What the Godness of God means

Sin, however, means the contradiction of the Godness of God — it is sin against his majesty and is counter to his self—giving in love. If sin is an attack upon the very Godness of God, upon God precisely as God, then by his very Godness, his eternal will as God to be who he is must and does resist sin — just in being God. To be God is to be opposed to the private self—assertion of man. There can be only one God who asserts himself to be supreme: as we read in the decalogue, ‘I am the Lord your God . . . You shall have no other gods before me . . . I the Lord your God am a jealous God’. When men and women assert themselves against the Godness of God they are actually asserting themselves to be God, and so placing themselves in direct contradiction to the Godness of God. God resists sin in the full Godness of God — that is the meaning of the wrath of God. That is the negative aspect of his holiness and love, the exclusive aspect of his majesty. God would abdicate from being God, would un-God himself, if he condoned sin.—T. F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ, 249