God's Link

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The bible says the believer is made in the image of God therefore we are like God’s link where others by connecting to us in a sense can connect with God.

EPHESIANS 5:1–2

"Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."

Omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, infinity, self-existence (aseity)—these are some of the incommunicable attributes of God, those attributes of our Creator that He does not share with His creatures.

However, the Lord also has communicable attributes, or attributes that He does share with human beings to at least some degree. Passages such as Genesis 1:26-27, which teaches that we are made in God's image, presuppose that there are some things that human beings hold in common with the Creator that other creatures do not.

We are like God in ways that nothing else in creation is like God, although we are not so like Him that there is no distinction between Creator and creature. Furthermore, Paul's exhortation to imitate God in today's passage also indicates that human beings, particularly Christians, have the capacity to reflect the character of the Lord and His attributes in who they are and what they do (Eph. 5:1).

When we speak of God's communicable attributes, we are referring primarily to His moral attributes such as love, goodness, and kindness.

There are at least six basic moral attributes of God: holiness, justice, jealousy, perfection, truthfulness, and goodness (love). These are essential to God’s nature.

Norman L. Geisler, Systematic Theology, Volume Two: God, Creation (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2003), 21.

In addition to God’s moral attributes, He has other moral characteristics in relation to His creatures. Two of these are mercy and wrath, which are activities that follow from or are rooted in His nature (as loving and just, respectively) but are not intrinsic to His nature as such.

Ineffability (see chapter 10) is an overall characteristic of God’s essence, particularly His metaphysical (“above” or “beyond” the physical) attributes, in relation to creatures.

Norman L. Geisler, Systematic Theology, Volume Two: God, Creation (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2003), 21.

In one sense, we must not forget that there is a basic incommunicability of even these attributes, for insofar as such things as the love and goodness of God are infinite, we cannot imitate them.

Nevertheless, because we bear God's image, there is a manner in which we exhibit these attributes by way of analogy. For example, the kind of love we have as creatures is not identical to the kind of love our Creator possesses. However, at the same time, our love is not wholly dissimilar, such that there is no point of contact whatsoever with the love of God. Our Creator loves truly that which is lovely. As regenerate people, we possess the capacity to do the same.

Consider also God's attribute of holiness. The holiness of God encompasses several concepts, including the fact that He is inherently set apart from creation and that He is morally pure, without any hint of darkness or sin. We cannot possess holiness in the sense of being inherently set apart from creation; however, by the renewing work of God's Spirit, Christians are continually purified over the course of our lives (1 John 3:3).

Space prohibits us from studying all the Lord's communicable attributes. We close today with a brief look at wisdom. Our Creator is the "only wise God" (Rom. 16:27), but in His grace, He shares His wisdom with us. In our fallenness, we are foolish creatures, but our Lord has given us His Word, by which He grants us wisdom by His Spirit (Prov. 1:1-7).

2 Corinthians 5:20 NIV

We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.