Introduction
We studied the attributes of God together on Wednesday evenings in 2021 and 2022. And I said at that time that when we’re talking about God’s attributes, we’re talking about what God is like. And over the years, theologians have identified quite a number of God’s attributes to describe what God is like and to explain what the Bible says about him. So, I’ll cover some of them this evening and try to show how they relate to the harvest and to thanksgiving.
Trinity
And, as I did back in 2021, I’m going to begin with the fact that God is a Trinity of three persons. This is not strictly an attribute of God. This is not about what God is like. This is about who God is. And who is God? He’s the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He’s one God in three persons.
The Old Testament Scriptures were clear that there’s only one God and the gods of the nations were not real. They were false gods who could not speak and who could not hear and who could not do anything. On the other hand, Israel’s God was the one, true and living God who made all things. And the Israelites were taught to confess that ‘the LORD our God, the LORD is one.’ Throughout Old Testament times, the emphasis was on God’s oneness: he alone is God.
However, when the time was right, God sent his Only-Begotten Son into the world as one of us. And after the Lord’s death and resurrection and ascension to heaven, God sent his Spirit into the world to enable his people to repent and believe in his Son for salvation. And by sending his Son and by sending his Spirit, God revealed that the one, true and living God is also three, because there’s the Father who is God and there’s the Son who is God and there’s the Holy Spirit who is also God. And yet, these three are not three separate Gods, because they all possess the same substance or essence. Since they possess the same substance or essence, then there’s no difference between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, except that the Father begets the Son eternally and the Son is begotten of the Father eternally and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son eternally. Apart from this distinction in origin, they are identical to one another, possessing the same substance or essence. And so, we say that there is one God, but the one God we worship is three persons.
What has this to do with the harvest? We believe that God the Father created the heavens and the earth and all that they contain through his Son and by his Spirit. As John says in John 1:3: ‘Through him [i.e. the Word, the Son of God] all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.’ And in Genesis 1 we read how the Spirit was present when God made the heavens and the earth. It says the Spirit was hovering over the waters. And then, in Psalm 104, it says that when God sends his Spirit, they — all living things — are created. And so, there would be no harvest if it were not for God the Father who made all things; and God the Son, through whom the Father made all things; and God the Holy Spirit, by whom the Father made all things. Creation is the work of the one God we worship. And the one God we worship continues to sustain his creation day by day and he keeps his promise that as long as the endures endures seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease. It happens from the Father through the Son and by the Spirit.
Aseity
Let’s think now about God’s aseity. That’s a word which comes from two Latin words which mean ‘from self’. And when we talk about God’s aseity, we’re talking about how God is ‘from himself’. In other words, he is self-sufficient. He is independent. He does not rely on anything or anyone outside of himself for anything. He does not depend on anyone or anything, because he is complete in himself. He has all life in himself.
Although he calls us to serve him, he does not need us and he could just as easily do without us and our works. He also calls us to praise him, but he does not need our praise and it does not add anything to him. In Psalm 50, the Lord refers to the people who offered animal sacrifices to him. But then God says that he has no need of their bulls and goats, ‘for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.’ God doesn’t need anything from us, because whatever we give to him in worship is his already, because he made it. Sometimes people ask what do you get the person who has everything. Well, God really does have everything. And he has everything from himself so that he does not need us.
So, God depends on no-one and nothing because he has all life in himself. But everything else depends on him and he gives life to all things. And so, he gives life to the seed which the farmer plants in the ground. God causes the seed to grow and to become a crop which we can harvest and eat. And he enables cows and sheep and other animals to produce new life and to bear young. And he gives us our life and he enables us to grow up and to grow strong. And day by day he sustains our life on the earth by providing us with all that we need for our daily lives.
God is a se. He depends on no-one and nothing. But every living thing — including seeds in the ground and every animal and every person — depends on God for life. And though he does not need us, he gives us life as his gift to us. And so, we should give thanks to him, not only once a year at our Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday, but every day. Every day we should lift our hearts and voices to heaven and give thanks to God who has given us life and breath and everything else.
Holiness and omnipresence
I want to take God’s holiness and omnipresence together. To say that God is holy is to say that he is set apart. That’s what holiness means in the Bible. And so, we talk about the Holy Bible, because the Bible is set apart from every other book, because it’s the only book that has been written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We talk about Holy Communion, because, during the communion service, we set apart the bread and the cup from all ordinary use and we use them for this special use. Being holy means being set apart.
And God is holy in the sense that he is set apart from all that is evil. The prophet Habakkuk said about God: ‘For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you.’ So God is morally pure in every way and Habakkuk says about him that his eyes are too pure to look on evil; and he cannot tolerate wrong. James says that he cannot be tempted to evil. He is perfectly pure and set apart from all that is evil and wrong and wicked.
However, God’s holiness also means that he is set apart from the whole of his creation. In this sense it refers to his majestic transcendence and how he is different from us and he’s far above us. And so, in 1 Samuel, Hannah said about him:
There is no one holy like the Lord;
there is no one besides you;
there is no Rock like our God.
There is no-one like him. Or Isaiah tells us that he dwells in a high and holy place, far above all that he has made. Think of a king in his castle, who lives high above the people. In a far greater way, God is above and beyond us and there is no-one like him.
That’s God’s holiness. But God is also omnipresent, which means he is present everywhere all at once. And so, David wrote in Psalm 139:
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
Wherever we might go, God is there. And it’s not that he has to stretch himself out the way we might have to stretch our arms to reach up high. God does not have a body like ours to stretch. Nor does he fill space the way we do, so that when we sit in a chair, no one else can sit there. God does not fill space like we do, because he doesn’t have a body. And he does not have to divide himself up so that part of God is in one place and part of him is in another place. God cannot be divided into parts like that. And so, when we say that God is present everywhere, we mean he is present everywhere all at once or with all of his being. He fills and surrounds all things all of the time with all of his being.
And so, although God is holy, although he is above and beyond us, he’s also with us wherever we are and wherever we go. And David made clear in Psalm 139 that he’s with us to help us. He’s with us to guide us and to hold us fast and to keep us safe. David says in Psalm 139 that God hems us in. He means God is protecting us.
And this is related to the harvest and to thanksgiving, because God is with us to ensure that we have what we need. Just as a shepherd in Bible times was always with his sheep, so the Lord is always with us to provide us with what we need. He was with the Israelites in the wilderness to provide them with manna and water everyday. And he is with us to give us what we need.
So, God is holy. He lives in a high and holy place, far above all that he has made. But he’s also with us to help us. And as Romans 8 reassures us: there’s nothing that can separate us from his love for us in Christ Jesus. A loved one travels across the world to another country. We’re separated from that person by a great distance. We don’t know what’s happening to him or her. We’re not with them to help them. But God is never separated from us: he’s always with us and he’s with us to help us always.
Knowledge
And that leads me to God’s knowledge, which includes his wisdom. God knows all things: past, present and future. And he knows all things perfectly. He knows all things exhaustively. According to Psalm 147:5 his understanding is beyond measure. It is infinite. It has no limits. 2 Chronicles 16:9 uses the image of God’s eyes running to and fro throughout the whole earth to convey to us that he knows everything about everything. And he also knows the most minute details. And so, according to the Lord Jesus in Luke 12, he does not forget any of the sparrows he has made and he knows the number of hairs on our head. According to Jeremiah 11:20, God tests our hearts and minds. In other words, he knows what is in them. He knows what we’re thinking and feeling.
According to Psalm 139, he discerns our thoughts from afar and he sees us when we sit down and when we rise up and he knows what we’re going to say before we say it. And he knows the future, because he decreed it. And so, in Isaiah 45, the Lord foretold how one day he would save his people from exile by the hand of King Cyrus. Years before Cyrus was born, the Lord knew who he was and what he would do. And God knew that Christ would come one day to suffer and die on the cross for his people. And God knew that he would be raised from the dead and ascend to heaven. And God knows that Christ will return one day to judge the living and the dead. He knows it because he has decreed it. Whereas our knowledge increases over time, as we learn new things, God’s perfect knowledge is unchangeable, because he does not know things by observation, but from himself. That is to say, he does not have to wait to see what happens before he knows it. He knew all about the world before it existed. He knew all about you before you existed. And he knew all about the world and all about you because he planned all things before they existed.
And since God’s knowledge also includes his wisdom, then God always knows what is the best thing to do, what is the wisest things to do, in every situation.
And God’s knowledge relates to the harvest and to thanksgiving, because the Lord Jesus teaches us not to be anxious about what we’ll eat or drink or what we’ll wear, because our Heavenly Father knows that we need them.
So, God knows our needs. He knows what we need for life. And the Lord Jesus taught us to look to our Heavenly Father for all that we need, because our Heavenly Father loves us and cares for us and we can count on him to give us what we need. And if he withholds something from us, it’s not because he doesn’t know what we need. And it’s not because he’s being mean to us. If he withholds something from us, he has some wise reason for doing so. And so, we should continue to trust in his fatherly care and we should give thanks to him always.
Goodness
And that takes me to God’s goodness. God is good in the sense that he is perfect and worthy of our praise. One person is praised for being good at sport. Another person is praised for being good at music. Another person is praised for being a good worker. We praise them for being excellent in some way. And God is also good because he is excellent. He’s not a bad God. He’s not an inadequate God. He’s not an okay God. He is an excellent God. He is a perfect God. He is the most perfect being. And therefore he is praiseworthy, because he is a good God.
But he’s also good in the sense that he’s kind to us. He is benevolent towards us. And so, in Psalm 65 the psalmist praises God for visiting the earth to water it and for filling the pastures and hills and meadows and valley with flocks and crops. He fills the world and our lives with what we need. He also fills our lives with good things to enjoy. As James tells us, every good thing that we enjoy here on earth has come to us from God.
The psalmist also praises God not only for his kindness to humans, but he also praises God in Psalm 147 for feeding birds and beasts; and in Psalm 104 he praises God for watering the trees abundantly. So, he cares not just for humans, but for all of his creation.
And his kindness to humans is not restricted to his own people, because in Matthew 5 the Lord Jesus tells us how God makes the sun shine and the rain fall on the just and the unjust. So, the Lord is good to all and his mercy is over all that he has made.
We see his goodness towards us right from the very beginning, because before he made Adam, he planted a garden for Adam to live in, where the plants were good for food and pleasing to the eye. So, he provided Adam with everything he needed; and he even provided Adam with Eve for companionship and to help him fulfil the task of filling the earth and developing it. And despite our fall into sin, the Lord continues to show his goodness to us by sustaining us every day and by providing us with all that we need.
And you can see how God’s goodness relates to the harvest and to our thanksgiving. Though the farmer may not know it, he’s relying on God’s goodness towards him to send the rain and the sunshine to cause his crops to grow. The person who buys those crops and turns them into food for us is also relying on God’s goodness towards him, because he would have no raw ingredients if it were not for God’s provision of grain and fruit and vegetables and meat. And we too rely on God’s goodness because he sends the farmer into the fields for us and he sends the manufacturer into his factory for us and he provides us with the means to purchase our food each day so that our cupboards and shelves and fridges are full of good things to eat. And when we’re outside, we enjoy the sound of birds singing who are able to sing because God has been good to them, providing them with food to eat even though they do not sow or reap or store away in barns. And we too should sing and praise our Heavenly Father who has been good to us in countless different ways.
Omnipotence
Let’s now think about God’s omnipotence, which means that he is all-powerful. There is nothing he cannot do; and nothing is too hard for him. We are often frustrated, because there’s something we want to do, but cannot. However, there is nothing God cannot do, because he is almighty. And that means there is nothing outside of his control. There are plenty of things that our outside our control. We cannot control the weather, for instance. We’re planning a picnic, but it rains and our plans are ruined. But God controls all things and no-one and nothing can spoil his plans.
And so, Job said of the Lord in Job 42:
I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
In Psalm 115 the psalmist declares that our God is in the heavens and he does all that he pleases. And in Psalm 135 the psalmist says:
Whatever the LORD pleases, he does,
in heaven and on earth,
in the seas and all deeps.
He directs the heart of the king in whichever way he wills. And not only does he direct the heart of the king, but he directs the hearts of everyone. In Ephesians 1 Paul wrote about the immeasurable greatness of God’s power and about the working of his great might when he raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. And in Romans 8, Paul teaches us that God works all things together for good. He’s able to work all things together, including sinful and wicked things and our sorrow and suffering. He’s able to turn those things to our advantage. The consistent witness of the Bible is that God can do all things and nothing is too hard for him.
Sometimes the farmer wants the rain to come to water his crops. Sometimes the farmer wants the rain to stop so that his crops will dry out. While the farmer can do nothing about it, the Lord Almighty controls the sun and the rain. He’s able to control the weather and he’s able to make the crops grow and he’s able to make the cows give milk and he’s able to cause cattle to reproduce. And so, we should give thanks to Almighty God who is willing to use his great power for our benefit and to feed us every day. How many powerful people are there in the world who use their power for their own benefit alone? But here’s Almighty God, the Most High God, who uses his power for you and me.
Simplicity and immutability
Let me take God’s simplicity and immutability together. Now, when a teacher says to her students that a question is simple, she means that it’s easy to work out and she expects everyone to know the answer. But when we say that God is simple, we’re not saying that it’s a simple thing for us to understand God or to explain him. When we say that God is simple we mean that God is without parts. And he is undivided.
Humans are not simple, because we’re made of body and soul; and our bodies are made up of different parts. A cake is not simple, because it’s made of flour and eggs and butter and sugar. But God is simple, because he’s not made up of parts. That is to say, he is not a combination of body and soul, because he is pure spirit. And it’s not as if he’s a bit of this and a bit of that. It’s not as if we could analyse God and divide him into separate parts, the way we can take apart a clock and lay out all its parts on the table. God can’t be divided like that, because if he were composed of different parts, then that would imply that he was composed of parts which existed before he did. Think of a clock again. In order to make a clock, you start with a clock face and a minute hand and an hour hand and springs and so on. And all of those things existed before you made the clock; and you have to combine them together to make the clock. If God were composed of parts, then those parts would have to exist before he did. But God has always existed. He’s without beginning and without end; and there is nothing that existed before him.
So, God is not made up of parts; and he’s not part something and part something else. That means that when the Bible says that God is love, it means he is wholly and completely loving. He is love through and through. Love is not part of him, but it’s all of him. It’s what he is. And we can say the same about the rest of God’s attributes. God is wholly and completely holy and good and powerful and so on. He is all of those things wholly and completely. It’s not that he has holiness and goodness and power, but that he is holy and good and powerful. That’s what he is wholly and completely.
And this is related to God’s immutability. By saying that God is immutable, we mean that God does not change. He is the same, yesterday, today and forever. And so, the psalmist says in Psalm 102:
They [the heavens and the earth] will perish, but you will remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
but you are the same, and your years have no end.
God does not change. What he has been, he always will be. And so, in the past, God revealed to his people that he is holy and good and powerful and so on. That’s what he is and he cannot cease to be those things, because that’s what God is wholly and completely and he does not change.
Think about what we are like. We’re a mixture of good and evil, aren’t we? Because we’re a mixture of good and evil, we sometimes do what’s good and we sometimes do what’s evil. If we were wholly good, then we would only ever do what is good. And since God is simple, then he is wholly good. He is completely good. And being wholly and completely good, he does good to us everyday and we can always rely on his goodness, which will never change, because God never changes.
Impassibility and blessedness
Let me now mention God’s impassibility, which means that God is without passions. So, he does not undergo changes of emotion the way we do. Something happens to us during the way and it affects us. Because of what happened, we become happy. Or because of what happened, we become sad. Or we become anxious. Our emotions change because of what happens to us. But God is without passions. He is not affected by anything outside of himself and he cannot suffer because of what we or anyone else do.
This, then, is related to God’s immutability, which we’ve seen means that God does not change. And since God does not change, then his emotional state does not change either. But we mustn’t think that this makes God cold and indifferent. On the contrary, God is full of love and joy and delight. He is the eternally blessed God, which means he is always happy.
And this relates to the harvest and to thanksgiving, because the God who does not suffer relieves our suffering by giving us what we need to live. And the God who is full of love and joy and delight delights us by giving us good things to eat and tasty things to enjoy. He doesn’t just give us stale bread and water to live on, but he gives us wine to gladden our hearts and oil to make our faces shine and fresh bread to sustain our hearts. The God who is eternally happy makes us happy by giving us good things to enjoy each day.
And more than that, the God is who eternally happy sent his Only-Begotten Son into the world as one of us to suffer and die on the cross to pay for our sins and shortcomings with his life so that all who believe in him may receive forgiveness for all that we have done wrong and peace with God and the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of our bodies and of eternal life in the new and better world to come, where we will see the glory of our God and Father in the face of Jesus Christ his Son and where you and I will be happy for ever and for ever.
And so, we should rejoice and give thanks to God for who he is and for what he has done to give us life in this world and everlasting life and happiness in the world to come.
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