The Attributes of God
Each article gives a concise doctrinal explanation, pastoral application, a KJV text,
a reflection prompt, and a verified Reformed source for further reading.
Available for a future issue
God Is Spirit, Invisible and Without Parts
“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
John 4:24
God is not a larger version of ourselves. He is not material, bodily, localised, or made up of pieces. Scripture tells us that “God is a Spirit”, and the 1689 Confession describes Him as “a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions”. This guards us from imagining God according to the limitations of created life.
To say that God is without parts means that His attributes are not separate compartments. His love is not one piece of Him competing with His holiness, nor His mercy a softer part that must persuade His justice to stand aside. God is wholly and perfectly all that He is. His wisdom is holy wisdom, His power is good power, His justice is loving and righteous justice.
The older Reformed phrase “without passions” does not mean that the Biblical language of God’s love, compassion, delight, displeasure, and wrath is unreal. It means that God is not emotionally unstable, acted upon from outside, or swept along by involuntary moods as creatures are. His affections are the holy and unchanging expression of His perfect nature.
For anxious hearts this matters. We sometimes imagine that God’s disposition toward us must fluctuate as quickly as our own feelings do. But God is not moody, manipulable, or divided within Himself. In Christ we come to the living God whose whole being is perfectly consistent with His revealed promises.
For reflection
When God feels unpredictable to us, are we measuring Him by the instability of human relationships? How does it steady us to remember that His mercy, holiness, wisdom and faithfulness are never in conflict?
Confessional foundation: 1689 LBCF, Chapter 2. Further reading: Stephen Charnock, “On God’s Being a Spirit”.
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God Is Self-Existent and All-Sufficient
“For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself.”
John 5:26
Everything we know in creation depends upon something else. We need air, food, sleep, relationships, and countless gifts we did not create. God is different. He has life in and of Himself. He did not begin, does not depend upon creation, and cannot be enriched by what creatures give Him.
The 1689 Confession says that God has “all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of Himself” and is “alone in and unto Himself all-sufficient”. This doctrine is often called God’s aseity. It means that He is never needy, depleted, lonely, incomplete, or waiting for creation to supply something lacking in Him.
This makes grace astonishing. God did not create or redeem because He needed us. His gifts flow from fullness, not deficiency. He is the fountain, not the empty vessel. We therefore cannot make Him richer by our obedience or poorer by our weakness. Our service matters because He commands and delights in holy obedience, but He does not depend upon us in order to be God.
For the weary believer, God’s all-sufficiency also means that our needs do not exhaust Him. We may feel that we have asked for help too many times, brought the same weakness too often, or arrived at prayer with nothing impressive to offer. Yet the fountain has not run dry. We come as receivers to the God who gives life and breath and all things.
For reflection
Where are we afraid that our need is “too much” for God? What changes when we remember that His supply is not drawn from a limited store?
Confessional foundation: 1689 LBCF, Chapter 2, paragraph 2. See also Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity
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God Is Infinite and Incomprehensible
“Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.”
Psalm 145:3
God is infinite in being and perfection. There is no boundary beyond which His life, wisdom, holiness, power, or goodness ceases. The Confession therefore says that His essence cannot be comprehended by any but Himself. We may truly know God because He has truly revealed Himself, but we never know Him exhaustively.
This protects us from two opposite errors. We must not say that God is unknowable, because Scripture gives real knowledge of Him and Christ has made the Father known. But neither should we imagine that our minds can contain Him. We are creatures receiving true light, not masters standing over the divine mystery.
In suffering, incomprehensibility becomes pastorally important. We often want an explanation large enough to contain every detail of providence. When we cannot find one, anxiety may assume that no wise explanation exists. Scripture teaches a humbler conclusion: our understanding is limited, while God’s is not.
Faith therefore does not require us to solve God. It calls us to trust the God who has revealed enough of Himself to be known, loved, worshipped, and obeyed, while acknowledging that “his ways past finding out” exceed our present sight.
For reflection
Is there a question we are trying to force into a complete explanation before we will trust? Can we distinguish between what God has clearly revealed and what remains beyond us?
Confessional foundation: 1689 LBCF, Chapter 2. A broad Puritan treatment is Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God
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God Is Eternal
“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.”
Psalm 90:2
God does not merely live for a very long time. He is eternal. He has no beginning, no ending, and no ageing. Time belongs to the created order; God is not carried along by it as we are.
We experience life in succession. Yesterday cannot be recovered, today is already passing, and tomorrow feels uncertain because we have not yet entered it. This is one reason anxiety is so fascinated by the future. We are finite creatures trying to look around a corner that has not yet become present to us.
God is never surprised by tomorrow. Stephen Charnock stresses that there is no succession or new discovery in the divine knowledge. The events that arrive one after another for us do not arrive as unexpected information to Him. His eternal life is not threatened by clocks, deadlines, ageing, or the passing of opportunities.
This does not make our use of time unimportant. On the contrary, because our days are numbered, we are taught to number them wisely. But we need not live as though the future is approaching an unprepared God. Our times are held by the One who is from everlasting to everlasting.
For reflection
Which future deadline feels as though it might outrun God? What would it look like to do today’s duty while entrusting tomorrow to the eternal LORD?
Further reading: Stephen Charnock, “On the Eternity of God”; Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity
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Used in June 2026
God Does Not Change
“For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.”
Malachi 3:6
God’s immutability is a deep comfort to us in the Christian walk. We change often: our feelings rise and fall, our faith may feel strong one day and frail the next, and our circumstances can shift beneath our feet without warning. But God does not change. His goodness is not seasonal. His promises are not fragile. His covenant purposes do not drift.
Stephen Charnock describes immutability as a perfection running through all God’s other perfections. God is not merely good today and potentially less good tomorrow. He is unchangeably wise, holy, powerful, truthful, and good.
Our inward weather does not alter God
Some mornings we wake with courage, and other mornings beneath a cloud of fear or heaviness. The anxious mind may read its own instability back into God, as though He must be as changeable toward us as we feel within ourselves. Scripture refuses that conclusion. The LORD remains what He is.
His promises stand because He stands
Human promises can be forgotten, weakened, withdrawn, or broken. God’s promises rest upon His own unchanging truth. For believers, this means we may come again to the same Father through the same Saviour, helped by the same Spirit, even when our sense of confidence has altered greatly.
For reflection
Write down one thing that has changed and unsettled you. Then write beside it one truth about God that has not changed. What obedient step becomes possible because His character remains steady?
First used in the June 2026 Monthly Biblical Encouragement. Further reading: Stephen Charnock, “On the Immutability of God”.
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God Is Everywhere Present
“Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD.”
Jeremiah 23:24
God is immense and omnipresent. He is not spread thinly through the universe, divided into portions, or confined within creation. No place contains Him, and no place excludes Him. Wherever we are, God is present in the fullness proper to His divine being.
This truth is searching because there is nowhere to hide sin from Him. Yet for the believer it is also deeply comforting. There is no hospital room, sleepless night, lonely journey, hostile workplace, or inward valley into which God’s presence cannot reach.
We often measure nearness by feeling. When comfort is vivid, God seems near; when prayer feels dry, He may seem distant. Omnipresence teaches us not to confuse felt nearness with actual presence. Our experience may change while the reality does not.
Psalm 139 joins God’s presence with His knowledge and care. The darkness does not hide us from Him. This does not promise that every place will feel safe or pleasant, but it does mean that no place is godless territory. We never arrive before Him, and we never leave Him behind.
For reflection
Where do you most fear being alone? How might prayer change if we begin, not by trying to make God present, but by acknowledging that He is already there?
Further reading: Stephen Charnock, “On God’s Omnipresence”. Confessional foundation: 1689 LBCF, Chapter 2.
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God Knows All Things Perfectly
“Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.”
Psalm 147:5
God’s knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent. He does not learn by observation, discover facts after they happen, infer motives from incomplete evidence, or revise conclusions when new information appears. All things are open before Him.
This can feel exposing because God knows not only our actions but the hidden movements of the heart. Yet His omniscience is also a refuge for those who are misunderstood, confused, or unable to explain themselves. We do not have to make a perfect case before God in order for Him to know the truth.
Anxiety frequently tries to imitate omniscience. We mentally rehearse conversations, predict reactions, examine symptoms, reconstruct memories, and search for the missing detail that will finally make us certain. But the knowledge we crave belongs to God in a way it can never belong to us.
Humility can therefore say, “I do not know, but God does.” This is not carelessness. We still gather information appropriate to our responsibilities. But we stop treating exhaustive knowledge as a condition of faithful living.
For reflection
What are you repeatedly trying to know with certainty that God has not presently made known? What information is actually necessary for today’s obedience, and what can remain in God’s perfect knowledge?
Confessional foundation: 1689 LBCF, Chapter 2, paragraph 2. Further reading: Stephen Charnock, “God Knows All Things Past, Present and Future”.
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Used in September 2026
God Is Perfectly Wise
“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!”
Romans 11:33
God’s wisdom means that He always knows and orders the perfect ends and the perfect means by which His holy purposes are accomplished. He never discovers a fact too late, miscalculates a consequence, or needs to revise His plan because something unexpected has happened.
Stephen Charnock distinguishes knowledge from wisdom helpfully: knowledge apprehends what is; wisdom orders things fittingly to their proper end. In God both are infinite and perfect. He never possesses the facts but lacks the wisdom to use them.
Delay does not mean divine indecision
We experience time sequentially and urgently. This feels late to us. That opportunity appears to be closing. Yet the Lord is never rushed by a deadline He failed to foresee. His wisdom has not deteriorated while we waited.
Hidden wisdom is not a code we have to decipher
Providence is real, but Scripture, not our private interpretation of circumstances, remains our infallible rule. We may observe God’s dealings humbly without turning every coincidence, feeling, closed door, or delay into secret revelation.
Wise providence ordinarily includes means
Trusting God does not set prayer against practical action. We may seek counsel, attend appointments, prepare, plan, work, rest, and use lawful means beneath His providence. Faith does not compete with responsible action; it places that action under God’s wise rule.
For reflection
Where are you interpreting delay as evidence of neglect? What would it mean to admit, “I cannot see the whole, but the Lord does,” and then take the next faithful step?
First used in the September 2026 Monthly Biblical Encouragement. Further reading: Stephen Charnock, “Discourse on the Wisdom of God”; 1689 LBCF, Chapter 5.
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God Is Almighty
“Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee.”
Jeremiah 32:17
God’s omnipotence means that He has unlimited power to accomplish all His holy will. Nothing can frustrate His purpose through superior strength, exhaust His resources, or force Him into a plan He did not choose.
Omnipotence does not mean that God can contradict His own perfect nature. Scripture says that He cannot lie and cannot deny Himself. These are not weaknesses. The inability to become false, evil, or less than God belongs to His perfection.
For fearful hearts, divine power is not merely abstract force. The One who is almighty is also wise, holy, good, and faithful. His power is never separated from His character. We therefore need not imagine an immense strength that is morally unpredictable.
God’s power also relativises the scale of our problems. What overwhelms us does not become difficult for Him in the same proportion. Yet Scripture does not promise that omnipotence will always be exercised in the particular way we prefer. Faith trusts both His ability and His wisdom.
For reflection
Are we chiefly asking whether God is able, or whether He will act exactly as we hope? How can we confess His power while leaving the form and timing of His answer to His wisdom?
Further reading: Stephen Charnock, “Discourse on the Power of God”; 1689 LBCF, Chapter 2.
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Used in July 2026
God Is Sovereign
“But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.”
Psalm 115:3
God’s sovereignty means that He has absolute right and authority over all that He has made, and that His rule is exercised with perfect wisdom, holiness, power, goodness, and purpose. The throne is never empty and history is never finally outside His government.
We often experience anxiety as though the universe has become an open door through which anything may enter. We feel responsible to anticipate every sorrow, prevent every danger, and manage every outcome. Scripture reminds us that we do not carry the throne.
The 1689 Confession describes God as having “most sovereign dominion over all creatures”. Its chapter on providence then speaks of Him upholding, directing, disposing, and governing all creatures and things, from the greatest to the least. This is not fatalism, because the sovereign God orders real means, real choices, real responsibilities, and real second causes.
For believers, sovereignty is not the rule of an arbitrary force. The One who governs is the God whose character is holy, wise, good, just, merciful, and true. We may therefore obey what belongs to us and release what belongs to Him.
For reflection
Which outcome are you trying to govern rather than faithfully respond to? Write two columns: “My responsibility” and “God’s rule”. Put each concern where Scripture places it.
First used in the July 2026 Monthly Biblical Encouragement. See 1689 LBCF, Chapter 2, Chapter 5, and Stephen Charnock, “On God’s Dominion”.
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God Is Holy
“Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.”
Isaiah 6:3
God’s holiness is the perfect purity and moral beauty of His nature. There is no darkness, corruption, deceit, impurity, or moral defect in Him. He loves what is righteous and hates what is evil because His own being is perfectly holy.
Stephen Charnock calls holiness the glory of God’s other perfections. His wisdom is holy wisdom, His power holy power, His justice holy justice, and His goodness never a sentimental indifference to evil.
Holiness can frighten the guilty conscience, and rightly reminds us that sin is not a small matter. Yet the Gospel does not solve this by making God less holy. Christ saves sinners in a way that upholds the holiness and righteousness of God. The cross shows us that forgiveness is not divine carelessness.
For the believer, holiness also becomes beautiful rather than merely threatening. We are called to be holy because our Father is holy. Sanctification is not God sanding away our humanity; it is His gracious work of conforming us to the moral beauty of Christ.
For reflection
When conviction comes, do we run from the Holy One or through Christ towards Him? What particular area of life would look more beautiful if it increasingly reflected His holiness?
Further reading: Stephen Charnock, “The Holiness of God”; Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity
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God Is Just and Righteous
“He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.”
Deuteronomy 32:4
God never judges wrongly. He is not biased, misinformed, corruptible, careless with evidence, or swayed by pressure. His righteousness is the perfect rectitude of His nature; His justice is that righteousness expressed in His judgments and dealings.
This is sobering because God does not treat sin as morally insignificant. The same Confession that calls Him loving, gracious, and merciful also calls Him “most just” and says that He hates all sin. Biblical comfort never requires us to soften one attribute in order to protect another.
At the cross, justice and mercy do not negotiate a compromise. Christ bears the penalty due to His people and provides the righteousness in which they are accepted. For those in Christ, “no condemnation” does not mean that justice was ignored. It means that salvation has been accomplished justly in the Mediator.
God’s justice also comforts those who have been wronged. We may not receive complete vindication in this life, and we must not seize personal vengeance. But injustice is never invisible or morally neutral to the Judge of all the earth.
For reflection
Where do you need to distinguish conviction from condemnation? Where do you need to entrust an unresolved wrong to the righteous Judge rather than carrying vengeance yourself?
Confessional foundation: 1689 LBCF, Chapter 2. See also Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity
, “The Justice of God”.
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God Is Good
“Thou art good, and doest good; teach me thy statutes.”
Psalm 119:68
God is not merely one good being among many. He is perfectly and infinitely good, the fountain from which every creaturely good derives. There is no moral defect mixed into His goodness and no season in which He ceases to be good.
Charnock distinguishes the goodness of God’s perfect being from His beneficence toward creatures. God is good in Himself, and He does good. Creation, providence, daily provision, patience, and redemption display this goodness in different ways.
Suffering can make this attribute difficult to hold. We may reason backwards from a painful providence and conclude that the One governing it must have become less good. Scripture teaches us to reason from God’s revealed character toward the unfinished providence, not from our limited reading of the providence toward a new definition of God.
This does not require us to call evil good or pain pleasant. Christian faith may lament honestly while refusing to accuse God of moral defect. His goodness is deeper than our present ability to trace every path by which He leads His people.
For reflection
What painful circumstance are you tempted to use as a definition of God’s character? Which clear Scriptures about His goodness should govern how you interpret what you cannot yet understand?
Further reading: Stephen Charnock, “On the Goodness of God”; 1689 LBCF, Chapter 2.
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God Is Love
“He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”
1 John 4:8
God’s love is not a force above Him to which He must conform. Love belongs to who He is. Yet Scripture’s statement “God is love” must be heard alongside everything else God has revealed about Himself. His love is holy, wise, truthful, righteous, and sovereign love.
The clearest measure of divine love is not the ease of our present circumstances but the giving of the Son. “Herein is love,” John writes, directing us to God’s sending of Christ as the propitiation for our sins. The cross therefore gives anxious believers an objective place to look when feelings of being unloved become persuasive.
God’s love does not mean that He approves whatever we desire or removes every painful discipline. Fatherly love can correct. Covenant love can lead through dark valleys. Love is not proved by our getting every preferred outcome; it is supremely revealed in Christ and faithfully expressed according to God’s wisdom.
This frees us from turning our emotions into a spiritual thermometer. We may feel loved strongly or weakly, but the truth of God’s love in Christ is not generated by the intensity of our sensation.
For reflection
When you ask, “Does God love me?”, where do you instinctively look for evidence? Can you begin with Christ’s finished work and then interpret your changing feelings beneath that truth?
Confessional foundation: 1689 LBCF, Chapter 2, which describes God as “most loving”. For covenant applications, see Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity
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God Is Merciful and Gracious
“The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.”
Exodus 34:6
Mercy meets creatures in misery; grace gives freely to the undeserving. Scripture joins both to God’s own revealed name. He is not reluctant to be merciful, as though sinners must persuade Him to become something He is not. Mercy and grace belong to His character.
Thomas Watson repeatedly directs guilty souls away from imagined merit and towards free mercy. If mercy had to be deserved, it would cease to be mercy. This is especially important for those who continually ask whether they have repented well enough, prayed sincerely enough, or suffered enough to qualify for pardon.
The Gospel does not tell us that guilt is imaginary. It tells us that God has provided a real atonement in Christ. Mercy is not God pretending sin does not matter; grace brings sinners to the Saviour in whom guilt is justly dealt with and forgiveness freely bestowed.
For the ashamed believer, mercy means we may return. The very need that makes us hesitate to come is the need for which mercy is suited. We do not bring worthiness as the price of admission. We come through Christ.
For reflection
Are you waiting to feel worthy before asking for mercy? What would it mean to confess honestly, receive Christ’s sufficiency, and stop turning the quality of your repentance into a second saviour?
Further reading: Thomas Watson, “The Mercy of God”; 1689 LBCF, Chapter 2.
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God Is Patient and Long-Suffering
“The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked.”
Nahum 1:3
God’s patience is His holy long-suffering toward creatures who provoke Him. Scripture’s declaration that He is slow to anger must not be confused with moral indifference. Nahum places patience beside both great power and certain justice.
Charnock describes divine patience as closely related to goodness and mercy. God is not slow to judge because He lacks power to act. His restraint is itself an expression of His sovereign perfection.
For believers, this attribute is profoundly humbling. We know how easily we become impatient with repeated weakness in others and with repeated weakness in ourselves. God’s fatherly dealings with His children are not marked by the irritability, fatigue, or short temper that often marks creaturely patience.
His patience should never be used as permission to continue in sin. Rather, His goodness leads us to repentance. To know that the Lord has borne with us should make us quicker to confess, softer toward others, and slower to despair when sanctification proves gradual.
For reflection
Do you interpret repeated struggle as proof that God must now be exasperated with you? How can His patience lead you, not to presumption, but to fresh repentance and patient obedience?
Further reading: Stephen Charnock, “On God’s Patience”; 1689 LBCF, Chapter 2.
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Used in August 2026
God Is True and Faithful
“It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”
Lamentations 3:22–23
God’s faithfulness means that He is perfectly true, steadfast, and dependable. He cannot deny His own character. He does not make promises carelessly, forget His covenant, or grow weary of sustaining His people. Our faith may feel weak, but the object of our faith is never weak.
Lamentations reaches this confession in the middle of grief. Hope does not arise because affliction has vanished. Truth is deliberately recalled. Memory becomes a servant of faith: the writer remembers the LORD’s mercies, unfailing compassions, and great faithfulness.
Anxiety often uses memory selectively. It gathers former pains, embarrassing moments, uncertain outcomes, and times when we felt unable to cope. Biblical remembrance does not deny these things; it places them within the larger history of God’s sustaining mercy.
God’s faithfulness does not mean that every affliction will be removed in this life. It means that no affliction can make Him unfaithful. The trial may alter our circumstances, strength, or plans, but it cannot alter His character or overturn His promises in Christ.
For reflection
Recall three places where the Lord sustained you, even if the outcome was not what you would have chosen. Which explicit promise of Scripture remains true today regardless of how hopeful you feel?
First used in the August 2026 Monthly Biblical Encouragement. Confessional foundation: 1689 LBCF, Chapter 2. See also Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity
, “The Truth of God”.
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God Is Perfectly Blessed
“According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.”
1 Timothy 1:11
To call God blessed is to say that He possesses perfect fullness, delight, and felicity in Himself. He is not a frustrated deity whose happiness depends upon creation behaving as He hopes. His blessedness belongs with His all-sufficiency.
This truth helps us understand that redemption flows from divine abundance. God does not save because He needs human beings to complete Him. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are eternally blessed in the life of the one God. Grace therefore comes to us as sheer gift.
It also guards us from imagining that our failures throw God into the kind of emotional disarray that sin produces in us. Our sins truly displease Him and are judged according to His holiness, but they do not overthrow His blessedness or make His being unstable.
For believers, the blessedness of God also points towards our true good. We were made to know and enjoy Him. The deepest Christian hope is not simply that circumstances become easier, but that we are brought increasingly into communion with the God in whose presence is fulness of joy.
For reflection
What created good are you asking to carry the weight of ultimate happiness? How does God’s own blessedness redirect our hope from gifts alone to the Giver Himself?
Confessional foundation: 1689 LBCF, Chapter 2, paragraph 2. See Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity
for the practical Puritan treatment of knowing and enjoying God.
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Related doctrine
Divine Providence: God’s Attributes at Work in Our Times
“My times are in thy hand.”
Psalm 31:15
Providence is not another attribute alongside God’s wisdom, power, holiness, goodness, and sovereignty. It is the way the living God upholds, directs, disposes, and governs His creation according to His character and will.
The 1689 Confession deliberately describes providence as “most wise and holy”. It also says that God’s infinite power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness are manifested within it. This protects us from imagining providence as bare control. The One governing events is the same God whose attributes we have been studying.
Providence also includes ordinary means. God’s government does not make planning, medicine, work, counsel, safety measures, or human choices unreal. He ordinarily works through means while remaining free to work above or beyond them according to His pleasure.
This is particularly helpful in anxiety. We need not choose between trusting God and acting responsibly. We can pray and make the telephone call, trust and attend the appointment, rest in sovereignty and still lock the door. Faith neither idolises means nor despises them.
We should also resist turning providence into a secret code. Scripture is our infallible rule. Circumstances may be observed with humility and gratitude, but we should be cautious about announcing hidden meanings God has not revealed.
For reflection
What lawful means belong to today? Which outcome remains outside your control? Can you use the means faithfully without asking them to become guarantees?
Primary source: 1689 LBCF, Chapter 5, “Of Divine Providence”. See also Stephen Charnock’s treatments of wisdom, power, goodness, and dominion in The Existence and Attributes of God
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