Top 7 Bible Verses That Show God’s Character

Here are my top 7 Bible verses that reveal God’s character and why they are so important for us to know.

Isaiah 6:3 “And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

I believe of all of God’s characteristics, this is the greatest of them all. This is the only attribute of God that is taken to the 3rd power. In the Jewish vernacular, saying something twice is the greatest emphasis possible as in the most intimate of relationships where God says “Abraham, Abraham, Saul, Saul (later changed to Paul)” and many other times where the person’s name is mentioned twice. This reflects the most intimate of relationships so when Isaiah writes “holy, holy, holy” he is, in effect, saying that above all things, God is holy. Never does it say God is “love, love, love,” or “merciful, merciful, merciful,” even though we know He is, but to me, and the Scripture seems to support this idea, above all things we can say and know about God is the fact that He “holy, holy, holy” above all other characteristics.

Ephesians 2:4-5 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.”

God is not only merciful, He is “rich in mercy” meaning that He has abundant mercy for those who have repented and trusted in Christ. Mercy is this; God not giving us what we really deserve. God withholds what we do deserve and that is His wrath and by His withholding of His righteous wrath we receive mercy and that is something that we do not deserve.

Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Grace is nearly the opposite of mercy. Mercy is where we don’t receive what we do deserve where grace is what we receive what we don’t deserve. For one thing, it is a free gift and it is His unmerited, graciousness on the unworthy sinner. Thankfully, it is “not a result of works” because of if it was, we would most certainly boast but our works are nothing more than filthy rags to God and He will not accept them (Isaiah 64:6).

First John 4:8 “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

God is love. Nowhere in all time and in history is this great love better displayed than on the cross where Jesus died for us while we were still His enemies and wicked sinners (Rom 5:8, 10). Love is not a feeling as much as it is a verb; it is what you do more than what you feel. Jesus surely didn’t feel like going to the cross and taking upon Himself the sins of the world but He took action and died for the ungodly (Rom 5:6) and that is the consummate expression of God’s love.

Jeremiah 10:12 “It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.”

God is the omnipotent God and He simply spoke and the universe came into being. The psalmist declared “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Psalm 33:9) and “the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible” (Heb 11:3). God’s Word has effectual power to bring about whatsoever He pleases.

Isaiah 59:20 “And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the Lord.”

This prophecy of Isaiah’s is clearly about Christ Who redeemed us. The Hebrew word Isaiah uses is “ga’al” which means “to ransom” like when Ruth was redeemed by Boaz as we read in Ruth 4:14,“Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel!” If you redeem something, you actually purchase it and then own it as in long ago people collected S & H Green Stamps and when they had enough stamps they could redeem them for something of value which explains why Paul wrote “for you were bought with a price” (1 Cor 6:20). So for the believers, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” (Gal 3:13) and since we could never keep the law, Christ because a curse for us on the tree (or the cross).

Psalm 62:8 “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah.”

Almost half of the uses of the word “refuge” are found in the Book of Psalms. Maybe this is because David was running for his life so often that this word was extremely important to David. If not for God, King Saul would have found and killed David. Today, we take refuge in God just as the psalmist wrote “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1b) and “You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word” (Psalm 119:114) “For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock” (Psalm 27:5)

Conclusion

There are more than seven characteristics of God of course because God is infinite and my finite mind cannot ever hope to fully comprehend all of His mighty and most glorious attributes. The most important ones are not given in the order of their importance here, with the exception of His three-fold attribute of holiness, for the word holy appears more than all other characteristics (611 times). The good news for us is “The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord, and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 29:19)

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Blind Chance or Intelligent Design available on Amazon.