The Godhood of God is a Founding National Principle

And the catastrophe that flows from rejecting it

Almost unknown in his own lifetime, A.W. Pink went on to become one of the most influential evangelical authors of the twentieth century. One young pastor, Rev. Robert Harbach, described Pink’s “pastor's heart” and his “warm, heartfelt, and fatherly” demeanor.

Although many of these older authors have since been eclipsed by the sheer volume of contemporary resources, one need only spend a few pages browsing their meditations to realize they are the fountainhead of whatever tributaries we now benefit from.

We have abridged and updated the following from Pink’s original tract, The Godhood of God.

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The Godhood of God! What do we mean by this phrase? How sad it is that such a question even needs to be asked today. And yet it does, for our generation is almost completely ignorant of its important truth. What has instead become popular in universities, pulpits, and the press is the dignity, power, and achievements of man. To the modern mind, if God exists at all, He is little more than an abstraction — a being so far removed from the world that He must have little to do with our mundane lives.

Within this theological void, man thinks of himself as a free agent and the sole determiner of his own destiny. Such was the devil’s lie at the beginning—“You will be like God.” (Gen. 3:5).

The question we are faced with is this: what is God like? For the answer, we must turn from human speculation and satanic insinuation to divine revelation.

What is the Godhood of God?

When we speak of the Godhood of God we affirm that “God” is more than an empty title; that He is more than a distant spectator looking helplessly at the suffering sin has wrought. When we speak of the Godhood of God we affirm that He is “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” (Rev. 19:16); that He is something more than a disappointed, dissatisfied, defeated being filled with noble ambitions but lacking the power to carry them out; that He is something more than one who, having endowed man with the power of choice, is now unable to constrain him to do anything; that He is something more than one who has waged a protracted, but unsuccessful war with the devil.

To speak of the Godhood of God is to say that God is on the throne as present, objective fact and not as a piece of abstract theology. To speak of the Godhood of God is to say that the steering wheel is in His hand. It is to say that He is the Potter and that we are the clay; that He shapes vessels both for honour or dishonour, according to His own sovereign right. To speak of the Godhood of God is to say that He “does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth, and that no one can hold back his hand or say to him: ‘What have you done?’” (Dan. 4:35).

To speak of the Godhood of God, in other words, is to give the Creator His rightful place; it is to recognize His divine majesty and bow to His universal scepter.

The Godhood of God stands at the base of divine revelation: “In the beginning God,” (Gen 1:1). On it, all other doctrines must be built, and any doctrine not built upon it will ultimately fail. At the beginning of all true theology lies the truth that God is God. He is absolute and irresistible. Without this, we face a closed door. With it, we have a key that unlocks every mystery.

This is true of creation: exclude an almighty God and nothing is left but blind and illogical materialism. This is true of revelation: the Bible is the solitary miracle of literature. Exclude God from it and you have a miracle with no miracle-worker to produce it. This is true of salvation: salvation is “of the Lord” (John 2:9) — exclude Him from any aspect of salvation and it vanishes. This is true of history, for history is “His-story.” It is the outworking in time of His eternal purpose. Exclude God from history and all of it becomes meaningless and purposeless.

“In the beginning God.” These are not only the first words of Holy Scripture but the first principle of all true philosophy. Instead of beginning with man and attempting to reason back to God, we must begin with God and reason forward to man. It is a failure to do this which leaves unsolved the so-called “riddle of the universe.” Begin with the world and try and reason back to God — what is the result? It is this: that God ends up having little or nothing to do with it. Begin with God and reason forward to the world, however, and you now have a light to shine onto every problem.

Because God is holy, His anger burns against sin. Because God is righteous, His judgment falls on those who rebel against Him. Because God is faithful, the solemn warnings of His Word will be fulfilled. Because God is omnipotent, no problem can master Him, no enemy defeat Him, and no purpose of His can be thwarted.

In the beginning, God. In the center, God. At the end, God.

But as soon as this is insisted upon, men will stand up and tell you what they think about God. They will go on about how God must work consistently with His own character — as though a worm was capable of determining what is or isn’t consistent within the divine nature. People will say, with an air of profound wisdom, that God must deal fairly with His creatures — which is true, of course — but who is able to fully discern divine justice? Or any of God’s attributes?

The truth is that man is utterly incompetent of forming a proper estimate of God’s character and ways. It is because of this that God has given us a revelation of His mind, where He plainly declares that “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa 55:8-9). In view of such a scripture as this, it is only to be expected that much of the Bible will conflict with the sentiments of the godless mind, which is naturally opposed to God” (Rom. 8:7).

A creature’s response

One of the most flagrant sins of this age is irreverence. By irreverence I am not now thinking of open blasphemy. Rather, I have in mind the failure to ascribe the honour which is due to the Almighty. It is the limiting of His power and actions by our degrading conceptions: it is the bringing of the Lord God down to our level.

There are multitudes of those who do not profess to be Christians who deny that God is the omnipotent Creator, and there are multitudes of professing Christians who deny that God is the absolute Sovereign. Men boast of their free will, their power, and their achievements. They forget that their lives are at the sovereign disposal of the Divine Ruler, and they have no more power to thwart His divine counsel than an insect has to resist the foot of an elephant.

Ah, my reader, this is the first great lesson we have to learn: that God is the Creator and we are the creature. That He is the Potter and we are the clay. This is the harvest of all life’s lessons, and when we think we have learned them, we soon discover that we need to re-learn them.

God is God and has the right to dispose of you as He sees fit. It is for Him to say where you will live—whether in riches or poverty, whether in health or in sickness. It is for Him to say how long you will live—whether you shall be cut down in youth, like the flower of the field, or whether you will live to old age. Yes, and it is for Him to say where you will spend eternity.

One of the profoundest mysteries of the Incarnation is that the mighty God descended from highest heaven and took upon Him the nature of the creature and came down here to show us how to wear it. That which differentiated the life of Christ from all other lives was His absolute and joyous submission to the Father’s will. “My food is to do the will of him who sent me” (John 4:34) was the keynote of the thirty-three years that He lived among men.

Have you benefited by the example left us by Father’s beloved? Has divine grace shown you how to wear your creature nature? Not in self-assertion, but in self-renunciation.

Only in the school of Christ can we learn to say, “Not my will, but Yours be done.”

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Some applications:

1. Pink states that “one of the most flagrant sins of this age is irreverence.” This claim might strike us as odd or misplaced. Typically when we think of “flagrant sins” our mind goes to various public travesties such as abortion, euthanasia, or the multitude of sexual perversions now normalized in our society. Yet all of these flow from a single, polluted source: a degraded view of God.

   Although secular culture has obviously put its own hellish energy behind the debasement of the divine, it is professing evangelicals that have inflicted the most damage (Rom. 2:24). From goofy day camps to permissive divorce culture, from non-threatening sermons to unforgivable concessions to the state, it is Cchristians who have demonstrated, by their actions, that God is not almighty.

   Canada’s recovery will begin when Canadian Christians repent of their worldliness, pathetic “kingdom-growth” strategies, and the general casualness of our fellowship with the Consuming Fire. Judgement must begin at the household of God.

2. Pink states that “the first great lesson we have to learn is that God is the Creator and we are the creature.” Sadly, it is a lesson proud, rebellious sinners least want to learn. We don’t want to “wear [our] creature nature.” We want to throw off our creature nature and instead robe ourselves in the divine nature. The reason the serpent’s lies were so effective is because they so effectively resonated with the defiance of a fallen nature. Apart from grace, we echo with our pharisee forebears, “We do not want this man [Jesus] to rule over us!” (Luke 19:14). This rage at God manifests in the defacement of His creation — murder and mutilation. We’re like the child who would rather see an object destroyed than rescued from its torments and redeemed to proper usage.

   National recovery will begin as we repent of our rage at the absoluteness of God; at the eternal, immovable principles of his cosmos; at His sovereignty; at our fragility and dependance; at the immutability of His will and the mutability of our own.

   As long as Canada is content to lather itself in delusions of niceness and amiability, nothing will change. The only man that left the temple justified was the one who owned himself a sinner (Luke 18:13). We must acknowledge our defiance for what it is and acknowledge the ruin that has resulted from it. And we must acknowledge that only God can change us.

   At the cusp of building the temple, David finds himself blown away at the fact that the normally miserable and miserly Israelites had suddenly become so generous. Then he remembers:

   “But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand. We are foreigners and strangers in your sight, as were all our ancestors. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope. Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a temple for your Holy Name comes from your hand, and all of it belongs to you. I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity.”

   1 Chron. 29: 14-17

   Our hope for Canada isn’t that we suddenly come to our senses. Our hope for Canada is that God, in wrath, remembers mercy.

3. We only see the “Godness of God” at its clearest when we view it through the lens of His Son: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ,” (2 Cor. 4:6). Pink’s introductory remarks warn us that we will never see God rightly when we view Him as some transcendent abstraction — someone so high and holy that He remains unaffected from the suffering of His creatures.

   This is not the God of the Bible. In the Bible we see a God that so loves the world He made — despite our rejection of Him — that He sent his only precious Son. One who serves, and works, and weeps, and bleeds, and dies, and rises, and ascends. In Christ alone do we see the “Godness of God.” In Christ alone are all of his attributes honed and sharpened to their keenest edge. As we are transformed by seeing this glory, so our stubborn wills are changed.

   Instead of dominating creation, we will instead respond with “joyous submission to the Father’s will.”

- B.I.