by: Joe Whiting

Welcome back to week seven of big questions and small answers in biblical counseling and theology. This week we will be considering five of God’s attributes and how they relate to the believer’s life.

The first attribute is God’s holiness. God is holy (Is. 6:3; Rev. 4:8). God’s attribute of holiness means that He is untouched and unstained by evil, and absolutely pure and perfect. 1 Peter 1:16 exhorts us to be separated from sin and consecrated unto God. Being holy starts in the mind, therefore we must filter everything that goes into our mind through a biblical grid, seek daily forgiveness for our sin, and seek to put on the armor of God (Eph. 6:10-13). 

Putting on the armor of God is not simply behavioral modification. It starts with heart mortification. We are to mortify our heart (i.e., the inner man or woman) by bringing Scripture to bear upon it. In other words, we are to constantly counsel our thoughts with the correcting Scripture so that our motives line up with principles and commands in Scripture. Then, right behavior (i.e., behavior modification), will flow out of right thinking. If we fail to address the heart first, we are no different than the Pharisees who seemed righteous outwardly, but were full of dead men’s bones inside (Matt. 23:27). Worse than looking like that is that Jesus pronounced damnation on such a person (v. 27a)!

The second and third attributes are justice and righteousness. God is just and righteous. Righteousness speaks of the perfect union between God’s nature and His acts. Justice is the way in which God legislates His righteous standards. Since God’s righteous standard for man is perfection (Matt. 5:48), it should drive us to the need for a Savior because we cannot reach God’s standards on our own. Since God is holy and hates sin, He will judge sinners in righteousness who do not meet His standards. This truth should drive everyone to seek to know God salvifically, repent of their sin, practice Spirit empowered righteousness (1 Jn. 5:3), live by His standards according to His power at work in us (Phil. 2:12-13), and witness to unbelievers (Mk. 16:15).

Fourth, God is sovereign. God being sovereign means that He is the ultimate authority who is supreme in power and superior in position to all others.  Knowing that God is sovereign should bring great assurance and comfort to the believer because it means that nothing is out of His control. Not only is there anything which is out of God’s sovereign control, because of His great kindness, He will work all things for His children’s good (Rom. 8:28). Worry and anxiety should cease with proper understanding and faith in God’s sovereignty.^[1]

The fifth attribute is God’s immutability. God is immutable thus He never changes His nature or purpose, nor does He lie (Mal. 3:6; Js. 1:17; Heb. 6:17-18). Scripture has many promises from God to both the saved and unsaved and He can be trusted to keep His Word without changing it. Thus, the believer can be sure of their salvation (Jn. 10:28), and the unbeliever should be fearful of His damnation (Matt. 16:25-27). Furthermore, the believer, because of the indwelling Holy Spirit and a changed heart, will be compelled to practice God’s attributes above, to the best of their temporal ability. Is that indicative of your life? Is imitation of Christ, for His glory, your life’s practice? Take stock of your life and see. If not, repent now while there’s still time (Heb. 3:7-15). If so, give God the praise and glory for working His righteousness in you. 

We hope this week’s blog has been as helpful to you as it was to us. Please come back next week as we consider the doctrine of God’s omniscience and how it relates to a popular theological position in many churches. Until then, may our Lord bless you and keep you.  

^[1] Although there can be more wrestling with anxiety at times, due to our remaining sin, believers have the inspired Word of God, full of promises to His people, and the Holy Spirit to enable and encourage us to gain victory over sinful anxiety and ungodly fear.