The Names of God

AN ESSAY BY Daniel J. Ebert IV

DEFINITION

God’s names refer to the appellations, titles, and metaphors by which God reveals himself in his relationship to people. God’s names appear as the LORD discloses himself to Israel; this revelation culminates in the gospel that is for all people as God’s name unfolds to include Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

SUMMARY

Divine names in the Bible are integral to God’s self-revelation. They are best studied along the Bible’s storyline using appropriate interpretive principles. God’s primary names, with many additional designations, are initially revealed in the Old Testament. The Bible also makes explicit statements about God’s names; this is particularly true of His personal name YHWH (Yahweh), typically translated as “the Lord.” These names and their functions reveal God’s nature and teach Israel about their relationship to him. As God intervenes in history, he reveals more and more about his name. When God acts in Christ, it is the God named in the Old Testament who is at work. This can be seen by the names used, especially in the identification of God by his name “the Lord.” This name passes into the New Testament through the Greek Old Testament’s translation of YHWH as Kyrios (the Greek for “Lord”). With the coming of the gospel, something new is revealed about God’s identity: Jesus Christ is included in his name, along with the Holy Spirit. The Bible teaches the Church how all people, Jews and Gentiles, can be related to the God whose name and identity is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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Introduction

A name reveals one’s identity. Divine names in the Bible are integral to knowing God’s identity. Who is God? And what is he like? Knowing God as he is named in Scripture enables us to trust him and to be faithful to the church’s global mission for the glory of his name.

Principles for Studying God’s Names

There are important methodological considerations for studying God’s names. First, we should pay attention to what the Scriptures explicitly say about God’s names. For example, God explains his name to Moses (Exod. 3); and in the New Testament we are told that Jesus is given the name above every name (Phil. 2:9–11).

Linguistic principles should guide the interpretation of God’s names. Along with attention to context, we should use etymology with caution. It is safest to proceed here when the Bible does. For example, Scripture unpacks the meaning of YHWH (Exod. 3:15) and the meaning of Jesus’ name (Matt. 1:21).

We should observe what God reveals about his name. The Lord reveals himself first as El Shaddai and later more fully as YHWH (Exod. 6:2-5). Nevertheless, it is the same God. YHWH tells Moses that he is the God who made a covenant with the patriarchs (Exod. 3:15). In the New Testament God reveals his name to include the Son and the Spirit (Matt 28:20). But this one God is still the God of the patriarchs (Matt. 22:32).

Finally, we should note what the Bible does not say about divine names. The Scriptures never teach Israel to use God’s name as an amulet or magical formula. Likewise, despite the deference for God’s name, the Bible never tells us not to pronounce or say his name.[1]

Naming God in the Old Testament

God’s Names

The most common Hebrew names for God are YHWH (Yahweh), Elohim, and Adonay. There are many compound forms of Yahweh, especially Yahweh Sabaoth (“Lord of Hosts”), and cognates of Elohim, such as Eloah, and El with its compound forms, especially El-Shaddai. There are titles such as King, Creator, Father, Holy One, Redeemer, and Rock. These names, with their varied combinations, and many other designations deserve attention. This essay only highlights a few of them.

What the Names of God Reveal

El, Eloah, and the plural of majesty Elohim occur over 2500 times. These cognates are the basic Hebrew words for deity, much like “God” in English or theos in Greek. What gives shape to the divine identity is not generic titles, but the words, works, and ways of God. Allah, for example, the Arabic word for God in the Qur’an and Islamic tradition has a particular meaning, but the same designation has a different significance when used by Arabic speaking Christians. Through God’s actions his names take on their unique meaning.

YHWH permeates the Old Testament (6828 times). It also indirectly saturates the New Testament. YHWH can suggest abstract truths, such as God’s self-existence, since YHWH comes from a Hebrew word that means “to be” (Exod. 3:14). But in its biblical context, this name teaches that God is personal, present, and faithful. YHWH is God’s covenant name (Exod. 6:2–8). When Israel fails to be obedient, it is YHWH who promises a new covenant (Jer. 31:31–34).

Other divine names tend to cluster around this name. “Lord of Hosts” (286 times) nearly always occurs with YHWH. King David’s influence increased because “the LORD, the God of hosts, was with him” (2Sam. 5:10). The Hebrew reads YHWH Elohim Sabaoth. The term “hosts” refers to God’s armies, including angelic forces and the armies of Israel. YHWH is king, a warrior with sovereign power. The title Adon also indicates God’s rule; the plural form Adonay (456 times) is especially important, not least because of later Jewish usage.

Later the Jews would no longer pronounce YHWH, preferring to say Adonay or Hashem (“the name”). However, the non-pronunciation of God’s name developed late. Earlier, the Levites pronounced it in blessings (Num. 6:24–27). The people remembered the name (Exod. 20:24; 23:13) and swore proper oaths by it (Deut. 6:13). The Psalms confirm that YHWH was pronounced: it is to be declared (Psa. 22:22), blessed (Psa. 100:4), sung, praised and exalted (Psa. 66:2; 7:18).[2] God desired intimacy and he intended for his name, though holy, to be a source of revelation and blessing.

God’s designation as Father captures this intimacy. God identifies Israel as his son signifying their covenantal relationship (Exod. 4:22–23). Israel’s failure to be faithful, therefore, is particularly pitiful (Hos. 11:1–4). There is a mournful confession of God as Father toward the end of Isaiah (63:16–17).

When God makes his name to dwell in a place, God’s presence is there (Deut. 12:5). His name stands for himself.[3] When God’s name is placed on an entity this marks his ownership. God’s name is placed on the ark (2Sam. 6:2), the temple (1Kgs. 8:43), Jerusalem (Jer. 25:29), and most importantly on his elect people (Num. 6:27).

Response of God’s People to His Name

The Lord chose to glorify his name by proclaiming it over his people (1Sam. 12:22). They, in turn, were to represent him in the world (Psa. 29). The Lord prohibited his people from taking his name in vain (Exod. 20:7); that is, they were not to bear his name improperly. Their mission was to carry YHWH’s name as his emissaries.[4]

But Israel failed. So, the prophets began to point to a time when God would redeem his people and extend the glory of his name (Ezek. 36:20–23). God would reveal more about his name. His people would be called by a new name (Isa. 62:2) and even the nations would bear YHWH’s name (Amos 9:11–12).

Naming God in the New Testament

As God revealed himself in each new situation, Israel learned more about the Lord. This revelation reached full blossom with the unveiling of God’s glory in Christ (2Cor. 4:6). Here in “the name that is above every name” (Phil. 2:9) God’s loving nature is most fully revealed.

Naming the Same God

The New Testament’s naming of God involves both continuity and discontinuity. The God who spoke to the patriarchs has now spoken in his Son (Heb. 1:1–2). The New Testament divine names confirm this continuity. They generally reflect prior translation into Greek. “Lord Almighty” provides an example (2Cor. 6:18, citing 2Sam. 7:8) – a translation of the Greek name Kyrios Pantokrator. This title came from the Greek Old Testament that used this expression to translate the Hebrew YHWH Sabaoth and YHWH El Shaddai.

The few Hebrew or Aramaic names that come directly into the New Testament also exemplify this continuity. On the cross Jesus cried in his mother tongue, “Eli, Eli!” (Matt 27:46). Matthew translates this into Greek as theos mou, theos mou (“my God, my God”). Jesus is quoting Psalm 22 where El and Elohim each occur once, and YHWH seven times. This illustrates the obvious: when the New Testament uses the Greek theos (1235 times), the reference is to the God of Israel.

Naming the Same God as Triune

But now there is something radically new about the naming of God: Jesus, God’s Son, participates in God’s name and identity. The New Testament divine names confirm this.

Jews were in the habit of pronouncing Adonai when they came to the name YHWH. So, before Christ, the Greek Old Testament had translated YHWH as kyrios (the Greek for Adonai). Thus, YHWH came into the New Testament as kyrios, where it is used of God the Father about one hundred times. But it is also used, over seven hundred times, with reference to Jesus (Acts 2:36; John 20:28).

Some of these references are Old Testament quotations containing YHWH – only now these texts are applied to Christ. There are many examples of this in Paul’s writings (Rom. 10:13; 1Cor. 2:16).[5] Other similar quotations and allusions occur throughout the New Testament (1Pet. 2:3; 3:15).

“Jesus is Lord (kyrios)” was the basic Christian confession, a confession that Jesus was indeed YHWH (Rom. 10:9-13; Phil. 2:9–11). This identification is also implied in a very early prayer: Maranatha! “Our Lord, Come!” (1Cor. 16:22). This plea contains an Old Testament Aramaic name for God, Mārē (Dan 2:47). In the New Testament, the name refers to Christ, further evidence the earliest Christians worshipped Jesus as Lord. Despótēs, a less common Greek word for YHWH from the Greek Old Testament, is also used in the New Testament for both God (Luke 2:29) and Christ (Jude 4; 2Pet. 2:1).

With God’s revelation in Christ, the divine name has been reoriented. This reconfiguration is complex: in his deity Christ is identified with the divine name (John 1:1); and in his humanity he is given God’s name (John 17:11–12). Hebrews captures this complex phenomenon. Jesus inherits the name (Heb. 1:4), arguably YHWH. But, in his deity, the Son also participates in the divine name (Heb. 1:10–12). As the Son identifies with his people, he declares God’s name in the church and leads in praise (Heb. 2:12; Psa. 22:22). Through Jesus’ high priestly function (Heb. 4:14) believers, in turn, offer up praise and lovingly confess God’s name (Heb. 13:15; 6:10).

Matthew 28:19 affirms monotheism (“the name”) and, at the same time, compliments this with an implicit trinitarianism (“of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”). Here both the unity of God’s being, and the gospel’s relational plurality, more fully answer the question of God’s identity. This is his name: YHWH – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Islam’s conception of God is radically different, because Islam names God as Allah but rejects the Lord’s self-revelation as Triune. This has huge theological significance and leads to the rejection of the gospel.[6]

Response of the Church to God’s Name

God’s name, which now includes that of “our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory” is proclaimed upon his new covenant people (Jms. 2:1,7). This naming now includes the Gentiles (Acts 15:16–18; Amos 9:11–12). In this name, we find salvation (Luke 24:47; John 1:12).

Revelation describes the blessing and reward of being marked by God’s new name (Rev. 22:4; 3:12, cf. Isa. 62:2). To have and know this name belongs uniquely to Christ (Rev. 19:11–16) and then to his followers (Rev. 2:17). This pattern fulfills the Old Testament blessing of receiving God’s name (Num. 6:27).

Abba (“Father”), another Aramaic name, was arguably Christ’s favorite (Mark 14:36) Believers now respond to the ancient longing to know God as Father (Isa. 63:16) as they by the Spirit of the Son, cry “Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6)!

God’s people are to live up to the standard of God’s name as a royal priesthood and a holy nation (1Pet. 2:9–11; cf. 1:15). We are not to bear his name falsely. Rather, we are to carry his name faithfully to the ends of the earth (Matt. 28:19–20; Acts 9:15).[7] Then will the Lord return, even the Lord of Hosts (Jms. 5:3,7).

Conclusion

The naming of God in the Bible is a matter of God’s saving self-revelation. This is no generic god. It is the God who made promise to the patriarchs, the God who entered into covenant with Israel, and the God whose name is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.[8] This is the God Christians talk about when we talk about God. To the Father, we exclaim, “Hallelujah!” With the ancient Church we cry, “Come, Holy Spirit.” In anticipation of the consummation, we pray “Maranatha.” Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

God reveals more and more about himself so that people, in ways appropriate for creatures, may apprehend the Holy One. Yet God is more than can be named. Here, perhaps, is the valid lesson of reticence about “the name” (the unspoken YHWH of the Old Testament for Judaism and the deference paid to “the name” by the earliest Christians).[9] God is still, in all his gracious self-revelation, to be adored and worshipped as the incomprehensible and absolutely perfect One. “Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and Amen” (Psa. 72:19)!

FOOTNOTES

1. On the NT avoidance of God’s name, see Mark Allan Powell, ed., The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary, 3rd ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 2011), 688.
2. Carmen Joy Imes, Bearing YHWH's Name at Sinai: A Reexamination of the Name Command of the Decalogue, Bulletin for Biblical Research Supplement 19 (University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns, 2018), 28, and n. 87.
3. John M. Frame, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2013), 383–84.
4. See the study by Imes, Bearing YHWH's Name at Sinai.
5. See the fine study by David B. Capes, The Divine Christ: Paul, the Lord Jesus, and the Scriptures of Israel, Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic 2018), especially 111–50.
6. See further, Daniel J. Ebert IV, "How Does God’s Love in Christ Relate to Islam?," in The Love of God, ed. Christopher W. Morgan, Theology in Community (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), 161–84.
7. “At the deepest level, use of God’s name is a matter of mission.” Terence Fretheim, Exodus, quoted in Imes, Bearing YHWH's Name at Sinai, v.
8. Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2006), 54.
9. R. Kendall Soulen, The Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity, 1st ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 177–89, 94–210. One scholar lists 2000 examples of “reserve before the name of God” in the New Testament (see, ibid., 277 n. 2).

FURTHER READING

• Bray, Gerald Lewis. “God.” In New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, 511–521. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000.
• Capes, David B. The Divine Christ: Paul, the Lord Jesus, and the Scriptures of Israel. Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic 2018. See an Author Interview here.
• Ebert IV, Daniel J. “How Does God’s Love in Christ Relate to Islam?”. In The Love of God, edited by Christopher W. Morgan. Theology in Community, Chapter 8. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016.
• Frame, John M. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2013.
• Hood, Jason, “Getting God’s Name Right,” The Gospel Coalition.
• Imes, Carmen Joy. Bearing Yhwh’s Name at Sinai: A Reexamination of the Name Command of the Decalogue. Bulletin for Biblical Research Supplement 19. University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns, 2018.
• Morgan, Christopher W. The Love of God. Theology in Community Series. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2016.
• Powell, Mark Allan, ed. The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary. 3rd ed. New York: HarperCollins, 2011.
• Sanders, Fred, Klaus Issler, and Gerald Lewis Bray. Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective: An Introductory Christology. Nashville, TN: B & H Academic, 2007.
• Soulen, R. Kendall. The Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity. 1st ed. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011.
• Wright, Christopher J. H. The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2006.

God as Father

AN ESSAY BY Gerald Bray

DEFINITION

God is our Father not only in that he is our Creator but that he is also our Redeemer; this is what distinguishes the Christian’s relationship to God and what allows us to relate to him as Father.

SUMMARY

In the Old Testament, God is the Father of Israel (and Israel is his son) in the context of God forgiving and redeeming Israel. While the Jews of Jesus’s day were hesitant to call God their Father (and angry at Jesus for doing so), Jesus claimed God as his Father and taught his followers to do the same. God is the Father and is also the Son, whom the Father sent to carry out his plan of redemption. What distinguishes the Son from the Father is not the quality of his being, which is just as divine as the Father’s is, but the functioning of their relationship, according to which the Son had come into the world to do the Father’s will. We relate to God as Father, therefore, through Jesus the Son, sharing in his sonship through the adoption we receive through Christ’s redeeming work for us.

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Christians today take it for granted that God is our Father, but few people stop to think what this name really means. We know that Jesus taught his disciples to pray “Our Father” and that the Aramaic word Abba (“Father”) is one of the few that Jesus used and that it has remained untranslated in our New Testament. Nowadays, hardly anybody finds this strange and many people are surprised to discover that the Jews of Jesus’s day, and even his own disciples, were puzzled by his teaching. This is because the deeper meaning and the wider implications of the term “Father” are largely unknown today. So widespread and generally accepted has the name become that we no longer question it, and so we often fail to realize how important it is for our understanding of God.

Pre-Christian Understandings of God as Father

Jesus caused a reaction when he talked about God as his Father, but did he invent that idea? Were there no precedents in Judaism (or perhaps even among pagans) for his teaching? Jesus’s assertion that God was his Father first occurred in a debate about the Sabbath day of rest. Jesus claimed that it was proper for him to perform healings on the Sabbath because, in his words: “My Father is working until now, and I am working” (John 5:17). In other words, although God rested on the seventh day from his work of creation, his work of preservation and ultimately of redemption was still ongoing. Moreover, Jesus associated his own ministry with that continuing work of the Father, raising the question of their relationship in a way that antagonized his fellow Jews. As the Gospel records:

That was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God (John 5:18).

Was the reaction of the Jews justified? The Old Testament seldom uses the word Father as a description of God, but there are at least two important texts in which it does so. Both of them are found towards the end of Isaiah and occur in the context of sin and repentance. The first one reads like this:

You are our Father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from old is your name (Isa. 63:16–17).

The second reads:

O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Be not so terribly angry, O Lord, and remember not iniquity forever (Isa. 64:8–9).

At first sight it might appear that Isaiah was calling God Father because he was Israel’s Creator, but matters are not as simple as that. God was the Creator of every human being, not just of Israel, but he had not established a covenant relationship with everyone. It is clear from the way that Isaiah addressed him that he regarded Israel’s connection to God as something special, and different from what could be said about the entire human race. For him to call God Father was to acknowledge a particular relationship with him. In these verses, God is addressed as Father, not because he is Israel’s Creator, but because he is its Redeemer, which reveals the nature of the special relationship that God has with his chosen people.

The covenant context of God’s fatherhood is also expressed in other Old Testament texts, although the word “Father” is not specifically mentioned. Consider, for example, the words of Moses:

You are the sons of the Lord your God … For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth (Deut. 14:1–2).

Something analogous appears in Psalm 103:

As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him (Ps. 103:13).

Similarly, in Jeremiah we find the following:

Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, declares the Lord (Jer. 31:20).

In each of these cases, the underlying theme is that God is the Father of Israel. He has chosen the Israelites as his children, and because he has done so, he will redeem them in spite of their sinfulness. His fatherhood is expressed in that covenant context and would make no sense apart from it. Jesus brought this dimension out when he challenged the Jewish assumption that they were the children of Abraham, just as he was. He acknowledged their claim in a way but went on to say that in fact, both he and they were doing the work of their spiritual fathers, who were not the same. Jesus was doing the work of God his Father, but his Jewish opponents were doing the work of the devil, whom Jesus said was their true father—not Abraham. This so angered the Jews that they were moved to cry out that “God is our Father,” a recognition of the very thing that they were criticizing Jesus for saying but a claim to which the Old Testament bears witness (John 8:37–59). So, although it did not come naturally to the Jews, when provoked in this way, they were prepared to admit that God was their Father in the covenantal sense.

Non-Jewish peoples were quite different from this. Often they were prepared to recognize the existence of a divine Father figure, as we see from the name Jupiter (“Father Jove”), but it was not always clear what that meant. For some, their father god was a creator, but for others, and especially for Platonists in New Testament times, the Father was a hidden deity who dwelt above the heavens and had no direct contact with material things. Instead, he had a mind that produced thoughts and ideas, one of which was the Creator (Demiurge), who made the world. The reason for this distinction was that the Platonists knew that the world is imperfect, and so it could not have been made by the Father directly. In the early church, there were people whom we call Gnostics, who took over this way of thinking. They believed that Jesus Christ was the Son of the hidden Father, whom he had sent in order to redeem the world from the work of the (inferior) Creator. No Christian could accept that idea, however, because the Biblical revelation makes it clear that the Creator and the Redeemer are the same God. The God of the Bible is the Creator of all human beings, but the Father only of those whom he intends to redeem, and it was in his Son Jesus Christ that he revealed this purpose to those whom he had chosen for salvation.

Jesus and His Father

Christians call God their Father because that is what Jesus taught his disciples to do. He did this not in order to emphasize that God was their Creator (though of course he was) but because he was their Redeemer. Jesus had a unique relationship with God the Father that he wanted to share with his followers. During his time on earth, he was quite clear about this. “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” he said (John 14:9). “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). There were some in the early Church who interpreted verses like these to mean that Jesus was himself the Father, merely appearing on earth in disguise. That view cannot be accepted, however, because on many other occasions Jesus either spoke to his Father or referred to him in ways that make it clear that the Father is a different person. This is particularly obvious in his words on the cross. When he said: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34) and “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46) there is no doubt that he was not talking to himself.

At the same time, it is also clear from the New Testament that Jesus had the authority of the Father to say and do the things recorded of him in the Gospels, and that what he did was the work of God. A good example of this occurs in Mark’s Gospel, when Jesus demonstrated to a skeptical audience that he had the power to forgive sins, a prerogative that belongs to God alone (Mark 2:6–12). His critics were therefore right to say that in calling himself the Son, Jesus was making himself equal to God, because Father and Son share the same nature. What distinguishes the Son from the Father is not the quality of his being, which is just as divine as the Father’s is, but the functioning of their relationship, according to which the Son had come into the world to do the Father’s will.

Jesus revealed that the Father had decided to redeem the world, not by himself but through his Son. The New Testament never explains why the Father and the Son are related to each other in this way. All that we can say is that both of them are eternally present in the Trinity, but why one of them is the Father and the other is his Son is a mystery hidden from our eyes (John 1:1–3) What we do know is that it was the Father’s plan to save his chosen people and that the Son voluntarily agreed to become a man in order to carry out the Father’s intentions (Phil. 2:5–8). The sins of human beings had to be paid for, not because the Father is vindictive but because his human children matter to him. What we do is important, and if our acts are wrong he cannot simply ignore them. The price of rebellion against God is death because God is the source of life, and so to be cut off from him is to be cut off from life itself. Spiritually dead people have no power to pay the price for their sins—only a sinless person can do that. That is why the Son of God became a man. He suffered and died, not just for our sake but also for the Father’s, because the Father’s justice was satisfied by his atoning death. The Father acknowledged this by raising him from the dead and taking him back into heaven, where he has placed him at his right hand as the ruler and judge of the world (Acts 2:32–33; Phil. 2:9–11; 1 Cor. 15:20–28).

The Father and Us

Father and Son remain distinct persons, but they work together for the salvation of those who have been chosen. The Father is revealed to us as the principle of the Godhead, the one who plans the work of salvation and who sends the Son in order to carry it out. The Son pleads for us in the presence of the Father and the Father forgives us because of the Son’s intercession on our behalf. We are encouraged to pray to the Father and enabled to do so because the Son has united us to him in his death and resurrection (Gal. 2:20). By this act, Jesus has associated us with himself as his siblings. The difference is that he is the divine and sinless Son of the Father by nature, whereas we are sinners who have been adopted by him. Jesus himself said as much when he told Mary Magdalene, after his resurrection, to go to his disciples, whom he now called his brothers, and tell them what was about to happen:

Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17).

By nature we are not children of God. As his creatures, we have nothing in common with his divine being, but by the indwelling presence of his Holy Spirit, we have been integrated into the life of the Trinity. It is because of this presence of the Spirit in us that we are able to approach the Father and have a relationship with him. As Paul wrote to the Galatians:

Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying “Abba, Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God (Gal. 4:6–7).

In practical terms, the relationship that the Son has given us with God the Father is analogous to his own. In the Son, we have become heirs of the Father’s kingdom, co-rulers with him and even judges of the angels (1 Cor. 6:3). This high calling comes with a price tag, for just as the Son glorified his Father while on earth, so we too are called to glorify him (John 17:1–26). We cannot do this in our own strength, but only in and through the relationship that the Father has entered into with us, through the Son and the Holy Spirit. Just as everything they do is done in relation to the Father, so everything that we are called to do must also be done in the context of obedience to his will. It is to the Father that we pray, through the Son and in the Spirit, because that is the pattern of our relationship to God that he has revealed to us. We pray to the Father because our Creator is also our Redeemer, and it is in that redeeming love that we know him.

FURTHER READING

• A. T. Robertson, The Teaching of Jesus concerning God the Father
• Christopher J. H. Wright, Knowing God the Father through the Old Testament
• Gerald Bray, God has Spoken
• Lehman Strauss, The First Person. Devotional Studies on God the Father
• Millard Erickson, God the Father Almighty. A Contemporary Exploration of the Divine Attributes
• Thomas Smail, The Forgotten Father

The Love of God

AN ESSAY BY Sam Storms

DEFINITION

The love of God is the benevolent disposition or inclination in God that stirs him to bestow both physical and spiritual benefits upon those created in his image (and is thus in this respect synonymous with grace), the most exalted of all such benefits is God’s selfless gift of himself to his creatures in Jesus Christ.

SUMMARY

The love of God is the benevolent disposition or inclination in God that stirs him to bestow benefits both physical and spiritual upon those created in his image (and is thus in this respect synonymous with grace). We see the love of God most clearly in that he gave himself to us in his Son, through which God gave us the most enthralling, beautiful, and eternally satisfying experience possible, that is, the knowledge and enjoyment of God himself. Although the love of God can be discussed in at least five different ways, this is the love of God in its particular, sovereign, and saving form. This eternal love of God for his people is what secures the adoption of the saints into the family of God, the loving discipline of the Father for his children, and the presence of the Spirit of love in their lives as Christians.

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Of all that we are justified in saying about God, perhaps the most foundational truth of all is that he is love. Love doesn’t simply come from God. It is more than what he does. As John states so clearly, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Carl F.H. Henry rightly declares that love “is not accidental or incidental to God; it is an essential revelation of the divine nature, a fundamental and eternal perfection. His love, like all other divine attributes, reflects the whole of his being in specific actions and relationships” (see Carl F.H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, Volume VI: God Who Stands and Stays, 341). Sadly, though, “love” is one of the least understood and most widely abused concepts in our world, even in the church. What, then, does it mean to say that God is love?

Love is the benevolent disposition or inclination in God that stirs him to bestow benefits both physical and spiritual upon those created in his image (and is thus in this respect synonymous with grace). The most exalted of all such benefits is God’s selfless gift of himself to his creatures. The preeminent expression of love is when the lover, at great personal cost, gives or imparts to the beloved the most enthralling, beautiful, and eternally satisfying experience possible. The latter, of course, would be the knowledge and enjoyment of God himself. So, when Jesus prays that the Father would glorify him so that he in turn might glorify the Father, he is demonstrating his love for us (John 17:1). He is asking the Father to give us that one experience that alone can satisfy our souls forever, far beyond any other gift or sight or experience. Seeing and savoring and being satisfied with the glory and majesty of God is the most loving thing God could ever do for us.

The Characteristics of God’s Love

D. A. Carson identifies five distinguishable ways in which the Bible speaks of the love of God (see D.A. Carson, “On Distorting the Love of God”). There is, first, the peculiar love of the Father for the Son (John 3:35; 5:20) and of the Son for the Father (John 14:31). Second is God’s providential love over all of his creation. Although the word “love” is itself rarely used in this way, there is no escaping the fact that the world is the product of a loving Creator (see the declaration of “good” over what God has made in Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). Third is God’s saving love toward the fallen world (John 3:16). Then there is, fourth, God’s particular, effectual, selecting love for his elect. The elect may be the nation of Israel, or the church, or specific individuals (see esp. Deut. 7:7–8; 10:14–15; Eph. 5:25; 1 John 3:1). Finally, the Bible speaks often of God’s love toward his own people in a provisional or conditional way. Carson points to how the experience of God’s love is portrayed as something that is conditioned upon obedience and the fear of God. This doesn’t have to do with that love by which we are brought into a saving relationship with God but rather with our capacity to feel and enjoy the affection of God (Jude 21; John 15:9–10; Ps. 103:9–18).

Love as Grace

Our focus here is on the fourth expression of God’s love, namely, the affection he displays toward his elect people, the beloved of God. We must remember that, insofar as not all of God’s creatures receive and experience his love in precisely the same manner or to the same degree, one cannot speak of the love of God without qualification. It seems inescapable, both from Scripture and experience, that we differentiate between the love of God as manifested in common grace and the love of God as manifested in special grace.

The love of God as manifested in common grace is the love of God as creator which consists of providential kindness, mercy, and longsuffering. It is an indiscriminate and universal love which constrains to the bestowing of all physical and spiritual benefits short of salvation itself. It is received and experienced by the elect and non-elect alike (see Matt. 5:43-48; Luke 6:27-38).

The love of God as manifested in special grace is the love of God as savior, which consists of redemption, the efficacy of regenerating grace, and the irrevocable possession of eternal life. It is a discriminate and particular love that leads him to bestow the grace of eternal life in Christ. It is received and experienced by the elect only.

Therefore, like grace, the saving love of God is undeserved. The love of God for sinners, which issues in their salvation, finds no obstacle in their sin. God loves us while we were yet sinners precisely in order that the glory of his love might be supremely magnified. It was when we were still “weak” (or powerless) that “Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). Indeed, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). The sole cause of God’s saving love for sinners is God himself!

Love and the Death of Christ

This love of God, then, is the source or cause of the atoning work of Christ. God does not love people because Christ died for them; Christ died for them because God loved them. The death of the Savior is not to be conceived as restoring in people something on the basis of which we might then win or merit God’s love. The sacrifice of Christ does not procure God’s affection, as if it were necessary, through his sufferings, to extract love from an otherwise stern, unwilling, reluctant deity. On the contrary, God’s love compels the death of Christ and is supremely manifested therein. In a word, the saving love of God is giving. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16a). Again, as Paul states, “the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20b; see also Eph. 5:1–2, 25; 1 John 4:9–10)

Love as Sovereign

The saving love of God is also sovereign. John Murray explains as follows:

Truly God is love. Love is not something adventitious; it is not something that God may choose to be or choose not to be. He is love, and that necessarily, inherently, and eternally. As God is spirit, as he is light, so he is love. Yet it belongs to the very essence of electing love to recognize that it is not inherently necessary to that love which God necessarily and eternally is that he should set such love as issues in redemption and adoption upon utterly undesirable and hell-deserving objects. It was of the free and sovereign good pleasure of his will, a good pleasure that emanated from the depths of his own goodness, that he chose a people to be heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. The reason resides wholly in himself and proceeds from determinations that are peculiarly his as the “I am that I am” (see Redemption: Accomplished and Applied, 10).

Thus, to say that love is sovereign is to say it is distinguishing. It is, by definition as saving love, bestowed upon and experienced by those only who are in fact saved (i.e., the elect). Although there is surely a sense in which God loves the non-elect, he does not love them redemptively. If he did, they would certainly be redeemed. God loves them, but not savingly, else they would certainly be saved. All this is but to say that God’s eternal, electing love is not universal but particular.

Love and Adoption

The love of God is what accounts for our adoption as sons. It was “in love” that God “predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:5a; cf. 1 John 3:1). This love of God is rightly described as “great.” It was because of the “great love with which he loved us” (Eph. 2:4b) that God made us alive together with Christ. It is a great love because it can never be exhausted, its depths never plumbed, its purpose never thwarted by the sin of man (Eph. 2:4–5).

Love as Eternal

The saving love of God is eternal. It was “before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4–5) that he set his saving love upon us and predestined us unto adoption as sons (cf. 2 Thess. 2:13). Charles Spurgeon describes this eternal love:

In the very beginning, when this great universe lay in the mind of God, like unborn forests in the acorn cup; long ere the echoes awoke the solitudes; before the mountains were brought forth; and long ere the light flashed through the sky, God loved His chosen creatures. Before there was any created being; when the ether was not fanned by an angel’s wing, when space itself had not an existence, where there was nothing save God alone — even then, in that loneliness of Deity, and in that deep quiet and profundity, His bowels moved with love for His chosen. Their names were written on His heart, and then were they dear to His soul. Jesus loved His people before the foundation of the world — even from eternity! and when He called me by His grace, He said to me, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee (see Autobiography: Volume 1, 167).

This love is not only eternal in its conception, it is irrevocable in its purpose. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Rom. 8:35). Nothing! The Apostle Paul can speak of such confident hope on no other ground than that God has loved us in Christ. It is because he loved us when we were yet his enemies, a love demonstrated by the sending of his Son, that his love for us now that we are his friends is unshakeable (see Rom. 5:8–11). J.I. Packer sums up well both the eternal and irrevocable nature of this divine love:

To know that from eternity my Maker, foreseeing my sin, foreloved me and resolved to save me, though it would be at the cost of Calvary; to know that the divine Son was appointed from eternity to be my Saviour, and that in love he became man for me and died for me and now lives to intercede for me and will one day come in person to take me home; to know that the Lord ‘who loved me and gave himself for me’ and who ‘came and preached peace’ to me through his messengers has by his Spirit raised me from spiritual death to life-giving union and communion with himself, and has promised to hold me fast and never let me go – this is knowledge that brings overwhelming gratitude and joy (see “The Love of God: Universal and Particular,” in Celebrating the Saving Work of God: The Collected Shorter Writings of J. I. Packer, 1:158-59).

Love as Discipline

The sanctifying discipline of our heavenly Father, no less than the eternal life he bestows, is a product of divine love: “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (Heb. 12:5b–6). The Hebrew Christians to whom these words were addressed had mistakenly come to think that the absence of affliction was a sign of God’s special favor and, therefore, that suffering and oppression were an indication of his displeasure. On the contrary, so far from being a proof of God’s anger or rejection of us, afflictions are evidence of his fatherly love. Discipline, writes Philip Hughes, “is the mark not of a harsh and heartless father but of a father who is deeply and lovingly concerned for the well-being of his son” (see his Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 528).

God’s Love and the Christian Life

The eternal and irrevocable love which God has for his people also secures far more than merely the reconciliation of estranged sinners. The love that God has for us also makes possible our love for one another: “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12; see also 1 John 2:5).

Finally, the love of God for his people is not simply a doctrine to proclaim but a vibrant affection in the heart of God that he wants us to experience. Therefore, Paul prays: “May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ” (2 Thess. 3:5). If we are to experientially enjoy being loved of the Father, it is the Father himself who must (and will) act to remove every obstacle and clear away every encumbrance to that inexpressible experience.

God’s love for us has been “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:5). Paul’s effusive language points to the unstinting lavishness of God’s gift. As Charles Hodge put it (quoting Philippi), God’s love “does not descend upon us as dew drops, but as a stream which spreads itself abroad through the whole soul, filling it with the consciousness of his presence and favour” (see his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 210). God wants our hearts to be inundated by wave after wave of his fatherly affection. This is why Paul can pray that we might “have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” (Eph. 3:18–19a).

FURTHER READING

• D. A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God
• Gerald Bray, God is Love: A Biblical and Systematic Theology
• J. I. Packer, “The Love of God: Universal and Particular,” in Celebrating the Saving Work of God: The Collected Shorter Writings of J. I. Packer

The Attributes of God

AN ESSAY BY Richard Lints

DEFINITION

The Attributes of God are the character traits of God as they are revealed to us in the Scriptures.

SUMMARY

The following article considers the character traits of God as they are classically distinguished between communicable and incommunicable divine attributes, i.e. between those character traits that are significantly reflected in human persons and those that have virtually no reflection in human persons. Two particular recent criticisms of the incommunicable attributes of God are considered. The final part of the article considers the thematic threads in the Bible that focus upon core divine actions in the history of God’s redeeming purposes: God’s glory, God’s holiness, God’s lordship and God’s love.

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Introduction: The Communicable and Incommunicable Attributes

The Attributes of God refers to the character traits of God as they are revealed to us in the Scriptures. The mystery of God as triune (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) is wedded to the conviction that God is personal and displays his character in all of his actions. Insofar as we come to know God in and through his actions and words as recorded across the breadth of Scripture, God is described as possessing certain characteristics or attributes. The descriptions are held with a high degree of humility recognizing the infinite distance between God as Creator and ourselves as creatures. However, we also have confidence in those descriptions since God has chosen to disclose his identity and purpose to us across the Scriptures in ways that we can understand.

Across the Old Testament the names of God give very strong clues as to God’s nature. These names often signified both the otherness (transcendence) of God and also his nearness (immanence). God could be known by his name, but his name(s) was unlike any other name. God character was manifest in both directions.

As a result of this distinction, reformed theology has often distinguished the communicable and incommunicable attributes of God. There were certain characteristics or attributes of God which could more readily be understood and which in some sense were shared by both God and humans. There were also other kind of characteristics or attributes of God which were not as readily understood because they belonged to God alone. So for example, divine compassion is a communicable attribute of God because it is a characteristic with analogies in human compassion, though human compassion in some sense pales in comparison with divine compassion. On the other hand, God’s immutability (i.e., that God never changes) is not a characteristic shared with humans. Humans are always undergoing change. God does not change. In this regard, the incommunicable attributes of God are mostly known by the differences with human.

The incommunicable attributes attempt to explain the ways in which God is not like the world he has created. God is fundamentally different from his creatures. God is not bounded by time and space, nor is God ever divided in his motivations. There is an asymmetric relationship between God and his creatures. In everything creatures are dependent upon God, but in no instance is God dependent upon his creatures.

Criticism of Incommunicable Attributes

There has always been a small group of individuals that have resisted the description of any of God’s characteristics as incommunicable, believing that this would imply that philosophical speculation would be the only way to know these sorts of attributes. The criticism simply works on the assumption that if a divine attribute is genuinely incommunicable it could not be reflected nor understood by human creatures. Therefore the only way to posit these sorts of attributes would be by means of speculation (so goes the criticism). However, Scripture as the genuine Word of God, communicates to us in intelligible fashion the ways God is like us and the ways God is not like us. It is the Bible and not merely speculation, that is the source of distinguishing the manner in which God is both similar to and radically different from his creatures.

In the present times, one of the traditional incommunicable attributes, the impassibility of God (viz., that God does not suffer) has come under considerable criticism, in large measure because (it is wrongly assumed) that the lack of suffering entails the lack of emotion – either of delight or of sorrow. However (so the criticism goes) God often delights in the good of his created order, and also sorrows over the corruption of his creatures and therefore (so the criticism goes) God cannot be impassible. In response to these sorts of criticisms, it should be said that the impassibility of God has not been understood by the church across the ages as implying that God has no emotions, but simply that God does not suffer in his divine nature.

The communicable attributes of God serve as reminders that as different as God is from the world, God has created humans to reflect him in some respects. Humans are “images” of God as the opening chapter of the Bible reminds us (Genesis 1:26-27). God stamps his human creatures with the imprint of many of his own characteristics. We relate to God because God is personal, in some sense similar to the manner in which we are personal beings. Our ability to love is a (dim) reflection of the all-consuming love of God. We know in part, while God knows everything. Human’s possess a moral nature rooted and grounded in the One who is perfectly moral in every way. All of these human characteristics are related by analogy to the very character of God.

Thematic Threads of Divine Attributes Across the Bible

While the communicable/incommunicable distinction helps us get a handle on the ways in which humans are like and unlike God, it does not do full justice to the way in which God reveals himself across the Scriptures. Scanning the Bible, the most prominent descriptions of God focus on his glory, his holiness, his lordship, and his love – not primarily in reference to how they are similar to or different from humankind, but rather as the core descriptors of God acting in and across redemptive history. These descriptors illuminate the character of God by being emphasized time and again whenever God acts in intense and powerful ways as recorded for us in Scripture.

God’s glory is a reference to the visible manifestation of God as God. Glory is less like a single attribute of God than it is an internal motivation for everything God does in Scripture. It is the goal towards which all divine actions are oriented. It is a primary experience of all those who come into God’s presence. Glory is experienced by humans as brilliant light, overwhelming greatness, infinite grandeur and indescribable delight and terror all at the same time. Instances of God’s glory shines throughout the Scripture: in the encounter with Moses at the burning bush (Exod 3), in Ezekiel’s vision of the throne room (Ezek 1) and climatically in the coming of Jesus (Luke 2).

The holiness of God reflects both God’s moral purity and his absolute moral distance from a fallen world. God is the ground of all morality. God is absolutely good and pure and righteous and just in his very nature. But God’s holiness does not easily translate into conventional standards of human conduct at many times. His holiness is often inscrutable and mysterious. God’s holiness is experienced as dangerous and overwhelming. Holiness is the only adjective used of God in the three-fold formula – “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty” (Isa 6; Rev 4). One of the great ironies in Scripture is that holiness points at the essential moral distance between God and fallen humanity in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, God the Spirit, who bridges this moral chasm and sets up residence in the human heart is known as the Holy Spirit. God’s holiness both separates but also bridges this enormous moral gulf between the Creator and the creature.

The lordship of God points at the myriad of ways that God exercises his power and authority over creation and across human history. The sovereignty of God carries the connotation not only that God’s power is without limit, but that he has all proper authority to exercise that power as he sees fit. It is the reminder to us that God is the creator who calls everything into being by his Word, and who also calls the dead to life by that same Word. He is the Lord of heaven and earth. He is the beginning and the end. He is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings (1Tim 6; Rev 17).

God’s love is inseparable from these other characteristics. It is not the case that sometimes God is holy and at other times God is love, nor sometimes God is just but at other times God is merciful. God’s love runs through all that God is and does. His love is not merely an emotion. It is the enduring commitment of God to his unholy people manifest most clearly in the offering his Son as a sacrificial substitute who died on their behalf in order that they might be declared innocent and gain adoption as children of God. The love of God is active and costly. It is also strong. Nothing can separate God’s people from God because of the character of his love for them.

Conclusion

We know God is the Loving Lord because he has acted this way towards his covenant people. God’s glory and holiness are experienced as overwhelmingly positive inside the covenant relationship he establishes with his people. God’s people are to reflect these traits in their own lives and communities because of this covenant relationship. It is God’s glory they are to seek, not their own. They are to treasure the holiness of God while reckoning with their own unholiness. God is lord of history and the lord of their lives. God’s people love because he has first loved them. In each of these ways, the divine attributes manifest in Scripture serve as a powerful reminder that the God of the universe is both radically different from us, and also radically committed to us. Remarkable indeed!

FURTHER READING

• Matthew Barrett, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God (Baker, 2019)
• Matthew Barrett, “Don’t Domesticate God with Words”
• Herman Bavinck, The Doctrine of God, Banner of Truth Trust, 1979
• Kevin DeYoung, “Theological Primer: Divine Infinite”
• Paul Helm, Eternal God (Oxford University Press, 2010)
• Michael S. Horton, The Christian Faith, (Zondervan, 2011) chapters 6 & 7
• Thomas Morris, Our Idea of God (InterVarsity Press, 1991)
• J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1973)
• The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 2
• Erik Raymond, “The Cross Displays the Attributes in Perfect Harmony”

Divine Transcendence and Immanence

AN ESSAY BY John M. Frame

DEFINITION

Divine transcendence and immanence are the related Christian doctrines that while God is exalted in his royal dignity and exercises both control and authority in his creation (transcendence), he is, by virtue of this control and authority, very present to his creation, especially his people, in a personal and intimate way (immanence).

SUMMARY

Divine transcendence and immanence are the related Christian doctrines that speak of God’s authority and control over his creation and people as king. God’s transcendence is seen in that he is exalted in his royal dignity and exercises both control and authority in his creation. Divine transcendence does not mean that he is so far from and other than his creation that we are not able to understand his self-revelation in the Scripture or relate to him in any way. Divine immanence is the description of his kingly control and authority; because he rules over creation, he is present throughout the whole creation, especially to his people, in a personal and covenantal way. Rather than describing God in an impersonal way, the doctrines of transcendence and immanence describe the royal dignity and presence of the God who came to be among his people in Jesus Christ, Immanuel, God with us.

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The terms transcendence and immanence are not found in most versions of the Bible, but they are common in the theological literature to designate two kinds of relationships between God and human beings. In general, to say that God is transcendent is to say that he is exalted, above, beyond us. To say that God is immanent is to say that he is present in time and space, that he is near us. There is no biblical term that captures all of what theologians want to say about God’s transcendence, but the idea of immanence is helpfully summarized in the term Immanuel, God with us (Isa. 7:14; 8:8; Matt. 1:23).

Let us look first at the ways in which God is transcendent. For though the term transcendent is not itself biblical, it is a convenient way of grouping together certain biblical ideas. Scripture often speaks of God as “exalted” (Ps. 57:5; 97:9). He dwells “in heaven above” (Deut. 4:39; cf. Eccl. 5:2), even “above the heavens” (Ps. 8:1; 57:5). He is “enthroned on high” (Ps. 113:5); indeed, he is himself the “most high” (Ps. 97:9). So transcendence is a convenient term to summarize these ways in which God is “above us.”

Some ancient and modern writers, however, have taken God’s transcendence to mean something else:

God is so far above us, so very different from anything on earth, that we can say nothing, at least nothing positive, about him. He transcends our language, so anything we say about him is utterly inadequate. In modern theology, this concept leads to a skepticism about the adequacy of Scripture itself as a revelation of God and about the ability of human beings to say anything about God with real assurance (John Frame, The Doctrine of God, 110).

But Scripture itself never connects God’s transcendence with human uncertainty about God, let alone skepticism. While affirming God’s transcendence, Scripture speaks in clear and certain language about his nature and actions. Indeed, when God reveals himself “from heaven,” he reveals himself clearly, so that those who reject him have only themselves to blame.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Rom 1:18–22)

Clearly, then, it is wrong to think of God’s transcendence as a kind of cloud hiding God from the human mind. To be sure, there are passages in Scripture that emphasize God’s incomprehensibility, his mystery, such as Romans 11:33–36:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Rom. 11:33–36)

However, this passage does not speak of God’s transcendent existence “on high,” but about God’s “ways” in history as described in Romans 1:1-11:32. What is mysterious in this passage is his “immanence,” not his “transcendence.” As we saw earlier, Paul has spoken in Romans about the clarity of God’s revelation from “heaven” (1:18–21). Granting the mysteriousness of God’s actions in history, Paul is still able to speak of the mystery in clear human language. He tells the Roman church what it is that they do not know, and why they do not know it. The unknowns are “known unknowns.” And the mystery is always a mystery about a God who otherwise is “clearly” known.

How, then, should we define God’s transcendence, if it is not a barrier to our knowledge of God and our clear speaking about him? The biblical language of God “on high” or “in Heaven” refers uniformly to God’s royal dignity. He is “high” in the sense that the king’s throne is high above his subjects. “Heaven” is a way to refer to God’s throne (Isa. 66:1). Of course, God transcends space as he transcends time. He does not literally dwell on a material throne, as Solomon observes at the consecration of the Jerusalem Temple (1 Kgs. 8:27). But there are certain places in the creation where God has ordained that we will sense his presence with particular intensity, like the burning bush in Exodus 3, the inner court of the Temple, and indeed the person of Jesus Christ, God’s temple incarnate (Matt. 12:6; John 2:19–22). Heaven is one of those places, a literal dwelling place of God far up in the sky, to which Jesus ascended when his earthly work was done (Acts 1:11).

But to say that God is “high” is not primarily to speak of his presence in any of those places. It is to speak of why he has the right to dwell in such places. They are his thrones, and he sits on them because he is the king. So if we choose to use the term transcendence to refer to God, we should use it to refer to his lordship, to his powers and rights as the king of everything he has made.

These lordship rights and powers are his control and his authority (see John Frame, The Doctrine of God). First, his control: Because he is lord, he is omnipotent; he has the power to do anything. That is, he has full control over the world he has made. Many of the Psalms, for example, celebrate his kingship by praising the strength by which he controls his domain (Ps. 2; 47; 93:1; 96:10–13; 97:1; 99:1).

His authority may be understood as his control over the moral sphere, but it would also be possible to understand God’s control as his authority over everything that happens. Still, in our usual philosophical discourse, we generally see control in terms of physical causation and authority as an imposition of moral obligation; control represents might and authority represents right. As God’s control, so his authority is an implication of his lordship:

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me.  (Exod. 20:1–3) 

And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy. Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall keep my Sabbaths: I am the LORD your God. Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves any gods of cast metal: I am the LORD your God.  (Lev. 19:1–4)

Through the Leviticus text, the refrain “I am the LORD your God” is repeated fifteen times to reinforce the truth that Israel’s law is based on the authority of Gold’s lordship over them.

Therefore, we can define transcendence as God’s lordship over his world with particular reference to his royal prerogatives of control and authority. So understood, God’s transcendence does not imply that he is hidden from people; quite the contrary. Indeed, since his transcendence governs all the events of creation and his authority governs all his creatures, he is certainly the most visible being in the universe. As Paul says, his revelation is clear (Rom. 1:20).

God’s control and authority are such that he is present, immanent in all of his creation. We know already that God’s immanence is not some kind of opposite to God’s transcendence, some paradoxical negation of transcendence. Rather it is a necessary implication of his transcendence.

God’s transcendence is a way of referring to his lordship over the world, but lordship does not confine God to a sphere beyond our knowledge. Indeed, it often refers to the way he rules the world of our history and experience. He controls the events of nature and history, including the course of our salvation from sin. And he expresses his authority by proclaiming to us his commands.

Indeed, God’s lordship is his covenant relation to the world he has made, particularly to the persons in it. It is not just a relationship of control and authority, but also of presence with his covenant partners. The heart of the covenant is a relationship of intimacy. The chief promise of the covenant is the Lord’s word, “I will be with you” (Gen. 21:22; 26:28; 28:15; 28:20; 31:3, 5; 39:3–4; Exod. 3:11–12; Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23). God’s promise to Israel prior to the Exodus was,

I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. (Exod. 6:7)

This intimate relationship, the heart of the covenant, resounds through Scripture (see Deut. 4:7, 20; 7:6; 14:7; 26:18; 2 Sam. 7:24; 2 Cor. 6:18; Rev. 21:7). Because he is our God and we are his people, he will be “with us” for all eternity: Immanuel!

The importance of this divine-human intimacy cannot be stressed enough. It is the heart of our relationship to God in Christ. We should especially avoid two errors in this connection. First, we cannot fall into mysticism or pantheism, the notion that this immanence eliminates the distinction between creator and creature so that we become God, or  that he becomes indistinguishable from us. Our relation to God is always personal—a relation between the divine person and ourselves as human persons. Secondly, deism, or the notion that since God is transcendent his nearness to us is only a figure of speech, an “anthropomorphism.” No! God is really and truly near to us, difficult as that may be for us to conceive. God’s immanence as we have understood it is the heart of biblical redemption, the very name of Jesus, God with us.

God’s covenant presence is primarily with his redeemed people. But in a broader sense it is with his whole creation, for the whole creation is part of the program of redemption:

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. (Rom. 8:18–22)

Indeed, there is a sense in which the creation itself will be redeemed through Christ:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities– all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Col. 1:15–20)

So we should understand God’s immanence, the covenant presence of his lordship, to be everywhere in the universe, as well as being especially intense in particular locations. God is “omnipresent,” present everywhere (Ps. 139:7–12), not only because he made everything and governs everything by his plan (Eph. 1:11) but because the created world serves his redemptive covenant purposes.

Scripture does not require us to use the terms transcendent and immanent, and some misuses of these terms have brought theological confusion. But if we define these concepts to express God’s lordship, his covenant relations to his world and to his people, they can be used to express wonderful truths of God’s word: the riches of Christ, the depth of our relationship to God.

FURTHER READING

• Bill Muhlenberg, “On God’s Transcendence and Immanence”
• Chin-Tai Kim, “Transcendence and Immanence”
• Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology
• John Frame, The Doctrine of God, especially 1-115.
• Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics 2
• Roland Chia, “Divine Transcendence and Immanence”

Divine Simplicity

AN ESSAY BY Matthew Barrett

DEFINITION

Simplicity means God is not made up of parts; he is not composite or a compounded being. He is simple; all that is in God is God.

SUMMARY

God is not made up of parts, nor is he compounded or composite in nature. That means he does not possess attributes, as if his attributes are one thing and his essence another. Rather, his essence is his attributes and his attributes his essence. God is his attributes. That means, all that is in God simply is God. Simplicity is key for it distinguishes between the infinite, eternal, and immutable Creator and the finite, temporal, and mutable creature. Simplicity is rejected by some philosophers and theologians today but is affirmed by the Great Tradition and Protestant confessions. Most importantly, it is assumed throughout scripture whenever God is identified in the strongest sense with his attributes and is inferred in scripture’s affirmation of divine immutability and eternity and aseity.

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Introduction

Back during my seminary days, our family lived in Louisville, Kentucky. One of the advantages of living in Louisville was the occasional trip to Homemade Pie and Ice Cream, which had the most scrumptious pies in town. Each year people from all over the country, even the world, travel to Louisville for the famous Kentucky Derby. Before the race, the festivities are not only marked by flamboyant hats and mint juleps, but most bakeries will sell out of their Derby pie, a mouth-watering chocolate and walnut tart pie no one can resist. I enjoy a classic Derby pie, but there is one pie I enjoy even more: the award-winning Dutch apple caramel pie. As you can tell, I like the Dutch; there will be no shortage of quotes in this book from the Dutch Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck. I don’t know if Bavinck ate a Dutch apple caramel pie in his day, but (humor me) I can think of nothing better than sitting next to a garden of tulips, with Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics in one hand and a piece of Dutch apple caramel pie in the other. I know, I know—the things theologians dream about.

Truth be told, the caramel on the pie is so thick (too thick for the taste buds of some) that you need a butcher’s knife to cut through it. But let’s say you’ve found your knife and you begin dividing up the pie: a fairly large piece for me, thank you, and perhaps smaller pieces for everyone else. It kills me to admit this, because a theologian is always looking for an insightful illustration wherever he can find one, but Dutch apple caramel pie is a poor illustration for what God is like. That’s right, a really bad one. And yet it’s how many people think about God’s attributes. In fact, it’s what makes me nervous when I write one chapter after another on different attributes of God, as if we’re slicing up the pie called “God.”

The perfections of God are not like a pie, as if we sliced up the pie into different pieces, love being ten percent, holiness fifteen percent, omnipotence seven percent, and so on. Unfortunately, this is how many Christians talk about God today, as if love, holiness, omnipotence were all different parts of God, God being evenly divided among his various attributes. Some even go further, believing some attributes to be more important than others. This happens most with divine love, which some say is the most important attribute (the biggest piece of the pie).

But as I point out in None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God, such an approach is deeply problematic, turning God into a collection of attributes. It even sounds as if God were one thing and his attributes another, something added onto him, attached to who he is. Not only does this approach divide up the essence of God, but it potentially risks setting one part of God against another (for example, might his love ever oppose his justice?). Sometimes this error is understandable; it unintentionally slips into our God-talk. We might say, “God has love” or “God possesses all power.” We all understand what is being communicated, but the language can be misleading. It would be far better to say, “God is love” or “God is all-powerful.” By tweaking our language, we are protecting the unity of God’s essence. To do so is to guard the “simplicity” of God.

Simplicity and the Wisdom of the A-Team

Simplicity may be a new concept to your theological vocabulary, but it is one that has been affirmed by the majority of our Christian forebears over the past two thousand years of church history, even by some of the earliest church fathers. And for good reason, too. Let’s consult the A-team: Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas.

Apparently, I am not the only one who has appealed to an illustration to demonstrate what God is not like. In the fifth century, the church father Augustine did the same, though it wasn’t Dutch apple caramel pie. Instead, Augustine appealed to liquid, the human body, and sunshine. The nature of the Trinity is called simple, because “it cannot lose any attribute it possesses,” and because “there is no difference between what it is and what it has, as there is, for example, between a vessel [cup] and the liquid it contains, a body and its colour, the atmosphere and its light or heat, the soul and its wisdom.” Augustine concludes, “None of these is what it contains.”[1] A cup and liquid, a body and its color, the atmosphere and its light or heat, the soul and its wisdom—what do these all have in common? Answer: division.

Not so, however, with God and his attributes.

God’s attributes are not external to his essence, as if they added a quality to him that he would not otherwise possess. It’s not as if there were attributes that were accidental to God, capable of being added or subtracted, lost and then found, as if they did not even have to exist in the first place. Rather, God is his attributes. Instead of addition and division, there is absolute unity. His essence is his attributes, and his attributes, his essence. Or as Augustine says, “God has no properties but is pure essence…. They neither differ from his essence nor do they differ materially from each other.”[2]

Augustine is not alone. Take Anselm, for example. If something is “composed of parts,” he remarks, then it cannot be “altogether one.” Whenever there is a plurality of parts, that which is made up of those parts is vulnerable to being dissolved. How disastrous this would be for God! By contrast, God is “truly a unitary being,” one who is “identical with” himself and “indivisible.” “Life and wisdom and the other [attributes], then, are not parts of You, but all are one and each one of them is wholly what You are and what all the others are.”[3]

Or consider Thomas Aquinas. Since God does not have a body (like us), he “is not composed of extended parts,” as if he were composed of “form and matter.” It’s not as if God were something different from “his own nature.” Nor is it the case that his nature is one thing and his existence another thing. We shouldn’t suppose, either, that God is some type of substance, one that has accidents, traits that can be disposed of or cease to exist. “God is in no way composite. Rather, he is entirely simple.”[4]

Wholly, wholly, wholly is the Lord: Singular Perfection

While Aquinas uses the words “composite” and “composition” to explain what God is not, the church father Irenaeus uses the word “compound” to explain what God is not. If something is compounded, it means it has more than one part to it, each part being separate from the other. By contrast, God, being simple, is an “uncompounded Being,” not having different “members.” He is totally “equal to himself.” Perhaps it’s appropriate, then, to put the word “wholly” in front of each of his attributes to emphasize this very point. “God is not as men are,” explains Irenaeus. “For the Father of all is at a vast distance from those affections and passions which operate among men. He is a simple, uncompounded Being, without diverse members, and altogether like, and equal to Himself, since he is wholly understanding, and wholly spirit, and wholly thought, and wholly intelligence, and wholly reason … wholly light, and the whole source of all that is good.”[5]

With the A-team by our side it is appropriate to conclude that simplicity is not merely a negative statement—God is without parts—but a positive one as well: God is identical with all that he is in and of himself. In the purest sense, God is one; he is singular perfection.

In Scripture, this cannot be said of the gods made by humans, gods composed of parts. Given how unique God is, then, it is only right that God’s people confess together, as does Israel, that “the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut 6:4).

How Serious Is a Denial of Simplicity?

The denial of simplicity is serious. So serious that one apologist has said it is “tantamount to atheism.”[6] That sounds extreme. Yet up until the nineteenth century, most would have agreed.

Unfortunately, too many Christians today have adopted monopolytheism—that is, the belief that there is one God, but he looks a lot like the gods of mythology, possessing human attributes, only in greater measure. If monopolytheism were true, however, then God not only would be made up of various parts or properties but would be “logically dependent on some more comprehensive reality embracing both him and other beings.”[7]

Of course, to say that God is not personal the way the finite gods of paganism are personal is not to say that God is impersonal: he is infinite, sovereign, simple, and personal. The latter attribute surfaces in many biblical texts, but it must be protected from assumptions dragged in from the world of finite gods, lest God’s matchless simplicity be jeopardized.

Point is, if God were dependent on something or someone else, then he would have given up his deity altogether, for whatever he would be dependent on would have to be something than which nothing greater can be conceived, something more comprehensive than himself.

That is serious.

In the end, simplicity is an attribute simply too serious to ignore.

Ideas or content in this article adapted from None Greater have been used with permission from Baker Books.

FOOTNOTES

1. Augustine, City of God 11.10.
2. Augustine, Trinity 6.7.
3. Anselm, Proslogion 18.
4. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1a.3.7.
5. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 2.13.3; emphasis added.
6. David Bentley Hart, Experience of God (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2014), 128.
7. Ibid.

FURTHER READING

• Matthew Barrett, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God
• Matthew Barrett, Credo Podcast: The undomesticated attributes of God, part 1
• Matthew Barrett, Credo Podcast: The undomesticated attributes of God, part 2
• Matthew Barrett with James Dolezal, Credo Podcast: What is simplicity and does it matter?
• Matthew Barrett, “Simplicity,” Midwestern Seminary

The Immutability and Impassibility of God

AN ESSAY BY Matthew Barrett

DEFINITION

Immutability means God does not change in any way. Impassibility, a corollary to immutability, means that God does not experience emotional change in any way; he does not suffer.

SUMMARY

Immutability and Impassibility are key, historic attributes the church has confessed, attributes that distinguish the infinite and eternal Creator from the finite and temporal creature. Immutability means God does not change in any way; he is unchanging and for that reason perfect in every way. Impassibility, a corollary to immutability, means God does not experience emotional change in any way, nor does God suffer. To clarify, God does not merely choose to be impassible; he is impassible by nature. Impassibility is intrinsic to his very being. Impassibility does not mean God is apathetic, nor does it undermine divine love. God is maximally alive; he is his attributes in infinite measure. Therefore, impassibility guarantees that God’s love could not be more infinite in its loveliness. Finally, impassibility provides great hope, for only a God who is not vulnerable to suffering in his divinity is capable of rescuing a world drowning in suffering.

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Introduction

Ideas have consequences. As we look back at the twentieth century, one idea that had serious consequences was the common assumption that God suffers. Influential theologians, like Jürgen Moltmann, sought to provide hope to a suffering world, a world split apart by two world wars. Moltmann took a long and hard look at the atrocities of the Nazi concentration camps; when he heard Jews cry out, “Where is God?” Moltmann answered that God was there and he was suffering too. It was God who suffered in the gas chamber; it was God who hung from the gallows. For that reason, we have hope in a world of pain because we know God knows our pain.

Let’s be honest, Moltmann’s argument can be very persuasive and is emotionally appealing. Perhaps you’ve been to a Bible study where a close friend was in tears over a tragedy. If so, it is likely someone said, “Don’t worry, God is suffering with you. He is in just as much pain as you. He is just as overcome with grief as you.” The idea of a suffering God resonates with our relational instincts and appears to be a great comfort in times of suffering.

Yet it’s in those difficult moments, when tears flood our faces, that theology matters most. While it may seem comforting at the moment to tell a friend that God suffers too, on further reflection it’s a dangerous idea, one that gives little comfort or hope in the end.

Help! My house is on fire!

To bring this point home, consider an illustration from my book, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God. Imagine if your house suddenly caught on fire. As you escape the flames and watch from the street, you realize that your child is still inside. What if, in that moment, a neighbor ran up to you and, wanting to feel your pain and empathize with you, your neighbor lit themselves on fire?

Naturally, you would look at them in disbelief, perhaps even maddened by the insanity of their response. Who do you really need in that moment? You need that firefighter who can, with a steady, controlled confidence, survey the situation, run into the flames, and save your child from death’s grip. Only the firefighter who refuses to be overcome by emotional meltdown is your hope in that hellish experience.

Point is, a God who suffers, a God subject to emotional change, is not all that comforting on second thought. A God who suffers may be like us, but he cannot rescue us. In fact, an emotional God is just as helpless as we are. In times of suffering we need a God who does not suffer, one who can overcome suffering in order to redeem us and return justice to this evil world.

Retrieving an old word: Impassible

For this reason, the church—from the early fathers to the Westminster Confession—has believed that the God of the Bible is a God without passions; that is, he is impassible.

Up until the nineteenth century, the word “passions” was a word only to be applied to the creature, not the Creator. It was a word that had negative connotations, referring to someone or something that was vulnerable to change, subject to the emotional power of others. When our fathers denied passions in God, therefore, they were distinguishing him as the immutable, self-sufficient Creator from the ever-changing, needy creature (much as Paul does in Acts 17).

In this one word, “passions,” we see the difference between the Christian God and the gods of Greek mythology, gods susceptible to emotional fluctuation, overcome by a variation in mood, gods changed or manipulated by the will of another. One minute they are given to lust and the next fly off the handle in a fit of rage. By contrast, the Christian God, says Thomas Weinandy, “does not undergo successive and fluctuating emotional states; nor can the created order alter him in such a way so as to cause him to suffer any modification or loss.”[1] That is what it means for God to be impassible.

It must be clarified, then, that the house-on-fire illustration has a flaw (don’t all illustrations?). In that moment of panic and chaos, the firefighter chooses not to be overcome by emotional fluctuation; however, God is impassible not merely by choice but by nature. He is impassible. Passibility, in other words, is contrary to his very essence; he is incapable of being passible.

Why, you ask? There are many reasons why, but one important reason is because a passible God is susceptible to change, emotional change. But we know from Scripture that God does not change (Mal 3:6; Jas 1:17); he is immutable. Impassibility, then, is the natural corollary to God’s unchanging nature. It is essential to who God is, not merely what he does.

Apathetic?

If God is impassible, does that mean that he is stoic, lifeless, indifferent, apathetic, and incapable of love or compassion? That is, unfortunately, the all-too-common caricature. Actually, impassibility ensures just the opposite: God could not be more alive or more loving than he is eternally.

Remember, Scripture not only says God is immutable but also says he is infinite (Psa 147:5; Rom 11:33; Eph 1:19; 2:7). He is immeasurable, unlimited not merely in size but in his very being. He has no limitations; he is absolute perfection. If God is infinite, then never is it the case that something in God is waiting to be activated to reach its full potential. To use fancy theological language, there is no passive potency in God. Rather, God is his attributes in infinite measure. Put otherwise, he is maximally alive; he could not be more alive than he is eternally. The church fathers liked to make this point by calling God pure act (actus purus). He cannot be more perfectly in act than he is, otherwise, he would be less than perfect, finite and in need of improvement.

Apply this truth to an attribute like love, for example, and it becomes plain why impassibility makes all the difference. If God is impassible, then he does not merely possess love, he is love and he is love in infinite measure. He cannot become more loving than he already is eternally. If he did, then his love would be passible, it would change, perhaps from good to better, which would imply it was not perfect to begin with.

In that light, impassibility ensures that God is love in infinite measure. While the love of a passible God is subject to change and improvement, the love of an impassible God changes not in its infinite perfection. Impassibility guarantees that God’s love could not be more infinite in its loveliness. God does not depend on others to activate and fulfill his love; no, he is love in infinite measure, eternally, immutably, and independently from the created order.

All that to say, it may seem counterintuitive, but only impassibility can give us a personal God who is eternal, unalterable love. Far from apathetic or inert, impassibility promises the believer that God could not be any more loving than he is eternally. That is something a passible God cannot promise.

Impassibility is our real hope in times of suffering.

I’ll say it again: ideas have consequences. Although it may not seem like it at first, a passible, suffering God is one dangerous idea. It is dangerous because it undermines the Christian’s confidence and assurance—even the Christian’s hope—especially in times of real hardship. If God is subject to emotional change, how do we know whether he will stay true to his promises? His gospel promises might change as quickly as his mood swings. And if God is vulnerable to emotional fluctuation, what confidence do we have that his own character will remain constant? His love might not remain steadfast, his mercy may no longer be eternal, and his justice can guarantee no future victory.

But it’s also a depressing idea. As Katherin Rogers confesses, “Myself, I find the idea of a God who is made to suffer by us, and who needs us to be fulfilled, a depressing conception of divinity.”[2] It’s depressing because it does not turn us to God as our rock and our fortress (Psa 18:2), but instead makes us pity God as one who is just as impotent in suffering as we are as his finite creatures.

The good news of impassibility, however, is one of hope. When life’s most difficult trials hit hard, the inscrutable plan of our personal and loving God does not waver because he is a God who is immutably impassible. Although the pain strikes a heavy blow, we will rise with Luther and sing,

A mighty fortress is our God,
A Bulwark never failing.

FOOTNOTES

1. Thomas Weinandy, Does God Suffer? (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000), 111.
2. Katherin Rogers, Perfect Being Theology (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), 52.

FURTHER READING

• None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God, Matthew Barrett (Baker Books)
• Does God Suffer? Thomas Weinandy, First Things
• Credo Podcast: The undomesticated attributes of God, Matthew Barrett: Part 1 and Part 2.
• Credo Podcast: Does God Suffer? — Matthew Barrett with Thomas Weinandy
• Credo Podcast: Does God’s Immutability Need to Change? Matthew Barrett with Paul Smalley
• Confessing the Impassible God, Richard Barcellos et al.