SUNDAY September 10, 2023
The Divine Nature of God
“...for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising.”
Acts 17:28-29
Paul declared that God is the One who has given us life. He gives us our very breath: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being (Genesis 2:7). Paul was very clever. In his sermon, he related this truth to what their own poets had written: “‘for we are also His offspring.’”
Paul addressed a living audience; therefore, it made sense that God is a Living God as declared by the prophet Jeremiah: But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King (Jeremiah 10:10). It was foolish to think He would be made of gold or silver or stone, or anything else formed by man’s inventing. God has a Divine Nature. He is eternal. The prophet Isaiah masterfully spoke of God’s Divine Nature and the futility of worshipping man-made idols:
Isaiah 44:6 NIV: “This is what the LORD says—Israel’s King and redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.”
Isaiah 44:9-11 NIV: All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame. Who shapes a god and casts an idol, which can profit nothing? People who do that will be put to shame; such craftsmen are only human beings.
Isaiah 44:13, 20 NIV: The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker.... He shapes it in human form, human form in all its glory, that it may dwell in a shrine.... Such a person feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him....
God’s Word reasons with us intelligently. We can come to know the Living God and all of His goodness.
Love is an image of God, and not a lifeless image, but the living essence of the divine nature which beams full of all goodness.
~Martin Luther~
For more from Raul Ries, please visit SomebodyLovesYou.com!
