Four Core Characteristics of God

Last updated on: November 2, 2017 at 2:52 pm by Jack Wellman

Four Core Characteristics of God 2017-11-02T14:52:54-05:00 Jack Wellman

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Here are four major attributes or characteristics of God.

Holiness

One characteristic of God is that He cannot dwell with or be in the presence of sin. After the fall, God’s fellowship with mankind was severed. That’s because God cannot even look upon sin as sin is against the very nature of God. This may explain why God had to turn away from even from His own Son at the cross when Jesus cried out, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Matt 27:46)? Since Jesus bore the sins of mankind, God the Father could not look upon Him. That explains the three hours of darkness during Jesus’ last hours. This was the first time in all eternity that the Father and the Son had been separated, so how agonizing that must have been for both of them. Since Jesus had taken upon the sins of humanity, it makes sense that this is the only time where Jesus called God, “My God, My God” and not, “My Father, My father.” For a brief moment in time, Jesus was separated from the Father by our sins as He bore them on the cross. That’s when and why the Father turned away. Psalm 22:1 was a Messianic prophecy about Calvary, where he wrote, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me?” On the cross, God was “so far from helping [Him].” God distances Himself from the presence of sin, and that reveals perhaps His greatest attribute of all. He is “holy, holy, holy” (Isaiah 6:3). In Jewish literature, repeating something three times is the greatest emphasis possible. To repeat something twice in the same sentence is of supreme importance in itself as God calls out only a select few by calling their name out twice: Abraham, Abraham; Saul, Saul; Peter, Peter; and so on. To three-peat something shows that it’s of the uttermost importance.

Goodness

What does the creation tell me about God and His character? It tells me that whatever He wills, that He does. He only needs to speak and it is done! God said that His creation was good, and that means it was perfect. Why? In Mark 10:17 a young rich man came up to Jesus and said, “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” What Jesus sees as good He equates with godliness as He responds by saying, “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone” (Mk 10:18). Of course, Jesus was God too, but the young man didn’t know to whom he was speaking, so this is why Jesus said that only God is good, so what He creates is also good. This is why after God had created the heavens and the earth, He said “It was good,” and whatever is repeated in the Bible indicates the supreme importance of it, and the phrase “And God saw that it was good” is repeated 5 times. Another characteristic of God is found in Genesis 1-3 where we read that God is holy, pure, and perfect; therefore, everything God created reflected part of His character as it was “good.” The creation was good because God is good, just as Jesus had said in Mark 10.

Fellowshipping

Yet another characteristic of God is that He is desires fellowship with us, just like the fellowship that existed before the creation where the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit had perfect relationships and fellowship with one another. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are always in perfect harmony, fellowship, and in relationship with One Another. God is a personal God and seeks to dwell with us, and even though He is both transcendent and immanent, He desires to dwell with His own children. He is altogether holy and transcendent, being above all things but He still walks with those who are like Enoch who walked with God “and was no more” (Gen 5:24). God walked in the Garden with mankind just after creation (Gen 3:8), but once sin entered, God could no longer walk or be present or dwell with mankind in the same way. John 1:14 says that “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us,” which is better rendered “to have one’s tabernacle, abide (or live) in a tabernacle (or tent), tabernacle.” [1] Strong’s concordance says the Greek (G4637) σκηνόω (skēnoō) (dwelt) is used only 5 times in the New Testament, including John 1:14, and interestingly, the other four times are found in the Book of Revelation. John writes, “Rejoice then, you heavens and those who dwell (tabernacle) in them” (Rev 12:12), and “It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell (tabernacle) in heaven” (Rev 13:6). In Revelation 21:3 it says, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell (tabernacle) with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them.” In every case, order has been restored, sin has been dwelt with, and God is able to dwell (tabernacle) with the redeemed. At that time, the creation is restored, and God can again dwell where the corruption of sin has not tainted it.

Order

A final characteristic of God is that the creation reveals that God creates in perfect harmony and symmetry. God is a God of order and not of chaos (1st Cor 14:33). This is the theme of the book, The Privileged Planet, by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards (Regnery Publishing, 2004). The perfection and precision of God’s creation is plainly known to science. If the moon were any closer or further away…if the earth’s axis were not exactly where it is, and other such scientific observations reveal that life on earth could not exist as we know it if our sun were a bit larger, our planet was a bit closer (or further) from the sun, the moon was positioned at a greater distance, and other such observations. The false idea that this life on earth was completely due to blind chance is so astronomically impossible that mathematicians cannot even comprehend the odds or they are so great that you can’t even wrap your mind around it. This symmetry of the universe reflects God’s nature in the beauty of the creation, and a beauty that we can only imagine in our mind’s eye. There is proportional balance and beauty that necessarily arose from the perfect handiwork of God. The heavens declare the glory of the work of His hands. The psalmist wrote, “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). They do tell about God and they are telling about His glory. The creation is indicative that God should be glorified and mankind’s proper response should be to live a holy life worthy of His creating us, and that He is most worthy to be worshiped, and the Bible says that He seeks those who would worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24).

Conclusion

God has many attributes, but I believe His greatest attribute is that He is holy. The only attribute of God that is mentioned three times, which is the highest form of emphasis in Jewish literary form, is that God is “Holy, holy, holy.” It doesn’t say God is love, love, love, although He is love…it doesn’t say He is merciful, merciful, merciful, although this is true, but rather it says, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 6:3).

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is a writer at Christian Quotes and also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.

1 Sowing Circle Ministries. Blue Letter Bible. http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon. cfm?Strongs=G4637&t=KJV. (Accessed Oct 25th, 2014).

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