by jimwalton » Thu Sep 22, 2016 2:10 pm
There are some parts of God that just are, and other parts that just are, but they can be used on withheld. For instance, God is always eternal, and yet he can function within a time continuum. Timeless, yet not restricted from time. God is always holy, no matter what. That is not able to be mitigated in any way, shape or form. God is always present, but his presence can vary, and be more or less intense, more or less focused, or more or less obvious. When God's presence came to dwell in the Temple, we'd have to ask, "Hey, wait. God's omnipresent. Wasn't he already in the Temple?" Yeah, but his presence must have manifested itself in a different way.
So, what about his love? He is always love, and that doesn't change. And yet the Bible says he is a judge. "Hey, wait, that isn't very loving." But wait again. If love is real, it disciplines. If love is real, it's not so squishy that anybody can do anything they want. That's not love. So it gets pretty difficult to define love. Sometimes, as we all know, love has to be pretty tough, and sometimes love has to do some very difficult, even negative things.
What about power? God is always powerful, but he doesn't always use it in the same way. Sometimes he withholds his power (like when he didn't save Israel from being conquered after their centuries of sin, despite his many warnings), sometimes he just uses part of it (like then Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Not every dead person came back, just Laz.), and sometimes it's a blow out conquering blatant obvious power. He gets to choose what best fits the situation.
So back to your scenario. (1) People have free will, given to them by God, and if God interferes with that, He was, in a sense, violated that person's sovereignty. So God won't do that. That's not love, and it's not a justifiable use of his power. (2) But God is at work, and is responsive to both prayer and to people's actions in the world. So sometimes when people who have invited God into their lives ask God to do something, he can use his outright power to accomplish it. He has a contract, so to speak. But other times, he has to be more subtle so as not to trash all over people's sovereign space and their own free will. It's God responding to his own character and his own boundaries, acting out of both love and sovereignty in a balance that changes with each situation according to the elements at work in that situation.
> Yet the Bible depicts Him as a ruler that should never be reduced
It depends what you mean by this. We should never reduce the person of God, but he doesn't always use his power to the fullest, and the use of his power is not the wisest course of action in many situations. Because he doesn't blast his way through every situation doesn't mean he's been reduced.
> In the Bible, God does all of the things that you just said that He doesn't do.
You'll have to give me a specific example here. I'm not sure to what you are referring.