God’s communicable attributes are those characteristics that He shares with all people made in His image. Today, R.C. Sproul shows how studying these divine attributes can help Christians reflect the holy character of God. Receive R.C. Sproul’s book Everyone’s a Theologian, his 60-message teaching series Foundations: An Overview of Systematic Theology as a special-edition DVD collection, and lifetime digital access to the messages and study guide, all for your donation of any amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3887/donate Meet Today’s Teacher: R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was known for his ability to winsomely and clearly communicate deep, practical truths from God’s Word. He was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. Meet the Host: Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children. Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
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You remember the Old Testament summary of the law of God that Micah provides. What does the Lord require of thee but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God so that his justice and righteousness are communicable attributes that we are called to emulate.
In the Bible, we are commanded to do many things. But when we look at that list, there are some things that seem, well, impossible. For example, can we really be holy as God is holy? Today on this Tuesday edition of Renewing Your Mind, R.C. Sproul examines the attributes of God, focusing on those attributes that God has given us the ability to display.
Here's Dr. Sproul from his series, Foundations.
In our last session, we looked at the distinction between the incommunicable attributes of God and the communicable attributes of God, and we recall from that occasion that the incommunicable attributes of God refer to those aspects of God's being and nature which are not shared by the creature, things like infinity and eternality and omnipresence and omniscience and attributes of that sort.
Today, I'd like to begin by looking at a comment that the Apostle Paul makes in his letter to the Ephesians. In the fifth chapter of that epistle, beginning at verse 1, where we read, "...therefore be imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma."
Now, in this text, Paul calls the believer to imitate God. Now, the only way we can imitate God is if there are certain things about God that we share in by nature and have the ability to mirror and to reflect. So this text presumes that there are certain attributes that God possesses that are communicable. That is, that we also have the ability to possess and to manifest. Now,
There is one attribute about which there's some discussion and debate as to its communicability, and that is the attribute of holiness, because the Scriptures say that God is holy.
And when we probe the meaning of the holiness of God, we see that that term, holy, as it describes God, refers both to His nature and to His character, and that there are at least two distinct meanings of the term, holy. in the Bible.
And the very primary meaning, the one that is first in terms of significance and first in terms of usage, is not the one we usually think of when we think of the word holy. In the first instance, that God is holy refers to His greatness, to His transcendence, to that sense in which He is above and beyond anything in the universe. And in that regard,
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