Is God perfect?

God is perfect. He is inflexibly just. He cannot depart by a hair’s breadth from absolute righteousness. We read, “God is is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).

269 Perfectness, in good, belongs to God - all else must be imperfect because it is not God.

227 We may remark that this is true, both in moral perfections and in relationship. God is perfect in Himself and for Himself. Love and holiness, as indeed every other attribute of God, have their joy in themselves, and of course perfectly and infinitely in God. But the creature needs an object to enjoy perfectly what this blessed nature is and gives, even when he possesses it. The new man delights in holiness, but the perfect holiness of God is needed for the perfect delight of our new and holy nature. The new man has a nature imbued with charity, and so can delight in its exercise; but the perfect love of God, manifested in Jesus, and known in communion, is his delight. So in our relationship we are sons with God; but I must learn in Jesus what it is to be a son, and what the power of that word is, "the Father loveth the Son." We share in the glory; but the glory in which we share is His.

The confounding moral infinitude (that is, absoluteness of perfection) with extension, which I have noticed is a very great blunder. But then I freely own that in strictness we cannot speak of attributes in God (moral ones). It is only a human way which (speaking reverently) divides God into parts. God cannot be or do evil: to say this is a limitation of power is only a delusion. If I say that He cannot do what He pleases, for He cannot do evil, the "cannot" applies to "what He pleases," not to the power of God. As to acts of power, He can do everything. It is morally impossible that there should be in Him the contrary of what He is, that is of good and right. But this is not limiting power or anything; it is denying a limit to goodness, and saying it is absolute. Infinite goodness means merely goodness always perfect as goodness. That this is after an imperfect thought as to God I admit, because it takes one characteristic by itself (that is through our finite nature), for nothing in God is characteristic (that is, special and in part). It has been noticed elsewhere how thus Christ had no character, but was always what He ought to be wherever He was. Perfect goodness He was, but not goodness by itself as we conceive it. He was firm and severe where He ought, and good in that; He was tender and affectionate where He ought, and good in that; He was seemingly hard and deaf to seed, and unchanged in goodness in that - in all love to His Father, and obedience. The divine nature in man which produced one produced all, perfect in each place in relation because perfect in itself.

And this is, again, in the fullest and highest way, true of God alone. In His perfection there is no preponderance of any attribute, and no defect. His wisdom must be equal to His power; His love equal to His power and wisdom. Thus again this number speaks of Him; and in this way, although it may have a lower application, an evil sense is quite impossible.

Again, as the symbol of what God is, light is transparent, perfectly transparent. It is thus the symbol of intrinsic purity, of God's moral character. To say "God is light," is to say He is holy; not only relatively, but absolutely so. His holiness is essential, intrinsic. This means He is able to preserve Himself as He is. As light is unchangeable; so is God incorruptible, untarnishable; it is impossible for any moral poison to come into His moral nature. No evil, no sin can ever originate or be in Him. What He is in moral nature and character He has ever been and must ever be. He cannot be deceived; "cannot be tempted with evil" (James 1:13). "God is light" tells us that His moral discernment is absolutely perfect. It is a moral impossibility for God to look complacently upon sin. He cannot behold iniquity (Hab. 1:13). If, then, His perceptions are unerring, His moral discernment absolutely perfect, His judgments must be right. He must perfectly resent everything that is contrary to what He is in His own nature. He can never compromise with what is against or in opposition to His character. That He is light is the assurance and guarantee of all this.

The Holiest itself was adorned on its four sides and its ceiling with the tapestry which has been already under consideration. Christ in symbol was on every side. The dwelling was in form a cube of ten cubits; hence from every standpoint one measure prevailed. Its heights, lengths, breadths, and depths were equal. God is equal in all His ways. He is Light; He is Love. His character is perfect and absolutely exact, however viewed. His righteousness does not shorten His mercy; His holiness is not lessened by His kindness. "As for God, His way is perfect." (Ps. 18:30.)

"He is the rock; His work is perfect, for all His ways are judgment. A God of truth, and without iniquity; just and right is He." This reveals His stability, His unchanging goodness. The blessed God carries out His own purposes in spite of men's failure and evil and wickedness. There is no flaw in His ways. All is perfectly right. He uses everything to serve His own purpose. He is supreme over all. He brings out the divine excellency, the righteousness and goodness and love in Himself. When you come to God you come to perfection, reliability — that which cannot shift. You have come to that which you can stake your soul upon for time and eternity. As we are told in the New Testament, "We receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved." Everything material and shakable will be moved, but Christ is the one in whom there is eternal continuity. To the Son God says, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever."

"He is the Rock" — not merely a rock. There is, there can be no other Rock but Himself. Eternal and universal homage to His glorious Name! — "His work is perfect;" — not a single flaw in anything that comes from His blessed hand, all bears the stamp of absolute perfection. This will be made manifest to all created intelligences by-and-by. It is manifest to faith now, and is a spring of divine consolation to all true believers. The very thought of it distils as the dew upon the thirsty soul. "For all his ways are judgement; a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he." Infidels may cavil and sneer; they may, in their fancied wisdom, try to pick holes in the divine actings; but their folly shall be manifest to all. "Let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged." God must have the upper hand, in the end. Let men beware how they presume to call in question the sayings and doings of the only true, the only wise and the almighty God.

But this can never be the case as regards the activities of God. It is impossible to think of Him as limited in wisdom, skill, or understanding. He must be infinite in every one of His attributes. The man who thinks otherwise, if any such man exist, can have no true thought of the Creator in his soul. Man is only a finite being, and, as I have suggested, while he proceeds with his work, new ideas strike his mind, for though perfection be his ideal, he can never arrive at it. He does not know the power and value of the elements with which he has to work, neither does he perfectly know their relation to one another, nor always the result of certain combinations; hence he is ever astonishing himself with his new discoveries, and bringing out new inventions.

Not so God. The Creator can learn nothing from His creation. The universe is the conception of His infinite mind, and it is impossible that He could receive any instruction from it. “The Lord by wisdom has founded the earth; by understanding has He established the heavens. By His knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew” (Prov. 3:19-20). “Who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been His counsellor? or who has first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever” (Rom. 11:34-36). He has not, as some suppose, been from the outset doing the best He can, contending with the inroads of evil, meeting the adverse power, to the best of His ability, and ever, through the growth of intelligence, improving upon the past. “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself” (Ps. 50:21), is the charge He makes against the wicked, and it is a charge of which all are guilty who have not learned Him in Jesus.