God's Characteristics

As with anything that exists... and if there is anything that Exists, it is the Being who is the only thing to be self-existent, not requiring any previous thing to exist... God has characteristics.

Some of those characteristics are very famous, such as omniscience - knowing everything there is to know. Or omnipotence - having the power to do anything.

Others are less well known, such as God as Healer.

Some are difficult for us to understand outside of a Christian context, such as God's Holiness.

Some might just sound mysterious, like God's Immutability. As beings embedded in time, the idea of a being that "doesn't change" sounds very strange to us. To quote the great philosopher Fry from Futurama, "Existing is basically all I do!", and for us, to exist is to change.

Christians have found all sorts of different characteristics of God in the Bible. But rather than a dry recitation of them, I want to use them as a lens to look at why the choice of God to pay the price for sin by sacrificing Himself for us fits into his character and characteristics.

As that introduction has burned through a good portion of the word budget I allocate for these posts, let me take what seems to be a simple one to start with: God's Mercy. God is repeatedly described as merciful throughout the Bible. To take just one example:

He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor repaid us for our iniquities. - Psalms 103:10

On the face of it it should be obvious how God's Mercy leads to his choice to take on the price of sin for us.

And sometimes the simple answer is the best answer. I don't want to overcomplicate it. God wishes to extend mercy to us.

But even this simple view still leaves a couple of obvious questions:

1. Why does this require such a heavy price to be paid?
2. Why is this only extended to those who accept it? Why not everyone?

To fully understand God is the task of eternity. One of the biggest mistakes people make in their very first step of understanding Him is to try to consider His attributes one at a time, and appeal to them without considering the other attributes He has at the same time. "A God of Mercy would or would not do this." "A God of Love would or would not do some other thing." But God is not a "God of Mercy" or a "God of Love"; He is a God of all of His attributes at once.

God does not Love in a way that will violate his Justice. God does not give Mercy in a way that will violate his Truth. And so on, for all of his attributes. It is beyond us to perfectly demonstrate all these attributes at once. It is beyond us to perfectly understand the demonstration of all of these attributes at once.

It is plausible that a god of mercy would not need to come down and pay a price for us we could not pay. A god of mercy might simply wave away the violations and forgive them without cost to anyone. But that god of mercy would be necessarily lacking in other characteristics that God has.

As young as eternity is yet, it is possible that the Crucifixion of Jesus is one of the most important events that will ever occur. Certainly it is the most important that has yet occurred for humanity up to this point. That makes this a good lens to study the characteristics of God through; why this decision? Why not some other? Why this exact way?

The answers come back to the nature of who God is.