Last week, we covered the incommunicable attributes of God: those attributes that only God has and separate Him from us. However, God is not so separate from us that He does not share with us some of His attributes. As men and women made in the image of God, there are certain characteristics that we share with Him. Much like a child resembles his father in certain traits or characteristics such as eye color, nose shape, personality, or love of hamburgers, so there are traits and characteristics that God gives to His creation. We must remember that even in these communicable attributes that there is still a level of incommunicability that comes along with them. While we might share love, kindness, and justice with God, the level that we possess them is miniscule to that of God. He is infinite and perfect in these qualities and we are finite and feeble in them. As a regenerate Christian, these are the attributes that we continue to grow in until the day of our glorification. These are what continue to chip off the stone of our old heart and mold us more into the image of Christ.
1. Holiness
Isaiah 6:1-5 “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
When the Bible repeats a word or phrase, it is done to imply emphasis. It tells us that whatever follows is extremely important. When Jesus said “Truly, truly, I say unto you…” He wanted to make it very clear that whoever believed on Him would have eternal life and not come into judgment (John 5:24). Similarly here, we see the angels crying out “holy, holy, holy.” Not just twice, but thrice is God holy. The holiness of God means that He is transcendently separate from us. This does not mean however that believers do not have holiness. The pursuit of holiness is the essence of our sanctification– the part of our salvation that occurs after justification in which we grow closer and closer towards Christ and away from our sin.
2. Truth
Genesis 1:27–30 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
In a world where many people believe that truth is whatever you make it, these verses are comforting for Christians. The fact of the matter is that the truth is the truth whether you think so or not. If one were to receive news from a doctor that they had a fatal disease and respond with the words “that is not my truth” it would not change the fact that they do in fact have a fatal disease. Unfortunately, this is how many of us go about our lives with the fatal disease of sin.
So what is the truth? John 14:6 makes it very clear: God Himself is the objective truth. The Creator of all things is the One who determines what is true and what is not. This applies to all of His creatures whether they submit to it or they do not submit to it. God has however created those creatures (humans) in His own image. We as humans being made in the image of God have the ability to discern truth if God so grants it to us. The truth of God is known to all, but many suppress this truth because they do not want to submit to a higher authority than themselves (Romans 1:18).
3. Grace and Mercy
Luke 6:36 “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”
Grace is defined as being given something that you do not deserve. Mercy is defined as being spared from something that you do deserve. God’s grace and mercy towards all human beings is evident in the fact that we live and breathe from day to day. None of us deserve this, it is a free gift of life God has given to all humans. However, God’s grace towards His elect is that He grants them salvation: a gift of eternal life that they could never earn or deserve (John 3:16). God’s mercy towards His elect is that He spares them from what they do deserve: an eternal torment and separation from God’s face in hell (Luke 16:22-23).
God has given His creatures the ability to show grace and mercy to other human beings, and He commands it of His children as seen in this verse. Our ability to forgive and show grace and mercy is based on our understanding of what we have been forgiven of. My Father has forgiven me of a life of rebellion to Him and saved me from my sin. How can I possibly look to anyone and hold a grudge with them?
4. Love
1 John 4:7–11 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
As this verse explains, love is not something that God has as much as it is what He is. As the sun is light and therefore all things that have light are from the sun, so God is with love. This verse also makes clear that we do love God on our own. We can not muster up enough strength to love God out of our own autonomy. It’s impossible because of our fallenness (Psalm 53: 1-3). Therefore, if we love God, it is because He has first placed His salvific love upon us. If we have been given this love, it is an imperative that we love our neighbor with that love. If we do not, it is clear that that love was not in us to begin with.
5. Wisdom
Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; and knowledge of the holy One is understanding.”
We know that God is all-knowing from the previous article on His incommunicable attributes. All wisdom comes from God and He has given His creatures the ability to gain wisdom. In other words, He did not create robots that lack the ability to learn. Godly wisdom begins with a fear of the LORD. This must be the basis for all wisdom if God is the only source of true wisdom. In the third chapter of James, he contrasts two different wisdoms: worldly wisdom and spiritual wisdom. Worldly wisdom is characterized by jealousy and selfish ambition. This is the wisdom of the spiritual forces against God and His word. Godly wisdom, on the other hand, is marked by humility, meekness, mercy, and sincerity. Worldly wisdom is at enmity with God (Romans 8:7) but godly wisdom comes from the reverence and awe of God and a loving delight in Him and His commands.
6. Justice
Deuteronomy 32:4 “The Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is He.”
To be just is to be aligned in word and deed in what is morally correct. God is the ultimate standard of all morals, and because He cannot contradict Himself or lie, He is therefore perfectly just in all His ways. This also means that God is a perfectly just judge: He has given us the law and we have broken it. Therefore, He must punish our sin. This will either be through punishing us in hell or through punishing His son on our behalf. He makes His people right with Him again through the punishment of Christ and His death, burial, and resurrection.
God has also established the family, the church, and the civil magistrate to execute justice within their respective spheres. The family’s head is the father as the wife willingly submits and supports him as his helpmate (Ephesians 5). It is the source of provision, support, inheritance, health, and education. It has been given the rod as its means of discipline. The church’s head is Christ Himself. He appoints male leaders to the church to oversee it called pastors (or elders or overseers) and deacons (1 Timothy 3). The primary purpose of the church is to preach, protect, and promote the word of God. This comes through preaching of the pastors, administration of the sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s Supper), and the continual pursuit to fulfill the Great Commission. It has been given to the key as the means of discipline (see Matthew 18:15-17). Finally, the civil magistrate is to be the servant of God with the primary purpose of carrying out God’s justice on lawbreakers and thus protecting the citizens within that state (Romans 13). The civil magistrate has been given the sword as its means of discipline. All of these spheres serve the ultimate purpose of the glory and service of Christ while also establishing jurisdictions of authority (justice) in society. When they are dissected from those purposes, we clearly see the brokenness that follows society.
While this list is not exhaustive of God’s communicable attributes, it does cover some of the major attributes God shares with us. I pray that it edifies you and helps you in your study of God and His word.