20. Communicable attributes: God is Perfect, Delightful, beautiful, and glorious

Episode Summary

God’s perfection means that God is complete and possesses all excellent qualities, lacking no part of any desirable quality. In other words, there is no way for God to somehow improve. He is already as good as it gets. We find this concept in the Bible when God tells the people of Israel to "Be holy as the Lord your God is holy", which Jesus echoes with the words, "You must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect". With these statements, we also see that God's perfection serves as a standard for human imitation, encouraging us to desire moral improvement and strive for excellence.

God's blessedness means that God delights fully in himself and in all that reflects his character, and it is not vain for God to delight in himself as the source of all that is good.

The Greek term for “blessedness” used in the New Testament means “happy” or “delighted,” and it is used to describe God as a delightful God who takes joy in his people, as seen in Isaiah 62:5, where it says God rejoices over his people like a bridegroom rejoices over his bride.

God's beauty is the attribute whereby he is the sum of all desirable qualities, which bring pleasure and delight, focusing on the fact that God's qualities are desirable. Believers are called to reflect God's beauty in their lives by exhibiting good deeds and moral character, making our life in Christ attractive to others.

Finally, God's glory is a separate aspect of God, which is not often treated in Systematic Theology textbooks. It is meant to describe the visible brightness that surrounds God's revelation of himself, often described as brilliant and bright in the Bible. The moral purity and unapproachable holiness implied by this visual experience of God’s presence is an appropriate outward manifestation of his excellence.