In systematic theology we usually speak of the incommunicable attributes of God (such as his immutability and transcendence) and also of his communicable attributes.
The incommunicable attributes belong only to Him. On the other hand, when we speak of His communicable attributes, we do not mean that He is going to pass on that attribute to us as He has it, but that He can somehow form that attribute in us.
What are those communicable attributes and how to understand them biblically?
God’s holiness
God cannot even partially give me an incommunicable attribute, such as omnipresence. He’s the only one with that. But He can sanctify, though not totally as He is perfectly, for He alone is “holy, holy, holy” (Isaiah 6).
If we are believers, God is sanctifying us. The word holy, in its best sense, means set apart and free from corruption. God is a being set apart from the rest of creation in his holiness, and he has set us apart for himself as his children. On the other hand, He is free from corruption and is cleansing us from corruption.
This is how, to a certain extent, He can transmit his holiness to us and that is why we speak of this attribute as communicable.
God’s faithfulness
There is a part of God’s faithfulness that He is forming in us, even though we are not totally faithful like Him. Nothing can change the Lord’s faithfulness. As 2 Timothy 2:13 says: “If we are unfaithful, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.”
For example, we see in the Bible how God makes a promise to Abraham and He has in his essence an impossibility of breaking that promise. We can try to keep our promises, but we often fail. Just as there is fidelity in us, in the same way but taken to the last exponents is God’s fidelity, and his promise depends on his generous character. Therefore, they are irrevocable, as Romans 11:29 says.
If God were to take back a call He made to you, He wouldn’t have done it to you in the first place. God’s promises are forever. This is not to say that He does not discipline us and that he cannot remove me from a position, since in Romans 11:29 Paul is referring specifically to the salvation that we will never lose. This means that He is always faithful.
God’s love
The Bible not only tells us that God loves; also tells us that he it is love (1 Jn. 4:8). When we talk about God loving, perhaps we can think that he can love us now and not tomorrow. But when the Word says that God is love, it means that He is going to love me forever because when He is something, He is always that.
When we talk about God being love we have to understand some important things:
- God’s love is not influenced: When I misbehave and disobey Him, He loves me no less, because in that case I could manipulate God’s love. He may not bless me the same, but he is loving me the same. We cannot make various love of God because He does not depend on what we are (Dt. 7:7-8).
- God’s love is eternal: The degree of love that God has for me today, after being his son, is the same that he had for me since before he created me because I existed in his mind and his love has not changed from eternity (Jer. 31:3) .
- God’s love is attractive: Because of our sinfulness, God’s love is not attractive to us at first sight, but it attracts us and leads us to live for Him when we are believers (Jer. 31:3).
- God’s love is giving and sacrificial: God so loved the world that he gave his Son for us when we were his enemies (Jn. 3:16, Ro. 5:8).
- God’s love is sovereign: As Romans 9:13 teaches, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
Regarding the latter, it is important to clarify that if God is love and sovereign, then his love is sovereign. If God is infinite and is love, then his love is infinite, because once he is something, he is that through all of his being. So if He is sovereign, He loves sovereignly.
Why did he love Jacob and hate Esau? It is difficult for us to understand, but it is in the Bible. As Spurgeon said: “I understand why God hated Esau; what I don’t understand is why she loved Jacob.” The amazing thing is that God loves us.
God’s mercy
The word mercy in Hebrew is rachamwhich means to have compassion. Another word used in the Bible is Chesed meaning goodness or benevolence, sometimes translated blessing. In Greek, the word used is eleemonwhich means to have compassion.
When God wanted to present his love, he used such words in Hebrew: “Then the Lord passed before him and proclaimed: ‘The Lord, the Lord, God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in mercy and truth’” ( Ex 34:6).
It is the same thing that God says to Moses when he gives his commandments in Exodus 20. There God speaks that He visits the iniquity of the fathers up to the third and fourth generation. In that same context, he claims to be abundant in mercy to those who love him, so this gives us a contrast between his justice and his abundant mercy.
One of the things that makes me gain more weight about my sin is thinking that an infinitely merciful God dares to send individuals to hell because they sinned. Surely sin must be something infinitely horrendous to God.
God’s justice
God is just, unable to judge improperly (Ps. 11:7; 145:17; 92:13). Although He might judge one one way and another another (according to his sins in light of what they had known of Him), at the end of the equation all have been judged evenly.
For example, suppose a man grew up in an evangelical home and is now a pastor, and another girl grew up in an immoral home and turned to prostitution. Then she knows the gospel and got out of prostitution a month ago. Now she, shortly after her marriage, accidentally commits adultery on the same day that the pastor commits adultery.
The pastor will be judged more severely than she. They both committed the same sin, but they are judged differently because they have different backgrounds. To whom more is given, more is required. There is nothing more unequal than treating those who are not the same. Nevertheless, in everything God maintains his justice and righteousness.
In light of what we have seen so far about God’s justice and mercy, let us remember Micah 6:8: “He has declared to you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you, but only to practice justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God? God calls us not only to do justice and mercy, but also to love those things.
The God’s anger
His wrath is his absolute rejection of sin. It is about the just execution of justice from him. God does not have a voluptuous and emotional anger like we do.
Romans 1:18 talks about how the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all impiety and injustice of those who suppress the truth. Anyone who knows the truth and does not teach it is suppressing it, and that deserves the wrath of God. In verse 21, Paul adds that man, having known God, did not acknowledge him as God, nor did he thank him. That is an injustice, and that is why God’s wrath on the sinner is totally just.
John 3:36 is crucial when we talk about the subject: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. When you did not believe in God, you had his wrath on you as a consequence of your sin. But when we believe, we know that our wrath was applied on the cross, to the life of Christ. It is removed from us and we no longer have to receive it. This is at the heart of the gospel (Rom. 3:23-26).
As we saw at the beginning, we do not possess these attributes to the same extent as God. Therefore, let us pray that the Lord will make us more like Him every day, for His glory.