Great Doctrines of the Bible—God the Father, God the Son/ Martyn Lloyd Jones

7. The Moral Attributes of God

The moral attributes of God is also described as the communicable attributes of God (69). 

a). The first one is the holiness of God. The primarily meaning of holiness is “separation—separation from evil” (69); that is, God is absolutely pure and entirely “apart from sin” (69). God is utterly holy “that nothing but that awful death could make it possible for Him to forgive us. The cross is the supreme and the sublimest declaration and revelation of the holiness of God” (71). Due to the holiness of God, we should approach Him “with reverence and awe” (Hebrew 28:12). Moreover, unless we have a true conception of the holiness of God, we will never know we are a terrible sinner. God’s holiness does not only make us know our sin, but also shows “the absolute necessity of the atonement” (72). 

b). Second, it is the righteousness or the justice of God. It is “that quality in God which always reveals God as doing that which is right”; “[r]ighteousness and justice are the carrying out of God’s holiness and the expression of it in the government of the world” (72). Lloyd Jones clarifies, “righteousness is the demonstration of God’s legislative holiness”; justice is “God’s judicial holiness” (72). There is a further definition: “the righteousness of God is God’s love of holiness, and the justice of God is God’s abomination of sin” (72). These attributes are manifested in God’s wrath, God’s forgiving our sins, keeping of His word, His reward for the righteous, and His declaration of His own righteousness and absolute justice. Furthermore, God “declares us to be righteous in a legal or forensic sense. That is justification by faith. But He also makes us righteous. That is sanctification” (74).

c). Third, it is the goodness or the love of God. God manifests his goodness and His love toward: “His creatures in general” (74), toward “those who do not in any way deserve it”—this is the grace of God, and toward “those who are in misery or distress as the result of their sin, and irrespective of their deserts”—this is the mercy of God (or “the loving-kindness of God, the tender compassion of God”), and, finally, the thing in manifestation of the goodness and the love of God is the patience and longsuffering of God (76). 

d). Fourth, it is God’s faithfulness. It means that God is the one we can absolutely rely. 

Finally, Lloyd Jones reminds us an essential conception: that is, we should not isolate any of the attributes in our thinking about God; for “God is altogether in every one of His attributes at the same time” (78).