What is an Attribute of God?
Dr. John Snyder is the pastor of Christ Church New Albany, director of Media Gratiae, and author of multiple multimedia Bible studies including the Behold Your God series and Media Gratiae’s newest release: Living with the True God: Lessons from Judges.
This winter, we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of Behold Your God: Rethinking God Biblically and the birth of this ministry. As we prepare a book containing the sermons from this series and release never-before-seen interview footage on The Whole Counsel podcast, we are sharing portions of the workbook component of Rethinking God Biblically.
If you have done this study before, may it remind you that there is no end to the adventure of knowing God; if you have not done this study, may these words entice you to a deeper walk with Him.
1.An attribute is something that God has revealed to be true about Himself. This is not a truth that we discover on our own.
What is an attribute of God? We do not use that word very often, but it is an important word. A. W. Tozer wrote in The Knowledge of the Holy, “An attribute of God is whatever God has in any way revealed as being true of Himself.”
1. An attribute is something that God has revealed to be true about Himself. This is not a truth that we discover on our own.
2. An attribute is something that is essentially true of God.
2. An attribute is something that is essentially true of God.
It is who He is, not merely how He acts; therefore, He never needs to maintain it. This is a crucial truth that we often misunderstand because we think of these descriptions of God in the same way that we think of descriptions of people.
Think of it this way: We are human. Good days and bad days . . . we wake up as humans. We live all day as humans. We do not have to try to be human or to maintain our humanity. Human is what we essentially are, not merely how we act. We may act as a kind human or an impatient human. We may be a thoughtful human or a cruel human. But none of that changes the reality that human is a description of something that is unchangeable and essential about us. If we stopped being human, we would have to stop existing. It would no longer be us anymore. It would be something different, something non-human.
God is who He is. Whatever is true of God’s character is part of who He is. For example, think about His omnipotence (the possession of all-power). He never has to start the day by trying to make Himself all-powerful. He does not have to work at remaining all-powerful even after the passing of ten thousand years. It is who He is. He is God Almighty. This is one of His attributes. It is one aspect essential to His deity. If He were not all-powerful, He would not be who He is—He would not be the person that the Bible reveals to us as God.
3. An attribute is something that is in perfect harmony with all other attributes.
3. An attribute is something that is in perfect harmony with all other attributes.
God, unlike us, is not divided. He is perfect unity. There can be no division or conflict within God. Every attribute is in perfect harmony with every other attribute. His love is never at odds with His wrath. His justice and His mercy walk together. Furthermore, every attribute of God influences all other attributes. If He is all-powerful, then His wrath is all-powerful. We are faced with a dazzling reality while studying God’s attributes: They converge and form a multifaceted divine diamond. No matter how we turn these truths in front of our mind’s eye, there is always more splendor to behold.