Heidelcast 145: I AM That I AM (13): Some Implications Of The Divine Attributes

by Heidelcast on March 26, 2020

With this episode we return to our series on the doctrine of God, I Am That I Am. We are thinking today a little bit more about some of the implications of the attributes of God. Remember we distinguish between God’s incommunicable attributes and his communicable attributes. Remember too that we talk about attributes in the plural because we must but they are not plural in God. He is what he is. He is, as it were, one thing (simplicity). He is not “this” and “that.” He does not have parts. He does not change. He is not becoming. Those truths were embedded in his word to Moses, “I Am that I Am” (Ex 3:14). The God of the Bible just is. So it is with the distinction between communicable and incommunicable attributes. We make the distinction in order to talk about God but that distinction is for us, not for God. The incommunicable attributes are those divine properties which have no analogy in us, e.g., his immensity, his omniscience, his simplicity and the like. There is no sense in which we reflect divine omniscience, simplicity, and immensity. If these terms are new to you, they’re all explained in the previous episodes in the series. The communicable attributes, sometimes called the ethical or moral attributes, are those which have an analogy in human beings. God is holy. Believers are gradually, graciously being made sanctified or made holy. God is just and after he justifies us once for all on the basis of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness for us, he gradually, graciously works Christ’s righteousness in us.

All these have a great deal to do with our Christian life. In this episode we think about the implications of our doctrine of God for our piety and our practice (we are talking about practice, not a game, not a game, not a game, we are talking about practice.

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