The Attributes of God

by Arthur W. Pink

He is solitary in his majesty, unique in his excellency, peerless in his perfections. He sustains all, but is himself independent of all. He gives to all, but is enriched by none. Such a God cannot be found out by searching. He can be known only as he is revealed to the heart by the Holy Spirit through the Word.

The God of Scripture can only be known by those to whom he makes himself known. Nor is God known by the intellect. “God is Spirit” (John 4:24), and therefore can only be known spiritually. But fallen man is not spiritual; he is carnal. He is dead to all that is spiritual. Unless he is born again, supernaturally brought from death unto life, miraculously translated out of darkness into light, he cannot even see the things of God (John 3:3), still less apprehend them (1 Cor. 2:14). The Holy Spirit has to shine in our hearts (not intellects) in order to give us “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). And even that spiritual knowledge is but fragmentary. The regenerated soul has to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus (2 Pet. 3:18).

The decrees of God relate to all future things without exception: whatever is done in time was foreordained before time began. God’s purpose was concerned with everything, whether great or small, whether good or evil, although with reference to the latter we must be careful to state that while God is the Orderer and Controller of sin, he is not the Author of it in the same way that he is the Author of good. Sin could not proceed from a holy God by positive and direct creation, but only by decretive permission and negative action. God’s decree is as comprehensive as his government, extending to all creatures and all events. It was concerned about our life and death; about our state in time, and our state in eternity. As God works all things after the counsel of his own will, we learn from his works what his counsel is (was), as we judge of an architect’s plan by inspecting the building which was erected under his directions.

The one who decreed the salvation of his elect also decreed to work faith in them (2 Thess. 2:13). “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Isa. 46:10): but that could not be, if his counsel depended upon a condition which might not be performed. But God “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph. 1:11).

Nothing relating to the future is in anywise uncertain so far as the actualization of God’s counsels are concerned. None of his decrees are left contingent either on creatures or secondary causes. There is no future event which is only a mere possibility, that is, something which may or may not come to pass: “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning” (Acts 15:18). Whatever God has decreed is inexorably certain, for he is without variableness, or shadow of turning (James 1:17).

The apprehension of God’s infinite knowledge should fill the Christian with adoration. The whole of my life stood open to his view from the beginning. He foresaw my every fall, my every sin, my every backsliding; yet, nevertheless, fixed his heart upon me. Oh, how the realization of this should bow me in wonder and worship before him!

Scripture never speaks of repentance and faith as being foreseen or foreknown by God. Truly, he did know from all eternity that certain ones would repent and believe, yet this is not what Scripture refers to as the object of God’s “foreknowledge.” The word uniformly refers to God’s foreknowing persons; then let us “hold fast the form of sound words” (2 Tim. 1:13).

God purposed in himself to elect a certain people, not because of anything good in them or from them, either actual or foreseen, but solely out of his own mere pleasure. As to why he chose the ones he did, we do not know, and can only say, “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.”

God not only knew the end from the beginning, but he planned, fixed, predestinated everything from the beginning. And, as cause stands to effect, so God’s purpose is the ground of his prescience. If then the reader be a real Christian, he is so because God chose him in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4), and chose not because he foresaw you would believe, but chose simply because it pleased him to choose; chose you notwithstanding your natural unbelief. This being so, all the glory and praise belongs alone to him. You have no ground for taking any credit to yourself. You have “believed through grace” (Acts 18:27), and that, because your very election was “of grace” (Rom. 11:5).

The rule of conduct he has given us to walk by is perfectly fulfilled by none of us; his own eternal “counsels” are accomplished to their minutest details.

Here then is a sure resting-place for the heart. Our lives are neither the product of blind fate nor the result of capricious chance, but every detail of them was ordained from all eternity, and is now ordered by the living and reigning God. Not a hair of our heads can be touched without his permission. “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps” (Prov. 16:9). What assurance, what strength, what comfort this should give the real Christian! “My times are in Thy hand” (Ps. 31:15). Then let me “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him” (Ps. 37:7).

Being infinitely elevated above the highest creature, He is the Most High, Lord of heaven and earth. Subject to none, influenced by none, absolutely independent; God does as he pleases, only as he pleases, always as he pleases. None can thwart him, none can hinder him.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon say in his sermon on Matthew 20:15, There is no attribute more comforting to His children than that of God’s Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe trials, they believe that Sovereignty has ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them, and that Sovereignty will sanctify them all. There is nothing for which the children ought more earnestly to contend than the doctrine of their Master over all creation—the Kingship of God over all the works of His own hands—the Throne of God and His right to sit upon that Throne. On the other hand, there is no doctrine more hated by worldings, no truth of which they have made such a football, as the great, stupendous, but yet most certain doctrine of the Sovereignty of the infinite Jehovah. Men will allow God to be everywhere except on His throne. They will allow Him to be in His workshop to fashion worlds and make stars. They will allow Him to be in His almonry to dispense His alms and bestow His bounties. They will allow Him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of heaven, or rule the waves of the ever-moving ocean; but when God ascends His throne, His creatures then gnash their teeth. And we proclaim an enthroned God, and His right to do as He wills with His own, to dispose of His creatures as He thinks well, without consulting them in the matter; then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to ...

So too, God sovereignly placed Adam in the garden of Eden upon a conditional footing. Had he so pleased, he could have placed him upon an unconditional footing; he could have placed him on a footing as firm as that occupied by the unfallen angels. He could have placed him upon a footing as sure and as immutable as that which his saints have in Christ. But, instead, he chose to set him in Eden on the basis of creature responsibility, so that he stood or fell according as he measured up or failed to measure up to his responsibility—obedience to his Maker. Adam stood accountable to God by the law which his Creator had given him. Here was responsibility, unimpaired responsibility, tested out under the most favorable conditions.

God placed his elect upon a different footing from Adam or Israel. He placed his elect upon an unconditional footing. In the Everlasting Covenant Jesus Christ was appointed their Head, took their responsibilities upon himself, and wrought out a righteousness for them which is perfect, indefeasible, eternal. Christ was placed upon a conditional footing, for he was “made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law,” only with this infinite difference: the others failed; he did not and could not. And who placed Christ upon that conditional footing? The Triune God. It was sovereign will that appointed him, sovereign love that sent him, sovereign authority that assigned him his work.

Certain conditions were set before the Mediator. He was to be made in the likeness of sin’s flesh; he was to magnify the law and make it honorable; he was to bear all the sins of all God’s people in His own body on the tree; he was to make full atonement for them; he was to endure the outpoured wrath of God; he was to die and be buried. On the fulfillment of those conditions he was promised a reward: Isaiah 53:10–12. He was to be the Firstborn among many brethren; he was to have a people who should share his glory. Blessed be his name forever, he fulfilled those conditions, and because he did so, the Father stands pledged, on solemn oath, to preserve through time and bless throughout eternity every one of those for whom his incarnate Son mediated. Because he took their place, they now share his. His righteousness is theirs, his standing before God is theirs, his life is theirs. There is not a single condition for them to meet, not a single responsibility for them to discharge in order to attain their eternal bliss. “By one offering he hath perfected forever them that are set apart” (Heb. 10:14).

God is perpetually the same: subject to no change in his being, attributes, or determinations. Therefore God is compared to a rock (Deut. 32:4, etc.) which remains immovable, when the entire ocean surrounding it is continually in a fluctuating state; even so, though all creatures are subject to change, God is immutable. Because God has no beginning and no ending, he can know no change. He is everlastingly “the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17).

His power is unabated, his wisdom undiminished, his holiness unsullied. The attributes of God can no more change than Deity can cease to be. His veracity is immutable, for his Word is “forever settled in heaven” (Ps. 119:89). His love is eternal: “I have loved thee with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3), and “Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end” (John 13:1). His mercy ceases not, for it is “everlasting” (Ps. 100:5).

Herein is solid comfort. Human nature cannot be relied upon; but God can! However unstable I may be, however fickle my friends may prove, God changes not. If he varied as we do, if he willed one thing today and another tomorrow, if he were controlled by caprice, who could confide in him? But, all praise to his glorious name, he is ever the same. His purpose is fixed, his will is stable, his word is sure. Here then is a rock on which we may fix our feet, while the mighty torrent is sweeping away everything around us. The permanence of God’s character guarantees the fulfillment of his promises: “For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, nether shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee” (Isa. 54:10).

so is purity the splendour of every attribute in the Godhead. His justice is a holy justice, His wisdom a holy wisdom, His arm of power a “holy arm” (Psa. 98:1), His truth or promise a “holy promise” (Psa. 105:42). His name, which signifies all His attributes in conjunction, “is holy” (Psa. 103:1). Stephen Charnock

God has often forgiven sinners, but he never forgives sin; and the sinner is only forgiven on the ground of Another having borne his punishment; for “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb. 9:22).

But blessed be his name, that which his holiness demanded his grace has provided in Christ Jesus our Lord. Every poor sinner who has fled to him for refuge stands “accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6). Hallelujah!

God’s power is like Himself: infinite, eternal, incomprehensible; it can neither be checked, restrained, nor frustrated by the creature. Stephen Charnock

Who, that looks upward to the midnight sky; and, with an eye of reason, beholds its rolling wonders; who can forbear enquiring, Of what were their mighty orbs formed? Amazing to relate, they were produced without materials. They sprung from emptiness itself. The stately fabric of universal nature emerged out of nothing. What instruments were used by the Supreme Architect to fashion the parts with such exquisite niceness, and give so beautiful a polish to the whole? How was it all connected into one finely-proportioned and nobly finished structure? A bare fiat accomplished all. Let them be, said God. He added no more; and at once the marvelous edifice arose, adorned with every beauty, displaying innumerable perfections, and declaring amidst enraptured seraphs its great Creator’s praise. “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth” (Ps. 33:6). James Hervey, 1789

So too God restrains the natural corruption of men. He suffers sufficient outbreakings of sin to show what fearful havoc has been wrought by man’s apostasy from his Maker, but who can conceive the frightful lengths to which men would go were God to remove his curbing hand? “Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood” (Rom. 3:14–15). This is the nature of every descendant of Adam. Then what unbridled licentiousness and headstrong folly would triumph in the world, if the power of God did not interpose to lock down the floodgates of it! See Psalm 93:3–4.

Well may the saint trust such a God! He is worthy of implicit confidence. Nothing is too hard for him. If God were stinted in might and had a limit to his strength we might well despair. But seeing that he is clothed with omnipotence, no prayer is too hard for him to answer, no need too great for him to supply, no passion too strong for him to subdue; no temptation too powerful for him to deliver from, no misery too deep for him to relieve. “The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Ps. 27:1). “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen” (Eph. 3:20–21).

in how many ways have we been unfaithful to Christ, and to the light and privileges which God has entrusted to us! How refreshing, then, how unspeakably blessed, to lift our eyes above this scene of ruin, and behold one who is faithful, faithful in all things, faithful at all times.

Our faith is sorely tried, our eyes bedimmed with tears, and we can no longer trace the outworkings of his love. Our ears are distracted with the noises of the world, harassed by the atheistic whisperings of Satan, and we can no longer hear the sweet accents of his still small voice. Cherished plans have been thwarted, friends on whom we relied have failed us, a professed brother or sister in Christ has betrayed us. We are staggered. We sought to be faithful to God, and now a dark cloud hides him from us. We find it difficult, yea, impossible, for carnal reason to harmonize his frowning providence with his gracious promises. Ah, faltering soul, severely tried fellow pilgrim, seek grace to heed Isaiah 50:10, “Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.”

Though you cannot now harmonize God’s mysterious dealings with the avowals of his love, wait on him for more light.

All that emanates from God—his decrees, his creation, his laws, his providences—cannot be otherwise than good: as it is written, “And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good”

A prince that can bridle his passions is a king over himself as well as over his subjects. God is slow to anger because great in power. He has no less power over Himself than over His creatures.

When tempted to be disgusted at the dullness of another, or to be revenged on one who has wronged you, call to remembrance God’s infinite patience and longsuffering with yourself.

How patiently he bore with our vile conduct! And now that grace has snatched us as brands from the burning, giving us a place in God’s family, and has begotten us unto an eternal inheritance in glory, how miserably we requite him. How shallow our gratitude, how tardy our obedience, how frequent our backslidings! One reason why God suffers the flesh to remain in the believer is that he may exhibit his “longsuffering to usward” (2 Peter 3:9). Since this Divine attribute is manifested only in this world, God takes advantage to display it toward “his own.”

It announces that unless we are saved by grace, we cannot be saved at all. It declares that apart from Christ, the unspeakable Gift of God’s grace, the state of every man is desperate, irremediable, hopeless. The Gospel addresses men as guilty, condemned, perishing criminals. It declares that the chastest moralist is in the same terrible plight as is the most voluptuous profligate; and the zealous professor, with all his religious performances, is no better off than the most profane infidel.

His only hope lies in bowing to the sentence which Divine justice has passed upon him, owning the absolute righteousness of it, casting himself on the mercy of God, and stretching forth empty hands to avail himself of the grace of God now made known to him in the Gospel.

God the Father is the Fountain of all grace, for he purposed in himself the everlasting covenant of redemption. God the Son is the only Channel of grace. The Gospel is the Publisher of grace. The Spirit is the Bestower. He is the one who applies the Gospel in saving power to the soul: quickening the elect while spiritually dead, conquering their rebellious wills, melting their hard hearts, opening their blind eyes, cleansing them from the leprosy of sin. Thus we may say with the late G. S. Bishop, Grace is a provision for men who are so fallen that they cannot lift the axe of justice, so corrupt that they cannot change their own natures, so averse to God that they cannot turn to Him, so blind that they cannot see Him, so deaf that they cannot hear Him, and so dead that He Himself must open their graves and lift them into resurrection.

But let our final thought be of God’s spiritual mercies unto his own people. “Thy mercy is great unto the heavens” (Ps. 57:10). The riches thereof transcend our loftiest thought. “For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him” (Ps. 103:11). None can measure it. The elect are designated “vessels of mercy” (Rom. 9:23). It is mercy that quickened them when they were dead in sins (Eph. 2:4–5). It is mercy that saves them (Titus 3:5). It is his abundant mercy which begat them unto an eternal inheritance (1 Pet. 1:3). Time would fail us to tell of his preserving, sustaining, pardoning, supplying mercy. Unto his own, God is “the Father of mercies” (2 Cor. 1:3). “When all Thy mercies, O my God, My rising soul surveys, Transported with the view I’m lost, In wonder, love, and praise.”

How little real love there is for God. One chief reason for this is because our hearts are so little occupied with his wondrous love for his people. The better we are acquainted with his love—its character, fullness, blessedness—the more will our hearts be drawn out in love to him.

God’s love for me and for each of “his own” was entirely unmoved by anything in us. What was there in me to attract the heart of God? Absolutely nothing. But, to the contrary, there was everything to repel him, everything calculated to make him loathe me—sinful, depraved, a mass of corruption, with “no good thing” in me.

Everything about God is infinite. His essence fills heaven and earth. His wisdom is illimitable, for he knows everything of the past, present, and future. His power is unbounded, for there is nothing too hard for him. So his love is without limit. There is a depth to it which none can fathom; there is a height to it which none can scale; there is a length and breadth to it which defies measurement, by any creature-standard.

The wrath of God is his eternal detestation of all unrighteousness. It is the displeasure and indignation of Divine equity against evil. It is the holiness of God stirred into activity against sin. It is the moving cause of that just sentence which he passes upon evildoers. God is angry against sin because it is a rebelling against his authority, a wrong done to his inviolable sovereignty. Insurrectionists against God’s government shall be made to know that God is the Lord. They shall be made to feel how great that Majesty is which they despise, and how dreadful is that threatened wrath which they so little regarded. Not that God’s anger is a malignant and malicious retaliation, inflicting injury for the sake of it, or in return for injury received. No, though God will vindicate his dominion as the Governor of the universe, he will not be vindictive.

to beget a true fear in our souls for God: “Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28–29). We cannot serve him “acceptably” unless there is due “reverence” for his awful Majesty and “godly fear” of his righteous anger; and these are best promoted by frequently calling to mind that “our God is a consuming fire.”

Great will be the rejoicing of the saints in that day when the Lord shall vindicate his majesty, exercise his awful dominion, magnify his justice, and overthrow the proud rebels who have dared to defy him.