Page 12 - Bible Doctrines II w videos short

The Extent of our Knowledge of God.
To arrive at the conclusion of about how much of God can we know based on how much we can
understand God, we will use some passages from the Bible. These are coming from both the Old and the
New Testament.

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In Psalm 139:6, 17, David says that “ This wondrous knowledge is beyond me. It is lofty; I am unable
to reach it . . . God, how precious your thoughts are to me; how vast their sum is! (CSB). Verse 6 is
David’s respond to God’s unlimited, immeasurable, and incomparable knowledge of God on his
whereabouts. He knew David from far away, He knew what he was going to speak, and He was able to
observe David’s ways. On top of that, He was able to protect David and His hands were placed on him
(Psa. 139:1-5). David labeled that as wondrous knowledge was beyond him. It was high and he was
unable to reach it. Now, David was the man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14; cf. Acts 13:22). Still, he
could not fully know God.

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In Psalm 145:3, the Psalmist says that “ The Lord is great and is highly praised; his greatness is
unsearchable” (CSB). Notice that no one can search the greatness of God because it is beyond searching
or discovery. In other ways, do not search God’s greatness.

In Psalm 147:5, the Psalmist says that “ Our Lord is great, vast in power; his understanding is infinite”
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(CSB). For the Psalmist to confirm the unlimitedness of God’s understanding, he knew that we will never
be able to measure or fully or fully know the understanding of God.

In 1 Corinthians 2:10-12, apostle Paul says that “ no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of
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God” (CSB). Not even Paul himself who at some point went to the third heavens (2 Cor. 12:1-4) knows
the thoughts of God. In some other passages of the Bible, in response to God’s great plan of
redemption, Paul is able to break forth into praise, “ Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom
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and of the knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and untraceable his ways!” (Rom. 11:33
[CSB]).

Not only are we unable to fully understand God, also, we can never fully understand any single thing
about God. Notice here that His greatness (Psa. 145:3), His understanding (Psa. 147:5), His knowledge
(Psa. 139:6), His riches, wisdom, judgements, and ways (Rom. 11:33) are all beyond our ability to
understand fully. Prophet Isaiah summarizes this well when he wrote that “ For as heaven is higher
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than earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:9
[CSB]).

In summary, we might know something about the love of God, His power, His wisdom, and so forth. But
we can never know His love completely or expansively because He is “infinite and we are finite or
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limited.” Further, Wayne Grudem notes;

Even in the age to come, when we are freed from the presence of sin, we will never be able fully to
understand God or any one thing about him. This is seen from the fact that the passages cited
above attribute God’s incomprehensibility not our sinfulness but to his infinite greatness. It is
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because we are finite and God is infinite that we will never be able to understand him fully.

In our inability to fully know God, Grudem offered what is one of the best responses we can show to
God. He wrote that, “But if we rather delight in the fact that God alone is God, that he is always infinitely

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