It is hard to speak of any of the divine Persons worthily, since they transcend the world and tax the powers of reason. Yet it is easier to speak of Father and Son, if only because of the familiar family imagery employed in these designations. The Spirit, however, presents a unique challenge to speech. How does one render that reality that is wind, fire, breath, life—tangible yet intangible, invisible yet powerful, inexpressible yet intimate, powerful yet gentle, reliable yet unpredictable, personal yet impersonal, transcendent yet immanent?
Attributes of God
Chris Cruz
I realized fear is uncertainty in the nature of God. It’s our Father’s good pleasure to take care of his children… when we lack confidence in who God is, we lack the confidence to overcome fear. The courage to follow God’s invitation, and to trust in his nature, will always feel like a sacrifice at first. The apostle Paul actually tells the Corinthian church, “We who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be made manifested in our mortal flesh. So, death works in us, but life in you,” 2 Corinthians 4:10–12.) NASB He’s telling them there are parts of Christ that will never be formed an ass unless we are willing to sacrifice.
R. C. Sproul
God is not made up of parts. It’s not like God is one part sovereignty, one part justice, one part immutability, one part omniscience, one part eternality, one part love. God is His attributes at all times.To understand any single attribute of God, you must understand that attribute as it relates and connects with all the other attributes of God. For example, the love of God is eternal. The love of God is sovereign. The love of God is immutable, the love of God is holy. God’s justice is a loving justice. His Holiness is a loving holiness and His omniscience is a loving omniscience, just as his love is an omniscient love. And so, the danger we must guard against is extrapolating love from all of the rest of God’s attributes, as if it stood alone.
Darlene Cunningham
God is not only infinite, but personal, having an intellect, will and emotions. He created us (humankind), though we are finite, in His image as personal beings. This means that we are capable of communication and relationship with God. He created us to KNOW HIM!! Yet it will take our whole lifetimes plus all of eternity to understand not even one-zillionth of one percent of who our great God is!
David Joel Hamilton
These – and many other words – are used to describe God’s great communication skills. He answers, asks, assures, calls, commands, declares, directs, explains, instructs, mentions, orders, promises, replies, responds, reveals, says, speaks, swears, tells, warns, etc. All told, God’s great ability to communicate is mentioned nearly 3000 times in the Bible! No one communicates more abundantly than God. But are we listening? Are our radios tuned in? Do we need to posture ourselves, like Samuel, to hear with a servant’s heart?
Samuel Logan Brengle
Oh, there are unspeakable breadths, and lengths, and depths, and heights of the love of God for you to revel in and discover by the telescope and microscope of faith! Glory to God! You need not fear that the experience will wear out or grow tame. God is infinite, and your little mind and heart cannot exhaust the wonders of His wisdom and goodness and grace and glory in one short lifetime.
Joy Dawson
We would be still and know that You are God…. We stand in awe of You…, Your awesome holiness, majestic splendour, blazing glory, limitless power, and unquestionable sovereignty. We worship You for Your flawless character, Your infinite knowledge and wisdom, Your absolute justice, unswerving faithfulness, unending mercy…. We bow our hearts and bend our knees before… Your dazzling beauty, Your fascinating personality, Your incomprehensible humility, Your unsearchable understanding, and Your unfathomable love….Our greatest need is to have a far greater revelation of what You are really like. We ask You to meet that need.
Herman Bavinck
For it is not we who call God by these names. We do not invent them. On the contrary, if it depended on us, we would be silent about Him, try to forget Him, and disown all His names. We take no delight in the knowledge of His ways. We tend continually to oppose His names: His independence, sovereignty, righteousness, and love, and resist Him in all His perfections. But it is God himself who reveals all His perfections and puts His names on our lips. It is He who gives Himself these names and who, despite our opposition, maintains them. It is of little use to us to deny His righteousness: every day He demonstrates this quality in history. And so it is with all His attributes. He brings them out despite us. The final goal of all His ways is that His name will shine out in all His works and be written on everyone’s forehead (Rev. 22:4). For that reason we have no choice but to name Him with the many names His revelation furnishes us.
Wayne A Grudem
It is not just that we exist and God has always existed, it is also that God necessarily exists in an infinitely better, stronger, more excellent way. The difference between God’s being and ours is more than the difference between the sun and a candle, more than the difference between the ocean and a raindrop… God’s being is qualitatively different.
Kris Vallotton
God… lives outside the laws of physics, and… is omnipresent everywhere at once, working through different gifts and various people all at the same time. The truth is that God could be having an intimate conversation with you while He is correcting me, rejoicing with someone who just got saved, and being angry with a murderer who took the life of someone—all at the same time! God can have a personal relationship with 7.7 billion people on the planet, carry on a conversation with all of them at the same time and still have the bandwidth to create another universe . . . all simultaneously. God is not human; He is God.