A. There are three major characteristics of the attributes of God. The attributes of God are eternal, functional, and directional. We can illustrate these characteristics of the attributes of God using the attribute of divine love.
1. The attributes of God are eternal.
a. There never was a time when each member of the Trinity did not possess all of the divine attributes.
b. Divine love is one of the eternal attributes of God.
(1) Divine love is a part of divine integrity. Divine love is one of three divine attributes found in the integrity of God.
(2) The love of God therefore must be compatible with the absolute attributes of divine essence, and it is.
(3) Because God is absolute righteousness (perfect virtue and integrity), His divine love is totally devoid of any sin, any human good, altruism, or a source of any human reaction like bitterness, guilt, fear, or other sins of emotion.
(4) Since God is perfect and eternal love, He does not fall in love. Nor can God’s love be patronized by human works or compromised by any form of legalism or Christian activism.
(5) God’s love cannot be complicated by ignorance or absurdities, silliness or emotion. The spiritual life is thinking doctrine.
(6) Since divine love is a part of the integrity of God, it functions in compatibility with divine righteousness and justice. Therefore God’s love is infinitely greater than we can imagine or think, because it is based on God’s righteousness and justice.
(7) No matter what happens to the believer in time from the function of his self-determination, whether good or bad decisions, there is no greater security than the personal love of God for each one of us. God’s love did the most for us in salvation. If God’s love did the most for us in salvation, it can now do only more than the most. Therefore, His love keeps us forever.
2. The attributes of God are functional. The attributes of God function in action. Function is the action of the divine attributes. Functional means action or capacity for operation; the kind of action or activity of the love of God. Capacity and capability of operation of the love of God is what is meant by functional. The attributes of God are functional under three subcategories.
a. The function of the love of God is personal toward each member of the Godhead. The action of divine love functions in personal love toward the other members of the Trinity. Personal love in God is His attitude toward perfect righteousness in the other members of the Trinity and toward every creature having the imputed righteousness of God.
b. The function of the love of God is also impersonal toward all creatures without perfect righteousness. Jn 3:16, “For God loved the world so much that He gave His uniquely-born Son, that anyone who believes in Him shall never perish but have eternal life.”
c. The function of the love of God is also personal toward Himself in divine self-esteem. God loves His own righteousness and always has. This is the basis for spiritual self-esteem in the unique spiritual life of the Church Age. Divine self-esteem requires divine love as the subject and divine righteousness as the object. As you grow in grace you develop the only self-esteem which counts—the self-esteem based on humility or spiritual self-esteem.
3. The attributes of God are directional. Direction is the object of the divine attributes. The attributes of God must have a direction toward which they function. Anything that functions should have a direction. When the attributes of God function, they must do so in a direction. Direction is the result of the function of God’s attributes. Direction also has three subcategories: the point of responsibility, the point of contact, and the point of reference. The doctrine of divine impersonal love is part of the functional category of the divine attribute and not part of the directional category of divine attributes.
a. The point of responsibility in the attributes of God is the righteousness of God directed toward all sins of the human race. Responsibility denotes something within one’s power to control. The integrity of God has the eternal capacity expressed in the righteousness of God in eternity past to know the knowable, including sin, and to program one PROM chip in the computer of divine decrees with all human sins of both cognizance and ignorance, along with the act of volition in every case that produces the sin. God the Father had the responsibility of knowing all sins of human history and programming them into the divine decrees and then imputing them to Christ on the Cross. Jesus Christ took the responsibility to do something about those sins. He made four decisions in eternity past: unlimited substitutionary atonement (He had to become true humanity), propitiation, reconciliation, and redemption.
b. The point of contact in the attributes of God is the justice of God toward the unbeliever in salvation and toward the spiritual believer in divine blessing and toward the carnal believer in divine discipline. Contact with the unbeliever is our Lord’s substitutionary atonement on the Cross, by which spiritually dead mankind entered into association with God through faith alone in Christ alone. The justice of God did something about judging our sins on the Cross, so that the point of contact for the unbeliever is faith alone in Christ alone. The filling of the Spirit is the basic function of the spiritual life which follows salvation. The justice of God administers to the carnal believer family punishment for grieving and quenching the Holy Spirit. Heb 12:6, “Whom the Lord loves, He punishes, and He skins alive with a whip every son whom He receives.” Punishment comes from the justice of God as our point of contact but the love of God is our point of reference after rebound. You are being loved by God when you are being punished by God.
c. The point of reference in the attributes of God for the unique spiritual life of the Church Age is the love of God. Reference means to direct attention to something important, something of personal interest. Reference means recourse for the purpose of information. Reference means to endorse a person or course of action. The point of reference from the love of God directs attention to something important—the postsalvation spiritual life of the Church Age believer. The point of reference from the love of God provides something of personal interest—New Testament Bible doctrine. Point of reference means recourse or access to the infallible word of God from accurate Bible teaching for the purpose of information about the unique spiritual life of the Church Age. The point of reference endorses a course of action related to virtue-love and metabolization of Bible doctrine. The point of reference is the love of God, the sponsorer of the greatest life that ever existed. Since the love of God is the point of reference for the postsalvation spiritual life, it is imperative that the love of God be involved in our punishment when we are carnal. Whether we are carnal or spiritual God’s personal love for us does not change.
ABSOLUTE ATTRIBUTES: SPIRITUALITY, INFINITY, PERFECTION
A. Spirituality: God’s Life and Personality.
1. The true theistic concept of the universe is that the universe is composed of material and immaterial, having its source from God.
2. Matter is material, but God is immaterial, Jn 4:24, in contrast to all living creatures who are both material and immaterial, 2 Cor 4:7, 16.
3. Spirituality implies life. God is life, Jer 10:10; 1 Thes 1:9. God does not possess life as we do, but He is life, He lives. All life is from Him, but not of Him (as pantheism claims). God’s life is eternal life, having no beginning and no end. God is eternal. Technically we have everlasting life.
4. The eternal life of God is imparted through Jesus Christ to all who believe in Him (Christ). Jn 3:36, 16, 5:24, 10:10, 14:6, 20:31; 1 Jn 5:11-12.
5. God is a person, Ex 3:14. personality connotes both self- consciousness and self-determination (God has a plan).
6. God recognizes Himself to be a person and as such He always acts rationally and logically.
7. Animals are conscious but not self-conscious. They have determination, but not self-determination.
8. Man is a person possessing to a limited degree self-consciousness and self-determination. But God is infinite personality with infinite self-consciousness and self-determination.
9. His absolute will and perfection characterize His motivation, design and execution of all that He does, Eph 1:9, 11.
10. God is to an absolute degree all that constitutes personality. He is Himself. He knows Himself to be beyond comparison with any other being. He has perfect, eternal personality.
B. Infinity: Self-existence, Immutability, Unity.
1. God invented space and time and exists outside of these. By infinity is meant that God is without boundary or limitation. These, united with His perfection, are part of His character.
2. God can’t tempt, be tempted, or sin.
3. God cannot be complicated with ignorance, absurdities or fantasies. God doesn’t care for emotion.
4. Though God may be self-limited as in the case of the incarnate Christ in the Hypostatic Union under kenosis, His infinity is intensive rather than extensive. [God’s personality is infinite and omnipresent but not in everything (extensive), as says pantheism].
5. God has infinite energy and power, Ps 8:3.
6. Infinity characterizes all that God does: His integrity, love, veracity.
7. The divine motive is for His own pleasure and glory, but not His own self-praise. God recognizes His glory and claims it in the interest of absolute truth. Creatures are designed for His glorification. God’s glory is the sum total of His attributes.
8. Because of this fact all things exist Ex 33:18; Ps 19:1; Isa 6:3; Mt 6:13; Acts 7:2; Rom 1:23, 9:23; Heb 1:3; 1 Pet 4:14. God’s glory was before all creation, Jn 17:5.
9. Infinity involves three characteristics: self-existence, immutability, and unity or consistency.
a. Self-existence. God exists eternally unsustained by Himself or by any other source. God can’t be better or worse because of His character. JHWH means “self-existing One.” God’s existence is unalterable. God is the cause of all existence outside of Himself but there is no cause for Himself.
b. Immutability. God is unchanging. He cannot change, cannot be better or worse than He is. The problem is that anthropomorphic representations of God in the Bible are misunderstood. They really represent the perfect attitude of God toward variations in man or history in human language, so that man can understand God’s policy. God doesn’t hate, get angry, change His mind, have hands or eyes. When man changes God seems to change, but in reality God is remaining consistent with His own essence. This can be illustrated by a weather vane, which changes direction depending on the direction of the wind, yet it is still a weather vane. Immutability is consistent with God’s freedom and His ceaseless activity. God is free to do anything according to His own essence. Therefore, salvation is not God’s second best, but a part of His eternal purpose.
c. Unity. This means that all of the attributes of God are consistent with each other and there is never a compromise. When God blesses us His unity is not destroyed. “JHWH our Elohim is one JHWH,” Deut 6:4. There is one perfect, infinite absolute Spirit, says Isa 44:6; Jn 5:44, 17:3; 1 Cor 8:4; 1 Tim 1:17. Unity applies only to divine essence, not to the persons of the Trinity. Your relationship with God is secure because it is based on God’s consistency.
C. Perfection: Truth, Love, Integrity. The intellect, character and affections of God are perfect. Divine perfection involves His truth, love, and integrity, which is perfect righteousness and justice.
1. Truth. This is not merely veracity toward other persons, but God is true to Himself, His own essence, His character. Man says, “I speak the truth,” but God says, “I am the truth,” Jn 14:6. God does not hold the truth as being acquired. He is the truth from eternity past. In God every truth in every form of knowledge dwells in absoluteness. This accounts for the dogmatism of the Word of God. This attribute guarantees the genuineness of divine revelation, Deut 32:4; 1 Jn 5:20; Jn 6:32, 15:1; Heb 8:2. Bible doctrine, or truth, is the expression of His integrity. God’s truth is directed toward Himself and revealed to us. God is never unfaithful to Himself.
2. Love. God is motivated by His love. Love is His problem solving device. Like all of divine attributes, love belongs to God’s being. God is and always was love regardless of having an object to love. This is perfect love whether there is an occasion to bestow it or not, 1 Jn 4:8. Subjectively God loves His own integrity; objectively He loves the other members of the Trinity. God can only love God or another being with perfect righteousness.
3. Integrity. God is absolute integrity from all eternity past, Ex 15:11, 19:10-16; Isa 6:3. Man’s relationship to God comes on the basis of His justice. We must adjust to the justice of God. This integrity is required of men, 2 Cor 7:1; 1 Thes 3:13, 4:7. God’s integrity is maintained by His will. It is part of His unchangeable self. It includes perfect righteousness and justice, which is His perfection.
A. There are three categories of relative attributes:
1. Those related to time and space - eternity and immensity.
2. Those related to creation - omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence.
3. Those related to moral beings - veracity and faithfulness, mercy and goodness, and righteousness and justice.
B. Relative Attributes Related to Time and Space.
1. Eternity.
a. Eternity applied to God means He has always existed and always will exist. He has always existed totally apart from time.
b. God is not subject to time, because He is the cause of time, Deut 32:40; Ps 90:2, 102:27; 1 Cor 2:7; Eph 1:4; 1 Tim 1:17.
c. Both time and space, though without substance, are both objects of His creation.
d. God is not in time but time is in God; He is the origin of time.
e. God transcends all creation including time, therefore, has always existed.
f. God is logical, therefore, He does not need to be chronological as we do, Rom 4:17.
g. Time, which is finite, has both succession and duration.
h. Eternity, which is infinite, has duration only. Time is a line of procedure, while eternity is a circle reaching into infinity.
2. Immensity.
a. God is not subject to space. Like time, God created, invented, and caused space to exist. Rom 8:29.
b. God cannot be more or less than what He is.
c. In relation to space God is both imminent (in space) and transcendent (outside of space).
d. Omnipresence is the term descriptive of space in relationship to God. Immensity is the term descriptive of God’s relationship to space.
e. Since God is the creator of space, if space were defined in boundaries, God would exceed those boundaries to infinity.
C. Relative Attributes Related to Creation.
1. Omnipresence.
a. God is personally present everywhere. The whole of God is in every place.
b. This is not pantheism, since it denies the person of God.
c. God, in the total of His essence, is without diffusion, expansion, multiplication, or division, and penetrates and fills the universe, Ps 139:7-8; Jer 23:23-24; Acts 17:27.
d. God is also free to be local, as in the mountain with Moses, or in the Holy of Holies above the mercy seat. He is free to become flesh and dwell among us, Jn 1:14.
2. Omniscience.
a. God is all wise. He knows perfectly and eternally all that is knowable, whether actual or possible. Ps 33:13-15, 139:2, 147:4; Mt 6:8, 10:29-30; Heb 4:3; Acts 15:8; Mal 3:16; Isa 46:9-10, 44:28.
b. There are three factors of divine knowledge:
(1) It is eternal, Acts 15:18.
(2) It is incomprehensible, Rom 11:33.
(3) It is wise, Eph 3:10.
c. Every detail of creation and history is in God’s mind at all times.
d. Therefore the future is as perspicuous to God as the past.
e. God foreknows the future. Since events take place according to His councils, He foreknows. But God’s foreknowledge is not predetermination! He knows but doesn’t interfere with your volition.
f. God foreknows the functions of every free will. He foreknows what will be the choice of other beings.
g. Likewise He may determine their choice by gracious influence through Bible doctrine, but He doesn’t coerce.
h. God’s knowledge is not subject to development, reasoning, regretting, foreboding, or depression.
3. Omnipotence.
a. God is all powerful, infinitely able to do all things which are the objects of His power within the range of His holy character or essence. However, He will not make right wrong, nor will He act foolishly, Isa 44:24; 2 Cor 4:6; Eph 1:19-21, 3:20; Heb 1:3. He will not abuse His power and compromise His justice.
b. If God is limited at any time it is because of a self-limitation consistent with His own essence. God can do all He wills to do, but He may not will to do all He can.
D. Relative Attributes Related to Moral Beings.
1. Veracity and Faithfulness.
a. God is infinite perfection in truth and faithfulness. God’s truth is expressed to us in Bible doctrine.
b. God honors doctrine in the soul of the believer with spiritual growth and blessing.
c. God provides divine logistical support to the believer during his life regardless of how good or bad he is.
2. Mercy and Goodness.
a. Mercy is grace in action. Mercy is infinite love in action toward the objects of divine affection, the expression of divine personal love toward the believer.
b. God’s judgments are perfect, demanding perfect righteousness. So God is not only absolute good in contrast to the policy of Satan which is evil, but He is also justice and righteousness.
3. Justice and Righteousness.
a. This is infinite integrity acting toward others. God’s perfect righteousness is perfect, therefore demands perfect righteousness. His judgments are perfect, therefore demanding perfection. Perfect righteousness demands Bible doctrine in the soul to understand His essence.
b. Justice administers the penalty which righteousness demands.
c. In perfect righteousness the divine love for integrity is revealed. In perfect righteousness divine love exists, but in justice divine love is expressed.
d. In justice the divine hatred for sin is revealed. Justice demands justice.
e. In the function of the essence of God divine perfect righteousness and justice always precede divine love. God cannot love personally that which is not perfect.
f. God is not arbitrary in any way. Integrity demands integrity. perfect righteousness demands perfect righteousness. Justice demands justice. God’s nature cannot change, we must change. He must demand integrity and punish both sin and evil as long as He is what He is.
g. His penalties are not vindictive, but vindicating to His essence and person. With unchangeable sin and evil there is unchangeable condemnation and judgment. But in grace God provided through salvation all that He demands. And through Bible doctrine and the rebound technique, sin is handled for the believer.
h. In relation to Himself, His personality and spirituality are supreme. But in relation to man, His integrity is supreme.
E. Other Characteristics of God.
1. The freedom of God. God must be consistent with Himself. He cannot compromise His essence. The incarnation was the only way the free will of God could provide salvation for mankind.
2. The affection of God. These are anthropopathisms. God repents, Gen 6:6; loves and hates, Rom 9:13; gets angry, Rom 1:18; has scorn, Ps 2:4; has benevolence, Rom 8:32; has compassion, Lam 3:33. God is absolutely happy in Himself with absolute freedom from fear, anxiety, regret, foreboding, or annoyance.
3. The authority of God.
a. God’s absolute authority is over possible things and actual things.
b. Over possible things God is sovereign in that He leaves them as only possible and not actual, or has destined them to be yet future.
c. In this realm He renders no account to others but acts in conformity with His own perfect character. God isn’t responsible to anyone.
d. In relation to existing things God is the final and absolute authority, Ps 145:14; Mt 20:15; 1 Tim 6:15.
e. The authority of God over creatures rests upon three facts:
(1) Because God is the creator. This authority extends to every creature and to all things. However, it is restricted by His own perfection. The right to save or punish belongs to God, but He restricts it by His own essence. The right to discipline or reward the believer belongs to God but is restricted by His own essence. God is compelled to discipline the reversionist under the influence of evil, just as He is compelled to reward and bless the believer with maximum Bible doctrine in the soul. This is consistent with His own essence and plan. The creator’s absolute and sovereign ownership of all things is contrasted with secondary rights which men recognize within the sphere of their own relationship. That is, the cattle, gold, silver all belong to God, Ps 50:10, even though men recognize among themselves the private ownership of property. This authority of God rests on His infinite perfection.
(2) Because of redemption. God has purchased us; we are bought with a price.
(3) Because of Bible doctrine. The authority of God is related to the amount of Bible doctrine in your soul. God’s authority is paramount with the mature believer. The more metabolized doctrine you possess, the more authority God has over you.
F. God’s Essence Box.
SOVEREIGNTY OMNISCIENCE
RIGHTEOUSNESS OMNIPRESENCE
JUSTICE OMNIPOTENCE
LOVE IMMUTABILITY
ETERNAL LIFE VERACITY.
G. Summary of Divine Justice.
1. God is fair; it is impossible for God to be unfair.
2. Justice administers the penalty which perfect righteousness demands. Perfect righteousness and justice always go together, Deut 32:4; 2 Chr 19:7; Job 37:23; Ps 19:9, 50:6, 58:11, 89:14; Isa 45:21; Rom 3:26, 12:3; Heb 10:30-31.
3. Divine justice is portrayed in salvation. And the issue in salvation is divine justice accepted or rejected.
4. You get divine justice sooner or later. You get it sooner by believing in Christ. You get it later by the lake of fire.
5. Sin is not the issue in salvation, justice is. Because of propitiation, God is now free to pardon and justify sinful humanity who appropriates the saving grace of God by faith in Christ. God is free to save those who believe because of His justice.
6. The basis for the unbeliever’s indictment at the Last Judgment is evil and human good, not sin, Rev 20:12-15. Evil produces more good than sin. Evil is Satan’s policy. Justice prevailed at the cross and will again prevail at the Last Judgment.
R. B. Thieme, Jr. Bible Ministries 5139 West Alabama, Houston, Texas 77056 (713) 621-3740
© 1990 by R. B. Thieme, Jr. All rights reserved.
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