The next series of posts will be a deep dive into what I consider to be one of the most beautiful sections of scripture. Jude’s final blessing, and it reads:

Now to the one who is able to keep you from falling, and to cause you to stand, rejoicing, without blemish before his glorious presence, to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time, and now, and for all eternity. Amen.

Jude 24-25, NET

Now to the One.

There is no other, and He is one. This is the beginning of all fruitful spiritual discussion. I love having interfaith conversations. To listen to what spurs others unto their belief. Often the conversation of spiritualism is tied to desire for truth. This presents a great opportunity for deep discussion. Some spiritual people talk about the power of the universe. If there is some universal power, there would still need to be some ultimate power. Other religions teach about a multitude of gods, yet even a pantheon of gods, still requires one to reign supreme. Even humanists, and secular scientists agree, there must be some first cause. Philosophers and theologians would make this part of an Ontological Argument. Its basic claim is that, regardless of any belief system or religion, is that there must be some greatest being.

Spiritual people often will make superficial statements about energies or forces. This is really esotericism, which I have wrote about here. You might have even engaged in these conversations with phrases like “There is a lot of negative energy”, or “I love the energy in this room” or “That person sucked the energy out of the party.” Some Christians falsely believe their is “energy” in a church that makes it more or less sacred. Even worse, some Christian’s wrongfully project the Holy Spirit not as a member of the triune God, but as His force which can be wielded.

Don’t misread this, there are forces at work in this world. In Galatians 4:3, we read “…when we were children, we were in slavery under the elemental forces of the world.” But these forces are not worth worshiping, and they are powerless compared to God.

Ever since antiquity, the Christian has tried to understood how God exists in three distinct persons: Father, Son and Spirit. The fact is this, the God of the Bible has always existed in a perfect unity of love, and He invites us in, to know him, even if not fully, and He fully knows us.

Who is able.

Able to do what? He is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20) because His ways and thoughts are higher than ours! God is only knowable by His own doing, or put in another way, by His grace he has chosen to show us His abilities (or attributes). We could never know God, unless He gave us the ability to do so! Even though He is infinitely transcendent above our lowly estate, He has made it so that we can know him, and even more that we may be known by him. There is no other god before him, or after him that is able. Arguably, this is the what sets God apart from all others, and even more specifically what makes Christianity so unique. In our understanding of human existence, God created and dwelt with man until sin separated the divine from the carnal, casting man into death, disease and destruction. God was able to sustain a remnant of humanity by His mercy and for His good pleasure until Christ came in the likeness of human flesh, as God incarnate, to dwell among us yet again. Whereas all other world religions seek out their god or divine, our God sought us first. All other efforts are attempts to reach up or out, Jesus reaches in, and down, to us. He alone was able to defeat death, and reverse the curse that fell upon humanity.

To know Him.

Thankfully we can know him. He is claimant, defendant and the evidence. He claims to be the only true God, He alone defends himself as God, and He alone provides the evidence we need to know he is God. It pains me to hear people say their is no empirical evidence for God or that God’s existence cannot be proven. This really is nothing new. Pride and arrogance produce unrighteousness in the hearts of fools, as they “suppresses truth”. Claiming to be wise they gaze upon the vastness of space, mysteries of life and complexity of being – yet deny a creator who’s eternal power and divine nature are on clear display! Paul argued this with the ancient people of Rome.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things

Romans 1:18-23

This is related to the Cosmological Argument for god. That when we observe the worlds (cosmos) around us, we can clearly argue everything that exists (or created) needs something preexistent (or uncreated). In these verses particularly, I read His eternal power, that he gifts us as life, spirit, consciousness and intelligence, so that we may perceive Him. Likewise, His divine nature however concerns the Teleological Argument for god, in the things that have been made, which give natural order and purpose to every molecule in the entire universe.

This is so we may know Him, even if not fully. We start with this basis of His existence and earnestly search Him out. If we can look upon creation, and see the need for a creator, then we can look upon our sin and the sins of the world and see our need for a savior. Truthfully, creation alone doesn’t teach us everything we need to know or can know about God, but it should be the basis for faith! When we search him out, specifically in His revelation as recorded in the person of Christ and inerrant Scripture we can know him more fully, and as maturing Christians we should turn to Scripture as a primary means to understand Him. Piper offers an excellent perspective here.

To be known by Him.

I love philosophy, and could spend my whole life pondering the classical Ontological, Cosmological or Teleological arguments for God. Or dive into others like Lewis did in his treatment of the Moral argument in Mere Christianity, or Thomas Aquinas did in his Five. I could pontificate all day on life, purpose and meaning. Yet I believe the most powerful evidence of Gods eternal power and divine nature is the testimonies of His people and I wholeheartedly refute the claim that testimonies are just that, anecdotal, personal accounts or by extension then, that prophecy is just coincidence.

The ancient Israelite’s who had the gift of grace, held firmly unto faith. It was strengthened by the testimonies of those before them. The patriarchs passed down stories and testimonies, and Moses recorded their oral history and testimony while in the wilderness forming what would become the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy). Old Testament Scripture is filled with personal and corporate testimonies of Gods prophecy and fulfillment. He said he would deliver them, and He did time after time. Jesus Christ, our Great Deliverer, fulfilled over 300 prophecies from the OT in His earthly ministry alone!

God has been gracious to me in this extent. I have never struggled in these areas of faith. I know who I was before Christ, and I know who I am in him, I know my testimony. I have seen brutal men become loving and devoted Christians. I have seen the lost and hurt, be found and healed. I have seen spiritual eyes and ears opened, and lives changed. I have seen and heard countless stories, across the world over, of those who were once lost in sin, who are now fully known by God. We are freed from those elemental forces! No longer slaves! Just as Galatians 4:9 reads:

But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?

To the one who is able, to keep us from falling.

How does he keep us from falling? How do we overcome? Revelation 12 narrates a story of Christ defeating our accuser, Satan. Verse 10 and 11 reads:

The salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the ruling authority of his Christ, have now come, because the accuser of our brothers and sisters, the one who accuses them day and night before our God, has been thrown down. But they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die.

We overcome this wicked accuser, by the Blood of Christ and by our testimony. Apart from Christs salvation, that immeasurable grace that God has given us, we would be dead in our sin and so depraved we could never find God on our own. This is the doctrine of total depravity, that in and of ourselves we haven’t any capacity to know He is God, that we are damned or that He is able to save us. The blood of Christ was shed upon the cross when God poured out his just wrath and judgement on sin. But in death there is still no power. Christ crucified would only mean he succumbed to the weight of judgement, and died like any other martyr, but Christ defeated death and was resurrected from the grave by the power of God. This event changed the entire course of history, and shifted the cosmos! This is the spark that lit the unquenchable fire of the church over the last 2000 years as the God of the Israelites has desired to make himself known to the entire world! The testimony, or good news, or gospel of Christ broke light into darkness, and continues to change lives.

This is the word of our testimony, we know He is one, that He is able, and that He saved a wretch like me!

Peace be with you.