The Attributes of God
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Bible Text: John 1:1-5
Bible Text: John 1:1-5
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
Introduction:
Introduction:
Today I would like to begin to talk about the attributes of God. This may take us several messages to complete, even if we merely graze over them because the subject is so vast and so deep.
Your drivers license, for proof of who you are or who you say you are, lists several things about you. Your eye color, your birthdate, your hair color, your height. These are all traits or characteristics of you, they are attributes of you.
Also, sometimes for a job, or to obtain a special type of license, you may need to have a signed document from some character witnesses telling a little bit about your character, whether you are a good person, a trustworthy person, or a dependable person. These are all attributes of you.
God has, or better we could say, God is His attributes.
God’s attributes answer questions like,
Who is God?
What is God like?
What kind of God is He?
Even, where did God come from? And so on…
And God has many attributes, and some of these attributes are what we call communicable attributes and some are incommunicable attributes.
You have all likely heard the term, a communicable disease. It is a disease that can be transmitted from one to another. And that is what God’s communicable attributes are, they are shared or transmitted on to us, though not in the perfect sense that God possesses or is those attributes.
God is loving, that is one of His attributes, we too can love, but not in the perfectness such as God loves.
God is Just, we too have a sense of justice, but again not in the perfect sense that God is.
God is wise, gracious, merciful, good … And all these we too possess from God, but not to the same degree as God.
But then there are some incommunicable attributes of God that we can not possess, they are not passed on or transmitted to us. Neither can they ever be.
God is omnipotent, He is all-powerful, we are not all-powerful.
God is omniscient, He knows all things, we do not know all things.
God is omnipresent, He is everywhere all the time, we can not be but in one place at one time.
God is eternal, we are not eternal. Now, God can give us eternal life going in that direction, toward the future, but we are not eternal heading in the other direction. But God is from everlasting to everlasting.
And God is everyone of His attributes completely. He is not made up of one part holiness and two parts righteousness and another part love. Everyone of His attributes is all together tied to His other attributes.
God is love, but God is all together loving, His love is a holy love, it is a righteous love, it is a gracious and merciful love.
God is Holy, but God Holiness is also a righteous holiness, it is a loving holiness, it is an infinite holiness.
You get the picture.
Now, the first thing we need to understand when beginning a study like this is that we are finite beings, we have definable limits, we have a limited nature and existence. And God is infinite. He is without limits, He has a limitless existence and a limitless nature. And therefore, for us to even think that we can fully comprehend God and His character and nature is not only foolish but arrogant as well.
How can a finite being fully understand and grasp the fullness of an infinite being? It can’t be done.
But there are some things we can know about God. Not only from nature. God reveals much about Himself to His creatures through the things He has made. The heavens declare His glory., the Bible says. In fact, the witness of nature is why no one can claim that God has not given them ample evidence of His being. Turn a couple books in your Bible to Romans chapter one.
Romans 1:19-20
19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
There is enough evidence in what God has created to bring us to at least a limited knowledge of the existence of an all-supreme God.
But also, God has revealed Himself to us from a direct revelation from Him through His Word. He has told us much about Himself in scripture. Though even scripture cannot explain God to us perfectly. Not because Scripture is not sufficient, but because we are not sufficient in our limited existence and language to explain such a God.
In scripture, we often see terms like the hand of God, or the arm of God, the eye of God is upon all mankind, and the like language. Now we know that God is Spirit, He does not have a hand, an arm, or eyes such as we have, except for Christ in His incarnation, but these are the best ways that we as finite creatures can understand and relate to an infinite God, by things that we can understand. Although those things will always fall short of fully explaining who or what God is or is like.
Also, God has revealed Himself to us in that we are created in His image, again Romans 1:19, Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them;, He manifests within all mankind a certain knowledge of His existence. Which is why we see religions even within the remotest parts of the earth and going back as far as we can in archeology, all mankind everywhere has this innate need, a born-in need to worship. And therefore we inherently possess some things in us that come from God. An example of this is His moral law.
Every person, barring that they have some mental disability knows right from wrong. We know inherently, that it is wrong to murder another person. We know that it is wrong to steal and to lie. We know these things because God has built them into us by creating us in His image, although now a corrupt image because of sin.
And therefore, with these things in mind, the different ways in which God can and does reveal Himself to us, and understanding that we can never fully grasp the fullness of God, let’s begin to look at some things that we can know about God.
The first attribute that we are going to look at is probably the hardest for us to fully grasp because everything we know is based in time, space, and matter. because we were created in time, space, and matter. So it is all we know.
The first attribute is,
I. The Aseity of God - He is Infinite - From Everlasting to Everlasting
I. The Aseity of God - He is Infinite - From Everlasting to Everlasting
Aseity is the property by which a being exists in and of itself. It is not dependent upon anything or anyone else for it’s existence.
All other creatures and things in this world or in heaven or even heaven itself has been originated, brought about by something or someone else. It has a cause. Everything we know has a cause.
You were caused. Your mother and your father got together and you were caused. They were caused. Anything that we look at today was caused. And there are many causers.
This building was caused by a builder.
The clothes you are wearing were caused by a clothes maker.
The car you drove here today was caused by a car manufacturer.
The animals were caused by their parents.
The trees and flowers by their seeds.
And we can keep taking it all the way back, all these things were caused by God during creation.
But who or what caused God?
Again perhaps, the hardest attribute of God for us to grasp is the aseity of God. His infiniteness.
Even a small child has the natural intellect to question this attribute of God.
“Mommy, if God made us, who made God?”
A reasonable question.
But the true answer is hard for us to really wrap our heads around.
For God is the only uncaused causer.
The law of causality says, that every effect has a cause. And everything we know is an effect. Except God. He is not an effect, He simply Is!
In order for anything to be at all, it is required that something somewhere had to exist. Because nothing comes from nothing. So if there is anything now, which we can all see there is, then there by necessity had to always be something.
If there were ever a time when there was nothing. Absolutely nothing at all, then there would be nothing now. In fact, there wouldn’t even be a now, because there would be no time either.
And the alternatives aren't any easier. One couldn’t say, “Well another God caused God.” Or, “Something that we don’t know caused God.” Because, if that be the case, what caused them or it? And wouldn’t that make that being the supreme being, God in effect?
Even the atheists that say they believe there is no God and that creation created itself, have an even bigger problem.
Even if they believe in the big bang. Everything came from a tiny spec, a singularity, they call it, that imploded and out came all matter from it. Well, where did that singularity come from? Was it always there? Was it infinite? And if it was, wouldn’t that make that singularity what we call God?
But even science dispels this foolish notion because we know everything is winding down, it is aging, decaying, and not progressing into something better. We know the earth, the universe and all that we see is not infinite. Therefore, that singularity could not be infinite.
So, we have gone from saying that an eternal infinite and all-knowing intelligent God has created everything, to saying that, No, some spec, that has no knowledge whatsoever, and no will or anything else has always existed and created everything.
Do you see the absurdity of that?
And many have abandoned that idea, because they can see the absurdity of it, and are now saying that nothing created everything. Something can not be eternal, but nothing could have been and created all that there is.
They have gone from absurdity to absurdity.
Do you know what nothing is?
It is No-Thing. Nothing is not a thing and therefore it can not be a causer of anything let alone of all things.
And we can’t even say that God created Himself. Because God would have to be before He was in order to create Himself.
Therefore, there has to be, by definition, an uncaused cause. Now you can put your faith in some inanimate object as that uncaused cause if you want. Or you can go further into absurdity and say that nothing is the uncaused cause. Chance is the term they use today. But chance is not a thing either. Chance is a mere mathematical probability, it can not do anything. I don’t care how many millions or billions of years you put in front of it, chance will never do anything.
That is why they keep going back further and further in their claims of how old the earth is, because they say, chance, with just a little time can do nothing, but, maybe chance with millions or billions of years in front of it can.
And this is supposed to be some of the greatest minds on the planet, saying this. So it must be true, right?
Hogwash! It is nothing more than the fool saying in his heart, there is no God.
And friend, though I may not be able to wrap my finite mind around the aseity of God, I will put my faith and my trust in an all-knowing, infinite, intelligent Creator. Because I know that this building had a builder that had somewhat intelligence, that car had a maker with intelligence, that airplane and space shuttle had makers of intelligence. And so then, how can we look at our own bodies which are so far more complex, that we still haven’t figured it all out yet, and say, nope, doesn’t need an intelligent creator, just happened?
How absurd!
Revelation 1:8
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
Psalm 90:2 Before the mountains were brought forth,
Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
When Moses asked God, when He saw God in the burning bush there in that mountain, and God wanted him to go back to Egypt and lead God’s people out of captivity, he asked God, “Who shall I say it is that sent me? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
Not I AM becoming, or I have become, but forever and from everlasting I AM.
He is the infinite God.
A sub-set of this attribute or an attribute that goes right along with this attribute is,
II. The Self-Sufficiency of God - He has no needs
II. The Self-Sufficiency of God - He has no needs
Because of the aseity of God, because He has His being in and of Himself. He is not dependent upon any outside force or substance to maintain His being. He is totally self-sufficient within Himself.
He has life and being in Himself. He cannot die, He can not go out of existence.
We as His creation are dependent beings. If you cut off our oxygen we will die within minutes. Cut us so the blood runs out and we will bleed out within minutes. Deprive us of water and in a few days we will die. Deprive us of food and in a few more days we will die. We are dependent upon these things to continue. And we are dependent upon the existence of God for us to live. Take away God and we can not be. Turn with me to Acts chapter 17, Acts 17:28 “For in him we live, and move, and have our being;
God is not so, Acts 17:24-25 “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;”
He does not need us for His existence, He does not need food, water, sun, rain, wind, or any other created thing for His existence. He is perfectly maintained within His own triune being.
Some have even come to the heresy that God needs us because without us He can not be love or loving, because He has nothing to love. Which is an absurdity as well and goes against all scripture tells us.
God is love within Himself. He is a triune God and He is in perfect love within Himself. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. One in essence, three in persons, in perfect harmony and love within the Godhead.
Never needed anything outside of Himself.
And some would say that the Trinity is a contradiction, there are religions which teach that. The Jehovah’s Witnesses being one of them.
But it is not a contradiction at all. A contradiction would be to say that God is one in essence and three in essence. That is a contradiction, because God can not be one in one sense and another in the same sense.
God could not be one in person and three in person. That would be a contradiction as well. But we are not saying that, nor does the Bible teach that. God is one in essence and three in person. That is a paradox, but not a contradiction.
Turn with me again to John chapter 1:
John 1:1-3 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, (here we see the distinction between the Word and the God whom the Word was with.)
(But let’s look further.) and the Word was God. (So within this same verse we see that there was a distinction between the Word and the God whom the Word was with, and in John’s next breath he says that the Word which was distinct from the God the Word was with is in fact God.
Now either John has lost his mind here and is speaking gibberish, or he is telling us something profound that is a paradox in itself, but which in no way is a contradiction.) Look at verse 2
2 The same was in the beginning with God. (Again we see the distinction between the two again.)
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”
Here we see the Word made or created all things. The Word was not made or created, because All things were made by Him. And without Him there was nothing.
And yet we read in Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” God spoke and all things were so.
Friend, that was the Word, with a capital “W” The same Word that we read in John that was with God in the beginning, the same Word that was God in the beginning, there is no difference between the two and yet they are distinct from each other.
Look at verse 4 of John,
John 1:4 “In Him was (what?) life; and the life was the light of men.”
He has life within Himself. The self-sufficient God.
Friend, the self-sufficiency of God is a great blessing to us.
It is because He is self-sufficient, He has all He needs within Himself and therefore us being creatures that are dependent upon Him for our being, He has all we will ever need as well. And we will never deplenish His storehouse. It is always full.
It is the very reason Paul can say in, Ephesians 3:20 “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,”
I praise God for the aseity of God, that He has His existence in and of Himself, because without that, we could never have been.
And I praise God for the self-sufficiency of God, that He has all He needs within Himself, because without that, we could not continue to exist or be blessed with His many riches that He bestows upon us, in this life and even more so in the next.
Let’s pray:
Lord, I pray
I know I have fallen so short in describing and explaining these attributes of Yours. And as I continue in this series of messages I will continue to fall short of explaining the other attributes of Yours. Because as I have said earlier, how can a finite being explain and comprehend an all-powerful all-sufficient and perfect infinite being? All I can ask is for the help of Your Holy Spirit to guide us in this study and to illuminate to our spirit those things that are too unfathomable for our minds to fully comprehend. How great is our God, and worthy of honor and praise and adoration. We love you Lord, In Christ’ name we pray,
Amen
That’s the message!