There are different ways to describe God. We will attempt to consider at least three in the rest of this book, but I’d like to introduce them here to prepare you for them.
We can talk about the nature of God as God—Essence Attributes. Most are defended in Scripture, but are also logically true of God as the “uncaused-cause.”[1] These form a list of dull terms that could stupefy the most ardent devotee, but I’ll try to be warm and exciting.
In this list, we find words that talk about the fact that God is:
- All-powerful, thus omnipotent.[2]
- All-knowing, hence, omniscient & all-wise.[3]
- This leads to God as immutable.[4] Since He has no need of learning, He does not change.
- God is ever-present, so, omnipresent and infinite,[5] existing outside our notions of space.
- God is immaterial,[6] thus immortal,[7] and eternal,[8] existing outside of our concepts of life and time.
- God is Sovereign.[9] In Him, irresistible power meets all-knowing design and purpose. Such a being owes us nothing. He answers to no one. He simply is. He cannot be punished, or outmaneuvered, tricked or manipulated in any way.
Some essence attributes are revealed in encounters with God, as opposed to being inherently logical.
God is wholly other than His creation, thus, Transcendent.[10] But God is also a communicator intimately involved with His creation. So God is also Immanent.[11] He reveals Himself in nature, and has taken special care to weave a need for Him into humanity. He speaks through prophets, and, revealed Himself through incarnation in Jesus Christ.
God reveals Himself in what the Church has come to call “Trinity.”[12] God is One,[13] but is also revealed in relational persons… not three Gods in perfect agreement, but one God in intra-relational-personhood. Don’t pop a blood vessel in your head, but do keep certain distinctions in mind. In the Old Testament, we have Yahweh,[14] The Angel of Yahweh,[15] and the Spirit of Yahweh[16]… and let’s not forget Wisdom,[17] which Paul associates with Jesus,[18] thus also with The Angel of the Lord. We also meet the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7 and His agent, the Son of Man. Jesus takes this up as His favorite title for Himself. In the New Testament, God is revealed in terms of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.[19]
Also, we discover in encounters with God the irresistible force of His presence, which Scripture labels holiness. It is common to take Holy[20] as a moral description, but it is an essence attribute. Holiness is God revealed as true God. There is no standard outside of God called “holy” or “pure” to which God measures up. Rather, God IS the standard against which all else is measured.
Secondly, We can talk about what God is like in terms of character—Moral Attributes. To encounter God in his God-ness is to encounter a Holiness of such omni-power that man cannot survive it,[21] but that still doesn’t tell us what God is like in character. Here, we fall prey to descriptions borrowed from human interactions because we use human language… duh!
For instance, when we speak of God having “Foreknowledge,” we borrow a word from our time orientation to describe the knowledge of an entity that exists outside of time. From our perspective we are dealing with a knowledge of events that have not yet occurred, so “foreknowledge” works. But from God’s perspective… well… we have no experiential knowledge of an “outside-of-time” perspective.
Some of our descriptive words for the character of God are quite significant when compared to the depiction of the pagan deities worshipped by the peoples around Israel, but they are still tainted with us and our limitations. So, we say that God is love[22] and God is good[23]… which means that He is positively disposed to His creation, but goodness and love are words too often colored by our own selfish inclinations. We say that God is just,[24] exhibiting wrath against evil, but is also merciful[25] and gracious[26] seeking to redeem what He has made. But these too are corrupted by twisted visions of “social justice,” and both weakness and pity in the face of evil. What we put forth as “love” is not perfectly harmonized with justice and holiness, but God’s love is a just love, a holy love, His mercy a just mercy, a holy mercy. We think and talk of balance and off-setting, between these ideas so that we in our limitation can try to grasp them, but God is a perfect whole in a wholly un-human way.
The third way we talk about God is in metaphors and story, where we see God intentionally tailoring His engagement to our limitations. Here, patterns of behavior reveal things about God that the concept of “attributes” can’t.
We have metaphors like Redeemer, Judge, Father, Angel, Spirit, and even the term “God” itself. We see God presented as potter,[27] shepherd,[28] light,[29] shield,[30] lion,[31] fountain,[32] rock[33] & bread,[34] Alpha & Omega.[35] We encounter righteousness,[36] forgiveness,[37] justification, sanctification,[38] adoption,[39] and election.[40] God does not rejoice in the death of the unrighteous,[41] but still judges,[42] kills,[43] and even banishes to hell fire.[44] He commands and disciplines.[45] He fills us, is poured out on us, empowers and guides us.[46] We learn that God likes processes. He uses both the inclinations of evil ones and the suffering they cause to bring about His purposes,[47] but is Himself innocent of that evil.[48] God prefers instruments for accomplishing His work, allowing His creatures to participate in His Good plan in one way or another. He cannot be manipulated,[49] but calls us to pray and ask.[50] He is sovereign, but wants our choice and our love to be real.
Above all things, God desires that we wake up to Him, believe upon Him with our whole heart, and seek to grow in our knowledge of Him so that we can be transformed more and more into His likeness.
~Andrew D. Sargent, Ph.D.
[1] Even pagans who worship many gods were forced to acknowledge a divine something-something that of necessity existed behind these deities as truest God… a system-maker who exists outside space and time and the created order itself.
[2] Genesis 18:14; Jeremiah 32:27; Matthew 19:26; Ephesians 1:19; Revelation 19:6
[3] Psalm 147:5; 1 John 3:20; Hebrews 4:13;
[4] Numbers 23:19; Psalm 102:25-27; Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8.
[5] Proverbs 15:3; Isaiah 57:15; Jeremiah 23:24; Acts 17:24; Colossians 1:17.
[6] Luke 24:39; John 4:24.
[7] Romans 1:23; 1 Timothy 1:17.
[8] Isaiah 40:28, 43:13;
[9] Isaiah 46:9-10
[10] 2 Chronicles 2:6; Isaiah 40:22, 55:8-9; Acts 17:24.
[11] Psalms 145:18; Jeremiah 23:23; Acts 17:27; Ephesians 4:6;
[12] Matthew 28:19; Galatians 4:6.
[13] Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 43:10.
[14] Yahweh, as spelled, means essentially, “he who causes to be,” so… Creator.
[15] This phrase is found 57 times in the Old Testament, but the intended figure even more times. This figure is equated with Yahweh as God in places like Exodus 3:2 and 23:20-21.
[16] Judges 3:10; 1 Samuel 10:6; 1 Kings 18:12; Isaiah 61:1.
[17] This association is hotly debated. But take a look at Proverbs 8.
[18] 1 Corinthians 1:24; Also take a look at Luke 11:49, and Colossians 2:3, where ALL the treasures of wisdom are hid in Christ.
[19] Psalm 51:11; Isaiah 59, 63:11; Matthew 1:18; Luke 12:12; Acts 2; Romans 14:17.
[20] 2 Kings 19:22; Psalm 78:41; Isaiah 30:15; Revelation 15:4.
[21] Exodus 33:20.
[22] 1 John 4:8, 16.
[23] Exodus 34:6; 1 Chronicles 16:34; Psalm 25:8, 145:9; Mark 10:18; 3 John 1:11.
[24] Deuteronomy 32:4; Job 34:12; Psalm 89:14; Micah 6:8; Romans 2:6.
[25] Deuteronomy 7:9; Psalm 25:10; Lamentations 3:22-24; Ephesians 2:4-5.
[26] The difference between Mercy and Grace is often pictured in terms of just deserts. Through Grace God blesses us what we don’t deserve. Through Mercy, God withhold for a time what we do deserve. John 1:16-17; Ephesians 2:8-9; James 4:6; Hebrews 4:15-16.
[27] Jeremiah 18; Romans 9:21.
[28] Psalm 23; Ezekiel 34.
[29] John 9:5; James 1:17.
[30] Genesis 15:1; Deuteronomy 33:29.
[31] Hosea 5:14; Revelation 5:5.
[32] John 4:10ff; I Corinthians 10:4.
[33] 2 Samuel 22:3.
[34] John 6:35ff.
[35] Revelation 22:13.
[36] Romans 3:22, 5:17.
[37] Psalm 130:4; Daniel 9:9; Acts 13:38; Colossians 1:4.
[38] Romans 6:19, 6:22; 1 Corinthians 1:30; 1 Thessalonians 4:3.
[39] Romans 5:15, 18:23, 9:1; Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 1:5.
[40] Romans 9:11, 11:28; 2 Peter 1:10.
[41] Ezekiel 33:11.
[42] Psalm 96:13; Hebrews 12:23; James 4:12.
[43] Leviticus 10:1; Numbers 16:31-33; 2 Samuel 6.
[44] Revelation 20.
[45] Exodus 20; Proverbs 3:11-2; Hebrews 12.
[46] Acts 2.
[47] Genesis 50:20; Isaiah 10; 1 Kings 22:20-23.
[48] James 1:3.
[49] I Samuel 15:22-30; Isaiah 14:27; Daniel 4:35.
[50] Matthew 6:6ff; Philippians 4:6-7; James 5:13-18; 1 John 5:14;
