God's character stands as an unwavering beacon of perfection and constancy throughout the history of humanity's relationship with Him. His character is always beyond reproach, unchanging in its essence, as He remains the same through all time. Like the Father, Jesus Christ embodies this same steadfast nature, being the same yesterday, today, and forever. Their consistency and righteousness are evident in every interaction with mankind, never faltering despite the repeated failures of humanity to uphold their covenants with Him. God's every act is rooted in love, a defining characteristic that shapes His purpose to create us in Their image, a purpose that has remained unchanged since the beginning with Adam and Eve. His love is not merely a feeling but an active force, demonstrated in both judgment and mercy, as He seeks to build faithfulness within us, desiring a relationship grounded in trust and consistent obedience to His ways.

The true knowledge of God remains hidden from much of the world, despite many claiming religious understanding. God is not one-dimensional; He embodies a range of character traits that defy simplistic views. As revealed in Exodus 34:6-7, He is merciful, gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands and forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. Yet, He also does not clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation. God loves and hates, makes peace and war, shows mercy and demands justice, showers kindness on some while pouring out fury on others, blesses the obedient, and curses sinners. His sovereignty is evident as He has mercy on whom He wills and hardens whom He wills, demonstrating His authority over creation. To Israel, He is a kind and loving Master, but to Edom, He is wrath and destruction. The same God, revealed as Jesus Christ in the New Testament, is multifaceted—gentle and lowly in heart, offering rest to souls, yet fiercely rebuking the Pharisees as serpents and vipers, blessing children, and driving money changers from the Temple with a whip. God warns against perceiving Him as merely like us, rebuking the notion that He is limited or tamable. He is holy, other, pure, and transcendent, far beyond human comprehension, and infinitely greater than any finite mind can grasp.

God's character stands as the ultimate standard by which we measure good and bad traits. His divine nature, revealed through His names and attributes, embodies holy, righteous character. He sees us more clearly than we see ourselves, knowing our hearts, yet tirelessly works on our behalf. Through His Holy Spirit, He converts our thinking, enabling us to perceive truth and inspiring us to conform to His image. His love takes root in our hearts, fostering a desire to please Him and act acceptably before Him. He imparts gifts that, when cultivated, help godly character grow within us. His purpose for us, to establish His image in each of His children, endures despite any adversity. From Him flow wisdom, grace, and all virtues necessary for transformation into the image of Jesus Christ. As we align ourselves with His character, clinging to Him for strength and motivation, He leads us in the right direction, ensuring that we become like Him and are known by Him.

God's character runs the full range from overt compassion to utter harshness, and Paul captures this in the merism of Romans 11:22, the goodness and the severity of God. A merism joins two opposites to express totality, so these two poles together give a shorthand guide to who God is. He put away David's brutal sin, yet struck Uzzah dead on the spot for touching the Ark. He chose to love Jacob and hate Esau before the twins were born or had done good or evil. This pairing of goodness and severity is a central, if not the pivotal, theme of Scripture from beginning to end, seen in narrative after narrative, historically and prophetically. He protected Noah while destroying the world, delivered Lot while burning the cities of the plain, humbled Joseph before exalting him, and tested Job before blessing his latter days. He will discipline modern Israel harshly and then restore the nation with unlimited compassion. In Acts 5 He healed multitudes through Peter's shadow, yet Ananias and Sapphira fell dead. God's kindness must never be taken for granted. Those reconciled through Christ must continue in the faith, for those who neglect so great a salvation will not escape His severity. That severity is designed to shake them to the marrow and lead them to repentance, while His goodness reaches its fullest expression in His Kingdom.

God's character is deeply tied to the significance of His name, as revealed in the third commandment, which prohibits taking His name in vain. He does not want His holy name attached to words or actions that diminish His glory and honor, as this commandment covers a broad array of behaviors that reflect negatively upon Him. When God speaks of bearing His name, He is concerned with how His people carry it in all everyday activities, emphasizing the quality of their example of godliness before others. His names go beyond mere identification, revealing the reality of who and what He is as the holy God, expressing His essential Being. God forbids His people from speaking or acting in ways that deceive others about or devalue His holy, righteous character. Instead, He desires those called by His name to express the truth about Him and His way in every thought, word, and behavior, bringing glory and honor to the Most High God through a worthy manner of conduct.

God's character is what His name encapsulates, and it is His true glory. His visible glory is holy, overwhelming, and unapproachable; no sinner can see it and live. His name and goodness are approachable and understandable, and that is how a holy God can dwell among a sinful people. When Moses held the new tablets, God proclaimed His name by listing His traits. He is Yahweh, El, the Ever-living One, and these traits set Him apart as God. He is compassionate, gracious, and slow to anger, patient with human weakness and giving time to repent. He abounds in covenant loyalty (hesed) and in truth, so He cannot lie and is wholly reliable. He keeps mercy for thousands and is eternally faithful. He forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. He is just and equitable, punishing sin appropriately but limiting its effects to the third and fourth generation, while His blessing for righteousness reaches thousands. He does not clear the guilty, yet He works with people and does not want them to fail. This character, not dramatic displays like wind, earthquake, and fire, is where God is found, in the still small voice. Baptism into His name immerses believers in His nature and character and begins making them one with Him. Those who keep His word and do not deny His name will have His name written on them.

God's glory is fundamentally the expression of His character, defined as His way, His goodness, His name, and His nature rather than merely a visible radiance or physical manifestation. This understanding develops from the initial appearance in the burning bush on Horeb, where the Lord stood within the flame yet remained distinct from it, establishing that His presence alone renders a place holy. The same presence continued in the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, which accompanied Israel for forty years as a constant reminder of His leading and protection, and later filled the tabernacle and temple as the Shekinah. Moses requested to see this glory after the golden calf incident, yet the Lord responded by causing all His goodness to pass before him and by proclaiming His name, revealing mercy, grace, longsuffering, abundant goodness, truth, compassion, and righteous judgment. These attributes constitute the essence of the glory Moses was permitted to behold. Later prophets reinforced the connection by equating the glory of the Lord with His words, His ways, righteousness, and the knowledge of His way of life. In the New Testament this same glory is fully manifested when the Word, who was with God and was God from the beginning, became flesh and tabernacled among humanity, full of grace and truth. The Greek terms for grace and truth correspond to the Hebrew chesed and emeth, denoting redeeming love and faithfulness. Jesus demonstrated this character through acts such as the raising of Lazarus, which He explicitly identified as a revelation of God's glory. He then imparted that glory to His disciples so they might be one with the Father and with Him, enabling the world to recognize that the Father sent the Son. Consequently the church itself becomes the temple in which the glory dwells, so that believers now bear and display the very character of God to the world.

Knowing God's true character is the foundation of right conduct, and a mistaken conception of Him is the starting point of idolatry, which is entertaining thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. Cultures and individuals act according to what they believe their god requires, as shown by the Purpose-Driven movement, Catholicism, and Islam. A survey of Americans reduced God to four vague images: Authoritarian, Benevolent, Critical, and Distant. The true God is all of these and much more. Abraham, by contrast, knew God's power and faithfulness so intimately that he trusted Him to raise Isaac or provide a substitute. Because eternal life, as John 17:3 describes it, is a quality of life lived in knowing God, the converted must continually seek a truer conception of His nature, purpose, and character. God does not hide Himself. Creation reveals His eternal power and divine nature (Romans 1:19-20), and He desires to be known. Yet people let their imaginations run wild, lose their awe of Him, and slide into idolatry and moral corruption. Since Adam and Eve's sin and Satan's deception, human conceptions of God have been vague, and none truly seeks Him until He reveals Himself. Though His depths are unsearchable (Romans 11:33), much can be learned. Jeremiah 9:23-24 shows that God values being known as the One who exercises lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness above any human riches.

God's names identify His character, and a person's name in biblical times represented his essence. God's names declare Him Eternal, Creator, Almighty, our Banner, our Healer, our Sanctifier, our Peace, our Righteousness, our Shepherd, and our Master. Christ's own name, Jesus, means Savior. Honoring God's name therefore means more than pronouncing it rightly, for it means revering what the names stand for: God Himself and His character. He is holy, and only He can make anything truly holy, as when He created and hallowed the Sabbath. He is unrivaled, for He declares, "I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me." Every family in heaven and earth is named from the Father, so He is the ultimate Ruler over all things. He has also highly exalted Jesus Christ and given Him the name above every name. His name is thus the highest in the universe, and He is due all praise, honor, and obedience for His sovereign position. His people hallow His name by setting Him in His own exalted category, learning His teachings, and keeping Him at the center of life, praising and obeying Him in every word and deed so that His glory is witnessed by the world.

God's name expresses His character, for biblical names describe some aspect of the person, and God is revealed under different names, each setting forth a distinct virtue or characteristic of His nature. God names Himself what He is. These attributes shape how we worship Him. The faithful therefore do not trust in a mere title, which would be superstition, but in what He is, His character and nature, which they have experienced by living His way. Jesus came to reveal the Father's name, and the Father's name guards us from evil through the Word of God, which is truth. Salvation does not rest on pronouncing the name correctly but on doing God's will. God is the sovereign Ruler of the universe, and His name is so holy that Jesus forbids invoking it to back up our oaths. Because God cares about His reputation, He often acts "for My name's sake." We bear His name from baptism and are witnesses that He is God, so using His name in a way that denies His true character, whether in speech or conduct, breaks the third commandment. Prayer without obedience, or praise offered in rebellion, is vain. To hallow His name is to set it apart as holy through obedient conduct. Those who overcome will one day receive His name.

Psalms of praise celebrate God's worthiness through what He has revealed of Himself in creation and throughout the Bible. We can see much about Him in the beauty and symbiosis of the world, understanding that there is one Maker who designed everything to work together, and this leads us to praise Him. The Bible provides detailed insights into His character, clearly stating what He is like, offering a great education about who He is. This revelation, if we think properly, results in glorifying Him for what He is and what He has shown us. Praise psalms extol Him for His character, particularly His hesed, often translated as lovingkindness, mercy, steadfast love, or unfailing love, appearing 127 times in the book of Psalms. This covenantal term reflects the love, kindness, grace, or mercy that He bound Himself to give us through a covenant. He did not need to require Himself to do these things, but He holds Himself to them because that is His nature. This covenant assures us that He will fulfill His promises, as seen in clauses where He pledges to love, heal, fight our battles, save us, bless us, and watch over us, inspiring awe and praise for His boundless commitment. In Psalm 33:5, it is written that He loves righteousness and justice, and the earth is full of His goodness, which is His covenant love expressed in good responses to us. In Psalm 98:2, He has made known His salvation and openly shown His righteousness to all nations, demonstrating His covenantal love through deliverance. Psalm 23:6 parallels His mercy with goodness, showing that His mercy is good and His goodness manifests as mercy, following us all our lives. In various psalms, His hesed is linked with salvation, faithfulness, righteousness, and truth, indicating reliability and trustworthiness, as He embodies truth and consistently does what He promises. The psalm authors recognize that our God is unlike the capricious gods of other nations, praising Him for being the greatest, for listening, responding, helping, watching, and guiding in ways that other gods cannot. They rejoice in His truthfulness to His promises, His faithfulness, consistency, mercy, and all His attributes, fostering faith in Him. We can trust and rely on Him, taking His words, acting on them, and reaping the rewards because He backs up what He says, never failing, as He is true to Himself and His word. In Psalm 100:5, it is declared that the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations, emphasizing His consistent goodness, eternal mercy, and unchanging realness. In Psalm 135:13, His name and fame endure forever through all generations, signifying that His holy, righteous character is eternal and unchanging, ensuring that He can be trusted to save as a gracious, merciful, covenant-keeping God. His memorial name brings to mind His covenant-fulfilling acts, leading us to praise Him for all He has done for our good, even when His timing differs from ours, ultimately working everything for the best.