Compelled to Worship: Omniscience Pt. 1

Have you ever made a mistake or been caught in a lie? It’s unnerving to know that someone else knows your sin.  But have you had that experience and then thought, “If they only knew the half of my sin they’d disown me.” If someone were to look into my heart or watch a film of my secret decisions, motives, and desires, they’d most definitely run from me.

But I imagine I would run from you too because we’re not that different from each other. Sin has infected us like the worst type of spreading cancer; affecting every thought we have.

So this attribute of God can be a little unnerving. It can actually cause us to try and block it out as silly and ironic as that is.  God’s omniscience means that he is all-knowing. So in running we quickly resemble Jonah who ran from the Lord and found Himself being held against his will in the belly of a whale.

I encourage you, as I study and share my thoughts with you, to think like a follower of Christ. This attribute is incredibly encouraging for the believer and I hope to share why as I go.

God is all-knowing. This is an incomprehensible attribute of God because the magnitude of it exceeds our capacity. It is truly overwhelming.  There is nothing that God does not know.
It means that God knows everything, to infinitude, from the past, to the present, and into the future. There was never a moment when God did not know everything. God never learns anything because He already knows it. God never has an epiphany like we do. Never has anything new ever entered His mind. Nothing takes Him off-guard.

And if you’ve read that you’re still probably trying to wrap your head around it. Trust me, you cannot. We simply bow our knees to Him and echo David, “…such knowledge is too great for me…”
He knows all things perfectly and totally. Let’s look at several of the characteristics of his omniscience.

1) He has perfect self-knowledge. He knows Himself intimately. Within the Trinity the members know each other perfectly. Matthew 11:27 Jesus says, “No one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son – and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.” There is a perfect unity within and between this Triune God. In John 10:15, “The Father knows Me and I know the Father.”

Many times in a relationship there are assumptions and miscommunications. We may have lived with our spouse for decades but still misunderstand their intentions, preferences, and choices. God never has this battle as He knows His own Self with perfect knowledge.

Just think about how your entire life is spent trying to understand your own self; that says nothing of trying to understand someone else. Psychologists spend years trying to get to the bottom of a client’s issue and rarely, if ever, resolve it totally.

Now think about trying to know that whole person and it becomes mind-boggling.  Even though we cannot understand ourselves that well, it does not dissuade us from constantly projecting what we think God should. Some modern church leaders have received flak (rightly so) for saying we need to go off-book (away from scripture) to arrive at the fullest understanding of who God is.

If you go off-book, you enter into completely foolish territory guided by man’s thoughts and perceptions. We cannot understand God apart from what He has said about Himself. Even if you could, I doubt very much that anyone has even fully grasped 5% of the Bible’s wisdom. Why would anyone even need to go off-book?

1 Corinthians 2:11“The thoughts of God, no one knows except the Spirit of God.”

2) The Trinity has perfect knowledge outside of Himself. God never misreads a situation or perceives something incorrectly. He sees everything accurately, as it truly is.  Job 37:16 describes God as being, “Perfect in knowledge.” Psalm 147:5 says, “His understanding is infinite.” 1 John 1:5 “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.” Light is described in scripture as depicting understanding and knowledge. So not a sliver of darkness (lack of knowledge) exists within God.

Think of the comfort that this provides for the believing Christian. None of your concerns, tragedies, or sadness is unknown by God. You have never encountered a situation for which God was taken aback or unaware of.  Not only did He have knowledge OF the event, He knew every detail down to the molecule for every instant of every moment of that event.

So the natural conclusion is that IF you are experiencing hardship, you can be certain that God is not far away, because He is present with you. And He knows everything about you and your difficulty. Knowing that He loves you perfectly then completes this comforting cycle. He knows you and your problem. He is with you. He loves you. Therefore, it is His will that you persevere through it with Him so that He can sustain you and you can learn to depend on Him.

3) His knowledge is eternal. He has known all things from eternity past and never has there been a moment when He did not know all things. In other words, everything that God knows (which is everything) He has known from before the foundation of the world and before time began (at creation).

You and I started off our lives by learning little by little until we could walk and talk and function on our own. We began in preschool moving through grades until we graduated high school.  Even then our knowledge and understanding of the world had only just begun.  God never had a learning curve where he accumulated knowledge and built up His understanding of anything.

Isaiah 46:9-10 says, “Remember the former things long past. For I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is no one like me.” This sets God apart from any other thing.

In this context, God is totally different from what we are.  Continuing the last verse, “I am God and there is no one like me declaring the end from the beginning. And from ancient times those things which have not been done.” He stands outside of the created order and declares what the end results will be, from, the very beginning.

That doesn’t mean He’s leaving the middle up to us. If that were the case we’d have no confidence in God’s decree that he “…works all things for the good of those who have been called according to His purpose…” How it works is not for human comprehension because it occurs in secret.

Ephesians 1:11-12 says, “In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory."

ALL THINGS occur, according to the counsel of His will. Again, I don’t try to comprehend it entirely. This phrase, or it’s variant, occurs in the OT and NT so I simply bow my knee to Him.

4) His knowledge is immediate. God knows everything simultaneously and without any calculations or processing. He knows everything all at once. He never adds to His knowledge or subtracts from it. There is nothing that He knows better than another thing because He knows all things with complete perfection.

Romans 11:33-35 “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”  “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”

His understanding and knowledge is unsearchable. No one can know the mind of the Lord or any percentage of it – because His knowledge is infinite.

Isaiah 40:13, “Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD, or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?"

Lots of rhetorical questions. The answer is obviously that no man or woman has ever done these things. God cannot be taught because He already has all knowledge.

When we pray, we are not informing Him of the situation or helping Him to understand our perspective. He already knows all of these things. I know that immediately conjures up myriad questions on why we pray then.

I won’t belabor that point except to say that God has, in His wisdom and providence, ordained that prayer would be the conduit through which He would accomplish His will.  We get to partner with God in His kingdom work.  Therefore, one reason you pray is to agree with God’s perfect will.  He brings it to pass through you or in you (or both).  So pray often, so that He may use you greatly in His kingdom; what a privilege.

To Be Continued…

In the next post I’ll unpack four more aspects of God’s omniscience. Stay tuned…