If you have any questions, please review our, Wayne Grudem is research professor of Theology and Biblical Studies at Phoenix Seminary in Phoenix, Arizona. Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine (Job 41:11). It means he always does what is right and good toward all men. What does it mean that God is just? Let's begin with those attributes that are incommunicable. Will is a communicable attribute because we exercise choice and make real decisions regarding the events of our lives. And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth (Revelation 19:6). This is an online articlefrom the Christian Research Journal. Paul refers to God as the one who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will (Ephesians 1:11). 43:10), Separate from the world (Isa. Weve all heard absurd questions from unbelievers like, If God is all powerful, can He make a circle square or a rock so large He cannot move it? C.S. These three characteristics of Gods nature are often mentioned together, especially in the Old Testament. 7:22; 1 Chr. As with all attributes, we can only begin to comprehend Gods love in light of his other attributes. Psalm 139:7-12 says, Where can I go from Your Spirit? That God is holy means he is endlessly, always perfect. He knows our way, and is with us always. Nevertheless, he is with us, the fullness of his presence is all around us. 10. Then he was driven from the sons of men, his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. Non-moral attributes represent the characteristics of God's being that does not relate to God's moral nature. And when those things fail to bring us satisfaction, we must decide to humble ourselves and turn our gaze back to the only one who is worthy of glory. God loves all that is right and good, for rightness and goodness conforms to his moral character. Dr. Wayne Grudem. Moral attributes are the most glorious of his divine perfections. . D.S. Love. 4:35, 39; Psa. IMMUTABLE: God is perfect in that He never changes nor can He change with respect to His being, attributes, purpose, or promises; excluding process theology, Mormon doctrine of eternal progression. These attributes are possessed by three sacred personalities, identified in the New Testament as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And his standard for us is perfection as well. Pursue a deeper knowledge of God through self-paced college- and seminary-level online courses in Old and New Testament studies, theology, biblical Greek, and more. He desires that worship be given to himself and not to false gods. This is also comforting. One of God's attributes or qualities is "light," meaning that He is self-revealing in information of Himself ( Isaiah 60:19; James 1:17 ). SELF-EXISTENT: God has no cause; He does not depend on anything for his continued existence. For several decades in the twentieth century, the answer seemed to be overwhelmingly: Too much! The influence of Greek philosophy upon Christian faith Get expert commentary on biblical languages, fresh explorations in theology, hand-picked book excerpts, author videos, and info on limited-time sales. No voice would be raised to celebrate the mercy of which none felt the need. Each attribute is simply a way of describing one aspect of Gods total character or being. 13:8), Gods relations with changing men spoken of as God changing (Ex. 4:7 ). In our limitedness, grasping the nature of our limit-less God is like holding onto water as it rages down a river. The God revealed in Scripture is real, and all other gods are idols. His presence is always with us. In the New Testament, and especially in Pauls letters, the entire Christian life can be seen as a result of Gods continuous offering of grace.As with most of the Gods attributes that we are to imitate, patience requires a moment-by-moment trust in God to fulfill his promises and purposes in our lives at his chosen time. He exists on a plane wholly distinguishable from the one readily available to the five senses.. Wow! When He plans something, it will come to be. There was no right on the sinner's part, to the saving mercy of the Most High God. What a mighty God we serve! 23:24; Acts 17:28), Unchangeable (Psa. Christians shouldnt fear Gods wrath. God, being infinite, must possess attributes about which we can know. His punchline, though, comes in the next phrase: but Yahweh delivers him out of them all. Evil happens, but none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned (34:22). Tozer writes, Wisdom, among other things, is the ability to devise perfect ends and to achieve those ends by the most perfect means. Therefore you are to be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect, Jesus says in Matthew 5:48. If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. His common grace is a gift to all of mankind. We imitate Gods blessedness when we find delight and happiness in things that please God. Thus, God cannot lie, sin, deny himself, or be tempted with evil. 32:17, 27; Zech. We can have a personal relationship with God, k. Our loyalty and fear is to be toward God alone, l. No matter how bad things look, God is working them out for good, m. We must relate to God through our spiritual inner person, n. God is not a part of this world, so He is not stuck along with us in our problems with us, o. It is an answer to a question, the reply God makes to our . What a chilling thought. Jesus tells us, You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48). The phrase here translated all things (ta panta) is used frequently by Paul to refer to everything that exists or everything in creation (for example, Ephesians 1:10, 23, 3:9, 4:10; Colossians 1:16, 17; Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians. Lets assume that all men are guilty of sin in the sight of God. We can be wise, but we can never be as wise as God. 1:2; 11:3), Implied by doctrines of transcendence, self-existence, and immutability, The universe cannot contain God (1 Kings 8:27; Isa. That the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. 17:10a), Knows all events to come (Isa. Because he possesses these unfathomable riches in the perfect knowledge and love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matt 11.25-27;John 17:24-26), God is the "blessed" or "happy" God (1 Tim 1.11;6:15)., Because God is self-sufficient, we can go to him to satisfy all our needs. I the Lord speak the truth, I declare what is, I have seen this people . His attributes are the same from before the beginning of time into eternity. Amen (1 Timothy 1:17). He is tenderhearted and of quick sympathy, and His unfailing attitude toward all moral beings is open, frank, and friendly. of Scripture shows us that God is unchanging in his being, perfections, purposes, and promises (Psalm 102:27, Malachi 3:6, James 1:17). He also knows the thought and intent of our heart. Gods love is active, drawing us to himself. The idea of a moral deity, the guardian of the moral order, is a human rather than a cosmic conception, for divine morality is a reflex of human ethic raised to its highest imaginable power. When Scripture speaks about Gods attributes it never singles out one attribute as more important than the rest. 3:9), All things possible (Job 42:2; Psa. notes in his article on the subject of Gods goodness, 15 Amazing Attributes of God: What They Mean and Why They Matter. Nevertheless, God caused his glory to pass by Moses while he hid Moses in a cleft of the rock, and then God let Moses see his back after he had passed by, but said, my face shall not be seen (Exodus 33:2123). As Tim Temple writes, God is perfectly complete within his own being., In a blog post on Reformation21.org, Scott Swain writes that the self-sufficiency of God means he possesses infinite riches of being, wisdom, goodness, and power in and of himself (Gen 17:1;John 5:26;Eph 3:16). Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord (Jeremiah 23:2324). Similarly, Nebuchadnezzar learns that God, does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, What are you doing? (Daniel 4:35). That is why I use the word manifold., Ligonier.org writes this about the glory of God: When we think of the glory of the Lord, the image of brilliant light often comes to our minds. He protects his honor. Wayne Grudems online systematic theology course, Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology online course, [Common Places] The Promise and Prospects of Retrieval: Recent Developments in the Divine Attributes, Eternal nature (he is infinite, but we are finite), Unchangeableness (he never changes, but we do), Omnipresence (God is everywhere at once, but we can only be in one place at a time), Love (God is love, and were capable of love), Knowledge (God has knowledge, and we can have it, too), Mercy (God is merciful, and were also capable of mercy), Justice (God is just, and were capable of justice), He created everything (Revelation 4:11, John 1:3, Romans 11:3536), Moses prayed to prevent the destruction of the people of Israel (Exodus 32:914), God added fifteen years to the life of Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:16), The people of Nineveh repented and God withheld his promised wrath (Jonah 3:4, 10). Because grace is a part of who God is and not just an action he bestows, it means we can trust that grace is eternal. 4:4; Phil. The concept of God as good and beneficent may be maintained to be an a priori postulate of higher theistic religion. Scripture presents Gods glory in two major ways. We find this precious truth expressed almost everywhere in the Scriptures, for His people need to know that faithfulness is an essential part of the Divine character. Proud member The seraphim around Gods throne cry, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory (Isaiah 6:3). True So our whole existence and purpose is to glorify him, as we are created in his image and do the good work he has prepared for us to do. A natural question that arises from this is, how then can a just God justify the unjust (as each of us are without Christ!)? False Mercy is often emphasized where people are in misery or distress. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious (Exodus 33:19). Hebrews 6:18 puts it like this: God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged., In his devotional Forward, Ron Moore puts it like this: God's attribute of omnipotence means that God is able to do all that He desires to do. In fact, Paul says that God is "able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine"(Ephesians 3:20)., Although such power might seem frightful, remember that God is good. 2. Isaiah 43:7 says that man was created by God for his glory. This ought to be a source of incredible joy for believers. Scriptures narrative frequently describe Gods wrath, especially when Gods people sin against him. In this study we will be discussing God's non-moral attributes. This . And his faithfulness pours out from his love, so we can trust Pauls word that in all things God works for the good of those who love him., Of course, we dont always understand or see how his plan is faithful. He commands his people not to bow down to idols or serve them, saying, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God (Exodus 20:5). Yet there is a long history behind it . Thus, he is a God of faithfulness (Deuteronomy 32:4). And any very short period of time (such as one day) seems to God to last forever. When He arises to put down iniquity and save the world from irreparable moral collapse, He is said to be angry. Some of Gods incommunicable attributes include his: Some of Gods communicable attributes include his: This breakdown seems pretty straightforward, but while it can be helpful, it isnt perfect. The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens (Jeremiah 10:1011). Because God is all-knowing, we can trust that he knows everything were going through today and everything we will go through tomorrow. The fact that he is unchanging means he can never not be faithful. Copyright 2020 HarperCollins Publishers. God is spirit (John 4:24), he has no physical form. They get justice. To God, all of time since the creation is as if it just happened. If I say, Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night, even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day Darkness and light are alike to You. Jeremiah 23:24 says, Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? They are deeper than the depths belowwhat can you know? It is because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever that neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, not even powers, height, depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. If an attribute is something true of God, it is also something that we can conceive as being true of Him. It is not accurate to say, as some have said, that God is a God of justice in the Old Testament and a God of love in the New Testament. The most common way to classify God's attributes divides them into incommunicable attributes (traits that God doesn't share or "communicate" to others) and communicable attributes (traits that God shares or "communicates" with us). He is complete or perfect in every way. Elihu says that God is the one who is perfect in knowledge (Job 37:16), and John says that God knows everything (1 John 3:20). Non-moral attributes represent the characteristics of God's being that does not relate to God's moral nature. Salem Media Group. 8:2-3), God can only be known as the Son reveals Him (John 1:18; Matt. False All world religions really worship the same god, just in different ways. And, interestingly, as Desiring God writer Andrew Wilson notes in his article on the subject of Gods goodness, the psalmist affirms his experience of Gods goodness from a place of suffering. 4. But Gods glory also describes the bright light that surrounds his presence. Moral attributes are those attributes which have to do with God's will and with the rightness of God's character and actions. Whatever he thinks, whatever he wants, he is capable of doing. The Psalmist contrasts Gods power and freedom with the weakness of idols: Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases (Psalm 115:3). Omnipresence (God is everywhere at once, but we can only be in one place at a time) CREATOR: God is the One through whom all things have come into existence; by His unbounded power and knowledge He created finite existence ex nihilo and formed the universe as it now is. Our confidence that the Lord will soon fulfill his purposes for our good and his glory will enable us to be patient. 5. Paul proclaims to the men of Athens, The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything (Acts 17:2425). In many ways, God is nothing like us. Article Images Copyright 2023 Getty Images unless otherwise indicated. Not only does it speak of God's strength, but also it speaks of the sovereignty of God and the goodness of God. 8:6, 15:2728). When God called his people out of Egypt and brought them to himself and commanded them to obey his voice, then he said, You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:46). GOOD: God is morally excellent, and does only good (Gen. 1:31; Deut. Practice His presence (Hebrews 13:5, Matthew 28:20). With him are wisdom and might; he has counsel and understanding (Job 12:13). 2. Self-sufficient as He is, He wants our love and will not be satisfied till He gets it. All our obligations to God can be summarized in this: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. No one can hide from God or escape from His presence. 23:23-24; of Christ, Eph. 3:6; Rom. When we realize that God is the definition and source of all good, we realize that God himself is the ultimate good that we seek. Part Two will start with the Moral Attribute of Love. 3. Every wrathful judgment in the history of the world has been a holy act of preservation. Do I not fill heaven and earth? He always does what he promises to do, and we can depend on him never to be unfaithful to his promises. He would rather speak of moral and non-moral attributes. God himself is unified, completely integrated, and infinitely perfect in all of these attributes. Instead, because of the mercy of God, we get life through faith in Christ. Comforts Found in the Non-Moral Attributes of God. The Lord our God is holy! exclaims the psalmist (Psalm 99:9). Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. And this He knows instantly and with a fullness of perfection that includes every possible item of knowledge concerning everything that exists or could have existed anywhere in the universe at any time in the past or that may exist in the centuries or ages yet unborn.. The Natural (Non-Moral) Attributes of God. Johns gospel opens with the claim that, Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.. They are higher than the heavens abovewhat can you do? September 14, 2014. TRANSCENDENT: God is entirely distinct from the universe, as the carpenter is distinct from the bench; excluding pantheism (God in all) and animism (everything is a god). Fuller divided the attributes of God into two categories: natural and moral. Get Your Bible Minute in Your Inbox Every Morning. Learn more in Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology online course. Tempt people to sin (James 1:13). God cannot do anything that denies his own character. ONE: God is a perfectly unique and simple being, existing as one infinite Being called God. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. The psalmist proclaims Gods omnipresence in Psalm 137. This means all of past history is viewed by God with great clarity and vividness. 103:8-9; Rom. It is because the God who promised us eternal life is immutable that we may rest assured that nothing, not trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword shall separate us from the love of Christ. He knows all that we have done and all that we will do. OMNIPOTENT: God is perfect in that He can do all things consistent with the perfection of His being. Exploring the attributes of God helps us prepare for evangelism, learn church doctrine, and most importantly, understand who God is. We are to imitate Gods mercy in our conduct toward others: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy (Matthew 5:7). But to believe this means we dull the reality of his infinite, unchanging justice. There is therefore only one God, who is called Yahweh in the Old Testament, and who reveals Himself in the persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the New Testament; thus excluding polytheism, tritheism (belief in three gods), and subordinationism (in which Christ is a lesser god subordinate to the Almighty God). Not that anyone has seen the Father except him who is from God (John 6:46). . 13. He is inexhaustibly, actively compassionate. Immutability being attributed to Jesus declares his deity. The author of Hebrews says that in Gods oath and promise it is impossible for God to lie (Hebrew 6:18, Grudems translation). Gods total essence, all of his spiritual being, will never be seen by us, yet God still shows himself to us through visible, created things. He is the all powerful one. We know we can share in these attributes to a degree since God commands us to be holy and loving like He is ( Lev.11:44, 45 ; 1 Thess. He is the author of more than a dozen books including the bestselling. Jesus speaks to his Father of my glory which you have given me in your love for me before the foundation of the world (John 17:24), indicating that there was love from the Father to the Son from all eternity. Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord Almighty Revelation 4:8, The word holy means sacred, set apart, revered, or devine. God. When we meditate on this truth, especially in light of his other attributes of goodness and love, it makes it easier to trust him with all we have going on in our lives, from the very serious to the silly and mundane. His righteousness and justice (Genesis 18:25, Isaiah 28:17). The quality of knowing everything is called omniscience, and because God knows everything, he is said to be omniscient (that is, all-knowing). 3:9 ), Gods relations with changing men spoken of as God (! Attribute of love are higher than the heavens abovewhat can you do, 15 Amazing attributes of as! 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