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Nate Roten / Attributes of God / Aseity; Immutability; Self-Sufficiency
Main Idea
God is eternal, immutable, and self-existent.
As we launch into the first sermon of the Attributes of God mini-series, I want to try to frame the discussion to give us a framework to understand an incomprehensible God. On one hand, God has revealed Himself in the pages of scripture, and the Spirit continues to guide us through those profound truths. On the other hand, God is so different than us and so vast that we could never fully know or comprehend how grand, magnificent, and majestic He truly is. And to be honest, if we, as finite creatures, could fully understand God, then I think He would be an incredibly small God. So, let’s be thankful that He is far more than we could ever truly grasp because that makes Him a great and mighty God.
When we say ‘attribute,’ we are talking about what makes God, ‘God.’ If you have ever had the chance to meet a famous person or perhaps a long-lost relative, you might ask yourself some questions on the way to meet them. Maybe you have heard stories, but you want to see for yourself. Is he funny? Is she as good of an athlete as everyone says? Is he really that rich? Is she as kind and generous as they all say? Is he so strong that he can rip a license plate in half with his bare hands? Will he care about me? Does she want to get to know me? If you are going to spend time with someone, you want to know about them, don’t you?
That is our goal for this series: to get to know the God who created us, the God who loves us, the God who saved us, and the God who walks with us daily. I want us to know Him, adore Him, and fall deeper in love with Him each day. I don’t plan to be exhaustive and investigate every trait. Rather, I want to whet your appetite and fuel your desire to pursue Him passionately once this is complete.
So, to begin, I want to offer two categories of God’s attributes that faithful believers have provided over the centuries. Different people have sliced this pie in a few different ways, but I want to delineate these attributes in the ways that relate to us as humans and image-bearers and those that only apply to God alone. The official terms for these are God’s communicable attributes (discernable shared traits with humans) and incommunicable traits (characteristics only God can have). For example, God is love, and we can love, so ‘love’ is a communicable trait. God is also omnipresent (being everywhere at all times), which we cannot be; therefore, it is attributed to God alone and is an incommunicable trait.
To help us grasp the immensity of His traits, I want to read a quote from Dr. Hugh Ross, a Christian astrophysicist, apologist, and founder of the organization Reasons To Believe. In an interview discussing the fine-tuning of the universe, which is something Dr. Ross specializes in, he said:
“Just to get human beings on one planet in the universe, the probability is less than once chance in 10 to the 1,600 power (that’s 1,600 zeros after the 1), and I compared that to the very best examples of human inventiveness in design. And there, we get one part in 10 to the 25 or 10 to the 26. So, what we are getting, with the one who created the universe, is not 26 zeros after the 1, but 1,600 zeros after the 1. Which makes the point that the one who created the universe is, at minimum, is 10 to the 1,600 more intelligent, more knowledgeable, more creative, more powerful, more caring than we human beings. And those are only attributes that a personal being can manifest. The degree to which we see these personal attributes isolates the God of the Bible from the gods of other major religions of the world.”
All of God’s attributes are infinite because he is infinite, but that concept is so elusive to the human mind. It is so big that it is impossible for our carnal minds to grasp. I hope that helps you understand the magnitude of God’s capacity to do and be everything we will discuss over the coming weeks.
To begin, I want to start where you might not expect, but in my humble opinion, it is the foundation on which everything else is built. The three attributes we will discuss today aren’t better or worse than all the others. Taking one trait and making it grander than others or eclipsing all the rest is a popular trend. Take “God is love” for an example. For many, that means God will never judge me and accept my current sinful lifestyle because God can’t do anything but love me because that is who He is. That would be an egregious misrepresentation of His love. His love has standards.
That said, I propose that what we will discuss today will give us unshakable confidence in everything else we will learn in this series. And if you are confused by what that means, I think you will understand once we are finished today.
These first three traits are incommunicable, so they have no human equivalent. These attributes are:
1. Self-existence
2. Eternality
3. Unchanging
Self-existent
Exodus 3:14 ESV
God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”
John 1:4 ESV
In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
Aseity: Latin – a se, “from oneself.” God is the wellspring of life and is, therefore, the source. All life comes from God. All life is sustained by God. The breath in your lungs is from God. This is what Paul tried to tell the intellectuals of the Areopagus about humans: “In Him, we live and move and have our being.”
And what’s more, God didn’t say, “I WAS, I AM CURRENTLY, or I WILL BE.” He said, “I AM.” He always has been, is, and will be.
Lifetime dependent. As humans, we are born. When we are born, we are completely helpless, so we are dependent on our parents for everything. We can’t feed ourselves, clean ourselves after a diaper blowout, work around the house to earn an allowance, etc. Then, we grow up and gain some level of independence, yet we still rely on God to sustain our lives. Without a heartbeat and air in our lungs, we die. We could get in an accident on the road or get mugged and killed in a back alley. If that happens, we don’t have the power to sustain our life force while our wounds heal. If the wounds are bad enough, we will die.
Solely independent. But God isn’t this way. He is not dependent on anything outside of Himself. As the author of creation, there was nothing before Him, and all creation flowed from Him. Paul says this of Jesus in his letter to the Colossian church:
Colossians 1:17 ESV
And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Jesus was there from the beginning of time and is the logos that brought all things into existence, and still, all things are held together by His power. This means that all things are dependent on God to continue to exist, while He is only dependent on Himself to continue to exist, because again, He is the wellspring of life itself.
This naturally leads to God’s second attribute of the day, which is the eternality of His existence.
Eternal
Psalm 90:2 ESV
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Hebrews 1:10 ESV
And, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands;
Eternality and Aseity go hand-in-hand. Think about it. If you are self-existent, you must have always existed as the source of life. You cannot be the source of life and not be alive. The human mind cannot grasp the grandeur of eternity because we live within time. As time-bound creatures, we can only think linearly. For us, there is a past that we cannot return to (unless we have a flux capacitor), a present in which we currently live, and a future that we cannot foresee.
Time. But for God, He simply is. Time itself is one of His creations, so He lives outside of it. He is just as much in the past as in the future. C.S. Lewis described eternity as a sheet of paper with a small, straight line in the center. That line represents all of time and creation, while the rest of the paper represents God. He surrounds it. He is in front, behind, underneath, and above it. As another example, many of you know I am a fiction writer and have written an action-adventure fantasy series. When I first started to dream up the story, I knew how I wanted it to end, so in a way, I already knew the end from the beginning, and I had complete control as to how the events would unfold so that it would bring about that conclusion. Now that I have written 3 of the 4 books, I can return to each book and spend as much time as I wish with any of the characters. I can do that because I live outside of that timeline and created world. I can return to a scene with multiple characters and spend time focusing on just one of them. Tomorrow, I can go back to that exact scene and spend time focusing on another character. If you can understand how I, as an author, can interact with my created world and story, then hopefully, you can begin to understand how God interacts with time. However, my illustration still falls short because while I can pick up the book and return to a scene and individual characters, God is already there in our past, present, and future.
Material. The first verse of the Bible says that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth is finite. It had a beginning. If the earth is finite, so is the rest of the cosmos. All of matter had a beginning. It was created. Therefore, God was around before its beginning as its Creator. God is the one who drew that line. That line has a beginning and an end. One day, the earth as we know it will cease to exist, and God will create a new earth that is eternal. Like a master artist, God has created a masterpiece. Think of a painter creating a stunning landscape scene. The painter is not contained to his creation. He lives outside of it. There was a time when that painting didn’t exist, and will likely be a time when it is destroyed or decayed, and yet, the painter lives on.
Purpose. Because God created time and space, has authority over His creation, and lives outside of it, He can put into effect a plan and purpose for His creation and carry it out to perfection. In Acts 4, we learned that Jesus’ death on the cross (and even the people responsible) was a predestined plan. Our adoption and salvation are predestined plans. Scripture is filled with prophecies that have come to pass (and a few more yet to come). All of this is possible because of an eternal God who can live outside of time and yet bring about His will within time.
Jesus. There are 1,000 reasons why Jesus is amazing, but this is a big one. In the person of Jesus Christ, God entered into His creation as a human—the infinite and eternal God in finite human flesh. As a human, Jesus experienced pain, hunger, fatigue, and rejection. He was tortured at His crucifixion and died a human death, and yet, as God, He cannot die because He is eternal. As a baby in Mary’s arms, He was still the logos who was there at the beginning and is upholding the universe by the strength of His divine power. He is Immanuel – God with us… the God who is outside of time is also the God who walks with us daily within it. What an amazing truth!
Unchanging
Malachi 3:6 ESV
“For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.
James 1:17 ESV
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
What this gives us. Aseity and Eternality help us grasp how big, grand and all-encompassing God is. He isn’t dependent on anything or anyone for His existence. This should give us a real and lasting sense of security. He needs no one, yet He created us with a relationship in mind because that was a part of His plan from the very beginning. He is outside of time, so no matter where I am in life, He is there (more on that in a later sermon). Because of these two attributes, I have an unshakable assurance that God is keeping everything operational, and it will continue until He says otherwise. I shouldn’t worry about things He has control over. In fact, it should give me peace.
However, in my opinion, the reality that God is unchanging is the one attribute that should give us unshakable confidence, and that confidence can define our lives.
Immutability. The theological term for this attribute is God’s immutability. To our modern ears, the term sounds like he cannot be silenced – that He cannot be muted – but it simply means He cannot change. He said this plainly in Malachi and unpacked it a bit in James 1:17, but why do I emphasize that this brings us confidence? Doesn’t this make God seem boring?
God is perfect. God, boring…absolutely not! God’s immutability is one of His most praiseworthy traits! We must remember that God is the pinnacle of holiness and perfection. To be anything different would mean He would be lesser than, meaning He would cease to be God.
God always is. Humans change. We are fallen and imperfect creatures who need to grow, develop, and conform to the image of Christ. Even the gods humans have invented, like the Greek gods, change. They were born (in a host of weird ways, by the way), so they are not eternal, and they act like humans do. They fight and change their minds all the time. But God isn’t like that. He won’t tell you that He will forgive you, but then turn around and hurl a lightning bolt at the back of your head. He is unchanging. That is praiseworthy in and of itself, but here is where the rubber meets the road for us:
You always are. Not only is God at minimum 1,600 times more powerful, intelligent, loving, and compassionate, but when He says He IS something or that He will DO something, it is forever sealed. He will not change or go back on His word. He is a perfect Father. That will never change. His infinite love for His children will never cease or fail. Once you are the object of His love, He will never stop loving you. Once you are the object of His grace, he cannot be ungraceful toward you. If it’s true that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, then there will never be a time when you stand condemned. He is a perfect God who cannot change!
So, later in the series, when we learn some of God’s communicable attributes like love, grace, and mercy, know that those attributes are eternally and perpetually given to you by an eternal and unchanging God!
Takeaways
As I mentioned when we started, we should avoid emphasizing one of God’s attributes as more important or valuable than another. All of His attributes are what makes God, God. That said, I hope today has laid a foundation for you. Everything we learn about Him in this series will depend on these three characteristics.
1. Aseity
2. Eternality
3. Immutability
God is utterly transcendent and above His creation. He existed before anything was made, and He will continue into eternity. Because He created all things, including life itself, He is not dependent on anything in His creation. He is the fullness of all His traits and the wellspring of life. And, because He is the apex of perfection and holiness, and to be anything less would mean that He would cease to be God, He will never change or go back on His spoken word. This is the God we serve, the God we love, the God who saved us, and the solid rock on which we can confidently build our lives.
Questions to Consider
- What are the two broad categories of God’s attributes?
- How does the concept of God’s self-existence challenge your perspective on your own dependence on Him for life and sustenance?
- In what ways can understanding God’s eternality impact the way you view time, purpose, and His interaction with His creation?
- How does the immutability of God (His unchanging nature) bring you confidence and security?
- In what practical ways can you build your confidence and trust in God’s unchanging nature in the midst of life’s ups and downs?