Theological Term of the Week

veracity
God’s perfection whereby “all of his knowledge and words are both true and the final standard of truth”1; that perfection of [God’s] being by virtue of which He fully answers to the idea of the Godhead, is perfectly reliable in His revelation, and sees things as they really are”2; also called truthfulness.

• From scripture:
  

  God is not man, that he should lie,
  or a son of man, that he should change his mind.
  Has he said, and will he not do it?
  Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
  (Numbers 23:19 ESV)

  So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. (Hebrews 6:17-18 ESV)
  

• From The Body of Divinity by Thomas Watson: 

The truth of God, is a great pillar for our faith. Were he not a God of truth—we could not believe him—our faith would be an empty dream. But he is truth itself, and not a word which he has spoken shall fall to the ground.

The truth of God, is the object of trust. The truth of God is an immovable rock, on which we may venture our salvation. Isa 59:15, “Truth fails,” that is—truth on earth fails—but not truth in heaven. God can as well cease to be God, as cease to be true. Has God said, he “will do good to the soul who seeks him,” and he will “give rest to the weary.” Here is a safe anchor-hold, he will not alter the thing which has gone out of his lips. The truth of the God of heaven is engaged for believers. Can we have better security? The whole earth hangs upon the word of God’s power—and shall not our faith hang upon the word of God’s truth? Where can we rest our faith, but upon God’s faithfulness? There is nothing else we can securely believe in, but the truth of God. To trust in ourselves is to build upon quick sands; but the truth of God is a golden pillar for faith to rest upon. God cannot deny himself. “If we believe not—yet he abides faithful; he cannot deny himself.” Not to believe God’s veracity, is to affront God. “He who believes not, has made God a liar.” A person of honor cannot be more affronted or provoked, than when he is not believed, and called a liar. He who denies God’s truth, says that God’s promise is no better than a forged deed. Can there be a greater affront offered to God?

• From Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem: 

We might ask what it means to be the true God as opposed to other beings who are not God. It must mean that God in his own being or character is the one who fully conforms to the idea of what God should be: namely, a being who is infinitely perfect in power, in wisdom, in goodness, in lordship over time and space, and so forth. But we may further ask, whose idea of God is this? What idea of God must one conform to in order to be the true God?

At this point our train of thought becomes somewhat circular, for we must not say that a being must conform to our idea of what God should be like in order to be the true God! We are mere creatures! We cannot define what the true God must be like! So we must say that it is God himself who has the only perfect idea of what the true God should be like. And he himself is the true God because in his being and character he perfectly conforms to his own idea of what the true God should be. In addition, he has implanted in our minds a reflection of his own idea of what the true God must be, and this enables us to recognize him as God.

Learn more:

1. Richard L. Strauss: Let God Be True!
2. John Gill: Of the Veracity of God
3. Wayne Grudem: The Communicable Attributes of God: Wisdom, Truthfulness and Faithfulness (mp3)
4. From my attributes of God posts: God’s Truthfulness

1Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem
2Systematic Theology, Louis Berkhof

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Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms organized in alphabetical order or by topic.

Round the Sphere Again

Continuing
The top 100 hymn list at Semicolon:

• Crown Him with Many Crowns (19)
• There Is a Fountain (20)
• Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee (21)
• All Hail the Power of Jesus Name (22)

More Best and Most
Prizewinning wildlife photos. (Mail Online) My favourite is of fighting blackbirds. Yours?

Some snazzy bus stops. (Urlesque)

Spectacular trees around the world. (Neatorama)

Sometimes less is more. (The Sartorlialist)

Here’s an idea I didn’t try when my girls were younger, but if I ever have granddaughters, I think I will.

God's Truthfulness

Another repost of an old attributes of God post.

The Lord is the only true God. 
He is the living God and the everlasting King. 
(Jeremiah 10:10 NET)

Our God is the only true God. He is not a false god or an imaginary god, but the one real God who is everlastingly alive and ruling over all that is.

He is rock solid reality: constantly there and constantly active. Our God is so rock solidly real that his rock solid reality extends to the words he speaks. He created everything that exists by commanding it to be. Everything that exists, except for the true God himself, came to be because he called it into existence from nothingness (Hebrews 11:3). And all that continues to exist remains only because God sustains it by his continued command (Hebrews 1:3). Everything we see, smell, hear, touch, taste—everything material, everything tangible—is here for us to know because God himself and his spoken word are absolutely true.

But there’s more: What is yet to be will happen because God will speak it into being: 

For I am God, and there is no other; 
{I am} God, and there is no one like Me, 
Declaring the end from the beginning, 
And from ancient times things which have not been done, 
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, 
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’; 
Calling a bird of prey from the east, 
The man of My purpose from a far country. 
Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. 
(Isaiah 46:9-11)

Everything that is and everything that will be derives its existence from the true word of the true God. He is the intangible reality upholding our tangible reality. He is the One more real than what is material, for the material derives its reality from him. He is the true and real unseen being behind all that is seen. 

That God is true means that there is nothing more that he ought to be or will come to be. He is always, ever, fully and completely everything that he is and should be. He is the absolute Absolute. 

God is true, so everything he reveals about himself corresponds to what he really is. We can be certain of some things about God because we can trust what he tells us. Because God is true, he can be known by us—not completely known, but truly known.

And knowing this one true and real God is the key to everything, for knowing him is the source of eternal life itself.

Now this is eternal life—that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent. (John 17:3 NET)

We can know the only true God because he declares himself to us through creation, through his written word, and through his Son. 

The absolute truthfulness of God’s communication extends to the laws or commands he gives us. What they demand of us corresponds exactly to what a human being ought to be, and from them we learn the truth of what we were made to be. 

What’s more, God’s promises and warnings are completely reliable because what he says will be always comes to be. God is true, so he can be trusted; God is faithful because he is true. Our hope is a certain hope because “he who has promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23).” Proverbs 30:5 tells us that “every word of God is purified”, and because of the purity of his words, “he is like a shield for those who take refuge in him.” The security that can be found in God is there because his word is true. 

Those of us who have come to know him—who are his people—need to be real and true because our heavenly Father is real and true. If we are being remade into the image of the one true God, then we need to call a spade a spade, and where better to start than with ourselves and our own lives? Hypocrisy is everywhere condemned in scripture because it is the opposite of what God is. Those who belong to him are called to be sincere and genuine.

Do not lie to one another since you have put off the old man with its practices and have been clothed with the new man that is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it. (Colossians 3:9,10 NET)

God’s people are truthful people, for they are being made into the image of the one who created them by his spoken word—by “calling them out of darkness and into his marvelous light.” 

And those who belong to him will indeed become people of the truth, because he who calls “is trustworthy, and he will in fact do this”; that is, he will make them “completely holy” and “entirely blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:24 NET).” It’s a promise from the only true God, who declares the end from the beginning, who speaks truth and brings it to pass. It’s a promise that is rock-solid reality we can rest in.