Not some. Not most. As God the Son, Jesus is all the divine attributes together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Before we dive in here, let's be clear. Divine attributes are not a mere list that we study. When we speak about the divine attributes, we are speaking about who God has revealed himself to be in his word and in his works. While he has accommodated himself to us¹, let's not forget that he is greater and more wondrous than we can ever imagine: "Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom" (Psalm 145:3). And yet the wondrous confession of our faith is that Jesus is and reveals the unfathomable greatness and incomprehensible being of God!
Theologians traditionally divide God's attributes into two lists: incommunicable attributes and communicable attributes. Author Jen Wilken explains this difference in the video below:
Incommunicable attributes
Incommunicable attributes belong to God alone. The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus, as God the Son, is all these divine attributes. According to his divine nature, Jesus is infinite, simple, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, impassable, immutable, and omnipresent. He neither needs nor depends on us for his divine life. Rather, he is life, in and of himself. He is fully God, the LORD. These incommunicable attributes remind us that the God of the Bible is perfect and infinite. The LORD alone is the Creator, and salvation belongs to him. The LORD is unlike any of the gods imagined and worshiped by humanity: See now that I myself am he!
There is no god besides me.
I put to death and I bring to life,
I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand!
—Deuteronomy 32:39
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD!
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
9 so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
—Isaiah 55:8–9
8 Among the gods there is none like you, Lord;
no deeds can compare with yours.
9 All the nations you have made
will come and worship before you, Lord;
they will bring glory to your name.
10 For you are great and do marvelous deeds;
you alone are God!
—Psalm 86:8–10
With the Scriptures, we must most joyfully affirm that there is no one and nothing like the God of the Bible and that Jesus is that unrivaled and unparalleled God. This is what we mean when we declare that Jesus is LORD. Indeed, just consider how Jesus uses the divine declaration from Isaiah to describe himself:
This is what the LORD says– Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God!
—Isaiah 44:6
“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End!”
—Revelation 22:12–13
Give at least five examples where the Bible ascribes incommunicable attributes (like eternality, aseity, omnipotence, etc.) to Jesus. For example: Jesus is eternal (John 1:1-5; 8:58; Col 1:15-20).
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Communicable attributes
Communicable attributes are those divine attributes that God shares with and works in his creatures such that we reflect them imperfectly as God's finite image-bearers. These attributes include love, justice, faithfulness, mercy, goodness, beauty, and wisdom among others. (1) Read Psalm 145; (2) Highlight God’s communicable attributes (For an example, I highlighted God’s goodness and righteousness in verse 7)
God is what other communicable attributes? In your answer, include Scripture references. For example: God is abounding goodness. (Psalm 34:8; 86:5; 100:5; 145:7,9; Mk 10:18; 1 Pet 2:3)
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We must remember two realities about God's communicable attributes. First, we must remember that God is his attributes. Some people like to talk about God as if he is a pie sliced up into different attributes or like a cup that merely holds attributes. But Matthew Barrett cautions us here:
Such an approach is deeply problematic, turning God into a collection of attributes. It even sounds as if God were one thing and his attributes another, something added onto him, attached to who he is. Not only does this approach divide up the essence of God, but it potentially risks setting one part of God against another (for example, might his love ever oppose his justice?). Sometimes this error is understandable; it unintentionally slips into our God-talk. We might say, “God has love” or “God possesses all power.” We all understand what is being communicated, but the language can be misleading. It would be far better to say, “God is love” or “God is all-powerful.” By tweaking our language, we are protecting the unity of God’s essence. To do so is to guard the “simplicity of God.”...
God’s attributes are not external to his essence, as if they added a quality to him that he would not otherwise possess. It’s not as if there were attributes accidental to God, capable of being added or subtracted, lost and then found, as if they did not even have to exist in the first place. Rather, God is his attributes. Instead of addition and division, there is absolute unity. His essence is his attributes, and his attributes, his essence.
(Matthew Barrett, None Greater, 73, 75)
Second, we must remember that God is his attributes perfectly. Whereas humans can reflect these communicable attributes in a finite and limited way, God is these attributes without measure.
So, here we must be clear about who Jesus is. We are not saying that Jesus merely reflects the communicable attributes as a perfect human. Certainly, Jesus fully and completely reflects and embodies God's communicable attributes as a man. He perfectly obeyed the Father and fulfilled the Law for us as the head of a new humanity!
Thus, even while Jesus perfectly incarnates the communicable divine attributes as a man, he also is these attributes perfectly according to his divine nature. This is why the Bible often describes Jesus as the OT described Yahweh.
When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
Mark 2:5
Why it matters
Now, lest we think this amounts to nothing more than theological ramblings meant only to puff up our heads, consider what this means for the sufficiency of Christ. Recently, my sins, weaknesses, failures, and inadequacies had driven me to despair. With the words of David in Psalm 143 I cried out to God:
3 The enemy pursues me,
he crushes me to the ground;
he makes me dwell in darkness
like those long dead…
7 Answer me quickly, LORD;
my spirit fails.
Do not hide your face from me
or I will be like those who go down to the pit.
8 Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
for to you I entrust my life!
—Psalm 143:3,7-8
Do you know how the Lord finally answered my prayer? By drawing my heart and mind to the biblical witness of Jesus’s fully divine nature as I wrote this lesson step.
I had lost sight of the greatness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. I had begun thinking of him as a mere man. Certainly, Jesus is fully human, but he is not merely human. In the next lesson, we will celebrate and worship and stand in awe of the truth that Jesus is a fully human savior, and we must not lose sight of this reality. And yet, we must not lose sight of the reality that he is fully God as well.
I had begun treating Jesus as a merely human savior. I was driven to despair because I had begun thinking of him in finite and limited ways. I was discouraged by my sins because I had started believing that I had exhausted his mercy. I was downcast by my weaknesses because I had started thinking that my inadequacies limited his power. My heart was shaken because I had begun thinking of his love in merely human terms. But the Father answered my pleas by reminding me that he has given me a savior who is fully God and so is these attributes without measure.
Oh, how my heart began to sing once more!
As the God-man, Jesus is inexhaustible mercy.
He is untamed and unending love.
He is unfailing faithfulness.
He is unlimited and unbounded power.
He is overflowing and abounding goodness and grace.
He is unchecked and uninhibited sovereignty.
He is our Lord Jesus Christ, our perfect Prophet, Priest, and King!
Take some time to worship along with the video below: "Who is Like the Lord?" by Israel & New Breed.
According to his divine nature, Jesus is all the divine attributes. How does this truth strengthen your faith in Jesus?
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