Some of God’s natural attributes
The God of the Bible – and according to the Bible, the only true God – is Eternal. He has no beginning and no end. He exists outside of time. He created time. God is at the beginning of time and already at its end. This is why the Bible says in Revelatian 1:8:
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,’ says the Lord, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
See also Psalm 90:2; Isaiah 41:4; 48:12; 57:15; Hebrews 1:8.
God is also Omnipresent (Psalm 139:7–10; Jeremiah 23:24). Nothing escapes His awareness. However, He is not present everywhere in the same way. At times God is present in a special manner, when His presence is consciously experienced. This is exceptional and happens very, very rarely. A person should never pursue such an experience but leave it to God’s will and judgment. Trying to obtain it at all costs can open the door to false experiences produced by evil powers.
God is also Omniscient (Psalm 139:4; Isaiah 46:10; Hebrews 4:13; 1 John 3:20). He knows everything – even every human thought and everything that will happen in the future.
God is also Almighty (Job 42:2; Psalm 115:3; Isaiah 14:24 & 27; Matthew 19:26). He can do anything that must be done according to His righteous will and judgment. Because He does not will it, God cannot do anything that contradicts His moral attributes. For example, He cannot act unjustly or without love.
God is also Unchangeable (Isaiah 41:4; Hebrews 1:11–12; 13:8; James 1:17). God’s being cannot change. He does not improve, because improvement is unnecessary. He is perfect.
Some of God’s moral attributes
God is righteous, gracious, good, patient, and holy. All these attributes of God can be gathered and encompassed in His most important moral attribute, namely His love, which is discussed more fully below. When the perfection of God’s love is rightly understood, it becomes in itself a proof of God’s existence and of the truth of the Bible. Such perfect love could not have been invented by different writers in different places at different times in such complete harmony, except under the inspiration of the Spirit of God (see The Authority of the Bible above).
Love as God’s all-inclusive moral attribute
When the reader grasps God’s love as discussed below, he or she will also understand why it should be regarded as God’s most important moral attribute, which includes all His other moral qualities. Love is righteous – it cannot be otherwise. It is also gracious, good, patient, devoted (holy), and benevolent.
The Bible is very clear that the God of the Bible is a God of love. Only a few examples are mentioned. See Numbers 14:18a:
“The LORD is longsuffering and abundant in mercy (loving kindness),”
But He does not merely love – He is more than that. He is love. God’s love is evident throughout the Bible, but in 1 John 4:8 & 16 it is explicitly stated. Verse 8 says:
“He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
And verse 16:
“And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”
This is why God’s law is love. His law, which is love, is love because He Himself is love, and therefore it can never change. It is the universal moral law of God, grounded in His character. It will always exist; 1 Corinthians 13:8:
“… Love never fails (ends).”
God’s command to His people, Israel in Leviticus 19:18, is:
“… you shall love your neighbor as yourself:“
This includes strangers, as stated in: Leviticus 19:34:
“The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself;”
This means at the very least that God Himself loves, regardless of who the person is. He would not expect more from humanity than He Himself is and does. The Lord Jesus says that a person must even love his enemy (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27). If God expects humans to love everyone – including their enemies – it means at least that God Himself also loves everyone, including His enemies. And so it is. The natural person, because of sin, is an enemy of God, yet God loves him and desires to save him. This is discussed below.
The question may now be asked: “Why does God punish people if He is love?” The answer is that He punishes precisely because He is love. Love can never be unjust, and justice requires that sin (unjust and selfish behaviour) be punished (see Exodus 34:7).
God’s love is perfect, and therefore humanity, with its limited capacity, cannot fully understand or describe it. What is clear, however, is that God’s love is complete benevolence toward all people. God desires the wellbeing of man. (Please note that things can only go well with man when he is in the right relationship with God, because it is eternal and not temporary like earthly prosperity). The fact that things do not always go well for people in temporal matters is not God’s fault. It is also not always God’s punishment, but more often the result of sin (one’s own or others’).
The entire Bible is essentially about God’s effort to reconcile stubborn and sinful humanity to Himself in a righteous and loving way. God knows that this is the only way to save humanity from the eternal death and condemnation in which they find themselves because of sin. God earnestly desires to save humanity, because He is love. Therefore, God has a plan to save humanity. This Good News plan becomes clear when the Bible is studied.