Attributes of God
“…the proper study of God’s elect is God; the proper study of a Christian is the Godhead.”
“Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the Deity.”
An attribute of God is something true of who God is, as he has shown himself in Scripture. Calvin said that true wisdom “consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” The Westminster Shorter Catechism sums up the attributes in one sentence: “God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.”
Incommunicable attributes
Qualities that belong to God alone. We can admire them, but we do not share them.
Self-Existence (Aseity)
God depends on nothing. He was not made, does not need anything to keep going, and has life in himself. Everything else exists because of him; he exists because he is God.
Scripture
- Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”
- John 5:26 For as the Father has life in himself, even so he gave to the Son also to have life in himself.
- Acts 17:24–25 The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands. He isn’t served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things.
- Romans 11:36 For of him, and through him, and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.
- Revelation 4:11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, the Holy One, to receive the glory, the honor, and the power, for you created all things, and because of your desire they existed, and were created!”
From the theologians
“The Bible everywhere teaches that God is an absolute Being, in the sense of being self-existent, necessary, independent, immutable, eternal, and without limitation or necessary relation to anything out of Himself.”
“There is but one First Cause that has its Being of itself, and on which all other beings depend.”
Immutability
God does not change. His character, his purposes and his promises stay the same from age to age, so the God who kept his word to Abraham is the same God we pray to today.
Scripture
- Malachi 3:6 “For I, Yahweh, don’t change; therefore you, sons of Jacob, are not consumed.
- James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, nor turning shadow.
- Psalm 102:26–27 They will perish, but you will endure. Yes, all of them will wear out like a garment. You will change them like a cloak, and they will be changed. But you are the same. Your years will have no end.
- Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good?
- Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
- Hebrews 6:17–18 In this way God, being determined to show more abundantly to the heirs of the promise the immutability of his counsel, interposed with an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have a strong encouragement, who have fled for refuge to take hold of the hope set before us.
From the theologians
“As an infinite and absolute Being, self-existent and absolutely independent, God is exalted above all the causes of and even above the possibility of change.”
“His essence shines with a fixed lustre.”
“Remember God is the same, whatever is removed. Your friends may be disaffected, your ministers may be taken away, every thing may change, but God does not.”
Eternity
God has no beginning and no end. He is not bound by time the way we are; every moment of history is present to him, and he will never grow old or pass away.
Scripture
- Psalm 90:2 Before the mountains were born, before you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.
- Psalm 90:4 For a thousand years in your sight are just like yesterday when it is past, like a watch in the night.
- Isaiah 57:15 For the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, says: “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite.
- 1 Timothy 1:17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
- Revelation 1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
- 2 Peter 3:8 But don’t forget this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
From the theologians
“As He is free from all the limitations of space, so He is exalted above all the limitations of time.”
“With Him duration is an eternal now.”
“It is proper to God only to be eternal, without beginning.”
Omnipresence
God is fully present everywhere at once. There is no place he is absent from and no place you can go to get away from him, which is a warning to the proud and a comfort to the lonely.
Scripture
- Psalm 139:7–10 Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your presence? If I ascend up into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there! If I take the wings of the dawn, and settle in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me.
- Jeremiah 23:23–24 “Am I a God at hand,” says Yahweh, “and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places so that I can’t see him?” says Yahweh. “Don’t I fill heaven and earth?” says Yahweh.
- 1 Kings 8:27 But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house that I have built!
- Acts 17:27–28 that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live, move, and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’
From the theologians
“He is equally present with all his creatures, at all times, and in all places. He is not far from any one of us.”
“Nor is this omnipresence to be understood as a mere presence in knowledge and power. It is an omnipresence of the divine essence.”
Unity
There is one God and only one. He has no rivals and no equals, which is why he alone is to be worshiped and trusted.
Scripture
- Deuteronomy 6:4 Hear, Israel: Yahweh is our God. Yahweh is one.
- Isaiah 44:6 This is what Yahweh, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Yahweh of Armies, says: “I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God.
- Isaiah 45:5 I am Yahweh, and there is no one else. Besides me, there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not known me,
- Mark 12:29 Jesus answered, “The greatest is, ‘Hear, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one:
- 1 Corinthians 8:6 yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we live through him.
- 1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
From the theologians
“There is but one only, the living and true God.”
“There can be but one God, because there is but one First Cause.”
“There is but one infinite Being, therefore there is but one God. There cannot be two infinites.”
Spirituality and Simplicity
God is spirit, not a body, so he cannot be pictured or contained. He is also not built out of parts: his love, justice and power are not pieces of him but all of who he is at once.
Scripture
- John 4:24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
- 1 Timothy 1:17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
- 1 Timothy 6:15–16 which in its own times he will show, who is the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings, and Lord of lords. He alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and eternal power. Amen.
- Luke 24:39 See my hands and my feet, that it is truly me. Touch me and see, for a spirit doesn’t have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.”
- Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
From the theologians
“By a spirit I mean, God is an immaterial substance, of a pure, subtile, unmixed essence, not compounded of body and soul, without all extension of parts.”
“All God's attributes are identical, and are the same with his essence. Though he has several attributes whereby he is made known to us, yet he has but one essence. A cedar tree may have several branches, yet it is but one cedar.”
Communicable attributes
Qualities God shares with us in a small, creaturely way, as people made in his image.
Omniscience
God knows everything: the past, the future, every hidden thought and every possibility. Nothing surprises him, and nothing about you is unknown to him.
Scripture
- Psalm 139:1–4 Yahweh, you have searched me, and you know me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but, behold, Yahweh, you know it altogether.
- Psalm 147:5 Great is our Lord, and mighty in power. His understanding is infinite.
- Isaiah 46:9–10 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is none like me. I declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done. I say: My counsel will stand, and I will do all that I please.
- Matthew 10:29–30 “Aren’t two sparrows sold for an assarion coin? Not one of them falls on the ground apart from your Father’s will, but the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
- Hebrews 4:13 There is no creature that is hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.
- 1 John 3:20 because if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.
From the theologians
“There is not the most subtle thought that comes into our mind, but God perceives it.”
“Thoughts speak as loud in God's ears as words do in ours.”
“God's knowledge is infallible; there is no mistake in his knowledge.”
Wisdom
God always chooses the best goals and the best ways to reach them. Even when his ways make no sense to us, they are never a mistake.
Scripture
- Romans 11:33 Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!
- Job 12:13 “With God is wisdom and might. He has counsel and understanding.
- Proverbs 3:19 By wisdom Yahweh founded the earth. By understanding, he established the heavens.
- Psalm 104:24 Yahweh, how many are your works! In wisdom, you have made them all. The earth is full of your riches.
- Colossians 2:3 in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.
- James 1:5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
From the theologians
“All the treasures of wisdom are locked up in him, and no creature can have any wisdom but as God is pleased to give it out of his treasury.”
“Was he wise when he constituted this mighty globe, when he laid the foundations of the universe?”
Omnipotence
God is all-powerful. He can do anything he wills, without strain or help. He cannot sin or deny himself, but that is perfection, not weakness.
Scripture
- Genesis 17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, Yahweh appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless.
- Genesis 18:14 Is anything too hard for Yahweh? At the set time I will return to you, when the season comes round, and Sarah will have a son.”
- Jeremiah 32:17 “Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for you.
- Matthew 19:26 Looking at them, Jesus said, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
- Ephesians 3:20 Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,
- Revelation 19:6 I heard something like the voice of a great multitude, and like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of mighty thunders, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns!
From the theologians
“We can do very little. God can do whatever He wills. We, beyond very narrow limits, must use means to accomplish our ends. With God means are unnecessary. He wills, and it is done.”
“It is certainly no limitation to perfection to say that it cannot be imperfect.”
“Though God can do all things, he cannot do that which stains the glory of his Godhead.”
Holiness
God is set apart from everything else, perfectly pure and completely free from evil. His holiness is why sin is serious and why worship begins with awe.
Scripture
- Isaiah 6:3 One called to another, and said, “Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh of Armies! The whole earth is full of his glory!”
- Leviticus 19:2 “Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘You shall be holy; for I, Yahweh your God, am holy.
- 1 Samuel 2:2 There is no one as holy as Yahweh, for there is no one besides you, nor is there any rock like our God.
- Habakkuk 1:13 You who have purer eyes than to see evil, and who cannot look on perversity, why do you tolerate those who deal treacherously, and keep silent when the wicked swallows up the man who is more righteous than he,
- 1 Peter 1:15–16 but just as he who called you is holy, you yourselves also be holy in all of your behavior; because it is written, “You shall be holy; for I am holy.”
- Revelation 4:8 The four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within. They have no rest day and night, saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come!”
From the theologians
“This is a general term for the moral excellence of God.”
“His power makes him mighty, his holiness makes him glorious.”
“God is holy intrinsically. He is holy in his nature; his very being is made up of holiness, as light is of the essence of the sun.”
Righteousness and Justice
God always does what is right. He judges fairly, never takes a bribe, and will not call evil good. At the cross his justice and his mercy meet.
Scripture
- Deuteronomy 32:4 The Rock: his work is perfect, for all his ways are just. A God of faithfulness who does no wrong, just and right is he.
- Genesis 18:25 May it be far from you to do things like that, to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be like the wicked. May that be far from you. Shouldn’t the Judge of all the earth do right?”
- Psalm 89:14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Loving kindness and truth go before your face.
- Psalm 19:9 The fear of Yahweh is clean, enduring forever. Yahweh’s ordinances are true, and righteous altogether.
- Romans 3:25–26 whom God sent to be an atoning sacrifice, through faith in his blood, for a demonstration of his righteousness through the passing over of prior sins, in God’s forbearance; to demonstrate his righteousness at this present time; that he might himself be just, and the justifier of him who has faith in Jesus.
- Revelation 15:3 They sang the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God, the Almighty! Righteous and true are your ways, you King of the nations.
From the theologians
“God's justice is the rectitude of his nature, whereby he is carried to the doing of that which is righteous and equal.”
“God cannot but be just. His holiness is the cause of his justice.”
“They also know, intuitively, that God is just as well as holy; and, therefore, that his moral perfection calls for the punishment of sin, by the same necessity by which He disapproves of and hates it.”
Goodness and Love
God is good, and everything he gives is good. Above all, he is love: he gives himself freely for the good of others, most clearly in sending his Son.
Scripture
- 1 John 4:8–10 He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love. By this God’s love was revealed in us, that God has sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
- John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
- Romans 5:8 But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
- Psalm 145:9 Yahweh is good to all. His tender mercies are over all his works.
- Psalm 34:8 Oh taste and see that Yahweh is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
From the theologians
“Goodness, in the Scriptural sense of the term, includes benevolence, love, mercy, and grace.”
“We must believe that God is love in the sense in which that word comes home to every human heart.”
“Your brethren may change and cast out your name as vile: but God will love you still.”
Mercy and Grace
Mercy is God's compassion on people in misery; grace is his kindness to people who deserve the opposite. Salvation is all of grace, given and not earned.
Scripture
- Exodus 34:6–7 Yahweh passed by before him, and proclaimed, “Yahweh! Yahweh, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth, keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and disobedience and sin; and who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the children’s children, on the third and on the fourth generation.”
- Lamentations 3:22–23 It is because of Yahweh’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassion doesn’t fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
- Micah 7:18 Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity, and passes over the disobedience of the remnant of his heritage? He doesn’t retain his anger forever, because he delights in loving kindness.
- Psalm 103:8 Yahweh is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness.
- Ephesians 2:4–5 But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
- Ephesians 2:8–9 for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, that no one would boast.
From the theologians
“Mercy is kindness exercised towards the miserable, and includes pity, compassion, forbearance, and gentleness, which the Scriptures so abundantly ascribe to God. Grace is love exercised towards the unworthy.”
“God is more inclinable to mercy than wrath.”
“Mercy sweetens all God's other attributes.”
Faithfulness and Truth
God never lies and never breaks a promise. What he says is true, and what he promises he will do, so his word can be trusted completely.
Scripture
- Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good?
- Deuteronomy 7:9 Know therefore that Yahweh your God himself is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness with them who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations,
- 1 Kings 8:56 “Blessed be Yahweh, who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised. There has not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by Moses his servant.
- John 17:17 Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth.
- 2 Timothy 2:13 If we are faithless, he remains faithful; for he can’t deny himself.”
- Titus 1:2 in hope of eternal life, which God, who can’t lie, promised before time began;
- Hebrews 10:23 let’s hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering; for he who promised is faithful.
From the theologians
“His promise cannot fail; his word never disappoints.”
“The truth of God, therefore, is the foundation of all religion.”
“The promise is God's bond; God's truth is the seal set to his bond.”
“He often does more than he has said, never less.”
Sovereignty
God rules over all things. Nothing happens outside his control, and no one can overturn his plans, yet he rules with perfect wisdom and goodness.
Scripture
- Psalm 115:3 But our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases.
- Psalm 103:19 Yahweh has established his throne in the heavens. His kingdom rules over all.
- Daniel 4:35 All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; and he does according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and no one can stop his hand, or ask him, “What are you doing?”
- Proverbs 16:9 A man’s heart plans his course, but Yahweh directs his steps.
- Ephesians 1:11 We were also assigned an inheritance in him, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who does all things after the counsel of his will,
- 1 Timothy 6:15 which in its own times he will show, who is the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings, and Lord of lords.
From the theologians
“Sovereignty is not a property of the divine nature, but a prerogative arising out of the perfections of the Supreme Being.”
“Infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, with the right of possession, which belongs to God in all his creatures, are the immutable foundation of his dominion.”
Sources
Every quotation is word for word from a public-domain text. Definitions are our own.
World English Bible (WEB)
All Scripture on this page. The WEB is public domain, with no copyright.
C. H. Spurgeon, “The Immutability of God,” Sermon No. 1 (January 7, 1855), New Park Street Pulpit
Spurgeon (1834–1892). Preached and printed in 1855, public domain. Quoted from the original text in CCEL’s Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol. 1.
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (1871)
Hodge (1797–1878). First published 1871–1873 in New York, public domain. Part I, Chapter V, “Nature and Attributes of God.”
Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity (1692)
Watson (c. 1620–1686). Sermons on the Westminster Shorter Catechism, published after his death in 1692, public domain; CCEL marks the text Public Domain.
Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647)
Questions 4 and 5, quoted as printed in Watson’s Body of Divinity. Public domain.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, tr. Henry Beveridge (1845)
Calvin (1509–1564); Beveridge’s English translation was published in Edinburgh in 1845, public domain; CCEL marks the text Public Domain.