Christians Beliefs

The Bible explicitly declares the existence of God in its very first sentence without any explanation or introduction. It is taken for granted that the audience well understands and accepts the being of God. The Author does not expect the reader to be numbered among the fools (Psalms 14: 1).

Who do men call God?

The appellation “God” is found in practically every part of the world among all people groups. It is used to describe what is “deity” and what is not. Because it is so universal, there is no doubt that the meaning and attributes of such a being would differ from locality to locality. Nonetheless, there is common ground which is the essential definition of who men call God: and that is: 

Any being believed to be (and/or regarded as) 1. supernatural AND 2. worthy of their worship.

Every language has a word for such beings because every nation group has beings who satisfy these two requirements. The differences among them come via (a) how many such beings are recognized, (b) the specific identity of the being(s), (c) what other attributes and works are ascribed to the beings. Thus, in the verse above we have the Hebrew word Elohim, which is Theos in Greek, Olorun in Yoruba, Chukwu in Igbo, Ubangiji in Hausa, Ogene in Urhobo, Osa in Bini, Abasi in Calabar, Oritsa in Itsekiri, Ilah in Arabic, etc.

Among all these people groups, the names indicated are reserved for deity. However, we should not rush to conclude that these names are always only borne by beings that possess the two qualities mentioned. Sometimes, the names are used for beings who are merely supernatural, or spiritual, or just exalted. The point is that once the exaltation or reverence does not lead to worship, it does not fall within the scope of the “God” we are considering. For example, a person who acknowledges the fact of the supernatural attributes of a being such as an angel or the village river goddess, but does not accept that such a being is worthy of worship, has not taken the being as God even if the name used for the being means “God” in the local language.

We should also note that when a group of people worships a deity, it does not mean that every member of that group has experienced that “God” personally. Indeed, most people all over the world who claim to believe in a particular “God” do so solely on the strength of societal/family authority and not based on any personal experience.

Why do we worship?

So, why do people worship? The basic reason is to yield to the worship instinct with which we are created. Deep inside every human being, in the depth of his spirit, in the faculty of communion, God has “wired” the worship instinct in us – a touch of the sense of eternity, even though we may not understand it at all, or enough (Eccl. 3: 11). Nevertheless, the instinct is there, waiting for opportunity or reason to express itself. And it ALWAYS expresses itself – even among those who refuse to acknowledge God, they end up creating objects of worship for themselves. The expression of worship happens when provoked by the experience of awe in the knowledge or presence of the being worshipped. When man is overwhelmed (whether positively or negatively), one of the responses is to bow down in worship. With respect to God, what overwhelm man are the attributes and works of the being.

Attributes and Works

Of all the attributes that engender awe, the notion of self-existence (or at least pre-existence) is most potent, and of all the works that stimulate awe, that of creation and/or control over creation, especially the manipulation of the elements, is most impressive. Therefore, once a group of people believes (rightly or wrongly) that a being is self-existent and has power over nature (i.e. super natural), they call such a being “God” and worship him (or her or them or it). The tragedy is that most of the beings so worshipped do not possess the pre-creation existence ascribed to them. The beings themselves know that they are not the true God, but because they are impious and enjoy the worship of men, they not only accept the worship, they often demand and compel it by increasing their demonstration of supernatural feats. Pious beings who are able to perform supernatural feats will always reject being worshipped. Rev 22: 8-9; Acts 14: 8-15)

Identifying the True God

We have noted that the work of creation is the certain way by which we can identify the true God. But the problem is that every religion claims that it was their “God” who did it. So, it is one group’s word against another unless there can be an objective means of determining who actually was responsible for creation. This would not have been necessary if the different religions were merely referring to the same God under different names. But this is not so! The YHWH (pronounced as Yahweh or Jehovah) of Christians and Jews is not the Allah of the Muslims, and Allah is not the Brahman of Hinduism, and so on. These beings are real and their differences are not just their names but entirely different beings with unique personal attributes. So, we have to rely on the “marks” of creation to know who created.

Testimony of Prophecy

Since only a manufacturer knows the full details of the structure, workings and course of a product, (apart from whoever he tells), it stands to reason that the true God is the One who can declare the end from the beginning concerning creation (Isaiah 46: 10). This is technically referred to as prophecy and it is universally admitted from the contents of the writings of the different religions and subsequent developments that the YHWH of the Bible alone has spoken consistently and effectively of the course of creation concerning issues of relevance to His purpose for us eternally. For example, some infidel commentators were so embarrassed and disturbed by the accuracy of the prophecy of Daniel that they said “it must have been written as history after the events had happened”! Yet, Jesus Christ Himself authenticated the prophetic ministry of Daniel (Matthew 24: 15)

The point here is that while practically any being can manipulate creation to the measure of the gift of God he has received, thereby manifesting things like miracles, great feats, etc., only the Author of creation can say in advance the course of creation.

This is not to be confused with divination which works via one of two ways – (a) Merely parroting received knowledge and presenting it to ignorant people as prophecy (Acts 16: 16-18) or (b) declaring a personal desire, usually evil, and assigning spiritual agents to effect the desire. This is how curses operate and evil covenants are enforced. The fact that a proper deliverance exercise (which binds and casts out the evil spirits), will abort the so-called prophecy shows that it was not prophecy at all. Real prophecy will always be fulfilled eventually.

Jehovah is the Creator

As the Bible claims YHWH to be the true God (2 Chronicles 15: 3-4; Jeremiah 10: 10; John 17: 3; 1 John: 20), it also backs it up with the evidence of the Being and works of God.

He is the self-existent, self-conscious personal Being of infinite perfections, who is the origin, the sustainer and the end of all things; who transcends the entire existence created by His will, and at the same time is immanent in every aspect of it.

This is the God who is love, existing as three Persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and who has commanded that all creation should kiss the Son (Psalm 2: 7-12) for without a knowledge of the three Persons, there is no knowledge of God at all. (John 5: 23; 1 John 2: 23)

Dear reader, is this your God? Do you know Him? He wants you to know Him and enter into His rest. You can do that right now if you will humble yourself before Him, who is your Creator and accept the Son , Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour.

God bless you.

By its very nature, the subject of the divine will is complex and mysterious. On the one hand, it is established in eternity, being rooted in God's knowledge, volition and ability, while on the other hand, it is only realised in the dynamics of human history. The need to harmonize this dual nature of the Will of God has resulted in numerous theories, which are often antagonistic and typically of little help to the ordinary believer who desires to make sense of His Father's counsel in a way that both answers biblical difficulties and help his daily walk with God.

It is therefore necessary to make clear doctrinal statements on this important issue to aid believers in their bid to serve God acceptably.

In spite of the different words employed in the scriptures for the divine will which have tended to acquire unique technical meanings, it has become standard to recognise them under either of two labels: Divine Decrees (preferred by seminarians) or simple Divine Will by the rest of the brethren. In my use of these words, I have chosen to be more grammatical than technical in the hope that the message will have smoother passage to the heart and minds of believers.

Essential Nature

On account of His perfect knowledge, God not only knows all things that can be, He also knows, in every detail, all things that will actually be. This very fact of divine knowledge makes their historicity certain, but the personal desire of God as well as His direct involvement in the performance of this certainty has been the crux of contention in the Church for centuries especially between Calvinists and Arminians. Whatever view one holds, what is not debatable is that God's knowledge does not imply moral approval or personal implementation of things that do come to pass.

But God has not left us without help. He has duly provided for mankind, every guide and enablement required both to know and to do His will. The Bible says,

"And this is the WILL of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6: 40)

With Jesus as the way, the truth and the life of our lives, knowledge of and alignment with the will of God is assured. On this basis, I have adopted a simple model to guide the believer in understanding the divine will.

A Four-Cell Grid

Basically, God's will is either of the things that He personally desires, i.e. His perfect will or those that He merely allows i.e. His permissive will. God's perfect will may be decreed or it may be preceptive while His permissive will is either mercifully condoned or judgementally condemned. 

The following notes give some details:

Perfect Will

These concern things that are God's personal desire in holiness. They are His 'good pleasure'. However, it is necessary to recognise and differentiate two sub-categories of the divine perfect will.

DECREED WILL

These are based on His absolute sovereignty and wisdom, and are required for His eternal counsel. It is of this category that the Scripture says "what has been determined shall be done" (Daniel 11:36). They are inviolable and not susceptible to prayer or petition. God Himself will personally
implement them and shall not relent.

Examples include creation, allowance of the Fall, redemption, sojourn of Hebrews in Egypt, incarnation of Christ, Resurrection, Second Coming of Christ, Eternal Judgement, e.t.c. The life destiny of some people are already woven into the decreed will of God and therefore, such people
will invariably perform the role preordained for them, such as Cyrus, the Persio-median king. But such invariable fate in not the standard. Normally, the destiny of human beings and even nations fall under the preceptive will of God, as discussed next.

PRECEPTIVE WILL

The second category of God's perfect will is that premised upon the principles of His word shared with us. Through His word, God reveals to us what His perfect desire for us are both in our relationship with Him and in our personal lives and interactions with the rest of creation. They are
His precepts for OUR good and are not required for the achievement of His eternal counsel. They are however profitable for us, individually or in groups.

God will supply all the needful equipping (Phil. 2:13) to make these possible BUT will not personally execute them. He will not compel their implementation. Man has to utilise the provisions so as to attain them. Prominent in these provisions are faith and obedience. If he fails, it is
man's personal loss. God's eternal counsel is not affected one way or the other.

The exercise of the preceptive will of God includes our repentance and salvation, financial prosperity, good health, career success, fulfillment of destiny, e.t.c. All these are God's perfect will for every man, but we know that most of us miss some or even all of these. The great majority
of mankind live outside the salvation of God while many of those that have found grace to be born again are still burdened by sickness, poverty and failures. None of this is the will of God. Preceptive will is premised on divine principles and is therefore not automatically attained. People
like Eli, Saul, Jonathan, Elijah, Iscariot even missed the fullness of their life destinies.

In addition to the 'loss' suffered, sin and eternal damnation may also be imputed if the failure of achievement is due to willful disobedience to God e.g son of perdition like Judas Iscariot who having been justified went ahead to apostacy.

One thing we must take away concerning God's perfect will is that He acts automatically for all things related to His decreed will but we need to pray and live purposely to move Him concerning preceptive will.

Permissive Will

Relates to all things that are not the perfect personal desire of God but which all the same He, under His full knowledge (but not approval) permits to proceed and be effected by His created beings whom He had bestowed with free agency. Technically, whatever is not perfect will is permissive will.
Again, there are two varieties of permissive will: (a) Condoned and (b) Condemned

CONDONED

Under this group are human activities whose consequenses are limited to temporal realm. This is to say that although the issues originate in the heart of man instead of God, they are not primarily sinful and would not ordinarily lesd to eternal damnation. They come via two channels:

1. Imperfect execution (underachievement) of perfect preceptive will.

The sad reality is that most of us, Christians live under this form of permissive will, one way or the other. We settle for less-than-perfect options. From the Scriptures, the lives of Jehu, Samson and Jonathan readily come to mind. In us as modern-day believers, mediocrity and lack of endurance
to the end often plague us.

Are we sufficiently aware that evangelising ten souls means operating under permissive will if we have been equipped to evangelise a hundred? All other areas of life and ministry (or work) can similarly be affected.

2. Amoral alternatives to perfect will.

In themselves these activities are morally neutral, but because they are not God's preferred option, they are very liable to contamination by sin. Yet, we find God condoning them every now and then. The most popular are:

- Divorce. (Mark 10: 4)
- Polygamy. (2 Samuel 12: 8.)
- All human governments such as monarchy and democracy. God's perfect will is theocracy, but if we reject Him from ruling over us, He will not impose Himself. (1Samuel 8: 7-9.)
- Institutionalised schooling for basic education. (Homeschooling is God's perfect will)
- Wrong choice of spouse, career e.t.c. E.g. a wrong choice of spouse may either be sinful in itself (if an unbeliever) or lead to sin via wrong influence or both (Ahab/Jezebel).

All these suffer from great 'troubles' and difficulties because they are the results of man's desire and limitations.

Nonetheless, since the effects are inherently limited to this world, God in His mercy often steps in to give guidance into how to go about these things so that they do not become sinful (and eternally destructive) - since sin will make them have eternal consequence. Hence, He gave Israelites detailed
warning and guidance about kingship even though it was not His choice.

CONDEMNED

The activities under the condemned permissive will are those with eternal consequences, that is sinful acts. This include willful disobedience, adultery, fornication, lying, e.t.c. It is rather common for people to ask questions about the role of God in moral evil especially when it appears
that "innocent" people are the victims. Why did He stop murder, rape, stealing, etc? While a full treatment cannot be given in this article. it should suffice to emphasise that such moral evils are not God's perfect will. God knows about all of them, but they are not His personal desire. He does
not approve but His principles are ruled by love and justice - His moral agents must never fear to act and suffer the dire consequences.

The only solution is repentance but most don't ever find that grace.

Closing Notes

Only the decreed perfect will is fixed. All others are the effects of God's principles on the choices we make. They can be changed by proper or improper activities of human beings, as determined by our belief in, and obedience to Him revealed in Jesus Christ. Hence, the role of prayer and obedience to God to guide us right. So, with God, there is destiny BUT NOT FATALISM. Any teaching of a general predestined fate is wrong.

We have, no doubt, all heard that the Bible is the word of God. It is God's Book given to man to serve as the User Manual for our temporal existence. However, some other books also claim to be God's word - even going to the extent of saying that God either personally (or through an angel) wrote such a book (e.g. the Book of Mormons) or that God dictated the contents of an "original" copy in heaven to the human writer (e.g. the Qu'ran).

One of the purposes of this article is to declare emphatically that the Bible has nothing to do with such ideas. There is no Bible in heaven. (And it is not necessary for it to be there since Jesus Christ, the eternal Word Himself, who the Bible points to, is already there. It is true that a few portions of the Bible were actually dictated by God and written down verbatim by the human writers - but these are very few indeed, and were so rendered by God for specific and special reasons. Such portions are always clearly stated by the writer.

On the contrary, when we declare that the Bible is the word of God we mean, firstly, that it is the sole written document which God has appended His name to - i.e. it is the Scriptures, and secondly, that its means of coming to man is by inspiration of God.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.2 Timothy 3:16

With respect to the Bible, God chose certain men according to His wisdom, and inspired them to "know" the precise information that He, God, wanted to put in the Scriptures (called prophecy). Thereafter, He also caused them to write the information down without error.

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
2 Peter 1:20-21

We note from the above verses that those who God chose to inspire were deemed "holy" (which means consecrated / separated unto God) and were privileged to receive the special information which they wrote down. Only God Himself knows what "qualified" these men for such honour that they may be called holy - but we know that no man can qualify for anything before God by his personal merit. It is always by the grace of God.

So, it was that God chose about forty men from numerous locations over a period of some 1,500 years to receive by inspiration and write down what He wanted to put in the Scriptures.

Only the information (message) is inspired

At this point, we must address our attention to a popular misunderstanding of people about the Scriptures. Contrary to common belief, only the information of the language is inspired, not the literary competence of the human writers. An inspired primary school child writing in the English language will not suddenly begin to write impeccable Queen's English; neither will he miraculously acquire the skills of a WS (whether this means William Shakespeare or Wole Soyinka is quite irrelevant) The boy will only write at his level as a primary school pupil.

Of course, we are not insinuating that God never "touches" the skills of His chosen vessels (He often does!) only that such a touch is another issue entirely different from, and secondary to the inspiration to write the Scripture. Therefore, it is very wrong to use the literary skills of a chosen vessel as a yardstick to measure the authenticity of inspiration.

The same Holy Spirit who inspired Paul to write such that his highly learned readers acknowledged his great skills, is the same Holy Spirit who inspired Peter and John to speak the divine words recorded in Acts chapter 4. Their level of delivery was so exalted that the Sanhedrin members could not but marvel at the wonder that unfolded before their very eyes because they knew that Peter and John were neducated and untrained. I can only imagine the bewilderment of these pompous scholars listening to the two stark illiterate fishermen in undignified attires preaching with boldness and accuracy the deep things of life and eternity - and doing it in their unpolished koine (i.e pidgin) Greek! My dear reader, that's inspiration for you!

Revelation

The question may be asked, "Where does revelation come in?" Why are the religions based on the Bible (Christianity and Judaism) referred to as revealed religions? All such questions are due to lack of a basic understanding of spiritual terms, which we shall now attempt to resolve.

Revelation simply means to "show" or to "make known". In the context of our current topic, it refers to the nature and content of the inspiration. Put explicitly, inspiration is the means, revelation is the product. Revelation is not defined by a mystical nature of the revealed thing, but by the fact that it is revealed and that the Person doing the revealing is God. So the message does not have to be mysterious at all. All that is necessary is that an inspired person receives knowledge by immediate impartation rather than by mediate efforts at deduction.

Such knowledge may even be about things already known or a "mere" noting (and documentation) of supposedly general knowledge. For example, all the so-called historical books of the Bible were about things of public knowledge - yet God inspired His servants to know to write them down. What is thus written is revelation of God. The revelation is the God-given knowledge of exactly "what to write" out of all possible things and occurrences, as well as the spiritual truth that God Himself makes known through the writing of what men thought was ordinary "story". The apostle Luke dutifully wrote down all that he was inspired to write of what he saw as the early believers were living out their lives. It was a kind of diary / journal, but it was God who was directing everything being penned! How would the practice of Christianity have been today if not for such revelations as the book we now call "The Acts of the Apostles"?.

Conclusion

Are you a Christian? If so, may I just exhort you that as you continue in your walk with the Lord, by studying His word, do not permit occasional literary weaknesses of the human writers to distract you from the eternal truth of the God's word. And certainly, do not at all be swayed by the attempts of unbelievers who try to equate such literary weakness as spiritual weakness, by which they mean that if it is God's word, then the language must be impeccable all round. We Christians never claimed that the Bible was physically penned by God. We only say what the Scripture itself says, that it was inspired by God.

God bless you.