Introduction
This week’s focus is on the attributes of God. Attributes are concrete details about who He is; it differs from essence in that essence is what makes Him God while an attribute is part of how He works out what makes Him God. For example, if I were describing attributes of my own, I might say I have hazel eyes. It’s a part of who I am concretely, but it doesn’t tell anyone what I’m like in terms of behavior or personality. It does not tell you who I am, only some aspect of what I appear as physically. In the case of God being a spirit, we can understand attributes to be a description of how His essence impacts us and our world. He has no physical attributes to describe, but He does have some very important attributes that link to His essence.
These attributes fall into two categories: those not linked to morality and those that are. We’ll start with the non-moral attributes, and then when we reach the moral ones, we’ll start off with a discussion of why morality must be linked to God and why these attributes matter so much.
Non-Moral Attributes
Omnipresence (Acts 17:27-28; Hebrews 4:13)
This attribute links directly to God’s immensity, which we discussed last time in the discussion on God’s essence. What is omnipresence? It is a logical conclusion or extension of His immensity that states God is present everywhere and at all times, not in pieces of Himself spread out to reach everyone but in His entirety due to how immense He is. If you haven’t yet read the post I wrote on God’s essence, please start there. This post isn’t going to make much sense without it because you can’t understand the end conclusion properly if you haven’t seen where it began.
Omniscience (Proverbs 15:3; Psalm 147:5; Matthew 10:30; Micah 5:2)
When it comes to omniscience, this is God’s ability to know all things, and it stems from both His immensity and His eternity/infinity. Because of these essences of God, He knows everything down to things so minute we don’t even think of or care about them. This links directly to the concept that His knowledge is infinite in both breadth and depth, but also in time. Nothing can, has, or ever will surprise God, and He will never need to learn anything new. He already knows it all.
Omnipotence (Genesis 17:11; Job 42:2; Jeremiah 32:17; Matthew 19:26)
This is the attribute of God that is all-powerful, all-mighty, and undaunted by even the greatest or most impossible feats. This one, however, will usually lead to a question from skeptics and even some believers. If God is all these things, particularly if He is all powerful, why allow sin? And why not save everyone?
This leads to an essential point in our discussion that must be made before we go further. If you miss this, then falling into doctrinal errors and heresies surrounding God’s nature become very, very easy.
How He Exercises His Attributes
The key point here is to look at what God says about and reveals about Himself, both in Scripture and in the world around us. He is a God of order. Furthermore, He Himself does not change, and He is unable to deny His nature because to do so would be to change. Therefore, when it comes to His attributes, He must therefore exercise them in a way that is not only consistent with His nature but also in a way that will not violate any other attribute. If He exercised His attributes in a way that violated another attribute, that would be to violate part of His nature, and as we made clear here and in the previous article on His essence, that is not something God will do.
But if He’s all powerful, why can’t He will that He exercise love and ignore His justice, holiness, and other attributes, for example, to just allow everyone into heaven? Because He only does what He wills, and He is clear that He doesn’t want sin, inconsistency in His nature, or violation of His attributes.
This is why those who focus on just His love or just His judgment then must force His use of one attribute to violate another. Most people who say things like “God wouldn’t do that because He’s all loving” or “There are some sins that are greater than others/will send you to hell if you’re living in them” don’t realize that what they are doing is saying “God will exercise this attribute I like more over the others, even if it requires Him to violate or invalidate the other in doing so”. But that is in fact what they are saying when they pick one attribute to focus on and ignore or sideline another. They are essentially saying that God is, at best, inconsistent or, at worst, that He has changed in His nature.
So in conclusion on this particular attribute, He is able to do anything, but He will not do everything because He has control over His power, and He knows how to exercise it according to His will and in accordance with His nature. (Habakkuk 1:13; II Timothy 2:13; James 1:13)
Immutability (James 1:17; Malachi 3:6; Romans 11:29)
Immutability is the attribute that has do with His unchanging aspect. He cannot mutate or change either Himself or His will and the plan that He established before the foundation of the world. They will never alter due to any outside force or influence either. Furthermore, He doesn’t change His mind on His promises or His dictates. (Numbers 23:19; Psalm 110:4)
But then, you will ask, what about when it says God repented of what He was going to do in various Bible passages? A valid question until you actually dig into the word repent, but let’s start out with giving a few examples people often bring up. In Exodus 32:14, we have Moses interceding for the people, and God “repenting of the evil He had thought to do”. Then, in II Samuel 24:16, there was a plague God had sent on the nation of Israel in punishment for their king’s disobedience in numbering the people, which was an act of pride and desire to compete on the level of nations around the nation of Israel as well as in direct disobedience to God’s clear dictate not to do so. The plague was so bad that it would have wiped out the nation of Israel had it continued, but God stays His hand in this verse and says it is enough.
Sure looks like God is changing His mind and His will in these passages, doesn’t it? People have a real issue with this idea that God could start out in one direction and then change to another without having changed His will. Furthermore, this leads to a difficulty with God altering the way He handles people through time and the idea of dispensationalism (the concept that God dealt with different people with different approaches at different points in history). For example, He only allowed approach to Him through Israel in the Old Testament. But the law didn’t save; it was a way to show trust and obedience to God before Christ. So now that Christ has come, God changed the approach and has said we must come to Him through Christ alone, not through the Law and our own merit, which can never truly restore fellowship. The Law was no longer necessary, then, because Christ’s death allowed Him to write the Law on our hearts.
But people struggle with this because they assume that a change in approach means a change in nature. This is a fallacious understanding. Why? To understand, we have to look at the word “repent” used in the KJV version of the passages in Exodus and II Samuel, and we also have to take a look at whose perspective that “repenting” is being viewed from.
Repent and the Perspective It is Given To Us From In God’s Word
Repent means to change direction in its simplest form. It means to stop doing what you are and to go another way. This in and of itself doesn’t really help people to understand why a change in approach doesn’t equal a change in nature though, nor does it clear up the confusion as to how God can change approach and not change His will. To understand that, we have to combine this definition with an understanding of whose perspective this word is seen from.
The important thing most people miss is that repent is seen from the viewpoint of humanity, not God’s. How do we know that? First of all, if God could change His mind in a way that changes His actual will, He wouldn’t be eternal, omniscient, or immense. This would, in the end, make Him no longer God as His eternal and immense essences are a part of what makes Him God. Without them, He would not be Himself.
At the end of the day, then, we will all go the way God planned, and God’s plan won’t change. But why say repent then? Because God did, in a sense, “change His mind” from our perspective. We do not have the eternal perspective, so to Moses pleading with God not to destroy Israel or to David praying for God not to wipe out the nation of Israel (something God had promised wouldn’t happen), it would look very much like God changed His mind or His desires in response to their prayers of faith. But what really happened?
The reality is that if God were to go through with what He was doing all the way to the end, doing so would force Him to violate His promises or His nature, neither of which being things He can do. The end goal therefore was not what we assumed it was, but often He allows something to start or sends us down a path for a time to teach, correct, or prepare us with that end goal in mind. He knows what He’s doing. And even though we look at the path and wonder why God would “change His mind” or send us to do something He “didn’t want us to do”, the reality is that the direction you were headed in was a part of the plan but wasn’t going to be the only direction He needed to take us to get to the end. So, while we could see the change in direction as His changing His mind, the reality that is in keeping with His nature is that His plan always had the change in direction there.
This is in keeping with the fact that He knows everything. He already knew we or others around us needed to go in one direction for a while before heading off in another in order for His plan both on a personal level and on a much larger scale to come to fruition. If we understand then both the meaning of the word repent and the perspective in which the Bible presents it to help us understand a God who is so far from human that without human words we couldn’t understand, then this is no longer a problem like so many feel it is.
Moral Attributes
Now we get to the second section of this topic: morality and moral attributes.
To begin with, we must understand why it is important that God has attributes linked to morality. This is because morality only exists if there is an outside standard above anything we can understand. Why do I say this? Well, let’s take an example from today’s world. Some people object to God and any worldview that contains Him because if God exists He allowed Hitler, and Hitler was evil. But if God doesn’t exist, why was Hitler wrong? Why was Hitler wrong but euthanasia, abortion, and other crimes against humanity are all okay? We as individuals all put value on lives. It’s normal to do so. We recognize an intrinsic worth to them. But if God is removed from the equation, then those who have removed Him still put value on lives, but they must define it their own way. Therefore, those who object to Hitler object not on the grounds of true morality, but on the grounds that he did not determine value in a way they agreed with. They determine value in their own minds and use that value on life or those moral guidelines to determine whether others are right or wrong.
But here’s the problem. If it comes from us, it can’t be morality. If there is no absolute standard, no yardstick to measure by that is unchanging, then we cannot judge anyone for anything they do. Murdering people en mass is okay. Killing babies is okay. Rape, incest, molestation? All okay. Maybe certain individuals don’t want to do those things, but they do not have any standard by which they can say “you are wrong because you do those things” since all they have is their own opinion, which, without a being outside of us to validate it, is as valid as the opinion of the serial killer raping and killing women.
People don’t like this. But truth is truth regardless of one’s feelings. Anyone who believes there is a God or that the Bible is infallible must, by their own belief system, therefore believe in right or wrong, and they must use God’s yardstick, not their own, to measure by.
But those who do not believe there is a God or that the Bible is infallible must also, by their own belief system, believe there is no absolute truth, no real right or wrong, and must therefore allow all things even if they themselves do not wish to participate in a given action. Equally so, anyone who says that we cannot know God or that we cannot trust what He has said in Scripture because it is not God’s revelation but is man’s ideas, must also say the same. If you don’t know the measuring stick and haven’t been given it, you are left in the same moral quagmire as those who have declared there is no God but fickle humanity, which changes its ideas of right and wrong on a whim.
With that established, what attributes of God are linked to morality, and what kind of measuring stick do they give us for determining right and wrong in our world?
Holiness (Leviticus 19:2; Isaiah 40:23; Exodus 26:33; 1 Peter 1:15-16; John 17:11; Psalm 47:8; Psalm 89:14; and Isaiah 6:1-3)
The word holy or holiness means completely apart from. In God’s case, the Bible uses the word to indicate that He is completely apart from and exalted above all creation as our Creator. But in the case of humans who have been redeemed, it means we are set apart from the world (but not exalted above it as we are still human and are not God).
When it comes to God, this attribute encompasses the ideas that He is separate from His creation, sin, unrighteousness, and moral evil. This is the unchanging yardstick by which we then measure ourselves against when it comes to morality, or at least, a part of it. When compared to a spotless, blameless God who has never once done anything evil, we who have shed innocent blood and sacrificed our children on the altars of false gods or the altar of our own selfishness suddenly seem a lot more wicked. Even those who might say, well, I’ve never murdered anyone or done child sacrifice, are stained black by their own sins when faced with something as pure as a holy God.
Look at it this way. If you dumped red wine onto a white dress, would the stain be any less red and obvious just because you only dumped a little onto it and not an entire glass? No. The red stain would still stick out like a sore thumb because the dress is such a pure, bright white that any spot or blemish must show. God’s holiness is like that dress, pure and radiant, and we are, when compared to it, all the red stain.
Did God’s Holiness Disappear In The New Testament?
There are some who would say that God got rid of His unwavering holiness in favor of His love when the New Testament rolled around. Those who say this believe that He loves everyone and will therefore excuse the sin that stains us despite the fact that His holiness keeps Him from having fellowship with evil, unrighteousness, and sin. This is not accurate.
His holiness cannot disappear in the New Testament because it is the basis for all other moral attributes, including His love. It is the first one we’ve discussed for that very reason. If you remove His holiness, He is no different from Zeus or other pagan gods who were just like us (or worse), slept with anything that moved in many cases, and did all manner of reprehensible things. Emphasize anything above His holiness, and you reduce Him to that level.
Furthermore, God’s holiness is the basis for needing salvation and the basis for Christ’s death on the cross in the first place. If God had ceased to be holy, not only would He cease to be God, but He never would have needed to send Christ to die for us in order to restore the fellowship broken when Adam and Eve sinned. His holiness demanded that the stain of sin be removed before fellowship could be restored. But as the one offended by our affront and our sin in Adam and Eve’s fall, He had to be the one to reach out and bridge the gap created by broken fellowship. The offended must reach out to the offender to restore, not the other way around. The offender can plead for forgiveness, restoration, and mercy, but if the offended chooses not to give it, then nothing can fix the rift the offender created. As such, God had to initiate, and man had nothing to do with that choice to initiate. They played no role in it and, in fact, as we often see, wanted nothing to do with restoration anyway.
So then, God’s holiness must be the first moral attribute we understand and behold, and it must also not cease simply because a Savior was sent or His approach to us changed in accordance with His Son’s death on the cross. For if it did, then He would cease to be God and Christ’s death on the cross would be meaningless for one man with a sin nature cannot die to redeem another with the same ailment.
Righteousness and Judgment/Justice (Psalm 89:14; Isaiah 61:8; II Chronicles 6:15; Exodus 34:7)
This moral attribute is a natural extension of His holiness. Because He is the holy creator and is above His creation, He has the right to pass judgment on His creation. God is also a God who loves the concept of right versus wrong. If he didn’t, we wouldn’t even have a right and wrong, nor would we have a conscience, which stems directly from His concern with us knowing what He views as right versus wrong. This attribute states that God’s justice rewards right and punishes wrong, even if He is longsuffering (patient) and does not immediately heap condemnation on the heads of those who have done wrong.
God’s Goodness (Mark 10:18; I John 4:8,10; I John 4:16; Job 14:5; Psalm 145:9; Matthew 5:45)
This moral attribute of God has four sub sections. We’ll start with His love.
God’s Love (Mark 10:18; 1 John 4:8,10,16)
God is love. Does that statement strike some of you as a little strange? If you’ve grown up in certain sectors of the Church, then you hear about His judgment all the time, but you don’t hear much about God being love. That’s what the Bible says though. He doesn’t just have love; He is love. Furthermore, only God is truly, completely good and therefore capable of fully loving in the sense the Bible presents (though through His grace and power, His children can show this love as well).
What kind of love is God? It isn’t an emotional love or one that ebbs and flows. It is agape love, which in the Bible is a love that leads to action characterized by sacrifice. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the death of Christ on the cross for our salvation.
God’s Benevolence (Job 14:5; Psalm 145:9; Matthew 5:45)
This second category of His goodness is the way in which He takes care of His creation regardless of whether they serve Him, acknowledge Him, and so on. He often goes above and beyond what we need and allows us to prosper, even if we turn our backs on Him and choose not to serve Him.
Why is this? Well, as one wise person said, for a Christian, this world is the only Hell we’ll ever know. For the unsaved, however, this world is the only heaven they will ever know. So while God is benevolent to all on this earth and in this life, those who reject Him in spite of His love and His benevolence have an eternity of suffering ahead, according to the Bible. So why should we be concerned about whether the wicked temporarily prosper when we know their end? Instead of being jealous, an understanding of God’s benevolence leads us to pity them and pray earnestly for their salvation.
God’s Mercy (Ephesians 2:4; Romans 11:30-31; Isaiah 55:7)
God’s mercy is the way in which His goodness is shown to those in distress. It is not exercised all the time toward everyone. This is important because it leads to the point that He can exercise His attributes differently in different situations. Going back to what we focused on earlier, God won’t exercise one attribute in a way that violates another. So if He exercises His mercy in a way that overlooks justice, then it would violate His holiness and righteousness, and He will not do so. But if He can exercise it in a way that doesn’t violate the other attributes, He is free to do so.
This means that because of His nature, He cannot do unfair or unjust things just to be nice. Think about that. How often do we hear people say things like God would never send so and so to Hell because they never heard the Gospel and that would be cruel, or God would never do ABC because He’s loving? I bet we’ve all heard those statements. Maybe we’ve even said them. The problem with this is that if we say those things, what we’re really saying is that God will do unfair, unjust things in order to be nice to those people. They are saying His love takes precedence over and violates His other attributes.
This is another attribute that relates to salvation, as well. God needed a way to save that satisfied holiness by not ignoring our sin and leaving us unchanged in that sin. But He also needed to satisfy His goodness. So, He sent Christ, God incarnate, to take our sin because He alone had none of His own sins to pay for and had an infinite ability to exchange His life for ours through substitutionary atonement.
God’s Grace
This aspect of God’s goodness is the way He manifests it to those who have actively gone out of their way to be undeserving. This is shown to man in general in His forebearance with us. One sin, one time is enough to make Him just in simply killing us as that is the penalty for sin, but instead, His grace constrains Him, and He chooses not to immediately mete out punishment. But it is also shown more specifically to individuals in our salvation, which the Bible is very clear is through grace in Jesus Christ.
Truth (Job 38:1-2; Job 27:1-6)
This is the last moral attribute of God, and it simply is that God, in what He knows, what He declares, and what He says about Himself and creation, is utterly true and unbiased. Only God is fully capable of being utterly true and unbiased. Humanity has perceptions and perspectives, and we see reality through those perceptions. Some of us are closer to the truth than others, but we are not infallibly true like God is in our understanding.
This is an important point because unless God sees reality with no bias or perception, the Bible cannot be infallibly true. Unless He is truth and is outside of creation, so utterly holy that we cannot fully comprehend Him, the Bible isn’t trustworthy because His perceptions and ideas about the universe, creation, and even Himself, might not be totally accurate or infallible. So we see that if this point or any of the other attributes He holds are removed, He must cease to be truly God and we can therefore know nothing for certain about a Creator or the Divine because there is no source but our own imagination to turn to.
Conclusion
I hope that this discussion has been both instructive and grounding for my fellow believers as well as thought-provoking for those who do not believe. Our perception and idea of God (who He is, His character, and His very existence even) is the single most important thing we think because on it must rest everything else about our worldview. Our belief in God or our lack of it determines how we live our lives, what we do, and why we think what we do, even if we don’t recognize it.
Christians, if we have a wrong view of God, we end up on tenuous ground, unable to fully support our own arguments to either a world going to Hell or to other Christians who challenge us. In I Peter, God tells us through Peter that we should be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in us. But if we do not know the God we serve, we are in danger of being unable to give that answer to a world that needs to see it. I know that this study has definitely helped to ground me personally and to solidify why I believe what I do about God, and my hope and prayer is that it has done the same for you. We have the answers for a critical, lost world right in front of us, so let us not be ignorant of them and therefore represent to the world a God who is not the God of the Bible.