1. God's attributes are qualities of His character or perfections of His nature. They are not different parts of God. God does not have parts. He cannot be divided. This is the simplicity of God. In God there is a oneness of attribute and essence. The whole essence of God is in each attribute. This is hard to understand but very important for us to understand.

2. Attributes are not persons. God exists as Father, Son, and Spirit--three Persons in one undivided essence. Attributes are modes of relation or the operation of the essence of Deity.

3. All of God's perfections come together as revealed and honored in the highest in the Person and the redeeming work of Christ. God's glory is the revelation of all His attributes. The main issue in salvation is God's glory. The main issue in God's glory is the righteousness of Christ. God's glory, then, is directly related to the atonement which Christ made on behalf of God's elect. In order to have right views of God's character, we must have right views of the atonement Christ made for sinners.

4. All of God's attributes are revealed to lead sinners to this great truth. Everything God reveals in His Word is ultimately to glorify Him as both a just God and a Savior, and to lead sinners to believe on Him as the God who justifies the ungodly based upon the righteousness of Christ. The Gospel reveals how every attribute of God's character is revealed, honored and magnified in that salvation based on the righteousness of Christ.

5. God cannot act contrary to His attributes. He can never be anything less than any one of these attributes. For example, whenever God acts in any capacity, He must be holy. The same is true for all His attributes. Therefore, to deny one attribute is to deny every attribute of God's character and, in essence, to deny God. Nowhere do we see this more than in heresy of universal atonement and salvation conditioned on sinners.

I. THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD - We will begin by studying God's attributes of FAITHFULNESS and IMMUTABILITY. As stated, there is an unbreakable connection between all of God's attributes. This connection is so clearly revealed in God's attributes of faithfulness and immutability that we will begin with these.

A. God's faithfulness and the nature of God - Faithfulness is essential to God. He would not be God if He were unfaithful. Unfaithfulness is contrary to God's nature.

If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself. -- 2 Timothy 2:13

DEFINITION: Faithfulness is God's essential ability and willingness to accomplish all that He purposes and designs. It is His ability and willingness to carry out and fulfill all that He promises, as well as to enforce all that He threatens.

O LORD, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth. -- Isaiah 25:1

Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it. Hearken unto me, ye stouthearted, that are far from righteousness: I bring near my righteousness: it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry: and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory. -- Isaiah 46:9-13

Faithfulness is a most glorious perfection of God's nature because it reaches to all persons and things with which God has any concern. His faithfulness is always the same. It has never failed, nor will it ever fail. God's faithfulness is established in the heavens and will continue unto all generations (Psalm 89:2,24,33; 119:90). God's faithfulness gives us a sure and firm foundation to put our trust and confidence in Him and His word. His faithfulness mainly lies in the certain accomplishment of His word because of who He is. The only one we can trust without reservation is God. Why? It is because of His character. This is where we see His immutability. We can trust God because He cannot lie (Titus 1:2), and He cannot change.

DEFINITION: Immutability means that God is forever the same. He cannot change in His being, His attributes, His mind, nor His determinations. God is essentially infinite and perfect and has no need of change. Change has to be for the better or for the worse. God cannot be better nor can He get worse. He is God.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. -- James 1:17

For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. -- Malachi 3:6

This is one of the main reasons we can trust God without reservation. We all know people we can trust, but we know no one we can trust without reservation. Why? It is because people can change. Faithfulness is a communicable attribute of God; i.e., we can see some resemblance of faithfulness in people, although nowhere near the degree to which we see it in God. Immutability is an incommunicable attribute. Creatures are always mutable. We may make a promise and fully intend to keep the promise, but circumstances beyond our control might cause us to fail. This is not so with God. He never changes. Whatever He says or does is absolute truth. He has no ability to contradict Himself. He never deviates from His will or His Word. There are no circumstances that could cause Him to change, and there are no means that He cannot provide to accomplish His will and His Word.

When God determines to do something, and when He makes a promise, it cannot be frustrated. Therefore to accuse God of unfaithfulness in any capacity is the height of foolishness and evil. It is idolatry. He is the faithful Creator. We may safely commit ourselves to God and depend upon God for all that He has promised. And we may strongly bank on the fact that God is just as faithful to carry out all that He has threatened.

B. God's faithfulness and His covenants - God's faithfulness and immutability are mainly revealed in His covenant relationships. God made a covenant with Adam, the first man and the representative of the human race. It was a covenant of works the terms of which were "Do and live; disobey and die." The symbol of this covenant and the standard which God as sovereign Creator set was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God threatened, "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:17). And by implication God promised continued life upon Adam's obedience. But Satan deceived Eve and persuaded Adam to disobey God. How? He influenced Adam to doubt God's faithfulness both to God's threat and God's promise -

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. -- Genesis 3:4-5

It is as if Satan said, "God will not be faithful to this threat. He can change. You can take the initiative. You can set the standard above God." Adam disobeyed God by doubting God's faithfulness. As a result Adam and the whole human race fell. Man lost fellowship with God by this sin. Is there any doubt, then, of the seriousness of doubting God's faithfulness?

After the Fall, God revealed another covenant He had made before the Fall -- the everlasting covenant of grace between God the Father and God the Son. In this covenant God the Father had chosen a multitude of guilty, hell-deserving sinners out of Adam's fallen race. He conditioned all of their salvation upon God the Son. God the Son agreed to be the Representative and Surety of the elect. He agreed to become incarnate, to obey the law, and to suffer its penalty for their sins. He would come in time and establish a righteousness whereby God the Father could be "faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). God revealed His Son as the Mediator, the Savior in Genesis 3:15 as the "seed of woman" who would bruise the serpent's head.

The terms of this covenant of grace are revealed in the Gospel, God's promise of salvation conditioned on the Lord Jesus Christ. God promises to save, not all without exception, but all who believe on Christ, all who trust God the Father to save them based on the righteousness of Christ. He threatens to damn sinners who refuse to believe in Christ, all who are either ignorant of or who will not submit to the righteousness of Christ revealed in the Gospel. The Bible is full of God's testimony, revealed history, examples and evidences that God is faithful to both His promise and His threat. God will not change. Everything revealed concerning God's mighty acts in history is revealed ultimately to show God's faithfulness to this promise and this threat.

We see then that in order to insure God's faithfulness, the covenant of grace is a covenant of absolute and unconditional promise towards sinners. All conditions were laid upon Christ, the sinner's Representative, and this establishes the certainty of the salvation of all His sheep according to God's promise. The condition of salvation is righteousness. God promises to save guilty, defiled, hell-deserving, ungodly sinners, those who by nature are bound by the powers of self-love and self-righteousness, those who by nature want no part of grace. If salvation were conditioned on them, no one would be saved, and God's faithfulness would be frustrated. Thank God His promise is absolute and unconditional towards us. Thank God that He sent Christ to fulfill all righteousness on our behalf.

I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation. -- Psalms 40:10

It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. -- Lamentations 3:22-23

Not long after the Fall things quickly went downhill. Corruption, idolatry, violence, and every other kind of human sin became common and increasingly worse. This is when God came to Noah and threatened to destroy the whole world by flood. God also promised Noah that the only way of avoiding temporal destruction by the flood was for Noah to build an ark of God's design. Noah believed that God was faithful both to the threat and to the promise -

By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. -- Hebrews 11:7

"By faith," by believing God's revelation concerning His faithfulness to execute His threat, Noah moved. He was motivated not by fear of punishment which comes from unbelief but by reverence and respect for God's character. He knew God would carry out His threat and His promise. The "world" did not believe God would execute the threat, so they had no interest in the promise. Belief of both must come from a consideration of God's character! Noah's "fear" was the result of saving faith that can produce only what is consistent with the certainty of salvation conditioned on Christ! This "fear" does not arise from nature but from grace--the grace of faith. Noah's faith was evidenced by his obedience in preaching both the certainty of the fulfillment of the threat and the promise, and in the building of the ark.

"By the which he condemned the world"--By their unbelief of both the threat and the promise, both of which Noah testified, they gave evidence that their condemnation was just. Notice in all of this that God the Holy Spirit is careful to exclude all occasions for Noah to boast in His own obedience. His adoption and all that it included was based on the righteousness he had by faith, not of works of righteousness which he had performed. In the midst of the general apostasy of Noah's day, "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord," i.e., his salvation was conditioned on Christ of whom the ark was a type. The Holy Spirit is careful to show us that Noah's obedience formed no part of the ground of his salvation. His obedience testified he was already righteous by virtue of the imputed righteousness of Christ. The absolute certainty of deliverance based on this imputed righteousness motivated Noah to Godly fear and obedience.

We can see God's faithfulness in the life of Abraham. Abraham grew up in idolatry. For many generations his family worshiped false gods. One day God called Abraham and commanded him to leave his home of idolatry and go to the land of Canaan. Abraham had no guarantee apart from God's word that he would get there, but he knew God was trustworthy. God promised Abraham that his descendants would grow to the size of a nation and be his special people. God revealed to Abraham that he would have a natural seed and a spiritual seed. The natural seed would be the nation Israel, his physical descendants who would inhabit the earthly land of Canaan. God told Abraham that his posterity would be a blessing to the world because it was through them that the Messiah would come. Abraham's spiritual seed would be God's elect out of every nation, all who believe, as did Abraham, God's promise of salvation conditioned on the righteousness of Christ.

Consider how God promised Abraham that he and Sarah would have a child. They went childless until they were both too old to have children naturally. They had their doubts at times, but this was sinful. It was doubting God's faithfulness to fulfill His promise. God let them go into old age to show that the promise was absolute and unconditional towards Abraham and Sarah. But both Abraham and Sarah believed God. Read Romans 4:13-21 and Hebrews 11:11. Consider when God commanded Abraham to go and sacrifice Isaac. Isaac was the child of promise through whom the Messiah would descend. How could Abraham expect the promises to be fulfilled if Isaac were sacrificed? Read Hebrews 11:17-19.

He knew God would keep His promises somehow, even by a miracle if necessary. Abraham's faith was not blind or mystical. He had seen God's faithfulness time and time again. In all this Abraham proved He trusted God to be faithful to His promise of eternal salvation based on the imputed righteousness of Christ. God did not choose Abraham to be a part of His divine plan based on any particular merit, quality or virtue on Abraham's part. God made His choice according to His sovereign pleasure and will. There were no conditions on Abraham. The conditions and obligations were God's alone. Abraham and all his spiritual seed were secure in the eternal plan of God. Why? Because God is true to His Word and faithful to fulfill His covenant promises.

When God fulfilled this promise in time to Abraham's physical seed, the nation Israel, He made sure that they understood that it was due to His faithfulness to the promise He had made to Abraham 430 years before -

The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations. -- Deuteronomy 7:7-9

C. God's faithfulness and the atonement - We see then that the greatest manifestation of God's faithfulness is in redemption by Christ. Here we see an absolute, unchangeable and unconditional promise of eternal salvation and final glory conditioned on the Lord Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Godhead, who is "the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever" (Hebrews 13:8), and who "is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him" (Hebrews 7:25). Christ is the only one who is able to establish a righteousness that demands and insures the salvation of sinners to the glory of God. God is faithful and able to save sinners through Christ. In His wisdom and power, He has foreseen and removed every obstacle that would hinder our salvation, and He has provided every means to attain it.

God's faithfulness, then, means that all whom God has purposed to save, all for whom Christ died and established righteousness, shall be saved. Not one of them will perish. If even one would perish, then God would not be faithful. Read John 6:37; 10:11,16,27-29; 17:1-2; 2 Corinthians 1:20; 2 Peter 3:9.

Those who claim to believe that God promises to save all without exception, that God wants to save all without exception but that sinners will not do their part; those who claim that God sent Christ to die for all men without exception, and who claim that salvation is conditioned on the sinner's faith; how can they claim to believe in a faithful, immutable God? They cannot. Such a promise is based upon mutable sinners? They would have to say that God is either not faithful or not able to save all whom He promises to save. Even though God promised to save them, and even though Christ died for them, they perish anyway. Their answer is, "God did not promise to save all without exception. He promised to save all who meet the condition." If this is true then grace is destroyed. Salvation is only for those who will meet the condition. That is works. Also, if this true, then the promise cannot be sure for anyone, even though God says that it is. What if no sinner meets the condition? And if they do, what would stop them from not meeting the condition later on and losing their salvation? Either way, God's wisdom and faithfulness are destroyed.

Remember, God's promise of salvation is absolute and unconditional towards sinners. It is all conditioned on Christ. Read Romans 4:16 again -

Therefore it (salvation) is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all.

In salvation conditioned on Christ we see God's wisdom engaged to insure His faithfulness to save sinners in such a way so that He can be both a just God and a Savior. We see His holiness honored as Christ bore the sins of His elect and suffered the full penalty of God's judgment against them. Here we see God's faithfulness to execute His threat against sin. He punished sin when it was imputed to His sinless Son. If Christ paid the full penalty for their sins and they perish anyway, then God is not even faithful to Himself. His holiness demands the salvation of all for whom sins have been paid. If they perish anyway, God is not faithful to His holiness.

For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. -- Hebrews 2:10

God's purpose is "to bring many sons unto glory." There is no way this purpose can be fulfilled certainly if salvation is conditioned on ungodly, condemned, spiritually dead sinners. The means appointed to accomplish this purpose and to make it sure and certain was by conditioning all of salvation on God's Son. Why must this be so? Because "it became Him." It was fitting and suitable to the character of God the Father, including His faithfulness. Therefore, God must be faithful to fulfill His promise if He has truly been glorified in redemption through His Son. If Christ has met all the conditions and established righteousness for all whom He represented, then God must be faithful to save them and bring them to glory. If we believe that any for whom Christ died finally perish, we are calling God a liar because He has promised to save all for whom Christ died. The glory of all His divine perfections was entrusted to Christ, and Christ has been faithful in things pertaining to God and for His sheep. God's faithfulness is just as much engaged for His glory as it is for our salvation.

God's faithfulness is involved in (1) instituting the covenant of promise; (2) fulfilling all the conditions of that promise by His Son; and (3) effectually applying that promise to all the heirs of promise.