God’s perfect character is His Holiness – His Absolute Integrity.
His Integrity consists of His Perfect Righteousness and His Perfect Justice.
Because God is Absolute, He is Perfectly Faithful.
Jesus Christ (the Son) satisfied the Righteousness and the Justice of the Father on the Cross. This satisfaction is called “Propitiation.” When Jesus died for you, He paid your penalty (death-sentence). Every human being is a sinner. Each of us has a sin-nature inherited from Adam (Romans 3:23). “The wages of sin is spiritual death” (Romans 6:23). The Justice of God judged Christ in your place and the Righteousness of God is totally satisfied (propitiated). Because of this God is free to call us to salvation through His Son.
“If we are faithless, He remains faithful for He cannot deny Himself” (II Timothy 2:13). Because God is Immutable (unchanging), He does not change His mind! He will always be faithful to you. God disciplines the apostate believers to keep them from straying too far. In critical cases God may remove the apostate believer but he/she is still saved. Why? Because God’s faithfulness depends on God, not on us. God will not consume (destroy or change His mind about) those whom He has saved, even if we commit a life of sin turning our backs on God. Malachi 3:6 states, “For I am the Lord I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.”
Absolute perfection only exists in Divine Righteousness. Divine personal love is expressed only to the believer because the believer (only) possesses the righteousness of Christ. Unbelievers share God’s impersonal love. God predestined believers (he always knew who would believe and who would not believe) to adoption. He adopted believers and made us His own personal possession in Christ. Ephesians 1:5 states, “He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention (graciousness) of His will (See also Ephesians 2:4-10 and John 3:16-18).
God was and is so faithful to His own that he sent His Son to die for the whole world (Romans 5:8; I John 4:10). God commands us to love as He loves (John 13:34-35; I John 4:8-12,16). Only believers have the capacity to love one another and mankind as does God, because the trinity and God’s Word dwells in us. The more Bible Doctrine we have stored in our souls the more we learn to love as God loves.
God’s love depends on His marvelous character. God, through Bible Doctrine, teaches the believer to love as He loves. God’s love is eternal and unchanging. Our salvation is eternal and unchanging (Jeremiah 31:3). We can learn that love is unchangeable, undying, because God IS.
The arrogance, perversion and atrocities of mankind cannot change God’s love for man nor influence God’s thinking or His integrity. This concept of God is a fact of reality which is difficult for us to understand because we are influenced by everything and we are always changing; especially our thinking. God is always consistent and immutable (unchanging) because His character is perfect.
Man’s point of contact with God is His Justice, not His love. It is the Righteousness of God that demanded the Justice of God to judge sin on the Cross. It is the same Justice of God that imputes God’s own Righteousness to the born-again believer. Every action of God is motivated by His Love and His Justice stands guard over His Righteousness so that Grace can freely flow to all His Creation. Grace is the function of God’s Justice which provides blessings and support to the believer. God holds the universe together and causes the sun to stay in place. Gravity holds us on earth by God’s decree. God is faithful.
The Cross represents God’s Justice! Jesus Christ represents God’s Love! Both the Love and the Justice of God stand between God and mankind. The Love of God that stands between man and God is Christ. The Justice of God that stands between God and man is Christ. Jesus Christ represents the Justice and Love of God toward mankind – proof of His Perfect Righteousness. God did not spare His own Son because His Righteousness demands Justice regarding sin. Just as God could not prevent His only begotten Son from going to the Cross, He cannot prevent the unbeliever from going to the Lake of Fire. God cannot function outside of His own character of perfect integrity.
The Trinity is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). The Bible is full of real-life stories of people (believers and unbelievers) who disobeyed and turned and walked away from God – but God was always faithful. There are countless stories of believers who doubted God, who were faithless – men such as Moses and Peter and Thomas, but God was faithful. These Biblical characters (faithful and faithless) described throughout Scripture are testimony to the faithfulness of God.
Happy studying!