The Knowledge of the Holy: The Divine Omniscience
[Editor’s Note: This is a 23-Day Series exploring different aspects of God’s nature and personality, using Tozer’s “The Knowledge of the Holy” as a discussion starter. You can read the introduction of the series here.]
Imagine that you are being asked to pledge your allegiance to a leader. This leader will be responsible, not just to help you succeed at your job, but he will also be responsible for your marriage, your health, your safety, not to mention whether you have food to eat and the condition of your soul. In that scenario, what kind of leader would you want? I don’t know about you, but I would want the most capable leader possible, one that can understand every scenario and understand the best one for me to take. Even in that scenario, I would still worry about him making mistakes. This is the question that lies at the center of today’s Tozer reading. God’s omniscience, His ability to know everything, is at the heart of whether we follow Him whole-heartedly or not.
Tozer argues that God’s knowledge is vast. It’s so vast, in fact, that it is perfect. It doesn’t grow. God doesn’t learn. He knows everything without having to be taught. And because God is in fact the source of every created thing, God knows and understands every created thing and how it will behave, better than the created being itself. In many ways, God’s omniscience is tied to His omnipresence (His ability to be everywhere at once), and so when we really begin to think about what God knows, we cry out with David, “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?” (Psalm 139:7).
This has two implications for us mortals who have a limited ability to know things. First, for those who are clinging to sin and hoping they can keep it hidden, we have to realize that God sees all and knows all. “Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable,” (Hebrews 4:13). But for the believer who has taken refuge in Jesus, we can have confidence that though everything we’ve ever done or will do is known by God, He has still desired us, called us, and set His love upon us with full knowledge of who we are.
This for me is the major takeaway for this chapter. Many acknowledge God knows everything. Sometimes we fear the fact that God knows everything. The benefit to the believer is understanding God has chosen us and reconciled us knowing all of our failures in advance. God is not surprised by your sin. He’s not sitting in Heaven reconsidering your salvation based on your latest slip up. Yet, so much of the time, we relate to God like He somehow feels differently about us based on our latest slip up (or success). In this way we treat God like a man and not the God He really is.
Friends, God has chosen us having already known everything there is to know about us. He is not surprised. This should motivate us to trust Him and love Him more. When I was dead in my sin and an enemy of God, He chose me. When I was being transformed by Jesus, but still struggling with old patterns of sin, He already knew it would happen. He doesn’t have to reconsider, He already knew. And He chose you anyway. And it’s this confidence in His ability to already know us and still choose us that gives us confidence to come before His throne of grace boldly. That is where we find grace and help in the times we need it most.
And lastly, we can trust God to lead us into the future. If He knows everything, He already knows the outcome of any situation He will lead me into. And because He’s good, I know that He will lead me into situations that are guaranteed to be for my good, even if they don’t seem like it at the time. Understanding this at a heart level makes God an easy person to trust. He knows the future. He will lead us through it well. He will make good choices that will benefit us. And not only does He have our good in mind, because He knows everything, He has the power to make that good happen. And He is worthy to trust with my life and yours.
That’s my take away. What’s yours? Leave a comment in the comment section so we can all grow together.
It’s not to late for you to join in with us. You can catch up in the posts below:
The Knowledge of the Holy Series
Day 1: Why We Must Think Rightly About God
Day 3: A Divine Attribute: Something True About God
Day 5: The Self Existence of God
Day 6: The Self Sufficiency of God
Day 9: The Immutability of God
Day 10: The Divine Omniscience
Day 11: The Wisdom of God
Day 12: The Omnipotence of God
Day 13: The Divine Transcendence
Day 14: God’s Omnipresence
Day 15: The Faithfulness of God
Day 16: The Goodness of God
Day 17: The Justice of God
Day 18: The Mercy of God
Day 19: The Grace of God
Day 20: The Love of God
Day 21: The Holiness of God
Day 22: The Sovereignty of God
Day 23: The Open Secret
The Knowledge of the Holy: God’s Immutability
[Editor’s Note: This is a 23-Day Series exploring different aspects of God’s nature and personality, using Tozer’s “The Knowledge of the Holy” as a discussion starter. You can read the introduction of the series here.]
Today’s chapter features another one of those attributes of God that seems to bleed over from some of the others. God’s immutability simply means that God doesn’t mutate or change. Because God is eternal, however He appears to us now is how He will appear to us throughout history, forever. Not only does God appear to us unchanged throughout history, though, He never changes. God tells the prophet Malachi this very clearly: “I am the Lord, and I do not change…” (Malachi 3:6).
That God is immutable, Tozer tells us, means that God cannot differ from Himself. To change would mean to admit some kind of defect in the Godhead. If God went from bad to better, it would mean God was at one point bad. If God went from better to worse, that would mean God would decrease in His glory. And God certainly is not now more mature than he was thousands of years ago. There is no maturing God described in Scripture.
We come to value and understand God’s immutability when we compare him to man who is always changing. Man is constantly changing, sometimes from worse to better, sometimes from better to worse, and sometimes just maturing. But the old saying is true for man: “Change is the only constant in life.” In this there is hope. God, in His perfection, never changes, nor does He need to. But God uses change for man to offer the hope of a different life, centered around His Son. That change is possible in man and impossible with God is the hope of the Christian life.
As I thought about this reality, I remembered how the writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus Christ is the same, “yesterday, today, and forever,” (Hebrews 13:8). What we can take away from this, though, is that Jesus (and by extension the whole of God) feels the same way about us and our circumstances that He felt about things when He was here on Earth. He’s not capricious, talking one way and acting another. Instead, He is faithful and true. We can always count on Him to be a sympathetic high priest towards us. And that is what can give us confidence and boldness to approach Him in our time of need.
Most of us know people who we couldn’t trust to remain the same. They would act one way in front of us and another when we were gone. Or we know people who act reliably aweful. But God is always the same and because He is good and full of love, we can draw near to Him, trust Him, in a way that is difficult for us to do with another here on Earth.
So spend some time today, enjoying Him for who He is, knowing He will never change. He is always constant and His love for you will never wane.
Those are my thoughts. Let us know yours in the comment section.
It’s not to late for you to join in with us. You can catch up in the posts below:
The Knowledge of the Holy Series
Day 1: Why We Must Think Rightly About God
Day 3: A Divine Attribute: Something True About God
Day 5: The Self Existence of God
Day 6: The Self Sufficiency of God
Day 9: The Immutability of God
Day 10: The Divine Omniscience
Day 11: The Wisdom of God
Day 12: The Omnipotence of God
Day 13: The Divine Transcendence
Day 14: God’s Omnipresence
Day 15: The Faithfulness of God
Day 16: The Goodness of God
Day 17: The Justice of God
Day 18: The Mercy of God
Day 19: The Grace of God
Day 20: The Love of God
Day 21: The Holiness of God
Day 22: The Sovereignty of God
Day 23: The Open Secret
The Knowledge of the Holy: God’s Infinitude
[Editor’s Note: This is a 23-Day Series exploring different aspects of God’s nature and personality, using Tozer’s “The Knowledge of the Holy” as a discussion starter. You can read the introduction of the series here.]
Sometimes as we’re going through each of these studies, they begin to blur together. One topic spills over into another topic which spills into the next. God’s infinitude is like that. Its one of those facets of who He is that touches every other characteristic.
Tozer’s point for the chapter is that God is limitless. As creatures of limit, we’re not used to discussing or thinking about things that have no limits, so he admits right from the start we have to imagine something just a step below what we are actually talking about. But we serve a God who is both limitless and boundless. That’s what makes Him God.
This gets truly practical when Tozer starts talking about how God’s limitless nature means that His other virtues are limitless as well. His grace is limitless. His mercy is new every day. His love is never-ending. All of these things never run out because God is never runs out.
I don’t know about you, but when we start talking about limits on God, I start to think about all the places I feel like I’ve exhausted God. Now, to think that even my deepest needs could go toe to toe with a limitless God and win is a fairly proud thought, but bare with me. When I bring that prayer that I’ve prayed a million times and I feel exhausted with it, I can feel like God feels the same way. Or when I sin the same way for the ten millionth time, I can get frustrated with myself and think God has the same frustration.
But today, instead of painting our uncreated God without limit with our feelings, lets stop and realize that God has more patience and grace than we have with ourselves. God has love that never ends. Others have loved us to their limits, but God has no limits.
Let’s learn from the Gentile woman who brought her daughter to Jesus for healing: There must be crumbs that still fall from the table (Matthew 15:21-28). God has more for you. He has no limits.
Let’s learn from Jacob who wrestles with “the angel of the Lord” and won’t let him go until he gets a blessing (Genesis 32:22-32). God has more for you. He has no limits.
Let’s learn from the little boy who brought his meager lunch to Jesus, not because he thought it could fix things, but because it was what he had (John 6:1-13). Jesus brought his infinitude into that situation and changed it. God has more for you. He has no limits.
So believe today that you can’t exhaust God. Believe that how ever much need or sin you have, He has more supply and grace. Believe, as a good Father, He desires to overwhelm you with good things. If you do, you will be closer to knowing God as He should be (and wants to be) known.
Those are my thoughts for the day. I hope they are encouraging to you. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
It’s not to late for you to join in with us. You can catch up in the posts below:
The Knowledge of the Holy Series
Day 1: Why We Must Think Rightly About God
Day 3: A Divine Attribute: Something True About God
Day 5: The Self Existence of God
Day 6: The Self Sufficiency of God
Day 8: God’s Infinitude
Day 9: The Immutability of God
Day 10: The Divine Omniscience
Day 11: The Wisdom of God
Day 12: The Omnipotence of God
Day 13: The Divine Transcendence
Day 14: God’s Omnipresence
Day 15: The Faithfulness of God
Day 16: The Goodness of God
Day 17: The Justice of God
Day 18: The Mercy of God
Day 19: The Grace of God
Day 20: The Love of God
Day 21: The Holiness of God
Day 22: The Sovereignty of God
Day 23: The Open Secret
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 