An attribute is a quality or characteristic given to a person, group, or some other thing. Your best attribute might be your willingness to help others, ...WWW.vocabulary.com
Notes from Summary of Christian Doctrine by L. Berkhof
Don't be put off by the BIG WORDS, look them up in a dictionary on line or in a book.
Questions for Research and study before you read this post completely.
- How do we divide the attributes of God?
- Which belong to each of these classes?
- What is the Independence of God?
- What is His Immutability? Look up this big word?
- How can we explain the fact that the Bible apparently ascribes change to God?
- What is God’s eternity and immensity (or Omnipresence)?
- What is the simplicity of God and how can we prove it?
Introduction
God reveals Himself by His Names but also by His Attributes, i.e. the Perfections of His Divine being. It is customary to distinguish between His Incommunicable and communicable attributes.Of the former there are no traces in His creatures but in the latter there are.
1 The Incommunicable Attributes.
Unable to be communicated to others- The Independence or the Self-Existence of God. This means that God has the ground of His Existence in Himself, and unlike man, does not depend on anything outside of Himself. He is independent in His being, in His virtues and actions, and causes all creatures to depend on Him. This idea is embodied in the name Jehovah and finds expression in the following passages.
Psa 33:11 The counsel of Jehovah stands forever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations.
Psa 115:3 But our God is in Heaven; He has done whatever He has pleased.
Isa 40:18 To whom then will you compare God? Or what likeness will you compare to Him?
Dan 4:34 And at the end of days, I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up my eyes to Heaven, and my understanding returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored Him who lives forever, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and His rule is from generation to generation.
Rom 11:33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!
Rom 11:34 For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?
Rom 11:35 Or who first gave to Him, and it will be repaid to him?
Rom 11:36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things; to Him be glory forever! Amen.
b. The Immutability of God
The Scriptures teach that GOD IS UNCHANGEABLE.
He is forever the same in His Divine Being and perfections, and also in His Purpose and Promises.
Psa 102:27 but You are He, and Your years shall have no end.
Mal 3:6 For I am Jehovah, I change not. Because of this you sons of Jacob are not destroyed.
Heb 6:17 In this way desiring to declare more fully to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, God interposed by an oath,
Heb 6:18 so that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us,
Jas 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning.
And cometh down from the Father of lights - From God, the source and fountain of all light. Light, in the Scriptures, is the emblem ot knowledge, purity, happiness; and God is often represented as light. Compare 1Jo_1:5. Notes, 1Ti_6:16. There is, doubtless, an allusion here to the heavenly bodies, among which the sun is the most brilliant. It appears to us to be the great original fountain of light, diffusing its radiance overall worlds. No cloud, no darkness seems to come from the sun, but it pours its rich effulgence on the farthest part of the universe. So it is with God. There is no darkness in him 1Jo_1:5; and all the moral light and purity which there is in the universe is to be traced to him. The word Father here is used in a sense which is common in Hebrew (Compare the notes at Mat_1:1) as denoting that which is the source of anything, or that from which anything proceeds. Compare the notes at Isa_9:6.
With whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning - The design here is clearly to contrast God with the sun in a certain respect. As the source of light, there is a strong resemblance. But in the sun there are certain changes. It does not shine on all parts of the earth at the same time, nor in the same manner all the year. It rises and sets; it crosses the line, and seems to go far to the south, and sends its rays obliquely on the earth; then it ascends to the north, recrosses the line, and sends its rays obliquely on southern regions. By its revolutions it produces the changes of the seasons, and makes a constant variety on the earth in the productions of different climes. In this respect God is not indeed like the sun. With him there is no variableness, not even the appearance of turning. He is always the same, at all seasons of the year, and in all ages; there is no change in his character, his mode of being, his purposes and plans. What he was millions of ages before the worlds were made, he is now; what he is now, he will be countless millions of ages hence. We may be sure that whatever changes there may be in human affairs; whatever reverses we may undergo; whatever oceans we may cross, or whatever mountains we may climb, or in whatever worlds we may hereafter take up our abode, God is the same. The word which is here rendered “variableness” (παραλλαγὴ parallagē) occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It means change, alteration, vicissitude, and would properly be applied to the changes observed in astronomy. See the examples quoted in Wetstein. The phrase rendered “shadow of turning” would properly refer to the different shade or shadow cast by the sun from an object, in its various revolutions, in rising and setting, and in its changes at the different seasons of the year. God, on the other hand, is as if the sun stood in the meridian at noon-day, and never cast any shadow. Barnes Notes
What does it mean when the Bible said “God repented…”. Ex 32:14 and Jonah 3:10 Research this question.
c. The Infinity of God.
This means that God is not subject to LIMITATIONS.
We can speak of His Infinity in more than one sense. In relation to His Divine Being it may be called His absolute perfection. He is unlimited in His knowledge and wisdom, in His Goodness and Love, His His Righteousness and Holiness.
Job 11:7 Can you by searching find out God? Can you perfectly find out the Almighty?
Job 11:8 Heights of the heavens! What can you do? It is deeper than hell, what can you know?
Job 11:9 The measure of it is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.
Job 11:10 If He passes through and shuts up, or gathers together, then who can turn Him back?
Psa 145:3 Great is Jehovah, and greatly to be praised; and there is no searching out His greatness.
Seen in relation to time, it is called His Eternity. While this is usually represented in Scripture as endless duration, as in Ps 90:2, it really means that He is above above time and therefore not subject to its limitations. For God there is only and eternal present…..
In relation to space, it is His immensity. He is everywhere present and dwells in all His creatures, filling every point of space, but is in no way bounded by space
1Ki 8:27 But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heavens and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this house which I have built?
Psa 139:7 Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence?
Psa 139:8 If I go up into Heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.
Psa 139:9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the furthest parts of the sea;
Psa 139:10 even there shall Your hand lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.
Act 17:27 to seek the Lord, if perhaps they might feel after Him and find Him, though indeed He is not far from each one of us.
Act 17:28 For in Him we live and move and have our being, as also certain of your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring.
d. The Simplicity of God.
This means that He is not composed of various parts, such as the body and soul and spirit of man. Therefore he is not subject to division.
The Three Persons of the Godhead are not so many parts of which the divine essence is composed. The whole Being of God belongs to each one of the divine Persons. There fore we can say God and His attributes are one, and that He is life, light, love, righteousness etc.
Note this Scripture
2Co_3:18 But we all, with our face having been unveiled, having beheld the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are being changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord Spirit.
are changed into the same image — namely, the image of Christ’s glory, spiritually now (Rom_8:29; 1Jo_3:3); an earnest of the bodily change hereafter (Phi_3:21). However many they be, believers all reflect the same image of Christ more or less: a proof of the truth of Christianity.
from glory to glory — from one degree of glory to another. As Moses’ face caught a reflection of God’s glory from being in His presence, so believers are changed into His image by beholding Him.
Keep Looking and searching diligently and you will be changed into His Likeness.
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