The sermon "Aseity of God" by Jeffrey Johnson discusses the concept of divine aseity, emphasizing that God is self-sufficient and independent of anything external to sustain His existence. Here is a brief summary of the main points:
1. **Definition of Aseity**: Aseity, derived from the Latin word meaning "from self", describes God as completely self-sufficient and independent. God's existence is undereived, meaning He does not rely on anything outside Himself.
2. **Biblical Foundation for Aseity**: Scripture supports the doctrine of aseity through verses like John 5:26, which states that the Father has life in Himself. Further, God’s self-description to Moses as "I AM" in Exodus 3:14 underscores His eternal, uncaused nature.
3. **Relation to Other Divine Attributes**: Aseity is integral and inseparable from God’s other attributes. For example, God’s sovereignty, omnipotence, and omniscience are manifestations of His self-sufficiency. Aseity is not just a characteristic among others but a foundational aspect that informs all of God’s attributes.
4. **Practical Implications**: Understanding God’s aseity influences our view of human dependency and the nature of existence. It highlights the contrast between God’s completeness and human neediness, guiding believers to depend more profoundly on God for all things.
5. **Theological Significance**: Aseity defines God’s uniqueness as the only self-sufficient being, emphasizing that any dependence on something external would contradict the very nature of God. This attribute also serves as a basis for refuting dualistic or polytheistic religious concepts, affirming the monotheistic view of an all-powerful, sovereign God.
In conclusion, the sermon articulates that aseity is not merely a doctrinal point but central to understanding and relating to God, affecting how believers perceive their relationship with Him and the universe.
The sermon "Aseity of God" by Jeffrey Johnson discusses the concept of divine aseity, emphasizing that God is self-sufficient and independent of anything external to sustain His existence. Here is a brief summary of the main points:
1. **Definition of Aseity**: Aseity, derived from the Latin word meaning "from self", describes God as completely self-sufficient and independent. God's existence is undereived, meaning He does not rely on anything outside Himself.
2. **Biblical Foundation for Aseity**: Scripture supports the doctrine of aseity through verses like John 5:26, which states that the Father has life in Himself. Further, God’s self-description to Moses as "I AM" in Exodus 3:14 underscores His eternal, uncaused nature.
3. **Relation to Other Divine Attributes**: Aseity is integral and inseparable from God’s other attributes. For example, God’s sovereignty, omnipotence, and omniscience are manifestations of His self-sufficiency. Aseity is not just a characteristic among others but a foundational aspect that informs all of God’s attributes.
4. **Practical Implications**: Understanding God’s aseity influences our view of human dependency and the nature of existence. It highlights the contrast between God’s completeness and human neediness, guiding believers to depend more profoundly on God for all things.
5. **Theological Significance**: Aseity defines God’s uniqueness as the only self-sufficient being, emphasizing that any dependence on something external would contradict the very nature of God. This attribute also serves as a basis for refuting dualistic or polytheistic religious concepts, affirming the monotheistic view of an all-powerful, sovereign God.
In conclusion, the sermon articulates that aseity is not merely a doctrinal point but central to understanding and relating to God, affecting how believers perceive their relationship with Him and the universe.
of God's asiatic and I have four points. What is a say it? We're going to have to define that word to what is the biblical warrant for a safety? Is this a biblical doctrine or is it just a philosophical construct three? How does a say it? He relate to God's other attributes and then for if we have time we'll look at why it matters. All right as we define a say it. As we look at what is a say it? It's a Latin word. The the all a say it eos comes from the Latin word from and say is the Latin word for self. So it literally means from self. Many of your old enough you probably recognize frog horn leg horn. He would go around saying I'll say I'll say. And so he was talking about the doctrine of divine a say it. I'm sure of it. Bruce Ware defines a say it as God's exists eternally independent of the world as the one who is fully self-sufficient in his own infinitely perfect self existence. That is God is from himself. He he doesn't have another source that he is derivative from he's undereived. God exists relies on nothing other than himself. He is the only being our thing who is eternally independent and needs nothing besides himself to be who he is. John 5 27 says the father has life in himself. Now think about everything else that you know everything you else that you know is a derivative. We have delegated power. We need other things to exist. You cannot exist without the sun without energy without food water and shelter so many other things you need and so you can't exist without other things outside of yourself. God is the only being that can exist without needing anything but himself. He's fully complete. In fact a say it he means that God is absolute often when we think about God's attributes. We say God is absolute sovereign and what do we mean by absolute that means he has every ounce of power. He's got it all. He is absolutely a totality has every ounce of power or wisdom or whatever other attribute that you may think of about God to say that God is absolute is to say he depends upon nothing for his existence his actions is knowledge his will or anything else that he does. In other words, God is perfect. He is self-sufficient. He is complete and is perfect in his thoughts and his will and his power nothing can be added to God. He lacks nothing. He needs nothing. He's completely independent. So another way of saying God's a say it is to say he's fully independent. He's self-sufficient. He's complete. He's absolute. The Dutch reformer. Well not reformer but the Dutch Puritan Herman Bavnik says absolute is the same as not depending upon anything else. And he's the only being that is like this. He is self-contained. All of creation has consist all of other creation everything else is dependent upon God. And him we live and move and have our being God is the only being that is dependent upon nothing. Colossians 1 16 for by him all things were created in heaven and earth visible and invisible rather Thrones or Dominions or rulers or authorities all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together. Now he is the being that everything else depends upon but he depends upon nothing besides himself. He is the first calls that needs no other calls but himself. He depends upon nothing outside of himself. Acts 17 24 talking about God and dwelling it says this the God who made the world and everything in it being Lord of heaven and earth does not live in temples made by man nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything that is we need God. God doesn't need us. Job 22 2 says can a man be profitable to God? Surely he who is wise is profitable to himself but he is not to God that is God doesn't need us. He doesn't seek our counsel. He doesn't need our wisdom. He doesn't need our gifts. He doesn't need our praise is fully independent and self-sufficient Romans 11 34 who has known the mind of the Lord who has been his counselor or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid for from him and through him and to him are all things you see God is the only being like this that is self-sufficient if God had to depend on something outside of himself. He wouldn't be God. The thing that he depended upon would be God. So he's complete. He's the only true automobile. You think of the word automobile, you know, it comes from two words self-mobile and the thought was, you know, horses weren't self-mobile but now that we got a machine and has an engine attached to it, it drives itself or it motorizes itself and so they gave the automobile the name self-mobile but we know that automobiles need gasoline and they need a driver and they need things outside of the automobile itself to dry but God is the only true automobile the only true being that needs no gasoline or no food or needs anything outside of himself to be able to completely operate and do as he does. Now as we think about what is the seity of God it's the self-sufficiency of God the completeness of God the independence of God the absoluteness of God all these terms are synonyms to the word aseity but what is the biblical warrant for aseity? How do we get that? Well, there are three things that we can derive aseity from one we can get it from his name and Exodus chapter 3 Moses asked God what is your name? You know, I need to know who's going to send me. They're going to ask me who sent you. So what is your name? So I may know how to tell them the answer and Exodus 3 14. This is what God said to Moses. I am who I am and he said say this to the people of Israel. I am has sent me to you. So what is this name? We get the name. I am we get Yahweh, but what is the word Yahweh mean? Are Jehovah and there's another way of pronouncing the name Yahweh. What does Yahweh mean the name of God me? What means I am I am what I am. He's defining who he is. He's the only being that could say I am what I am and it's implication that he is undereived. He's undereived. He's not who he is based upon what other people are. He is who he is based upon who he is. No one else is like that. All of our own identities are derivative identities. You couldn't be who you or is like I'm an independent person. No, really you're you're much of your identity is from the world that shapes you. Your parents and many other factors come into play and to identify your own self. God is the only self-sufficient God who is I am who I am. Now another way of looking at this a tip God and driving God's a say it is from God's eternality. R.C. Sproul says because God himself had no beginning. He was always already there in the beginning. When we affirm that God is eternal. We are saying that he possesses the attribute of a say ity or self existence. This means that God eternally has existed of himself and in himself. That is if you think of a being who's infinite and eternal that is he's always been there. Then there's not a time that he did not exist. So the fact that it's hard to put your mind around that God who's always been who always is. And the fact that he always is means that he didn't come to being he wasn't created. He didn't evolve out of something else. He's just been who he is and who he is from all eternity. So that speaks of his a say ity. First Timothy 6 16 says who alone possesses immortality and dwells the unproachable light whom no man has seen or can see to him be honored in eternal Dominion. Amen. Or as Revelations 1 8 tells us I am the Alpha and the Omega says the Lord God who is and who was and who is to come the Almighty. God who has no beginning and a God who has no end. That speaks of the fact that he is self-existent. Now as we kind of define the doctrine of a say ity and we've kind of looked at some of the reasons that the Bible teaches the doctor of a say ity. The third thing we want to look at is how does the doctrine of a say ity relate to the other doctrines of God and if you were like me when I was in college, I I wanted to have one central attribute of God. I wanted God to have like who is God and if you had to reduce God down to one thing, what would it be? And I was clever when I was in college and I said it was the sovereignty of God everything can be traced back to the sovereignty of God. And so I put in my mind, I had this idea that at the core God's core at the core of God was the sovereignty of God and then you have the other attributes that spring out of the sovereignty of God like the sovereignty of God is what is the root behind all the other the knowledge and wisdom and love and every other attribute we can think about. Well, I can see where someone who come to the doctrine of a say ity is that well, no the say ity is the root. Maybe that's the root part of God and all the other attributes flow out of the a say ity of God. I can see that and that that might be the way you can look at it. But let me suggest to you that God doesn't have a central attribute. He is who he is all that he is. That all his attributes we can say it this way are inseparable to the other attributes of God where you find one of the attributes of God by necessity. You will see the other attributes there inseparable not I didn't say they're indistinguishable. We know the difference between love and wrath and once we say love and wrath is equal or the same thing then the terms love and wrath mean nothing to us. Once you say they mean the same thing they're identical then we can't understand God at all. We have no definitions that can put our minds around God. So we're not collapsing all the attributes together into one mushy undefinable attribute. Some theologians tend to do that. No, we want to keep the attributes distinguish and separate it but they're not they're not separable. That is you can't fully pull one attribute if you started pulling one of the attributes out of God all the other ones will follow. You know, you can cut your arm off and you can still be who you are, you know, but because of God is a spiritual being we'll talk about that next week. You can't take one attribute away without pulling all the other attributes of God and it's amazing now because God is infinite and he's eternal. Think about this. Wherever God is all of God is now where is God? Well, he's everywhere. That means all the attributes are everywhere. And so if you would kind of do a thought experiment make God and like put a little space between your fingers and say now can God be there? Absolutely. He's but he's there. How much of God is is some of God there are most of God or a little bit of God. Isn't amazing that all of God is there. Every attribute of God is in between your fingers now expand that out to the galaxies and beyond the galaxies and beyond what we can comprehend with no limits. You know is God there too? Yes, all of God is there. You see this is why the Bible says in John 4 that God is love. God is love now. It doesn't say that God has love you have love or you have some love you can grow in love and you can diminish in love. We can possess it and lose it if you would but God. God is love. It's not something he has or adds to his being or takes away from his being is something that defines his very nature. It's who he is. What is God? You say well, what is God? Well one way of defining God is love. He that's what that's who he is. Just not what he has. That's who he is all that God is is love. Now. Now that's not God is not simply love. He is love but he's also the other attributes. God is eternal. It's not that God possesses eternality. That's who he is. We can say God is omniscient. That means he knows everything. That's who he is. He is these things. In fact, when you think about God being eternal Psalm 90 verse 2 says before the mountains were brought forth or ever you had formed the earth or the world from everlasting to everlasting you or God. First, in the 616 who alone has immortality who dwells in the unapproachable light Psalm 102 27 but you are the same and your years have no end. Geronimo 33 27 the eternal God is your dwelling place. The eternal God is your dwelling place and underneath are the everlasting arms. So God is love. God is eternal. God is omniscient. God is omnipotent which means he's all-powerful. I mean think about that for a minute. He's all or total or absolute. He's absolute powerful. He's all-powerful is omnipotent. Is there is it does that mean there could be another source of power that doesn't belong to God? No, every ounce of power is his. Is that why have power or that's on loan to you from God. You live and move and have your being in him. Well, Satan has power. Yes, but that's because God has delegated. A little bit of power to him and that means God is sovereign if he's all-powerful that we can only do the laws of nature the laws of the universe. The laws of the demonic realm the laws of the human race. We can only do what God permits us to do. He's still in control. He still has all power. So it's not a war between a greater power and a lesser power. God is all-powerful. Well, how does all these attributes? Relate to one another. Remember what I said when I was younger. I wanted the sovereignty of God to be at the core of God. I just felt like man, that's the most important. Attribute and I think we're all kind of maybe have gone through that thought ourselves here and there. We want to pick out what attribute we like the best or we find to be the most important the most helpful to us and we put that at the middle of the being of God. But I paint this picture that to say that we can't put a attribute in the middle. Or we can't separate the attributes from one another because all the attributes define God in the same way that they define each other. For instance, let's put love in the middle just for a thought experiment. Let's say God is love. That's his central attribute. That's the heart of who God is. He's love, but he's also these other things on the side. He's, you know, powerful, wise, knowing, all-knowing, infinite, eternal, holy, good, just well, let's say God is love, but then we could say God's love. If God is love that defines who God is then we could say God's love is all-powerful, right? What kind of love is it? Define this love. Well, it's an all-powerful love. What's more than an all-powerful love? It's an all-wise God. I mean, it's all-wise love. I mean, this is amazing about this love of God. It's not just this raw emotion of love or this self-sacrificing giving, however you want to define love. It's a love that has power to it. In fact, how much power? All-powered. In fact, it's a love that has all wisdom attached to it. It's a love that has all knowledge attached to it. It's a love that is infinite. That's amazing. Infinite love. It's a love that is eternal. There's no beginning to this love. Just as God is eternal, God's love is eternal. You can't separate God from love. Does that make sense? And so everything that God is, love is, that is the love of God. It has the same attributes as God. So God's love is eternal. God's love is holy. God's love is good. God's love is just. All the other attributes. This is just a small sampling of God's attributes just for illustration sake. All God's attributes define God's love. Now, but love defines God's goodness. You could put God's goodness in the middle or God's justice in the middle or God's power in the middle or God's wisdom in the middle or God's knowledge or God's eternality in the middle or any other attribute. You could pack any attribute you want, stick in the middle and all the other attributes define that one attribute. Does that make sense? So God is who he is. He's a simple being. He can't be separated in different parts. You're a body and your left hand's over here, your right hand's there and you can be separated. But God is a infinite spirit. He's a being that all of his attributes are self-derived. We're talking about the assayate of God. Every attribute is self-derived within God and inner dependent if you would are inseparable. I like that word better from the other attributes. And so this is who our God is. Now my last point and the seven minutes I have left. Again, I say this is inseparable. His attributes are inseparable but not indistinguishable. And think about this because God is love. He's going to be a God of wrath. If he didn't have love, he wouldn't be wrathful. Or if he didn't have love, he wouldn't be good. If he wasn't good, he wouldn't be just. So all the attributes are interdependent and they require the other attributes to function. So God is who he is, all that he is and he's been all that he is from all eternity. And he hasn't needed to collect anything new outside of himself. He hasn't developed. He hasn't grown. He doesn't need us. He doesn't need anything other than who he has always been from all eternity. That's really the assayate of God. Now, what does it matter? What's some quick applications for us to take home with us? One, we need to realize that God is God and we're nothing close to God. We're so far down from being God. You know, a lot of times reality hits that we're not God. Well, you got to realize that God needs nothing and will never need anything. He has everything in himself. He's complete. He's happy. He's satisfied. You, however, in me, we're dependent. We are dependent. God is independent. That makes us very much dependent upon God. Now, this also should cause us to go if God is the one who has everything. If he has, he's the source of all goodness, the source of all love, the source of all power of all justice, everything else is derivative justice or derivative of goodness, derivative holiness. What everything else is a outflow of who God is, then it should cause us to seek God for everything. You know, we know to seek God for our daily provisions, but we should seek God for every aspect of our life. You want to be holy, seek God for he has holiness. If you want goodness, seek God. Everything that you and I need comes from God. In him, we live and move and have our being. So we need to have a great, not just respect and worship who God is for being God. Some people say the safety of God is the Godness of God, but I think it should cause us to humbly seek him and look for our provisions from him. This, this means that God is sovereign, sovereign over everything. When he delegates a measure of power to the laws of nature and human race and freedom of the will and things of that, he, he, it's not that he's given it away. Where he ceased to control it. He doesn't cease to be God just because he's delegating some of power and some of things to his creation. He still is in control over all things. And so that should cause us to have a high regard to who God is, a complete submission to him, a great humility as we consider who he is in light of who we are. I have five minutes left. In fact, I'll see if there's any questions. If not, we can go to prayer a little early. Yeah. Like a fall. A seity, somebody asked you, what is a seity? It's the self existence of God. That's the quickest definition, the self existence, but it also implies complete independence, complete absoluteness, the perfection of God. He's self-contained. He drives himself from himself and because there's no beginning, he didn't pop into existence. He's like, he's just always been who he is and he's completely independent from anything outside of himself. So it's really amazing concept to think about this is who our God is. You we live in our dark. Do we limit the power of God in our lives? Yes and no. I mean, we can't limit God's power. We're not strong enough to hinder him. So that in that sense, no, but from the enjoyment and the peace that we experience. Yes, from that perspective, God's going to do what he's going to do. But we often think if we understood who God was, and his promises to us, we would be able to rest, rest quite a bit easier. And then we do. All right. Yes. About your department concept of God that he became the way that he was that being a dumb God. He had quite now. Yeah, you can only by definition, you can only have one self-sufficient. Self-derived being who's all-powerful. If you had two all-powerful beings that contradict one another, it's that it's an impossibility for you to have all power and for God to have all power, but something's got to give there. So there can be only one God by definition and it also rules out all the Hinduistic, all the Eastern mysticism and the Middle Eastern religions that have a dual power system. You have God who's a greater power than you have the Satan who's a lesser power and these powers are at war with one another. No, if you understand who God is, that you see that Satan's God's Satan. That Satan can only do what God allows him to do, that God has everything. All right, let's take some time to prepare.[BLANK_AUDIO]
