The Incomprehensibility of God

(Article for publication week of 4-28-2010 AD)

"O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!" (Romans 11:33).

As Paul comes to the conclusion of his glorious and inspired treatise concerning justification, he exclaims that God is greater than our little puny minds. The human mind cannot understand the greatness and majesty of such a wonderful Being. Our small minds cannot fully grasp such sublime truths as the Triunity of God, His Being without beginning or end, His immutability, His omnipresence, His omniscience, His omnipotence, nor many other things that we will be writing about in coming months.

It is not for us to try to figure out God, but it is ours to believe God. "But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him."(Hebrews 11:6). God has told us what He is like in His inspired word, and we are to simply believe what He has said.

This is not to say that we are not to apply all of our intellect to knowing God, but simply to say that after we have applied all of our thinking powers there will still be many things where we will simply plead mystery. We are to read what God has said about Himself in His word and believe it and use all of our thinking power to comprehend His truth. The first great command is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Faith does not mean that we abandon reason or thinking, but it does mean that we believe God's self-revelation whether we understand it or not. Someone has said it does not take much mind to be a Christian, but it does take all the mind you have.

Nor am I suggesting by the incomprehensibility of God that God is unknowable. Far from it, for the very definition of eternal life is to know the only true God (John 17:3). God's ways are far above our ways, but by the miracle of regeneration a poor sinner is able to know the great God of heaven and earth. Salvation is to have reasonable and experimental knowledge of the only true God. Imagine that! A poor sinner with a finite mind can know the infinite God!

My point is this: if you are waiting until you understand God to come to Him, you will never come. If you are waiting till you figure out the Deity to believe in Him, you will never believe in Him. Just believe in God and learn all you can about Him, but when you don't understand fully, just keep believing.

And I have to add this: the incomprehensibility of God does not mean we just implicitly believe what some church or theologian said without thinking. No, every one of us needs to read God's word for ourselves and try to understand as much as we can and believe it whether we fully comprehend it or not.

The study of God is the greatest study you will ever undertake. The study of God will expand the intellect and broaden your horizons more than any study you will ever undertake. The knowledge of God is the most sublime knowledge a human being can ever have. To Him be glory forever.