Amazing Attributes of God
1. God Is Infinite – He is Self-Existing, Without Origin
“And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” - Colossians 1:17
“Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure” – Psalm 147:5
2. God Is Immutable – He Never Changes
“I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.” Malachi 3:6
God does not change. Who he is never changes. His attributes are the same from before the beginning of time into eternity. His character never changes – he never gets “better” or “worse.” His plans do not change. His promises do not change.
3. 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. God, however, has never once been in need of anything. As Tim Temple writes, “God is perfectly complete within his own being.”
4. God is Omnipotent – He Is All Powerful
“By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.” – Psalm 33:6
“Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens above—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths below—what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea. If he comes along and confines you in prison and convenes a court, who can oppose him? Surely he recognizes deceivers; and when he sees evil, does he not take note?” – Job 11:7-11
Omnipotent means to have unlimited power (omni = all; potent = powerful). God is able and powerful to do anything he wills without any effort on his part.
5. God Is Omniscient – He Is All-Knowing
“Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please” - Isaiah 46:9-10
God is omniscient, which means he knows everything. Debbie McDaniel writes this about the omniscience of God, “He can be everywhere, at the same time. And He never sleeps or slumbers, He’s aware every moment of every day, exactly what we’re up against. He knows our way, and is with us always. There’s no place on this earth we can go that He doesn’t see and know of.”
Tozer writes this about God’s omniscience: “God perfectly knows Himself and, being the source and author of all things, it follows that He knows all that can be known. 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.”
6. God Is Omnipresent – He Is Always Everywhere
“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.” Psalm 139:7-10
“‘Am I a God at hand,’ declares the Lord, ‘and not a God afar off? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him?’ declares the Lord. ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ declares the Lord” - Jeremiah 23:23-24
To be omnipresent is to be in all places, at all times. Yet, it is important to understand that for God “to be” in a place is not the same way we are in a place. “God’s being is all together different from physical matter,” the website Ligonier.org explains. “He exists on a plane wholly distinguishable from the one readily available to the five senses.”
Nevertheless, he is with us, the fullness of his presence is all around us. “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where 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 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 God’s omnipresence in Psalm 137.
7. God Is Wise – He Is Full of Perfect, Unchanging Wisdom
“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” – Romans 11:33
Wisdom is more than just head knowledge and intelligence. A truly wise person is someone who understands all the facts and makes the best decisions. A wise person uses his heart, soul and mind together with skill and competence. But even the wisest man on earth would never come close to being as wise as God.
8. God Is Faithful – He Is Infinitely, Unchangingly True
“Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.” - Deut 7:9
“[I]f we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.” 2 Timothy 2:13
As with all of God’s attributes, they are not separate, isolated traits but interconnected parts of his perfect whole being. So his faithfulness cannot be understood apart from his immutability, the fact that he never changes. So when we read that God remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself, we see these his attributes working together. The fact that he is unchanging means he can never not be faithful.
A. W. Pink writes this about God’s faithfulness: “God is true. His Word of Promise is sure. In all His relations with His people God is faithful. He may be safely relied upon. No one ever yet really trusted Him in vain. 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. This is the basis of our confidence in Him.”
9. God Is Good – He Is Infinitely, Unchangingly Kind and Full of Good Will
“O, taste and see that the Lord is good” – Psalm 34:8
According to Tozer, the goodness of God “disposes Him to be kind, cordial, benevolent, and full of good will toward men. He is tenderhearted and of quick sympathy, and His unfailing attitude toward all moral beings is open, frank, and friendly. By His nature He is inclined to bestow blessedness and He takes holy pleasure in the happiness of His people.”
Just like his other attributes, God’s goodness exists within his immutability, and infinite nature, so that he is unchangingly, always good. His mercy flows from his goodness. “In his goodness to us, we see that He has purposed to be good in a special way to his people”(Ligonier.com).
As with God’s other perfect attributes, Christians find it easier to affirm the goodness of God when things are going well. When life takes a nosedive, though, that’s when we begin to question God’s goodness to and for us.
10. God Is Just – He Is Infinitely, Unchangeably Right and Perfect in All He Does
“The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He.” – Duet 32:4
What does it mean that God is just? It means more than he is simply fair. It means he always does what is right and good toward all men. Likewise, although this is hard for many to accept, his sentencing of evil, unrepentant sinners to hell is also right and good.
A natural question that arises from this is, how then can a just God justify the unjust (as each of us are without Christ!)? Tozer answers this by reminding us that we find the answer through the Christian doctrine of justification and redemption. “Through the work of Christ in atonement, justice is not violated but satisfied when God spares a sinner.” His mercy is does not forbid him to exercise his justice, nor does his justice forbid him to exercise his mercy. He is both fully merciful and fully just.
11. God Is Merciful – He is Infinitely, Unchangeably Compassionate and Kind
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.” - Romans 9:15-16
As noted above, God’s mercy is inseparable from his justness. He is infinitely, unchangeably, unfailingly merciful – forgiving, lovingly kind toward us. He is inexhaustibly, actively compassionate. His mercy is also undeserved by us. Charles Spurgeon writes that, “It is undeserved mercy, as indeed all true mercy must be, for deserved mercy is only a misnomer for justice. There was no right on the sinner’s part, to the saving mercy of the Most High God. Had the rebel been doomed at once to eternal fire — he would have justly merited the doom; and if delivered from wrath, sovereign love alone has found a cause, for there was none in the sinner himself.
12. God Is Gracious – God Is Infinitely Inclined to Spare the Guilty
“The LORD is gracious and merciful; Slow to anger and great in lovingkindness.” – Psalm 145:8
If mercy is not getting what we do deserve (damnation), grace is getting what we don’t deserve (eternal life). “As mercy is God’s goodness confronting human misery and guilt,” Tozer writes, “so grace is His goodness directed toward human debt and demerit. It is by his grace that God imputes merit where none previously existed and declares no debt to be where one had been before.”
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. His grace is something we do not earn or lose (“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God…” Eph. 2:8). His grace is also sovereign. “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious” (Exodus 33:19).
13. God Is Loving – God Infinitely, Unchangingly Loves Us
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” - 1 John 4:7-8
Love. The word “staggers before its task of even describing the reality,” writes R.C. Sproul in his book, God’s Love. As with all attributes, we can only begin to comprehend God’s love in light of his other attributes. The love of God is eternal, sovereign, unchanging, and infinite.
“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. Self-sufficient as He is, He wants our love and will not be satisfied till He gets it. Free as He is, He has let His heart be bound to us forever. God’s love is active, drawing us to himself. His love is personal. He doesn’t love humanity in some vague sense, he loves humans. He loves you and me. And his love for us knows no beginning and no end.
14. God Is Holy – He is Infinitely, Unchangingly Perfect
“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord Almighty” – Revelation 4:8
The word holy means sacred, set apart, revered, or devine. And yet none of those words is adequate to describe the awesome holiness of our God. John MacArthur writes this about God’s holiness: “Of all the attributes of God, holiness is the one that most uniquely describes Him and in reality is a summation of all His other attributes. The word holiness refers to His separateness, His otherness, the fact that He is unlike any other being. It indicates His complete and infinite perfection. Holiness is the attribute of God that binds all the others together.”
That God is holy means he is endlessly, always perfect. And his standard for us is perfection as well. “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect,” Jesus says in Matthew 5:48. That’s why we need Christ. Without Christ taking the place for us and dying for our sins, we would all fall short of God’s holy standard.
15. God Is Glorious – He is Infinitely Beautiful and Great
“His radiance is like the sunlight; He has rays flashing from His hand, And there is the hiding of His power.” - Habakkuk 3:4
John Piper defines God’s glory like this: “The glory of God is the infinite beauty and greatness of God’s manifold perfections. The infinite beauty—and I am focusing on the manifestation of his character and his worth and his attributes — all of his perfections and greatness are beautiful as they are seen, and there are many of them. 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. That is certainly appropriate, as Scripture often describes the glory of God in terms of a light that shines brighter than anything that we experience on earth.”
The glory of God is of course, inseparable from his other attributes, so God is eternally, infinitely, unchangingly glorious. His radiance and beauty emanate from all that his is and all that he does. Isaiah 43:7 says that man was created by God for his glory. 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. Inevitably, man will try to find glory in other things, or to try and make himself an object of glory. 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.
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