Augustine, the distinguished bishop of Hippo in North Africa, was strolling the beaches of the Mediterranean Sea one morning, engaged in deep thought. He was attempting to come to grips with the depths of the doctrine of the Trinity.
He was interrupted in his thoughts when he stopped to watch a little fellow running toward the ocean with a bucket. He watched with amusement as the little guy filled his pail with water and hurried back up the beach to pour it into a little hole he had pawed into the sand. Within seconds the sea water soaked into sunbaked, thirsty sand.
Then the bishop's eyes followed the little boy down to the ocean again, and then back up to the hole. Once again the little guy poured the water into the hole, and once again the sand swallowed it up greedily.
"What are you trying to do?", asked Augustine with a smile.
The little boy, a little annoyed at being interrupted in the middle of his busy task, replied, "I'm trying to put the ocean into this hole."
Suddenly, it dawned on Augustine that he was behaving much like this little fellow. He was trying to cram the ocean of God's truth about Himself into his little box of brains and was having no more success than the little boy with his bucket.
Why is it that Augustine was unsuccessful? The answer is, we cannot understand God's ways. God, says the Bible, is incomprehensible.
Before going any further, let's spend a few moments reviewing what we have learned about God during the last 8 weeks.
I Review of God's Attributes
A God is eternal. He is without beginning or end. God is self-existent. He wasn't made, He wasn't created; He has always existed and will always exist. To Moses, God said, "I AM WHO I AM." God is the great I AM.
God is eternal. He is self-existent. What does this mean for you and me? It means God is the root, the great mover, the source, the well-spring of all that there is; because there is a God there is a creation and there is life. "In him," says Paul, "we live and move and have our being."
God is eternal, without beginning or end, self-existent. And He says to us, "Do not be afraid." We don't have to be afraid because our God has the power of being, of life, of existence; His is the power even over death and Hades and hell. So we don't have to be afraid as we face pain, sickness, cancer, death, bankruptcy, deformity, paralysis, Alzheimer's, rejection, unemployment. Because our God is eternal, because He is self-existent, because He holds all power to life and death in His hands, we have nothing to fear and we can rest in His arms.
B God is invisible. God is Spirit. He has no extension. He cannot be measured. He cannot be weighed. He takes up no space. He has no body. He cannot be seen. Nevertheless, He is real, He exists. And, we don't have to prove His existence. The invisible God reveals Himself to us in both Creation and Scripture.
This invisible Spirit Whom we call God demands our worship. To the Samaritan woman, Jesus said, "God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and truth." This invisible Spirit Whom so many ignore wants a living, personal relationship with each one of us.
C God is completely wise. He is omniscient. He knows all things. He can see within the heart and discern a man's real motives and innermost thoughts. This means He knows all things about me. I can try but I can never succeed in hiding my true nature from God. Someday our completely wise, all-knowing God will call me and you to account for everything in our lives that He knows and sees.
God is completely wise. He knows everything there is to know about me. Yet — and this is a miracle of grace — He still loves and accepts me in Christ Jesus. What comfort and solace. No person would accept us if they knew us as we really are, with all of our lust, greed, anger, covetousness, uncharitable thoughts, and evil desires; but God, He knows us and still loves and accepts us in Christ. We have to say that God knows us and is still for us!
God is completely wise. This means He is the source of all truth, all wisdom, all knowledge. This means that all truth is coherent and non-contradictory. This means there should be no conflict between science and religion. This means that when God speaks, He knows what He is speaking about and we can absolutely trust His Word.
D God is almighty. He is omnipotent. He rules His creation; His creation does not rule Him. He reveals His might in Creation: He spoke and creation came into being, He created everything out of nothing, He created such a vast creation, and He cares for His creation. We also see God's might in miracles: the resurrection of Lazarus, the provision of Israel while in the wilderness, the feeding of the 5000. God displays His might in redemption: the Exodus, the child of the promise to an aged Abraham and Sarah, the virgin birth, and the resurrection from the grave. And, we see God's power in the consummation of all things at the end of times: a new heaven and new earth. God is almighty. He can do anything, anything He wants to do.
God is almighty. He is omnipotent. Before such a God all that we can do is bow down, submit to His rule, and obey.
E God is unchangeable. He is immutable. God does not change. God does not grow. God does not improve with age. God is the Lord everlasting. He is eternally the same. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. There is a consistency to the nature of God.
God is unchangeable. He is immutable. This means His Law does not change. What was sin yesterday, is sin today, and will be sin tomorrow. This means His promises do not change. He does not make one promise yesterday, withdraw it today, and then make another one tomorrow. This means salvation and judgment are both steadfast and sure. Believers are assuredly saved in Christ, and unbelievers are assuredly damned on account of their sin. This means that if any changes have to be made, they have to be made in us, not God, because God is eternally the same.
F God is just. This means He judges rightly and fairly; He never makes mistakes in His judgment; people always get exactly what they deserve. This means He is holy; He is different from all else in Creation and has no moral blemish or stain of sin. This means He is righteous; He always acts rightly. God is the standard for perfection, the norm for ethics, the measure for goodness.
What does God's justice, righteousness, and holiness mean for us impure, sinful, unclean, and unjust creatures? It means that because God is just, our sin must be punished. And because sin must be punished, we need a Savior. And because we need a Savior, God sent Christ. God's justice strikes terror into the hearts of the unbelieving and, because of Christ, it brings no fear into the hearts of the believing.
What does God's justice, righteousness, and holiness mean for us? We know there will come a time when God will set all things right. All the injustices of our world will be set right.
G God is good and the overflowing source of all good. This means He provides us all our needs: He gives us life, He gives us food, He gives us Himself. Because God is unchangeable, because He is immutable, He is always good towards us. And, because God is almighty, He is always able to satisfy our needs.
God is good and the overflowing source of all good. This means He grants us His greatest goodness — which is His grace. Grace is God's undeserved favor. Grace means I cannot save myself. Grace means I am treated far better than I deserve.
God is good and the overflowing source of all good. This means He is patient and longsuffering. He wants me and you and all to repent. He does not want any person to perish.
God is good and the overflowing source of all good. This means we can trust Him. This means we may not and cannot doubt that God will provide whatever we need for body and soul. This means we must praise and thank God for all His goodness to us. This means we must do away with all do it yourself religions. This means we must repent before it is too late.
H God is infinite. He is immense. He is omnipresent. We cannot put God in a box, we can not confine Him, we can not make Him smaller than He really is. And, we can not try to hide from God. God is fully present, and He is fully present everywhere.
This means God sees all of our sin. This means God is always with us and never leaves us or forsakes us.
II God's Incomprehensibility
A This review reminds us that there are many things that we know about God. The reason is simple: God has revealed Himself to us. Yet, we must never forget that we don't know everything there is to know about God. Furthermore, we can't know everything there is to know about God. You see, on top of being eternal, invisible, unchangeable, infinite, almighty, completely wise, just, good, and the overflowing source of all good, God is also incomprehensible.
What do we mean when we say God is incomprehensible? To say God is incomprehensible is to say there is much about Him that is mysterious. As we trace His footsteps in this world, we see only the fringes of His ways and touch but the hem of His garment. Listen again to the words of our text from Isaiah:
(Isa 55:8) "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.
God is beyond our comprehension.
We see the incomprehensibility of God in a vision of Isaiah. Isaiah saw two angels covering their faces with two wings (Isaiah 6). The covered faces tells us there are things about God we cannot know or see or even pry into because we cannot even begin to understand them. Nor should we even pry into God's secrets. We are to be content to live with what He has told us. We must be content not to know what Scripture does not tell us.
B When we turn to our Scripture reading from Romans we see the same thought affirmed. God is way beyond our comprehension:
(Rom 11:33-34) Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! (34) "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?
When Paul says this, when Paul speaks here about the incomprehensibility of God, He is talking about what God has revealed. I never realized this before. I always thought that Paul was speaking here in Romans 11 about the incomprehensibility of God's secret, unrevealed counsel. And, yes, what God has not revealed is beyond our comprehension. Yet, it is God's revealed will that Paul speaks of as being incomprehensible!
What sort of mysteries are to be found in God's revealed will? What sort of things is Paul talking about? All those attributes we have been looking at, even in them God is beyond our comprehension. For instance, who can really understand an eternal, self-existent God, without beginning or end? I can't. Or, who can understand the infinity of God, that He is beyond and above space, in another dimension, and yet is fully present everywhere? I can't. Or, who can understand the might of God, that there is nothing He cannot do? I can't.
Look at the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds. Much is written in them about the trinity of God and Christ's two natures. Yet, how can we really comprehend 1 God revealed in 3 persons? Or, who can really explain how the human and divine are united and bound in the one person, Jesus Christ? We believe that it was the human nature of Christ that suffered and died and was buried; we believe that His divine nature did not die upon the cross; yet, we are told that the "two natures are so united together in one person that they are not even separated by his death" and "his divine nature remained united with his human nature even when he was lying in the grave" (Belgic Confession Article 19). We cannot understand how this can possibly be. It is a mystery that God can be in full control and yet man is still responsible and held accountable for all his actions, thoughts, and words. It is a great mystery why God would love us so much that the second person of the Triune God took to Himself a human nature in order to die the shameful death of the cross. I have always wondered why an almighty, all-knowing, all-seeing God would create the forbidden fruit, let Satan tempt the woman, allow the woman to stretch forth her hand, and permit all of mankind to be plunged into ruin and misery. This too is a great mystery!
In talking of the incomprehensibility of God, Paul is especially talking of the subject he has just dealt with in 4 chapters: election and reprobation. We are told so much, and yet it is way beyond our understanding.
Topic: Love
Subtopic: Of God
Index: 2206
Date: 3/1990.23
Title:
A minister one day sat in the vestry of his church to meet anyone who might have spiritual difficulties. Only one came. "What is your difficulty?" asked the minister. The man answered, "My difficulty is the ninth chapter of Romans, where it says, 'Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated,'" "Yes," said the minister, "there is great difficulty in that verse; but which part of the verse is difficult for you?" The latter part, of course," said the man. "I cannot understand why God should hate Esau." The minister replied, "That verse has often been difficult, but my difficulty has always been with the first part of the verse. I never could understand how God could love that wily, deceitful, supplanting scoundrel Jacob."
Why indeed? Why does God love Jacob? And, why does He hate Esau?
Paul wants us to conclude that God is incomprehensible in His being, His attributes, and His ways. Even in what has been revealed to us, God is beyond our knowledge and our thought.
C God is incomprehensible. We can try to describe Him; yet, in the final analysis, He is indescribable. We can try to speak of Him; yet, in the final analysis, He is unspeakable. We can try to understand Him; yet, in the final analysis, He is beyond our human understanding.
A couple of months ago I tried to picture in words the flight of a bird: the muscles move at a certain rate, the tendons exert so much pull, the wings are at such and such an angle, the feathers are held in this or that position, the wingtips are held a certain way, and the bird's body and legs are frozen into an aerodynamic shape. Having said all of that, I have to admit my description is woefully inadequate. You still can't really picture a bird flying. And, I certainly haven't conveyed to you the beauty and majesty of the bird's flight.
To describe God is harder, much harder, than trying to picture a bird in flight. God is incomprehensible. He outstrips all human categories, language, and terms. This means we must be modest and humble in our God-talk. We can't fully say Who or What God is. We can't fully describe Him. We can't understand Him in all His fullness, majesty, and glory.
Conclusion
We all believe in our hearts
and confess with our mouths
that there is a single
and simple
spiritual being
whom we call God.
What is this God like? He is eternal, invisible, unchangeable, infinite, almighty, completely wise, just, good, and the overflowing source of all good. But in all these attributes, and in so much more as well, this God is also incomprehensible.
Paul, he thinks about God, His being, His attributes, His ways, His revealed counsel or will. He realizes how great and mysterious God really is. He realizes that God is so much more than we know or can possible realize. So he breaks out in a song of praise to God. He says, "To him be the glory forever! Amen."
This should be our response as well. In fact, all of our God- talk should always end up in praise to God. All talk about God, all sermons on God, all books about God, all study of God — His being, His character, His attributes — miss the mark if they do not help us to praise God.