What are the attributes of God?
Scripture never sets out a tidy list of divine qualities for us to admire from a distance; it tells us what God is, and then shows us where that character was displayed. So the real question behind "what are the attributes of God?" is not only which words we may rightly attach to Him, but how anyone could know them at all.
Two Names: Light and Love
Some things said about God describe His very being, not merely His dealings with us. One writer draws a sharp line between the two kinds of statement:
Julius A Von Poseck"God is light," and "God is love." These two are His essential qualities — His very being. We know that power, dominion and authority, wisdom and riches belong to Him. But it is nowhere said in Scripture that "God is power," or that "God is wisdom." We know that God is holy, righteous, and just, and that He is good, gracious, and merciful. But these divine qualities are only the visible results of what God is in Himself, that is, "Light" and "Love."
The two cannot be separated, and neither can stand without the other:
C CrainIf light expresses the divine energy in showing the stainless and unstainable purity of God's moral nature, "love" expresses the energy of God in asserting and maintaining the absolute perfection of His goodness. These two distinguishing qualities must unite in God. If He were not absolutely "light" He could not be absolute goodness; and if He were not absolutely "love" — perfect goodness — He could not be unsullied light.
The Natural Attributes
Alongside what God is in Himself stand the qualities that describe the greatness of His being — and each has a verse behind it:
James McBroomGod is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His Being; full of power, holiness, justice, mercy, goodness and truth. Among His natural attributes there is first His eternity. "Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God?" Hab. 1:12. Then omnipotence: "With God all things are possible." Matt. 19:26. "The blessed and only Sovereign." 1 Tim. 6:15. Then omnipresence: "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there!" Ps. 139:7-8.
A wider summary adds invisibility, immortality, omniscience (He knows everything), immutability (He never changes), wisdom, holiness, justice, grace and mercy, patience, and faithfulness — with the note that Christ "is the expression of both" light and love "in a Man" (Morrish Bible Dictionary).
Moral Attributes Are Relative Terms
Words like "righteous" and "holy" only make sense when something else is in view — and that is precisely why Scripture uses them as adjectives rather than as names:
J. N. DarbyAttributes are ideas we attach to God in connection with what is outside Himself, though they belong to Him necessarily as God. I must think of God's dealings and claims to call Him righteous. To call Him holy, I must think of evil which He rejects. So He is not called righteousness and holiness, but righteous and holy. What He says is truth, but He is not truth. So we say, God in Himself is absolutely Love and Light; and God is righteous, holy, omniscient, omnipotent, supreme — all relative terms, the former moral, the latter natural attributes.
Known Only by Revelation
None of this is reached by clever thinking. Human reasoning about God runs into a wall — and the wall is there for a reason:
H J VineWhat then is the way? By the revelation of God and not by the achievement of man. Surely God is able to reveal Himself! Why should anyone question that He is able to do so? The truth is, if man could reach this excellent knowledge his pride would exalt itself; and that is why he is so slow and unwilling to admit the only way, that of revelation, for then all the glory must be God's.
All the Attributes Meet at the Cross
Qualities that seem to pull against each other — holiness that hates sin, love that saves sinners — were displayed together in one event:
C. H. MackintoshThere I see God dealing with sin in such a way as to glorify Himself infinitely. There I see the magnificent display and perfect harmony of all the divine attributes. I see love, and such love as captivates and assures my heart. I see wisdom, and such wisdom as baffles devils and astonishes angels. I see power, and such power as bears down all opposition. I see holiness, and such holiness as pushes sin to the very furthest point of the moral universe. I see grace, and such grace as sets the sinner in the very presence of God.
What They Mean for Us
His greatness is not cold. Every attribute is put to work by the One whose nature is love:
A J PollockHe is all goodness, all love, all righteousness, all holiness, all faithfulness. Every attribute and quality that we can admire is absolute in its fulness in Him. A Being who is love, who is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, satisfies the cry of our hungry hearts; omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence all serve His love, and therefore serve us.
Summary
- Being — What God is in Himself is said in only two absolute statements: God is light, God is love. Everything else describes Him in relation to something outside Himself.
- Greatness — His natural attributes describe His being: eternal, unchanging, all-powerful, everywhere present, all-knowing.
- Character — His moral attributes describe His dealings: righteous, holy, good, faithful, patient, merciful.
- Revelation — None of it is reasoned out. If man could reach this knowledge himself, his pride would take the glory; so God reveals Himself.
- Display — The cross is where all these meet in perfect harmony, and where power, wisdom and holiness are seen serving love — and so serving us.