The "Communicable" Attributes of GodI. Explanation and Scriptural Basis
A. Attributes Describing God's Being
1. Spirituality
- People have often wondered, what is God made of? Is he made of flesh and blood like ourselves? Is God made of matter at all? Or is God pure energy? The answer of Scripture is that God is spirit.
- This signifies that God is in no way limited to a spatial location. We should therefore not think of God as having size or dimensions, even infinite ones.
- We must remember that God's being is different from everything that he has created. To think of his being in terms of anything else in the created universe is to misrepresent him, to limit him, to think of him as less than he really is.
- God's spirituality means that God exists as a being that is not made of any matter, has no parts or dimensions, is unable to be perceived by our bodily senses, and is more excellent than any other kind of existence.
- God's invisibility means that God's total essence, all of his spiritual being, will never be able to be seen by us, yet God still shows himself to us through visible, created things.
3. Knowledge (Omniscience)
- God fully knows himself and all things actual and possible in one simple and eternal act.
- God fully knows himself which is an amazing fact since God's own being is infinite or unlimited.
- God's knowledge never changes or grows. If he were ever to learn something new, he would not have been omniscient beforehand. Thus, from all eternity, God has known all things that would happen and all things that he would do.
- God's wisdom means that God always chooses the best goals and the best means to those goals.
- Every day of our lives, we may quiet our discouragement with the comfort that comes from the knowledge of God's infinite wisdom. If we are his children, we can know that he is working wisely in our lives to bring us into greater conformity to the image of Christ.
- We can ask God confidently for wisdom when we need it, for he promises in his Word, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him" James 1:5
- God's truthfulness means that he is the true God, and that all his knowledge and words are both true and the final standard of truth.
- If we think the same thing God thinks about anything in the universe, we are thinking truthfully about it.
- God's faithfulness means that God will always do what he has said and fulfill what he has promised.
6. Goodness
- The goodness of God means that God is the final standard of good, and that all that God is and does is worthy of approval.
- No good thing does the Lord withhold from those who walk uprightly.
- Paul writes, "So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith."
- God's love means that God eternally gives of himself to others.
- We imitate this communicable attribute of God, first by loving God in return, and second by loving others in imitation of the way God loves them.
- God's holiness means that he is separated from sin and devoted to seeking his own honor.
- The idea of holiness as including both separation from evil and devotion to God's own glory is found in a number of Old Testament passages.
- God's righteousness means that God always acts in accordance with what is right and is himself the final standard of what is right.
- We ought therefore continually to thank and praise God for who he is, "for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is he"
- God's jealousy means that God continually seeks to protect his own honor.
- People sometimes have trouble thinking that jealousy is a desirable attribute in God. This is because jealousy for our own honor as human beings is almost always wrong. We are not to be proud, but humble.
- It is healthy for us spiritually when we settle in our hearts the fact that God deserves all honor and glory from his creation, and that it is right for him to seek this honor. He alone is infinitely worthy of being praised.
- God's wrath means that he intensely hates all sin.
- It is in fact a virtue to hate evil and sin, and we rightly imitate this attribute of God when we feel hatred against great evil, injustice, and sin.
- We should feel no fear of God's wrath as Christians, for although "we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind", we now have trusted in Jesus, "who delivers us from the wrath to come".
- God's wrath should motivate us to evangelism and should also cause us to be thankful that God finally will punish all wrongdoing and will reign over a new heavens and a new earth in which there will be no unrighteousness.
12. Will
- God's will is that attribute of God whereby he approves and determines to bring about every action necessary for the existence and activity of himself and all creation.
- Sometimes it is God's will that Christians suffer, as is seen in 1 Peter 3:17, "For it is better to suffer for doing right, if that should be God's will, than for doing wrong."
- God's omnipotence means that God is able to do all his holy will.
- There are, however, some things that God cannot do. God cannot will or do anything that would deny his own character. For example, God cannot lie, he cannot be tempted with evil, and he cannot deny himself. Although God's power is infinite, his use of that power is qualified by his other attributes.
14. Perfection
- God's perfection means that God completely possesses all excellent qualities and lacks no part of any qualities that would be desirable for him.
- God's blessedness means that God delights fully in himself and in all that reflects his character.
- We imitate God's blessedness when we find delight and happiness in all that is pleasing to God, both those aspects of our own lives that are pleasing to God and the deeds of others.
- God's beauty is that attribute of God whereby he is the sum of all desirable qualities.
- David speaks of the beauty of the Lord in Psalm 27:4
- "One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple."
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