Tag Archives: A.W. Pink

God Unconstrained and Unobligated to His Creation – A.W. Pink

From “The Attributes of God” by A.W. Pink, “The Solitariness of God”, monergism.com copy:

God was under no constraint, no obligation, no necessity to create. That He chose to do so was purely a sovereign act on His part, caused by nothing outside Himself, determined by nothing but His own good pleasure; for He “worketh all things after the counsel of His own will” (Eph. 1:11). That He did create was simply for His manifestative glory. Do some of our readers imagine that we have gone beyond what Scripture warrants? Then we appeal to the Law and the testimony: “Stand up and bless the LORD, your God, for ever and ever; and blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise” (Neh. 9:5). God is no gainer even from our worship. He was in no need of that external glory of His grace which arises from His redeemed, for He is glorious enough in Himself without that. What was it that moved Him to predestinate His elect to the praise of the glory of His grace? It was “according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:5).

God Swears in Wrath as Well as in Promises – A.W. Pink

Deuteronomy 1:34–35 (KJV) – And the Lord heard the voice of your words, and was wroth, and sware, saying, Surely there shall not one of these men of this evil generation see that good land, which I sware to give unto your fathers…

Psalm 95:10–11 (KJV 1900): Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, And said, It is a people that do err in their heart, And they have not known my ways: Unto whom I sware in my wrath That they should not enter into my rest.

Imagine God saying, “I declare under penalty of perjury that I will take a final and irreversible vengeance on your sins.” If in banning Israel from Canaan, how much more the impenitent from heaven!

From “The Attributes of God”, monergism.com copy:

“Again, that the wrath of God is a divine perfection is plainly demonstrated by what we read in Psalm 95:11, “Unto whom I sware in my wrath.” There are two occasions of God “swearing”: in making promises (Gen. 22:16), and in denouncing threatening (Deut. 1:34). In the former, He swears in mercy to His children; in the latter, He swears to terrify the wicked. An oath is for solemn confirmation (Heb. 6:16). In Genesis 22:16, God said, “By myself have I sworn.” In Psalm 89:35, He declares, “Once have I sworn by my holiness”; while in Psalm 95:11 He affirmed, “I swear in My wrath.” Thus the great Jehovah Himself appeals to His wrath as a perfection equal to His holiness: He swears by the one as much as by the other. Again; as in Christ “dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9), and as all the divine perfections are illustriously displayed by Him (John 1:18), therefore we read of “the wrath of the Lamb” (Rev. 6:16).

The wrath of God is a perfection of the divine character upon which we need to frequently meditate. First, so that our hearts may be duly impressed by God’s detestation of sin. We are prone to regard sin lightly, to gloss over its hideousness, to make excuses for it. But the more we study and ponder God’s abhorrence of sin and His frightful vengeance upon it, the more likely we are to realize its heinousness.”

The Wrath of God – Robert Haldane

As quoted in A.W. Pink’s “The Attributes of God”, monergism.com copy:

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven (Rom. 1:18). It was revealed when the sentence of death was first pronounced, the earth cursed, and man driven out of the earthly paradise; and afterwards by such examples of punishment as those of the deluge and the destruction of the cities of the plain by fire from heaven; but especially by the reign of death throughout the world. It was proclaimed in the curse of the Law on every transgression, and was intimated in the institution of sacrifice. In the 8th of Romans, the apostle calls the attention of believers to the fact that the whole creation has become subject to vanity, and groaneth and travaileth together in pain. The same creation which declares that there is a God, and publishes His glory, also proclaims that He is the enemy of sin and the avenger of the crimes of men. But above all, the wrath of God was revealed from heaven when the Son of God came down to manifest the divine character, and when that wrath was displayed in His sufferings and death, in a manner more awful than by all the tokens God had before given of His displeasure against sin. Besides this, the future and eternal punishment of the wicked is now declared in terms more solemn and explicit than formerly. Under the new dispensation there are two revelations given from heaven, one of wrath, the other of grace.”

– Robert Haldane

The Love of God Floods Over Mountain Peaks of Opposition

As quoted by A.W. Pink in The Attributes of God, Chapter “The Love of God”:

No tongue can fully express the infinitude of God’s love, or any mind comprehend it: it “passeth knowledge” (Eph. 3:19). The most extensive ideas that a finite mind can frame about divine love, are infinitely below its true nature. The heaven is not so far above the earth as the goodness of God is beyond the most raised conceptions which we are able to form of it. It is an ocean which swells higher than all the mountains of opposition in such as are the objects of it. It is a fountain from which flows all necessary good to all those who are interested in it – John Brine, 1743