With this latest book, John MacArthur continues to hold the Word of God as the highest authority for the Christian life. He has consistently taught the Scriptures for the past 40 years, displaying that the Bible is relevant and authoritative through every shift in culture and trend of thought. In our day, we find a morass of ideas and theologies even in the church, all with something to say on every topic. So it is fitting that the attributes and nature of God, a topic which most desperately needs the Bible's voice today, is presented to us with such clarity and biblical soundness.
None Other isn’t a long book, but it is rich in theology, full of devotional warmth, and shamelessly biblical. MacArthur takes us on a journey through the Bible to put on display for the reader, a full view of God.
This book could be summed up in one question: Will you let the God of the Bible tell you who He is? There are too many ideas of God to count in our present situation, and Christians are listening to them. Too often, when confronted with the God of the Bible, I hear Christians say, "That doesn’t sound like a loving God," or, "You are making God to be a cold and harsh God." It is as if God must be fit into human categories to be understood. When the Bible displays a God that extends uncomfortably beyond our reach, we skip over those passages or explain them away to keep God the way we want.
In six chapters, we find that the God of the Bible is a gracious, sovereign, good and powerful, holy, loving, and saving God. Some of these attributes are quite popular, and others are not; some of them we know well and others we don’t. However, even the most popular attributes of God can sometimes be misunderstood or be influenced by ideas outside of Scripture. This book rightly and thoroughly takes each attribute and displays them for us to see who the God of the Bible is. These attributes are not man's ideas of God but are indeed Scriptural.
Two aspects of this book stand out to me the most. The first is the number of references from Scripture used. There are 342 different references used to display the Biblical teaching of God. Some are only one verse, and others are sections of Scripture. Twenty-two of the references are used more than once. Since the common idea is that the God of the Old Testament is a cruel, cold, and unloving God while the God of the New Testament is merciful, kind, and loving, MacArthur shows us that such is not the case. For each attribute, both Testaments are used; 23 books are referenced from the Old Testament, and 22 books of the New Testament. So there is no pitting the God of the Old Testament against the God of the New Testament. In fact, they converge to show us that we serve the same God as Abraham, who has had salvation planned in His mind from before the foundation of the earth. The God we read of in this book is the God of the Bible.
Secondly, the drive toward devotion stands out. This book is not some tough theological treatise meant for scholars, but a book meant for every Christian. Its purpose is to light the fire of devotion in our hearts so that God might be foremost in our lives. Not only does it set the truth before us, but it also seeks to make that truth our convictions from which we live our lives.
If you wish to understand the God of the Bible, this book is a great tool to help you understand what God has written about Himself in His Word
By: John MacArthur, Reformation Trust Publishing, 2017. 123 pp