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The word staggers before its task of even describing the reality, writes R.C. In this study we will be discussing God's non-moral attributes. 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. Gods purposes being fulfilled (Job 42:2). This is because for us, jealousy is almost always wrong. We read in Psalm 90:4, For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. The phrase a thousand years is a figurative expression for as long a time as one might imagine. Get updates from Zondervan Academic directly in your inbox. The Lord our God is holy! exclaims the psalmist (Psalm 99:9). All rights reserved. ETERNAL: God is perfect in that He transcends all time and temporal limitations, and is thus infinite with respect to time. Jesus bares the same attributes as the Father. The names and titles given to God in Scripture reveal what he is like. Omnipotent means to have unlimited power (omni = all; potent = powerful). If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! We will love God, not the world (1 John 2:15), and we will do all this because he first loved us (1 John 4:19). With him are wisdom and might; he has counsel and understanding (Job 12:13). There are several different methods for categorizing Gods attributes. O taste and see that the Lord is good! (Psalm 34:8). September 14, 2014. 3:21), Unlimited by time (Psa. Amen (Romans 16:27). 2. GOOD: God is morally excellent, and does only good (Gen. 1:31; Deut. We imitate Gods blessedness when we find delight and happiness in things that please God. Our confidence that the Lord will soon fulfill his purposes for our good and his glory will enable us to be patient. Every attribute is completely true of God and Gods character. If you have any questions, please review our, Wayne Grudem is research professor of Theology and Biblical Studies at Phoenix Seminary in Phoenix, Arizona. Thus, God sees and knows all events past, present, and future with equal vividness. Note that God may be more than personal, indeed, His infinite nature suggests that He must be. 2 Timothy 2:13 says of Christ, He cannot deny himself., When the angel of the Lord appears to the shepherds (Luke 2:9), The heavenly city in Revelation (Revelation 21:23). There isnt a visible light that surrounds us, but there is a brightness, splendor, or beauty about the life of a person who deeply loves God, and its often evident to those around them. 5:4-6; 99:5; Isa. The fact that God is self-existent -- that he was created by nothing and has always existed forever -- is perhaps one of the hardest attributes of God for the believer to understand. God does not change. 107:8; 118:1; Nahum 1:7; Mark 10:18; Rom. Therefore, he commands the people of Israel to tear down the altars of pagan gods in the land of Canaan, giving the following reason: For you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God (Exodus 34:14, Deuteronomy 4:24; 5:9). ( Psalm 71:22; Isaiah 6:3; 1 Peter 1:16 ). He doesnt have a physical body, nor is he merely energy, thought, or some other element of creation. 4:4; Phil. This means all of past history is viewed by God with great clarity and vividness. What Is the Soul? 16:7; 1 Chr. Tozer writes this about the mercy of God. We see this glory in several places in Scripture. While all of humanity benefits from common grace, only those who profess believe and put their faith in Christ receive saving grace. 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). His common grace is a gift to all of mankind. Mercy is often emphasized where people are in misery or distress. The holiness of God, the wrath of God, and the health of the creation are inseparably united. Is It Different from the Spirit? And any very short period of time (such as one day) seems to God to last forever. When possible, they use another name., I the Lord do not change. His grace is also sovereign. The word translated accomplishes (energe, works, works out, brings about, produces) is a present participle suggesting continual activity. Page 3 Introduction to the Attributes of God Doerksen classify the attributes as Moral and Non-moral; Millard Erickson classifies them according to Greatness and Goodness; but most popularly, Charles Hodge, Louis Berkhoff, William Shedd, and Herman Bavinck classify the attributes of God as Communicable and Incommunicable. (e.g., Gen. 1:3, 26; Heb. It means he always does what is right and good toward all men. "The Rock! God loves all that is right and good, for rightness and goodness conforms to his moral character. All of our good and righteous desires, all of the desires that really ought to be in us or in any other creature, find their ultimate fulfillment in God. His promises ( 1 Kings 8:56, Hebrews 6:17-18). What do the rest get? The word holiness refers to His separateness, His otherness, the fact that He is unlike any other being. Tozer says this about what Gods holiness demands: Since Gods first concern for His universe is its moral health, that is, its holiness, whatever is contrary to this is necessarily under His eternal displeasure. To think of God 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. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account (Hebrews 4:13). 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. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. His holiness, righteousness, goodness, love, mercy, grace, and faithfulness. The Omnipresence of God God's omnipresence may be defined as, "God does not have size or . God Is Self-Sufficient - He Has No Needs "For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself." - John 5:26 As limited humans, we have incredible needs, which left unfulfilled, result in death. When we as Gods people walk in his ways, we come to know more and more fully by experience that the kingdom of God is indeed righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17), and we can say of the path of Gods wisdom, Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace (Proverbs 3:17). 6:4; Isa. Through Christs death and resurrection, the penalty for our sins was paid and we were imputed (credited) with Christs righteousness. 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). 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. 139:7-10; Acts 17:28; of Christ, Matt. So it shouldnt be surprising that God intensely hates sin. He knows our thoughts and motives (Psalms 139:1-4). This is an online articlefrom the Christian Research Journal. 4:7 ). So his faithfulness cannot be understood apart from his immutability, the fact that he never changes. . When Christ died to pay the penalty for our sins it showed that God was both righteous and just, because he paid the wages of sin (Romans 6:23) and forgave his people. 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). It is a strange and beautiful eccentricity of the free God, Tozer writes, that He has allowed His heart to be emotionally identified with men. A book review of In Quest of the Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration by William Lane Craig (Eerdmans, 2021), Let Faith Oust Fact: A Review of The Whale, No Mindful Matter: The Explanatory Failure of Scientific Materialism, Seven or So Exhortations to College-Bound Students, Una montaa allanadaUna mirada a Brianna Wiest, A Mountain Made LowA Look at Brianna Wiest, Connect with the Christian Research Institute, a. 3:26), TRUE: God is perfectly truthful, and cannot lie (John 17:17; Titus 1:2; Heb. Acknowledging these non-moral attributes of God can strengthen the faith and provide comfort for the believer in many ways. Moral attributes are those attributes which have to do with God's will and with the rightness of God's character and actions. 19:26; Mark 10:27; Luke 1:37; 18:27; Eph. These three characteristics of Gods nature are often mentioned together, especially in the Old Testament. For example: Arent these instances where God did change? 23:23; Acts 17:27), Bound up with Gods omnipresence (Psa. God asks Job, Who has given to me, that I should repay him? He knows our needs and desires (Matthew 6:8 and 32-33), We stand naked before Him. Paul says that God is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). Instructor: John can say that God is light (1 John 1:5) and then a little later say also that God is love (1 John 4:8). Hes independent because: 1. 9. Yet even this is a reflection of Gods wise plan: For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. Nevertheless, he is with us, the fullness of his presence is all around us. Still, God possess attributes that we can know (even in just in part) and hes given us his Word as a means to understand himself. He desires that worship be given to himself and not to false gods. 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. Proud member . 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. Nothing is hidden from God. Thus, we individually and corporately reflect Gods beauty in every way in which we exhibit his character. Compiled & Edited by BST & Crosswalk Staff. Really, we should say that communicable attributes are the ones that are somewhat shared with us. who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, He knows what we need before we ask him (Matthew 6:8), He knows the number of hairs on our heads (Matthew 10:30), He knows when we sit, when we rise, and what we think (Psalm 139:12), He knows words we will say before we speak them (Psalm 139:4), He knows the days of our lives before we are born (Psalm 139:16), He knows every possible future (1 Samuel 23:1113). He cannot do anything contrary to His will, character, or nature. . All of Him is everywhere at once. The 4 non-moral attributes of God: Omnipresence, Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Immutability. Whatever he thinks, whatever he wants, he is capable of doing. The innate qualities of absolute Deity those features that are uniquely divine. God is not like a thin substance spread out over all the earth. God's decisions are always in line with His character, and He has all the power to do whatever He decides to do., Scripture is clear that God is strong and mighty (Psalm 24:8). Whither shall I go from your Spirit?Or whither shall I flee from your presence?If I ascend to heaven, you are there!If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!If I take the wings of the morningand dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,even there your hand shall lead me,and your right hand shall hold me. Psalm 139:710. Omni means all and when combined with presence means he is all present or present everywhere at once. Amen (1 Timothy 1:17). The Argument from Contingency: A Proof for God, 6 Verses to Cling to When You Are Overwhelmed. Thus, he is a God of faithfulness (Deuteronomy 32:4). 1. A truly wise person is someone who understands all the facts and makes the best decisions. Likewise, although this is hard for many to accept, his sentencing of evil, unrepentant sinners to hell is also right and good. It indicates His complete and infinite perfection. If we love God, we will obey his commandments (1 John 5:3) and thus do what is pleasing to him. John tells us that God is love (1 John 4:8). 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. Enhance your schools traditional and online education programs by easily integrating online courses developed from the scholars and textbooks you trust. God, being infinite, must possess attributes about which we can know. saith the Lord.. Lets assume that all men are guilty of sin in the sight of God. 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. Salem Media Group. God is reliable and faithful in his words. They are deeper than the depths belowwhat can you know? 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Academic directly in your inbox 32-33 ), Analogical language necessary to describe God ( Ezek and were. His immutability, the fullness of his excellence e.g., Gen. 1:3, 26 ; Heb unfaithful ( Corinthians... Are the ones that are uniquely divine the Lord do not change unlimited power ( =. Be more than personal, indeed, his infinite, must possess attributes about which we exhibit character... His non moral attributes of god, character, or nature language necessary to describe God ( Ezek several... Works out, brings about, produces ) is a figurative expression for as long a time as day! Wise person is someone who understands all the earth unfaithful ( 2 Corinthians 1:20 Lamentations. Acts 17:27 ), true: God is perfectly truthful, and future with equal vividness thus, sees... Intensely hates sin ( omni = all ; potent = powerful ) see this in... Really, we will obey his commandments ( 1 Kings 8:56, Hebrews 6:17-18 ) itself ;.. 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