TDOG - The Attributes of God - 2

Last week we started our study on the Attributes of God as part of our Christianity 101 series of studies.

We looked at the word “Attributes” and what it means in relation to God. We saw that the God’s attributes are God’s revealed descriptions of his own nature and character. They are unique to him because he is unique.

Describing the attributes (or characteristics or perfections) of God’s being is different from describing the attributes of any other being because God the Creator has a nature completely different from that of any of his creatures.

I mentioned that there are two main categories of God’s attributes, and we looked at the first one which are His Incommunicable attributes.

Today we will look at His communicable attributes.

Communicable attributes: These are attributes that describe God in relation to His creatures. Mankind, made “in God’s likeness,” was created to reflect certain divine attributes, such as goodness, love, and wisdom. Finite humanity can imitate God in only a limited way.

The communicable attributes of God uniquely display his deeply personal nature. Every attribute of God is equally an attribute of each of the Triune persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Also, God’s graciousness and faithfulness and love speak to us of his personal character in a way that his omnipresence or simplicity do not speak as readily. Because God created human beings as an analogical image of himself, ascribing communicable attributes to God is not an anthropomorphic projection of our image upon God but a theomorphic projection of God’s image upon us. It is therefore with special reference to the communicable attributes that human beings are said to be created in the image of God, and likewise, in God’s work of redemption, to be recreated and conformed to the image of Christ.

Strictly speaking, all God’s attributes are incommunicable or proper to his unique nature as God. But many of them refer to God’s activity toward creatures and also have correspondences in the created order.

Human beings are not divine, but in many ways we reflect his character as his image-bearers.

For example, God knows and understands all things; he is omniscient.

Human beings also have minds and can know many things, but in a finite way rather than in the infinite way God knows all things. Similarly,

God is eternal, and he gives human beings something that we call eternal life, but our eternal life has a beginning, but God has no beginning, and no end. Eternal life is a gift of his grace to us, whereas His life belongs to him by nature.

Let us look at some of God’s communicable attributes:

God’s Goodness: It is the perfection of His nature and moral excellence.

The goodness of God can be conceived in terms of God in himself (ad intra) and God’s work in creation (ad extra). A thing is good to the extent that it is all that it can and should be—namely, perfect. God alone is all that he can and should be. That is to say, God is immutably incapable of becoming more good or less good. To refer to God’s goodness is simply to refer to God himself. That is to say, God’s essence is identical with goodness, and goodness is an essential and necessary attribute of the divine nature. Since God is infinite, his goodness is as immeasurable as his being and nature. Moreover, as self-sufficient, God does not derive his goodness from anything else. Thus, he rests in himself as good.

God’s goodness is not static and isolated within himself but is diffusive and overflowing as demonstrated by God’s free decision to create. As creator, his goodness overflows in both creation and providence. Creation is good because God, who is good, is its source and cause, its ground and standard (Gen 1:25; 1 Tim 4:4). While divine attributes like infinity and eternity cannot be exemplified by creatures, creatures do share in divine attributes of goodness to a lesser and greater degree. Since God is the supreme and absolute good, he is the chief end toward which creation strives, whether consciously or unconsciously. Thus, humanity’s proper end is to love and rest in God. Moreover, God cannot create evil. The origin of moral evil is the love of lesser goods as ends, instead of loving God as an end through the means of created goods.

The chief purpose for God to create, redeem, and judge is to manifest the effulgence of his goodness. As the same single diamond is seen through a plurality of sides, so too the goodness of God is comprehended in a plurality of attributes. In each divine attribute—such as divine mercy, grace, love, patience, justice, and wrath—one can learn what it means for God to be good. God’s goodness can be known through the general revelation of creation, but it is far more evident in the work of redemption as known through special revelation. God’s goodness is portrayed in his love towards his covenant people (Ps 25:7) and through blessing them with good things (Neh 9:25). Furthermore, God’s goodness is preeminently seen in the face of Christ, the eternal Son, who assumed flesh and was crucified for human sin. The life and death of Christ shows us the true nature of God as merciful, holy, just, gracious, and loving. To sinners who are undeserving of any good gift, only eternal punishment, God confers grace. As the supreme good, God gives himself in the act of forgiving, reconciling, and redeeming. The Christian is sanctified by the work of the Holy Spirit until, in glory, he is made perfect, finally able to love, delight, and rest in the goodness of God forever.

Questions:

Genesis 50:20 ESV

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

Romans 8:28 ESV

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Q: How can we reconcile God’s goodness with a broken and suffering world: the problem of evil & suffering?

2. God’s Love - is the divine attribute that indicates God’s disposition to be self-giving and for the good of the other. God demonstrates his love not only in his goodness, mercy, grace, compassion, and faithfulness, but also in his holiness, justice, jealousy, and wrath. His love is holy, just as his holiness is loving.

God does not exercise his love solely toward his creation, for this would imply that God was not fully actualized until he created something. Rather, the eternal triune relations of the Father, Son, and Spirit are characterized by love. Some theologians describe the Trinity as a reciprocity of loving relationships, while others describe this original love in terms of a rightful divine self-love.

The God of love has revealed himself to be self-giving, self-sharing, and self-communicating. His love is personal and relational. God’s immanence is to be proclaimed as passionately as his transcendence; he is a God who comes near to his creatures, seeking fellowship with them.

In the New Testament, God’s love is demonstrated most poignantly in Jesus Christ’s incarnation and death, whereby God the Son exchanged heavenly glory for earthly servitude and laid down his life for the sake of his beloved enemies (Phil 2:1–11). In love, God has exposed himself to great suffering and violence at the hands of his beloved (Rom 5:6–10). God loves, as James would say, not only in word but in deed. His love is his divine disposition to be for his creatures and to act on behalf of their good, even at great cost to himself.

God’s love toward humanity is salvific, meaning that he seeks reconciliation with all whom he loves. God wills the good of his creatures from eternity past (through election) and into eternity future (the promised consummation of God’s work). God loves all his creatures (John 3:16), though he bears a special love and commitment toward his believing children (Deut 7:7–8; Mal 1:2–3; Eph 5:25).

God should not be conceived of as living under some independent standard for what counts as love; rather he himself defines love for humanity. God is love (1 John 4:8). God’s love is a communicable attribute in that it is to be imitated by humanity. As recipients of divine love, believers return love—albeit in a limited human fashion—both to God and to others. By his own actions, God teaches the world to love actively and sacrificially, not just those within one’s own family or tribe but every neighbor (Matt 22:39–40)—even one’s enemies (Matt 5:44).

When studying about the love of God a couple of common questions that arise are:

Q: How Can God be said to be loving when he eternally punishes those who rebel against him?

But God through Christ did suffer with his creatures, and the Bible proclaims the love of the cross a more powerful force than anything in existence (Rom 8:31–39). “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Despite some ongoing mystery remaining in the three tensions listed above, Christians place their faith in God’s revealed character. Believers can be assured that God’s love is neither diminished nor threatened by our unanswered questions. God himself has demonstrated that true love is inherently self-giving.

3. God’s Mercy - describes his focused disposition of compassionate forgiveness toward his people, especially in light of their distressful and dire circumstances.

The mercy of God is one of God’s communicable attributes, an attribute that humans can emulate in their relationships with each other. Throughout the Bible, God’s mercy is pictured not only as God’s disposition but as his action on behalf of an undeserving people. The Bible often pairs other divine attributes with “mercy”: compassion, grace, faithfulness, kindness.

Mercy is a relational expression of God’s character and flows from his attributes of goodness and love. It is a vital aspect of God’s grace-based covenant relationship with his people. God’s mercy is evident whenever he delays punishment, even when his people are lost in sin and not aware of the relational consequences this sin entails (Exod 34:6–7; Ezek 33:10–11). When the circumstances of God’s people are dire—due to impending conflict, physical and spiritual persecution, or other types of suffering—those who fear God appeal precisely to his merciful character. They pray with an expectation that he will willingly and powerfully act as he has in the past (Dan 9:17–19; Pss 25:6–7; 51:1–2). Over and over again in Scripture, God demonstrates his mercy by saving, redeeming, and restoring his people.

Because mercy is a communicable attribute of God, the Bible also declares that God’s people should have the same disposition toward others, and that his people should act on their behalf (Eph 2:1–10). In the New Testament, Jesus condemns the Pharisees for their lack of mercy, and he accentuates the importance of mercy coupled with action through his teaching (Matt 23:23–24; see also the parable of the good Samaritan in Luke 19:25–37). Jesus not only teaches about God’s mercy; he embodies it. In his role as the Son of David, he demonstrates that he is the physical revelation of God’s mercy (Matt 9:27–31).

Exodus 34:6–7 ESV

The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

Romans 9:15 ESV

For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

Q: How would you define “mercy” in your own words, and how does it differ from forgiveness or grace?

Q: Does God set aside the demands of His justice when He shows us mercy?