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Podcast
12 Attributes Of God
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Hi, I'm Dave DeWitt, and today I'd like to talk about the 12 attributes of God.
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An attribute is an essential characteristic.
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Since God's attributes do not change, they tell us what God is like.
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There are other possible attributes like beauty, and there are characteristics of God like
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grace and mercy, which I don't list as attributes because God is not always gracious and merciful
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all the time.
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So these are the things which God always is all the time, the 12 basic attributes of God.
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There's 12 of them.
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I'll first just read them, and then we'll come back and look at them.
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Number one is omnipresence, two, omnipotence, three, omniscience, four, justice, five, eternality,
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six, sovereignty, seven, unity, and that's a unity in Trinity.
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We'll talk about that.
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That goes together.
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Eight is infinity, nine is truth, 10 is holiness, 11 is immutability, and 12 is love.
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All right, so now we'll talk about them a bit.
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First of all, omnipresence.
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Omnipresence says God is everywhere present.
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In Psalm 139.7, David asks, where can I go from your spirit, or where can I flee from
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your presence?
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But we need to keep in mind that even though he is everywhere, God is also somewhere.
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It's not like the pantheistic idea that God is everywhere but isn't anywhere.
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God is also located somewhere.
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For example, God the Son is here in this room, but he's located at the right hand of God
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the Father.
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Number two, omnipotence.
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God is all-powerful.
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Isaiah wrote this in Isaiah chapter 40, verses 28 to 31.
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Do you not know, have you not heard?
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The everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, does not become
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weary or tired.
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His understanding is inscrutable.
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He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might, he increases power.
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Though youth grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet he who waits
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for the Lord will gain new strength, will mount up with wings like eagle.
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He will run and not get tired.
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He will walk and not be weary.
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One clarification that should be made about omnipotence is God is able to do anything
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that can be done.
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God does not do things that are absurd or self-contradictory.
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He cannot make square circles or sin or violate his own character.
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Power has restrictions, but restrictions are not the same as limitations.
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To be restricted to things like holiness, truth, righteousness, justness, and consistency
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are not limitations.
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Number three, omniscience, God is all-knowing.
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David began Psalm 139 with this amazing self-analysis.
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O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
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You know when I sit down and when I rise up.
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You understand my thoughts from afar.
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You scrutinize my path, my lying down, and are immediately acquainted with all my ways.
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Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it all.
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Omniscience means God not only knows everything that is happening, but everything that has
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happened, is happening, will happen, or could happen but won't happen.
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Number four is justice.
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Justice is judgment consistent with a perfect standard.
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God deals with everything according to himself as the standard, and that standard was lived
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out in Jesus Christ.
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Romans 2, 9-11, Paul writes, there will be tribulation and distress for every soul of
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man who does evil, of the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to
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everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also the Greek, for there is no partiality
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with God.
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In Acts 17, 31, he said, he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness
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through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all by raising him from
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the dead.
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A couple of things should be noticed about justice.
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Jesus will be the judge.
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John 5, 22 says, not even the Father judges anyone, but he's given all judgment to the
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Son.
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Another thing we should notice about justice is it's not fairness.
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Fairness has the idea that everyone is treated the same.
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Justice says everyone is treated by the same standard.
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We might look at a neighbor and say, it's not fair, he or she has more advantages or
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less disadvantages than I do.
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And that may very well be true.
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You and I don't have the same life situation as someone that was born in the Middle Ages.
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God never said he was fair.
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He said he was just.
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You and I and our neighbors and someone born in the Middle Ages will be judged by the same
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standard and that standard is the life of Jesus Christ.
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Number five, eternality.
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God has no beginning or end.
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But we need to be clear, it's not that God operates apart from time.
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He's never depicted as being atemporal, outside of time, but eternal, never running out of
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time.
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For example, Moses wrote in Psalm 90 verse 2, before the mountains were born, or you
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gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.
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Number six is sovereignty.
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Sovereignty says God is the supreme ruler.
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He's the final and ultimate source of power, control, and authority.
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Nothing happens apart from his power.
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First Chronicles 29, 11 and 12 reads, yours, O Lord, is the strength and the power and
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the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed, everything that is in the heavens
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and the earth.
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Yours is the dominion, O Lord, and you exalt yourself as head over all.
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Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all, and in your hand is power and
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might.
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Number seven is the unity, and unity and trinity have to be put together.
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And there's no good illustration of unity and trinity, but we acknowledge the truth
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of both the unity of God and the trinity of the Godhead.
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While externally existing in three distinct persons with different roles, Father, Son,
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and Holy Spirit, all three are deity.
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Paul writes in the conclusion of his last second letter to the Corinthians, the grace
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of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit will
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be with you all.
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Number eight is infinity.
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Infinity says God is free from containment.
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When Solomon finished building the temple, he prayed, and this is recorded in 1 Kings
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8, 27, but will God indeed dwell on the earth?
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Behold, heaven and the highest heavens cannot contain you.
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How much less this house which I have built.
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Number nine is truth.
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Truth is the way things actually are, and the way things are is the way God made them
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to be.
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God always speaks the truth.
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God speaks in a manner consistent with the nature of his existence.
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Number ten is holiness.
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God is separated from all that's evil.
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He is not in any way polluted, compromised, or defiled by anything outside of himself.
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Isaiah recorded this in Isaiah chapter 6, the first three verses.
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In the year of Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, and
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the train of his robe filled the temple.
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Seraphim stood above him, each having six wings, with two he covered his face, with
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two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
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And one called out to the other and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
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The whole earth is full of his glory.
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Number eleven, immutability.
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God does not change.
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James 1 17 says, Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down
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from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.
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God is unchanging in character.
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What God says may change, for example, bring animal sacrifices and don't bring animal sacrifices,
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but that's because conditions change.
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It's like the work of a farmer.
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What a farmer does in the spring is very different from what he does in the fall, but the farmer
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himself does not change.
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Twelfth characteristic is love.
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First John 4 8, the apostle John said, God is love.
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Love is giving.
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The greatest lover is the greatest giver.
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For God so loved the world that he gave, John 3 16.
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Love is an attribute of God because he is consistently the greatest giver.
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Well thank you for listening.
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If you're interested, we have a study in theology in our study book, Who God Is and What He
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Does.
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You can get it on our website relationalconcepts.org.
