The Bible tells us that God is ‘full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy and truth’ (Exodus 34.6). ‘He is not a man that He should lie’ (Numbers 23.19). Rather ‘He is a God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is He’ (Deuteronomy 32.4), so that ‘all the paths of the Lord are lovingkindness and truth’ (Psalm 25.10). Indeed He is the ‘God of truth’ (Psalm 31.5). Thus ‘He is the true God, He is the living God, and an everlasting King’ (Jeremiah 10.10). He is the One ‘Who cannot lie’ (Titus 1.2). His counsel, thus His will and purpose, is unchangeable (Hebrews 6.17). As James tells us, in Him there is ‘no variableness nor shadow cast by turning’ (James 1.17. So He is the One ‘Who is true’ (1 John 5.20), ‘the true God’ (1 John 5.20).

Because He is totally true He is called ‘the faithful God, who observes His covenants and His mercy with those who love Him and obey His commands’ (Deuteronomy 7.9). So He will not take away His mercy or allow His faithfulness to fail (Psalm 89.33). For the Lord is faithful to His chosen (Isaiah 49.7), and His lovingkindness is in the Heavens, and His faithfulness reaches to the skies (Psalm 36.5). Indeed we can be confident of our future hope because ‘God is faithful through whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord’ (1 Corinthians 1.9). ‘If we are faithless yet He remains faithful because He cannot deny himself’ (2 Timothy 2.13). That is why we can hold ‘forth the confession of our faith without wavering because He is faithful Who promised’ (Hebrews 10.23). So even when we are tempted, ‘God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also provide the way of escape so that you may be able to endure it’ (1 Corinthians 10.13).

So God can be looked on as totally true, reliable and dependable to those who obey Him.

8). God is Uniquely Good.

Jesus said to the rich young ruler, ‘no one is good except God’ (Mark 10.18). This did not rule out the fact that He Himself was so, rather it asked the ruler to face up to the reality of Who Jesus was. So the Psalmist could say ‘The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works’ (Psalm 145.9), which is why men will continually ‘utter the memory of your great goodness and shall sing of your righteousness’ (Psalm 145.7). Indeed ‘good and upright is the Lord’, so that ‘He will instruct sinners in the way’ (Psalm 25.8). His goodness is further revealed in that ‘He makes His sun to shine on the evil and the good, and causes His rain to fall on the just and the unjust’ (Matthew 5.45), and in this we are to follow His example. ‘He is kind towards the unthankful and evil’ (Luke 6.35) and is merciful (Luke 6.36). He witnesses to the nations in that ‘He did good and gave you rains from Heaven and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness’ (Acts 14.17) even though they men not know Him and walked in their own ways.

9). God is Holy.

The idea behind His holiness is that He is ‘set apart’ from His creation by His ‘otherness’, that is the distinctiveness of what He is. Thus He is set apart by His dazzling purity, by His awesome righteousness, and by His awe-inspiring nature, and because He is pure Spirit. As John says, ‘God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all’ (1 John 1.5). This is why He is unapproachable, and in some ways unknowable except as He partially reveals Himself. That is why Moses states ‘Who is like you, Oh Lord, glorious in holiness, fearful while being praised, doing wonders’ (Exodus 15.11), while Hannah declares ‘there is none beside you, neither is there any rock like our God’ (1 Samuel 2.2).

Isaiah remembers the vision He had of God. ‘I saw the Lord, high and lifted up, and sitting upon a throne’ (Isaiah 6.1) and declares ‘Thus says the high and lofty One Who inhabits eternity, Whose name is Holy. I dwell in the high and holy place place with him also who is of a contrite spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the hearts of the contrite’ (Isaiah 57.15). For He can only dwell with those who are humble and contrite because He Himself is holy. Thus He is ‘God and not man, the Holy One who is among you’ (Hosea 11.9). And Habakkuk says, ‘You are of purer eyes than to gaze on evil, and cannot look upon perverseness’ (Habbakuk 1.13). So Peter tells us, ‘as He Who has called you is holy, so be yourselves holy in all manner of living, because it is written, “You shall be holy for I am holy” ’ (1 Peter 1.15-16), and the living creatures in Heaven cry out unceasingly, ‘holy,holy,holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty’ (Revelation 4.8)

When Isaiah saw God’s holiness he cried out ‘ woe is me, for I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips --- for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts’ (Isaiah 6.5), and when Job saw a vision of God he could only cry, ‘I hate myself and repent in dust and ashes’ (Job 42.5-6). When Ezekiel saw ‘the appearance of fire’, ‘the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord’, he fell on his face to the ground (Ezekiel 1.28), and when John saw His vision of Christ, with His eyes like a flame of fire, and His voice like the sound of many waters, he also ‘fell at His feet as one dead’ (Revelation 1.17). Indeed, so great is God’s holiness that when Moses had spoken with Him in the mountain of Sinai, the skin of His face shone (Exodus 34.29), and the people were afraid to come near him’ (Exodus 34.30), so that he had to put a veil on his face (Exodus 34.33) to hide what was in reality only the faint reflection of the glory of God.

Thus John can say ‘He is Light and in Him there is no darkness at all’ (1 John 1.5). His purity is such that sin and darkness cannot survive His presence, so that we cannot have God and hold to our sin. In the coming of Jesus he could say ‘light has come into the world’ (John 3.19). This was why He was rejected, because ‘men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil’ (John 3.19). So when we come to God truly, we come to the light which shines in our hearts, making us aware of our sinfulness, and revealing to us the glory of God. Then ‘the Lord will be to you an everlasting light, and your God will be your your glory’ (Isaiah 60.19)

So God is ‘wholly other’ than man because of His awesome purity which, when revealed even partially, makes man fall down in trembling before Him, fully aware of his own inadequacy and sinfulness.

10). God is Righteous and Just

To be righteous means to be in accordance with what is morally right. For man it means to be behaving fully in accordance with God’s revealed righteousness, revealed in the law, in the teaching of the prophets, and supremely in the teaching of Jesus. For God righteousness is what is innately and truly right because of His righteous nature, and is revealed in His acts, and in His judgment against wrongdoing, as well as through His word.

The Psalmist also says, ‘You are righteous, Oh Lord, and upright are your judgments. You have appointed your testimonies in righteousness and in all faithfulness’ (Psalm 119.137-138). And again, ‘the Lord is righteous in all His ways and gracious in all His works’ (Psalm 145.17). So Nehemiah can say, ‘you have performed your words for you are righteous’ (Nehemiah 9.8). So the righteousness of God shows His reliability and dependability.

On the other hand Ezra, aware of the righteousness of God, cries out, ‘Oh Lord, the God of Israel, you are righteous --- we are before you in our guiltiness, for none can stand before you because of this’ (Ezra 9.15). He recognises that while God is true and righteous, man is guilty of rejecting His testimonies, and cannot stand before Him. When the people of Judah were taken into exile they also admitted it was their desert and cried, ‘ the Lord is righteous, for we have rebelled against His commandment’ (Lamentations 1.18), and Daniel similarly prayed and said, ‘the Lord our God is righteous in all His works which He does, and we have not obeyed His voice’ (Daniel 9.14). So while God is righteous, man is rebellious. And in Revelation the angel says, ‘Righteous are you, Oh Lord, Who is and was, you, the Holy One, because you thus judge’ (Revelation 16.5).

When Jesus prays He says, ‘ Oh, righteous Father’ (John 17.25), and John reminds his readers, ‘if you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is righteous is born of Him’ (1 John 2.29) for ‘he who does what is righteous is righteous as He is righteous’ (1 John 3.7). So righteous living is the acid test of a man’s profession. Paul towards the end of his life, knows that he has by the grace of God succeeded in this test and can say, ‘henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me in that day’ (2 Timothy 4.8).

11). God is the Judge of all Men

James informs us ‘One only is the lawgiver and judge, He Who is able to save and to destroy’ (James 4.12), and Isaiah confirms ‘ the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our King, and He will save us’ (Isaiah 33.22). Abraham also argues, ‘shall not the judge of all the earth, do right?’ (Genesis 18.25), while Job insists ‘shall any teach God knowledge, seeing He judges those who are high?’ (Job 21.22)

The Psalmists regularly mention the judgments of God. For example ‘The Lord ministers justice to the people. Judge me, Oh Lord, according to my righteousness’ (Psalm 7.8), and ‘the Heavens will declare His righteousness, for Himself God is judge’ (Psalm 50.6). The writer in Ecclesiastes says, ‘and I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work (Ecclesiastes 3.17).

Yet it is not God the Father Who judges, for ‘neither does the Father judge any man, for He has committed all judgment to His Son’ (John 5.22). So judgment is in the hands of God the Son, for ‘He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world by that man Whom He has ordained’ (Acts 17.31), ‘in the day when God will judge the secrets of men --- by Christ Jesus’ (Romans 2.16). So Paul says to Timothy, ‘I charge you before God and the Lord Jesus who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom’ (2 Timothy 4.1). So when we read ‘and I saw a great white throne, and Him Who sat upon it from Whose face earth and heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them and I saw the dead, both small and great, standing before the throne, -- --- and the dead were judged ---- according to their works’ (Revelation 20.11-12) we are to recognise that the Judge is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

So God will one day call all men to judgment, when they will be called on to give account before the Lord Jesus Christ.

IS THERE SOMETHING IN THE BIBLE THAT PUZZLES YOU?