The Perfections of God, Part 5

I finished chapter three today! There were only two more of God's perfections left...so here goes.

God is long-suffering.

God’s long-suffering is His power of control over Himself which enables Him to be patient with wicked sinners instead of judging them immediately to the full extent for their sins. (306)

He is able to restrain His anger against sin without removing or softening that
anger. (306-307)

Let us view God's patience in relation to His other perfections. First, the goodness and mercy of God:

His long-suffering is an expression of His mercy, but it differs from mercy in that mercy views its objects as miserable and in distress while long-suffering views its objects as guilty, deserving of punishment, but it bears with the sin that causes the
misery.“Goodness sets God upon the exercise of patience, and patience sets many a sinner on running into the arms of mercy. That mercy which makes God ready to embrace returning sinners, makes Him willing to bear with them in their sins, and wait their return.” 73. Charnock, The Existence And Attributes of God, 764. (307)

Omnipotence and long-suffering:

God’s power moderates His anger...But He is long-suffering with sinners, not because He lacks power over us, but because He has fullness of power in Himself. (307)

Justice and long-suffering:

He will punish sin; but He is free to restrain the effects of His anger for a time, without dishonoring His holiness or acting unrighteously (Acts 1:7). Justice is not wronged by patience; it is made more obvious and has broader scope to vindicate itself. (308)

God's long-suffering in seen throughout history...

The entirety of Old Testament history is a display of God’s long-suffering and patience. (308)

God was not indifferent to their sin and the claims of His justice. Nor by being patient did He forgive their sins. He simply suspended judgment until Christ, when He fully demonstrated His judgment against sin...Those who do not believe in Christ will experience God’s wrath forever without the restraint of His patience. (309)

Every non-Christian is an object of the long-suffering of God...Every person in every age and every society is an object of God’s patience. Every non-Christian alive today, and not in hell, has grounds to praise God for His long-suffering. Christians, who are not inflicted the sharp pains of chastisement, also should thank God for His patience. And both non-Christians and Christians should be led to
repentance by that divine patience. (309)

As seen above, God is patient both with believers and unbelievers: though for different reasons.

So then, the point of 2 Peter 3:9 is this: because of the patience of God, He is not willing that “any” of “you,” “who are chosen,” should perish, but that “all” of “you, who are chosen,” should come to repentance...God’s long-suffering with His chosen people is the assurance of the salvation of all of God’s people. (310)


God’s patience with the hardened reprobate in this world is not a sign of His favor for them. As awful as it sounds, it more clearly reveals their deserving of the infliction of God’s holy anger and it gives God room for a greater display of His power. (310)

The last perfection of God expounded here is the following: God is abundant in truth.

The God of the Bible is the God of Truth. (312)

His truth is His veracity, i.e., His adherence to His true character, the conformity of His word to truth and fact in total accuracy, precision and honesty. (313)

There are two demensions to this: Truthfulness and Faithfulness.

First then, God is true in three senses. He is true in and of Himself. 

He is the one, true God, always true to Himself, Who sets Himself over against all
the lies and vanities of all false gods. He really exists (Heb. 11:6), and all His perfections are real. He is not only omnipotent, omniscient, holy and sovereign, He is truly and actually so. (313)

God is true in all His communications and self-revelations.

He reveals Himself as He really is. What God says about Himself in the Bible is meaningful to God, and it should be so to us...He meant that all God has revealed in His Word may be trusted as true, i.e., as really corresponding to what really is. (313)

If our confidence in God’s truth were undermined, the effect would be universally ruinous. Not only would Scripture with all its doctrines, promises, threatenings, precepts, and predictions, become worthless, but the basis of all confidence in our own faculties would be undermined; and universal skepticism would arrest all action. Man could neither believe his fellow-man, nor his own experience, nor senses, nor reason, nor conscience, nor consciousness, if he could not believe his God. 80. Dabney, Lectures In Systematic Theology, 171. (313-314)

God is true in all His knowledge.

He knows all things as they really are; and has so created man’s mind that he can truly know the reality of things, as he thinks God’s thoughts after Him...Truth for us is God’s revealed opinion of things...Whatever was true yesterday is true today and will be true tomorrow. (314)

Second, God's faithfulness in truth:

An unfaithful God is an intolerable thought. Our God “never forgets, never fails, never falters, never forfeits His word. To every declaration of promise or prophecy the Lord has exactly adhered, every engagement of covenant or threatening He will make good.” 84. Pink, The Attributes of God, 59. (315)

God's faithfulness is and has always been convenantal faithfulness--there are seven different covenants (or would we call this dispensations of the covenant). The Edenic, the Adamic, the Noahic, the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, the Davidic, and the new Covenant in Christ.

I'm sorry, I lost all train of thought here (though the above is basically all the important notes), due to some news I heard from the other room. Please forgive the abupt ending here...

        Racheal