictator in order to try to make things better. All of this stems from the fact that the humanist has a high estimate of human nature which the Bible tells us is the sin nature.

Quoting again, “Professor Kurtz was asked if he didn’t think that the Manifesto placed an extravagant faith in human nature, especially considering the man-made horrors of the 20^th century. He replied that to the humanist, the human nature was neither good nor evil, and he cited humanities positive achievements in recent years in science and technology.” This is always what man can accomplish in a material way, reflecting, supposedly, his spiritual values.

The Manifesto concludes then: “We believe that humankind has the potential intelligence, goodwill, and cooperative skill to implement this commitment in the decades ahead.” This means that the humanists are still hoping to accomplish what Cain originally set out to do. Human good production is summed up in these views of the humanist, but divine good production is summed up in the goals of the Word of God which we express in the term “Bible doctrine.”

The essence of God that we have looked at … is what makes it possible for you and me to produce divine good. We need certain techniques by which to perform that divine good, and that’s what we’re going to be studying in order to try to transfer your thinking to what extent you may have been contaminated by the kind of thinking reflected here on the part of humanism, that you are going about producing human good and saying, “I’m serving the Lord,” when you’re doing no such thing. You have picked up ideas from maybe even other Christians that are the pure unadulterated nonsense of the humanist viewpoint.

God the Father offered a plan of salvation. He authored this plan and it is the basis by which a sinner can produce divine good. This salvation plan has satisfied the righteousness and the justice of God. With the righteousness and justice of God satisfied, the love of God was free to be expressed toward man. With their love shown in the provisions of eternal life, man is now ready to move into divine good production. God’s omniscience and His sovereignty know who is going to believe the gospel and who is going to be qualified for divine good service. God’s omnipresence makes divine help readily available to every Christian in His service. God’s omnipotence enables the believer to perform His service. And since God is immutable, His divine viewpoint and His principles to guide the Christian will never change, and the truth of God as expressed in doctrine gives the believer the viewpoint he needs for this divine good production.

So, salvation is a matter of accepting God’s divine good which stems from what He is in His essence over against you coming up with your humanistic point of view and trying to offer God your human good, either for salvation or for service.

The Trinity

There is one other factor. God is not only one, He is also a trinity. Now the trinity is also illustrated by light. We find that the single essence of God finds expression in a three-fold personality. Here again is the essence of God—sovereignty, righteousness, justice, eternal life, love, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, immutability, and veracity. But we also find that this oneness of essence is expressed in the Father, in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. So, God is a trinity. We have this again reflected in Genesis 1:26 where we read, “And God said us (plurality) make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,” and so on.

In Matthew 3:16, we read, “And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water, and lo the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon Him, and lighting upon Him; and lo a voice from heaven saying, ‘This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’” Here’s Jesus the Son in the water. Here’s the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descending upon the Son. And here’s God the Father speaking from heaven. We have reflected in the Word of God that God is a trinity. The Old Testament stressed the oneness of God. The New Testament stressed the trinity of God.

Going back to our illustration again, a single ray of light has a triple distinct expression. It expresses this first in what we call actinic. It has an actinic quality. “Actinic” means that it will produce a chemical effect. So, you take your camera and you take a picture. The light, because it has an actinic effect, an actinic expression, forms a chemical change on your film, and you’re able to take a picture. This is comparable to God the Father because the actinic effect can neither be seen nor felt. The chemical change takes place, but as you look at that photographic plate, you don’t see anything having taken place. God the Father is neither seen in His nor is He felt.

There is also another quality—aluminiferous. This means primarily the effects of light which means that this is something that you can see, and you can see that this is comparable to the Son for the Lord Jesus Christ is the member of the deity of the godhead that can be seen.

Light has a third quality, and that is that it is calorific. This means that it produces the effect of heat. Therefore, it cannot be seen, but its effects can be felt. This is comparable to God the Holy Spirit who, again, cannot be seen, but whose workings can be felt. So, we use an expression like: “The Lord has spoken to my heart. God has moved me to do this.” What you are saying is that God the Holy Spirit has made an effect upon you that you have, so to speak, “felt,” spiritually more than physically. But the feeling of direction and of the mind of God is definitively there.

These qualities of light, again, as a trinity, reflect the fact that God is a trinity: actinic, the Father; aluminiferous, the Son; and, calorific, the Holy Spirit. The persons of the godhead are coequal and they are coeternal and they all have the same essence. We read in 2 Corinthians 13:14, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God (that is, the Father), and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.” Here in this benediction, all three members of the godhead are brought into the picture because they are equal. In Matthew 3:16-17, at the incident again of the baptism of Jesus, all three were there because all were equal. In Matthew 28:19 we have one of the Great Commission expressions: “Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them (under the authority) in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” All three are equally involved.

Light

So, God the Father formulated the plan of salvation; God the Son executed the plan of salvation; and, God the Holy Spirit reveals the plan of salvation. When the Bible says that God is light, it is a very apropos illustration. It is light because the unity of light expresses the fact that it has a multiplicity of color characteristics. The unity of God through the prism of revelation reveals to us that God has a multiplicity of attributes. The singleness of light reveals to us that it has expressions which are actinic, aluminiferous, and calorific which are comparable to the godhead expressing itself in the form of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is background. This is the basis for the introduction to the study of the techniques of the Christian life. These will help you to understand why these techniques work because you have to understand the nature of God to grasp that. This will also explain to you why we need these techniques over against the human viewpoint that stems from our old sin natures which is crystalized in our day in the expression of humanism which now permeates the whole society in which you move. No matter how nice people are to you, how cordial, how personable, how well you can relate to them, if they are not oriented to the Word of God, they are functioning on these human viewpoint concepts. Therefore, whatever you may join forces with them in, be aware that you are joining forces against a God who has these characteristics, and you are joining with them to produce that which is under the condemnation of God. The techniques of the Christian life will preserve you from that mistake.

Our Father, we ask thee to bless what we have studied… We pray that the believers would understand these basic factors and understand them well—be able to reproduce them and be able to explain them for this is the background of all teaching and of all evangelism.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1973

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