Why Study the Attributes of God?
Introduction:
How productive and blessed could your Christian life be if you committed to understanding who God is according to God’s Word?
This idea has flooded my mind the more I walk with Christ, illustrating wonder and fear and respect as I recognize how much more content and stable my life could be if I oriented my mindset towards God’s character according to God’s Word. My Christian life — and indeed all Christian lives — mature as much as they have a correct understanding of who God is and how he behaves. I desire to persuade and commit you to this idea for the rest of your life. The influential and prolific theologian Dr. R.C. Sproul has said before: that the most important thing for a believer is to know God. So, what exactly do we gain from knowing God?
God Understands Us Better Than Anyone Else
When I think back to all of my motivations to grow deeper and deeper in my faith and pursue Christlikeness, hardly any quote outside of the bible gives me a sense of awe and joy and hope in my commitment to be a student of scripture than A.W. Tozer’s famous statement he made in his book The Knowledge of the Holy. Tozer states in the beginning of his book: “what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” What could possibly be more valuable to our lives than to know what God knows about how to live rightly? What could ever exceed the blessings of the wisdom found in seeing how God views the good life? Imagine how the world views a virtuous life, how man has depicted what is right in his own eyes, and then consider how flawed and disappointed human history has been as a result of man’s knowledge (2nd Timothy 3:7). Now contrast that with knowing correctly what God thinks about aspects of the human experience (for example): forgiveness, love, gratitude, kindness, leadership, peace, contentment, discipline, marriage, family, finances, etc.
Knowing God Leads to a Healthy Fear That Protects Us from Sin
All of the previously mentioned characteristics can be discerned and understood from viewing God first and foremost as our authority through the power of Godly fear. King Solomon states this in the Proverbs: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10, NKJV). Fearing God begins with salvation through the gospel, and moves into viewing God as your authority for life. And knowing God is understanding — the greatest of all understanding! God’s character is blameless and holy and holds us accountable, and as a result, it will lead you into truth for all of life if you obey (John 16:13). This fear is a reverence for God — a respect for His authority over us to guide and protect and renew us. The more you know God, the more you will see how He sees sin, and His attitude against it. He is the God who holds us accountable and will discipline His children as a good Father. To fear the Lord is to know that He will hold us accountable for our sin — not that He will give up on us, but rather that He will cause our hearts to repent and depend on Him for restoration and hope. Know God more, and you will respect the concept of authority greater, and you will see that God uses fear in a healthy manner through knowing His attitude towards sin.
Knowing God’s Attributes Deepens Our Understanding of the Gospel
The purpose of salvation is to restore us into a right standing before God. To know who God is more causes us to be sanctified deeper and faster. God saved us to not only forgive us from our sins, but also to conform us to the image of His Son — Jesus Christ, the perfect representation of God’s attributes. Consider Paul’s words in Galatians 2:20: “20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Through the power of the gospel, Christ lives in us spiritually — His imputed righteousness flows through us by the power of the Holy Spirit, causing us to do what’s morally right and to love others at the highest level. Christ is conforming us into His likeness — His characteristics (or attributes) — and by knowing who He is more and more, we will see that our lives become more joyful, peaceful, and content because Jesus is the joyfullest person in the universe, and He desires to impart the greatest joy imaginable into us. But it requires that we commit lifelong to knowing more about who this magnificent Christ is!
When we trust Christ for salvation, we no longer run our lives — we’ve been bought with a price (1st Corinthians 6:20). Paul here states to the Corinthians that the price is to glorify God both in our body and spirit. To do this, we must learn from His word what pleases Him and what He delights in. How do we glorify God in our attitudes — namely, patience, love, thankfulness, kindness, gratitude, etc.? We must intentionally know Him more and more through His word and apply His behavior to how we behave, remembering Paul’s words back in Galatians that we’ve been crucified with Christ, and He now runs our lives. See and delight yourself in His behavior. There’s no philosophy outside of biblical Christianity that will satisfy your soul, and give you peace and joy, than seeing and delighting in the knowledge of God.
Conclusion
We were made to know the true God — Jesus Christ. We were made to walk in good works that He’s prepared beforehand for us (Ephesians 2:10). Commit yourself to understanding how the perfect, joyfullest, one true God of the universe behaves, what He delights in, the direction that He moves in, the way that He handles pain and suffering, and you will see His good works spiritually enrich your life and those around you. It is my deepest prayer that you, reader, will walk away from this article and begin to study God’s attributes in your bibles more, and commit to a lifelong pursuit of knowing God according to God’s Word! Remember, earlier, the wise words of the proverbs that the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. May the Lord give us, His people, the wisdom to have a greater understanding of holy living through studying His characteristics.
