What does the Bible say about God's attributes? 

The Bible passages below can be used in sermons, prayers, pastoral care, or worship planning focused on any of God's attributes. 

• Exodus 3:14, God is "I am" (God sends Moses and says, "I am who I am") 
• Exodus 34:6-7, God of mercy (the Lord is merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love) 
• Deuteronomy 6:4, God is one (the Lord alone is God) 
• Psalm 96, God's sovereignty (God is great, the maker of the heavens, the king) 
• Psalm 139, God's omnipresence (God knows our thoughts, exists everywhere, and is beyond our comprehension) 
• Psalm 145, God's goodness (God is great, faithful, compassionate, and worthy of praise) 
• Isaiah 6:3, God is holy (the whole earth is full of God's holiness) 
• Isaiah 58:6, God's justice (God seeks justice and freedom for the oppressed) 
• Jeremiah 9:24, God of love and justice (God delights in steadfast love, justice, and righteousness) 
• Malachi 3:6, God's immutability (the Lord doesn't change) 
• John 3:16-17, God's deep love (God loves the world and saved the world through Christ's sacrifice) 
• Acts 17:24-25, God's power (God made everything and everyone) 
• Romans 11:33-34, God of mystery (God's judgments are unsearchable, inscrutable) 
• 2 Corinthians 13:13, God's tri-unity (grace of the Lord Jesus, love of God, and communion of the Holy Spirit) 
• Ephesians 1:3-4, God's initiative (God blessed us and chose us in Christ)
• Ephesians 2:8, God's grace (God gives the gift of salvation through faith) 
• 1 Timothy 1:17, God's immortality (God is the immortal, invisible King of the ages) 
• 1 John 4:8, God is love (God is love and the source of all love) 

Sermon ideas about God's attributes 

What can we say in a sermon on God's attributes? First, the word attributes as a descriptor for God's traits is unfortunate. It suggests that God's traits are merely what we human beings have attributed or assigned to God, when in fact they are traits revealed by God's words and deeds that are then praised and discussed in the Bible. So the psalmists ponder God's greatness ("Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised" [Psalm 96:4]), or God's power ("When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers" [Psalm 8:3]), or God's omnipresence ("Where can I go from your spirit?" [Psalm 139:7]), or God's faithful love ("Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love" [Psalm 51:1]). 

God's power and God's love are the two attributes the psalmists most like to praise and discuss. Sometimes they address both attributes within a few verses. God is "our refuge and strength"; God is powerful to "break the bow" and "shatter the spear" and "burn the shields with fire" (Psalm 46:1, 9). And remarkably, God is "the God of Jacob" (Psalm 46:11). 

Jacob was a crook. He was one of the shiftiest men in the Bible. But God saved him. God never gave up on him. God came down to Jacob, wrestled with Jacob till the dawn, and blessed this crooked man till he got straight and went to see his hairy brother Esau to give him gifts and to weep with him. And when Esau forgave him, Jacob said something that shows he had just wrestled with God. When Esau forgave him, Jacob looked at Esau and said that seeing his face was like seeing the face of God (Genesis 33:10). 

Our sermons on God's attributes can examine the many names for God in the Bible. But when it comes to the grace of God, one of them says it all: the God of Jacob. So does another: Jesus, which means Savior. 

Necessary vs. unnecessary traits 

Many of God's traits are "necessary." These are traits — holiness, tri-unity, omnipotence, infinite love — that God couldn't have lacked. They are part of God's essence. 

Other traits of God — such as being the Creator, being the Savior, and being gracious toward sinners — are just as true, but might not have been. That's because God did not have to create the world or human beings. God did it freely. 

Human replicas of God's traits 

How do humans reflect God's traits? Because human beings have been created in God's image, we have human-sized replicas of at least some of God's attributes. Subject to distortion by sin, our traits may be only dim replicas of God's, but in a thoroughly converted human being, they are recognizable: knowledge, wisdom, justice, kindness, compassion, patience, peace, and love in its many splendors. 

Sometimes controversial 

Our sermons on God's attributes can point out that some of God's traits have been controversial or puzzling. If God is transcendent with respect to time, does this mean that God is outside of time altogether, or that God dwells simultaneously in past, present, and future, or that God simply knows the end from the beginning? Discussions about these things are natural for theologians and philosophers. 

But looked upon with the eyes of ground-level, commonsense laity, they can look like a mere indoor sport. Frederick Buechner somewhere speculates that tree frogs get with their buddies to discuss and debate our attributes. Buechner hopes that upon learning about the frogs and their debates we would be not annoyed but amused, and he hopes for the same response in God toward us. 

Excerpts about God's attributes 

Following are sample excerpts from Zeteosearch.org sermon resources about God's attributes: 

• "In the light of the Scriptures' emphasis on it, I sometimes wonder why I personally don't more often think of and treasure God's extraordinary generosity. It may be because God has been so generous with me that I can't keep track of all of it." Sermon Illustration, Sermon Preparation by Doug Bratt from Center for Excellence in Preaching

• "God's manifestation of his beauty/glory is both a grace, expressing his self-giving generosity, and a call to his joy. Beauty, a relational aspect of created or uncreated excellence, is always the self-manifestation or communication of excellence." Article about Theology by John Navone from Homiletic and Pastoral Review  

• "God's patience empowers us to act. ... Human beings are called to respond to God's patience. Human beings are called to make good on God's patience." Article about Theology by Paul D. Jones and Ryan McAnnally-Linz from Yale Center for Faith and Culture