Nearly twenty years have passed since that time but the memory is still vivid. I was a student at university. We had a very helpful Christian Union and a feature of CU life was the annual 'Banner Book Offer' when Banner of Truth books were made available to us at generously discounted prices. In my second year I took as full advantage of the offer as I was able.
I well remember carrying my parcel of treasures up to my room and lying down on the green candlewick bedspread (this was the seventies!) with the first fat volume four inches above my face and starting to read. It was Berkhof's famous Systematic Theology (the 1976 reprint with a red dust jacket). I knew what systematic theology was about, but this was the first tune I had opened one intending to read it. I turned, of course, to the beginning. I leafed through the fascinating contents table and started to read. Berkhof begins with the existence and knowability of God. Mind blowing. By the time I came to the being and attributes of God, I was reeling. What amazing stuff!
I had been a Christian about six years and most of the stuff I had received was of a good standard but I had never had anything like this. I had never thought about my faith in a systematic way and had never really thought about God's nature and attributes As I read through Berkhof I recognised what he had written as truth but it was presented in a way I had ever encountered. John Keats wrote a sonnet called 'On first looking into Chapman's Homer' comparing his experiences reading Homer for the first time with discovering a new planet or the Pacific Ocean. Homer was on my shelf by this time. lt rarely excited me. But as for Berkhof, that is another story. I had learned what Spurgeon said, that, 'The proper study of the Christian is the Godhead.' 'The name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings and the existence of the great God whom he calls Father' is for the child of God. 'The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention.'
I remember going on to discover the same teaching in The Living God by Dick France and Jim Packer's best seller Knowing God. (I remember cringing with embarrassment on one occasion on hearing our CU President describe France's book. to his face. as 'The poor man's Knowing God'!). The virtue of both books was their popular approach. The same was true of the series of sermons that the CU's executive committee agreed to organise the following year on that very subject. Perhaps my best find in all of this was question four in the superlative Westminster Shorter Catechism (another wonderful discovery from this period). In response to the question 'What is God?' it reads:
God As a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.
Apart from everything else, this is a wonderfully constructed sentence. In just 18 words it says 22 things about God. The words 'infinite, eternal and unchangeable' apply not just to God's being but also to each of the six attributes 'wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth'. It does not say everything that might be said about God's nature and attributes but it says a great deal in short compass and is well worth remembering. Charles Hodge thought it 'Probably the best definition of God ever penned by man'.
The subject of God's nature and attributes has continued to fascinate and stir me down the years. I remember being particularly amazed by successive realisations of the greatness of God's knowledge, for example. Firstly, it was the realisation that God knows himself. Simple soul as I am, it has taken me these near 40 years to even get an inkling of who or what I am, yet the Omniscient God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, knows himself. Then later, it was the realisation that God knows not only all that has happened and that will happen but also all that could have happened in the past or might happen in the future. We sometimes ask 'What if ...?' The Lord knows the answer to all those questions. That staggers me.
In more recent years the discovery of the writings Charnock and Bavinck have been a great help. They can make Berkhof seem quite straightforward. Meanwhile, my own miserable attempt at a preaching series on God's nature and attributes has helped me see how difficult it is to teach such the subject in a profitable way. The great problem, it seems to me, is that it is one thing to know about God but quite another to know God. In Packer's phrase 'A little knowledge of God is worth more than a great deal of
knowledge about him'. It is one thing to believe that God is Spirit but quite another to walk always by faith and not hanker after some visible sign of his presence. It is one thing to believe God is holy but quite another to hate sin and flee from it in order to walk with him. It is easy to say you believe God is sovereign but not so easy to keep looking to him when everything seems to be going wrong. As with every doctrine, the question is not whether we can provide orthodox answers in front of others but
whether we truly believe in our hearts the truths revealed in Scripture. Am I convinced about the immensity of God, his presence in every place? Do I truly believe he is all wise? Am I convinced he is love, one who is slow to anger and abounding in mercy? And then how much is that reflected in my life? Are my head beliefs really making a difference to the way I live?
Discovering a continent is an exciting business but what counts is what happens when the ship lands. What use is going to be made of this abundant provision? From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. Spurgeon once spoke of the doctrine of God both expanding and humbling the mind. One feels the mind has been greatly expanded but has it been sufficiently humbled? We need both.
