Our God is Incomprehensible (Part 1)

And so today what we’re gonna do is, well, first of all, we’re gonna pray, and then we’re gonna get into our next attribute of God that we wanna examine for this week and maybe next week. Let’s pray together. Thank you, Father, for who you are, Lord. You are absolutely wonderful in all of your glories and all of your truths and all of your characteristics and attributes. Lord, help us today as we study one of them, as we look in the scriptures and we see how you have revealed yourself.

Help us, Lord, to indeed be awestruck. And the effect of knowing more about you would have a practical and real effect upon us. And we would be changed. And our relationship with you, our walk with you would be changed as a result of that. So Lord, we commit the time to you. Thank you for those that are here. Thank you as well for those that would be here but cannot because of health problems and such.

Please give grace. Please give help to those people who are suffering right now. And Lord, we just look to you. Lord, help us, we pray in Jesus’ name, amen. All right, the characteristic or the title for this week and next week is this. Our God is incomprehensible. Our God is incomprehensible. This is one of those lesser, maybe lesser known or lesser talked about attributes of God. But God is absolutely in scripture described as incomprehensible.

Now, what do I mean by that? So let me give you a couple of dictionary definitions so I can kind of illustrate to you what I mean. And then we’re gonna spend a lot of our time this morning going through the verses to show you what the scripture says about this but not only how God’s incomprehensibility but also what his incomprehensibility applies to.

And so, and then next week, Lord willing, we’ll look into the practical aspects of that. Remember, we’re looking at the doctrine itself and then we’re looking at how each attribute of God relates to practice, that is our day-to-day life, how it relates to the Lord Jesus Christ and how it relates to the gospel, all right? So God’s incomprehensibility, what does incomprehensible mean? Well, there’s two primary definitions I want us to get.

Both of them apply but they apply a little bit differently but you’ll see what I mean. Now, the Bible doesn’t anywhere say, again, we said this before but I’ll say it again. God does not reveal himself as or by means of a theology book.

That is not how, he doesn’t reveal himself like Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Britannica in an orderly way and says, all right, I am this, I am this, I am this, I am this, I am this, and you just go to the theology section of the Bible and you can find out everything there is about God. That’s not how he does it. He reveals himself very often through the way that he interacts with mankind, specific people and individuals in scripture.

That’s how he reveals himself. You know what? The benefit, the glory of that fact is that is exactly how he will reveal himself to you and to me and by that I mean how he personally reveals himself. Now, he reveals himself first and foremost by the written word of God, which is what we’re examining. But the truths of the written word of God, God will demonstrate those truths to us as individuals in our individual life and he’ll show I am as the scriptures describe me to you.

To you. And we’re gonna look at one particular individual today who in particular learned something, learned this truth about God as mentioned over and over and over and over and over in the book that bears his name. And at the end of the book, we’re gonna see what he learned about God. Incomprehensible, two definitions. Here’s one. That which cannot be contained or circumscribed within limits, illimitable, boundless, infinite, immense, incomprehensible.

So the first definition means this. There is no box that you and I could draw or imagine or conceive of into which God will fit. There is no box that you and I could conceive of or define that into which God will fit. Now by that I don’t mean that God is everything. Of course not. He is only what he is revealed to be. But whatever he is revealed to be, the limits of that are inconceivable to us.

The limits of that are inconceivable. But there’s another definition, which is this. Incomprehensible, two definitions. Incomprehensible means that which cannot be grasped by the understanding or beyond the reach of intellect or research unfathomable by the mind. Now we know that this is partially true of God and we know it’s partially not true of God. It’s true in as much as this. Obviously there’s characteristics about God that are perceivable by us.

In other words, if not, we wouldn’t know anything about God. So God has given us the ability to perceive and understand and comprehend certain things about him. But where the limit is is where we can understand how far that goes. Just like the physical universe. And actually this is a scriptural example. Over time as scientists have developed new instruments to measure things and new theories for and means and ways to measure the material universe, what they’ve learned is that the universe is and has always been far, far bigger than they assumed.

And what’s happening is in every era as there’s new technology comes and new theories, what they’re discovering, it’s not, now they’re not, nothing is changing with the universe. It always was this way, right? Since God created it at least. But what they’re discovering is that they continually have to expand the timeline. What was once six billion years is now 13.5, I think we are. But, you know, and they just keep on expanding the age of the universe, which I know we accept the universe is immediately created by God about 6,000 years ago.

But that is a function of its size. That’s why they say it’s that old because of its size. And its size is beyond dispute. That is clear, right? That’s a fact of science. But the size is what keeps growing. Now it’s not growing, but what man says is happening is growing. And that’s a good illustration for what we are with God. When we first get saved, we imagine God is basically, he can fit in the palm of our hand.

This is true. I think this is probably true of every Christian. A newly born believer imagines God basically fitting into a very small space that he or she can describe and explain. And as time goes on, that space gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, like the universe, or like they say the universe, right? It just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. This is what is demonstrated in the scripture.

The reality is that God has always been as the way he is. What is changing is our comprehension of God. That expands. God doesn’t, right? God is who he is, and our understanding of him makes no difference to him. He is what he is, he is who he is. And so no matter how far our mind expands, we will never get to his limit, no matter what we’re talking about, no matter what attribute we’re looking at.

We will never reach the edge. Because if we could, we could put a line there and draw a box around him. We can’t, it’s not possible. And so therefore, what we find in scripture, as we’ll see in just a minute, is very often the scripture writers will liken God’s attributes, not God himself, but God’s attributes to things in his creation that are the most extreme, the biggest, the largest, the deepest.

That’s how they describe it, because what else can you compare it to? Like we’ll see. The scripture describes how that God’s wisdom is like the depth of the sea, right? Is there anything deeper than the sea in human perception? There’s not, that’s the most that our mind can comprehend in the natural world. And so that’s used, but even that is a limit that you cannot apply to God.

It has, no pun intended, it has, the illustration has its limits, right? But the other thing we have to understand about this, is that the fact that God has written the scripture shows us that he wants, even though he knows very well, obviously, he knows that he is incomprehensible, and our minds can definitely not draw a line around him, yet he also has created us with a capacity to know things about him, and he has revealed things about himself in some measure or another to us, because he wants us to know about him.

He wants us to know him, and his attributes, and his glories, that’s what the Bible is all about. It is a revelation of God. Now we’re not gonna get to the edge, we’re not gonna get to the extent, but we will be able to, just like you can’t sound the depths of the ocean at the Marianas Trench, right? You can’t do that, if you were in a boat, you couldn’t do that, but you could dip your toe into the water, could you not?

Couldn’t you, right? You can, you can, you can’t, you maybe can’t go to the top of Mount Everest, but you know, you can go up to the top of Paris Mountain, and have a view of that, right? That’s what we’re doing, just dipping our toe into the truth about God. Man, there are so many practical truths about this, but I get ahead of myself. Look at Job, Job chapter five.

Job chapter five. So what we’re gonna do is just go through the scripture, from front to back, we’re just gonna read some verses, and make some comments, and at the end, we’ll kind of summarize, all right? Job five, verse nine. Now, let me make a point about Job. I love the book of Job. Outside of the gospel truths, Job is a very interesting book to me, I probably said this before, Job is a very interesting book to me.

Actually, in our family’s Bible time, we’re going through the book of Job. And the reason why Job is so interesting to me is because Job is full of philosophy, isn’t it? Brother David likes Job too, because Brother David has that kind of mind, so we have that in common. But Job is full of philosophy, it views God and tries to grapple with the hard questions. Why is Job suffering?

Did he sin? If he did, why, if he did sin, you know, why was he suffering before this? If he’s not, if he didn’t sin, then why is he, you know, why is God not answering him? You know, those kinds of questions. And so there’s so many truths, there’s scientific truths, in the book of Job as well.

But when you see the book of Job, it’s laid out like this. You have Job and all that happens to him, you have the narrative, so there’s two narrative portions in Job, at the beginning, where it tells the beginning of Job’s life and what befalls him, the evil that befalls him, and at the very end, in chapter 42, how God restores him. But all the rest of the book of Job is essentially a conversation between five people.

Job, obviously, his three friends, so called, Eliphaz, Zophar, and Bildad. I probably got the order wrong. And then there’s a fourth friend of Job, who’s a younger man, and his name is Elihu. There’s actually one more, and God, right? God, he’s the most important figure in Job.

God’s wife. Yeah, Job’s, you’re right, yeah, curse God, not exactly a high point in her life. But we’ll give her a pass, you know, because she was suffering too, at least a little bit. All right, so it’s mainly a conversation between those figures, okay? Here’s what I want you to see. You are mistaken if you think that everything Job says in the book of Job is right, because it’s not.

You would also be mistaken to take everything that all the friends say about Job at face value as being right, because they’re not. But what is most often happening with the three friends, Bildad, Zophar, and, help me, Eliphaz, thank you. What is often happening with those three is what they’re saying about God is most of the time dead on, it’s right. In other words, their theology is sound, but the way they apply their theology is off.

How many times is that true of us, right? You believe right by the book, right? But the way you apply it is all messed up. And they apply it wrongly to Job. Many of the verses we’re gonna read are quoted by those three friends. So you can’t, what I’m saying is there’s a danger of looking at the three friends who are rebuked at the end of the book by God and saying, well, nothing they say is true.

That’s not true. Much of what they say is true, which we’re gonna see. All right, Job five, verse nine. Now, Job five, nine is the speech of Eliphaz. You gotta get the context right. Verse number eight says this.

I would seek, am I getting, let me make sure I got my context right. I think we’re still in Eliphaz at this point. Verse eight, I would seek unto God, and unto God will I commit my cause. I would seek unto God, and unto God will I commit my cause.

Notice, speaking of God now, which doeth great things and unsearchable. Now, if you mark in your Bible, you might wanna note that word. That word’s gonna come up. Unsearchable means the extent of it cannot be found out, no matter how hard you look or how hard you think. Notice it says the things that God does, the great things he does are unsearchable, and it’s without number. That is innumerable, no limit.

Look at chapter nine, chapter nine. Look at chapter nine, verse number, let’s go down to verse, if you start in, this is Job speaking now, verse three, if he will contend with him, with God, he cannot answer him one of a thousand. Verse four, he is wise in heart. Verse five, which removeth, six, which shaketh, seven, which commandeth, eight, which alone spreadeth, nine, which maketh, arcturus, ten, which doeth, God doeth great things past finding out, yea, and wonders without number.

Wonders without number. So here’s the thing, here’s kind of the take away from these verses, I’ll make this quick. If you think that you have seen the end of the capability or the wonders that God can do, you are mistaken, and you will forever, for all of eternity, never get to that point where you’ve seen all that God, all the wonders that God does. Look at chapter 26, chapter 26.

Verse number, verse number 12, look at that. He divideth the sea, this is Job speaking again, he divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding, he smited through the proud. By his spirit, he hath garnished the heavens, and his hand hath formed the crooked serpent lo. These are parts of his ways, you remember I was talking about the dipping your toe into the sea above the Marianas Trench, that’s it.

These are parts of his ways, but how little a portion is heard of him. In other words, the things that we talk about that God does are just the hem of the garment.

But the thunder of his power, who can understand? Look at Job 11, I skipped one by accident, look at Job 11. In Job 11, we have Zophar speaking. Zophar speaking, Job 11, verse number, verse number seven, Job 11, seven. Says this, can’t thou by searching find out God? Can’t thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?

You remember what I told you, remember what I told you. What are the biblical writers going to do to try to compare God’s attributes and comprehend them? They’re going to use the largest, most grandiose things in the material universe that they understand to describe the extent of God’s attributes. Even then, we acknowledge that that doesn’t do it justice. Verse number eight, it, speaking of God’s perfection, God’s attributes, it is as high as heaven.

That’s the thing that keeps expanding, right? It is as high as heaven, what canst thou do? Deeper than hell, what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.

Imagine you’re Zophar, you live in that day. This is probably the era of Jacob in scripture. It’s not exactly known, but some of the names in Job match with some of the names of especially in the family of Esau in Genesis. But imagine going back there and your whole world is just that local area.

You’ve never seen the American continent. That’s not even a thing to you. As far as you’re concerned, the Mediterranean Sea, the world ends at that point, right? And so what I’m saying is, mankind’s understanding continues to expand, but the truth of the verse still applies to God’s attributes. No matter how far, no matter what we learn, no matter how far our knowledge goes, it can still be rightly applied to God.

It just keeps getting bigger and bigger, all right? Let’s look at Job 36, Job chapter 36. Now in this case, this is Elihu. Elihu is the fourth friend, the younger man.

36, look at verse number 26. Behold, God is great, and we know him not. Neither can the number of his years be searched out. God is great. Now we can say God is great, but it says, and we know him not. That’s not to indicate that we can’t know anything about him, and it doesn’t indicate that we can’t know him personally. It’s referring to the extent, like to know him in his entire fullness.

That’s why he mentions his years. What’s interesting about the years is, you know, we’ll get to another attribute of God later, which is that our God is eternal. But what’s interesting is there’s a parallel between God’s eternality when it comes to time. Eternal does not just mean time. Really, eternal is something outside of time. But when we think of eternal, we think of limitless time, right, that’s what we, in our minds, that’s what we think of.

But that same truth can be applied to God’s attributes, limitless attributes. It’s whatever the attribute is. Somebody give me an attribute of God, one of these, what are called non-communicable attributes, that is, attributes that we cannot share.

Immutability. You had to pick one that’s this hard, okay? Give me a different one. Okay, I’m gonna go with omniscience because it’s a little bit easier to explain, all right? Omniscient. That means if you took God’s knowledge and you put it on the scale of eternity, it goes both ways without limit. Anything that could be known ever is known by God, and there’s no boundary to that.

And you could take His holiness, His mercy, His grace, His love, whatever, and you could set it on that scale, and it’s true. It’s, if you will, an eternal scale. Look at Job 37, next chapter.

Job 37, verse number five. God thundereth marvelously with His voice. Great things doeth He which we cannot comprehend. Which we cannot comprehend. This is incomprehensible. Look at verse number 23. Touching the Almighty, we cannot find Him out. He is excellent in power and in judgment and in plenty of justice He will not afflict. Now we’re gonna come back to verse 24 later, but I’m gonna just leave it there.

Look at, we’ll look at Psalms. Let’s go to the Psalms, chapter 36, Psalm 36. Psalm 36. Psalm 36, verse number six. Now this is the psalmist speaking to God. Notice what he says. Thy righteousness is like the great mountains. What’s He doing here?

What’s He doing? Comparing it to what? The greatest thing known to man. Now that doesn’t mean, you know, you can see the top of the mountain, but that doesn’t mean you can see the top of the mountain. That doesn’t mean you can see the top of the mountain. That doesn’t mean you can see the top of the mountain. You can see the top of the mountain, but that doesn’t mean you can see the top of God’s righteousness.

Here’s what it says. Thy righteousness is like the great mountains. Thy judgments are a great deep. O Lord, thou preserve us man and beast. Chapter 40, Psalm 40. Verse number five. Many, O Lord, my God, are thy wonderful works, which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us were. They cannot be reckoned, as counted, up in order unto thee. For if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.

God’s thoughts. Consider the things we covered so far before we continue. We’ve looked at God’s deeds. We’ve looked at God’s wonders. We’ve looked at God’s wonders. We’ve looked at God’s power. We’ve looked at his years, his righteousness, his judgments, his works, and now his thoughts, all of which are described as unsearchable and innumerable. All of which are described on that eternal scale.

Look at, let’s go to the next one, Psalm 95, sorry, 92, 92. Psalm 92. Psalm 92, verse five. Psalm 92, five says this, O Lord, how great are thy works, and thy thoughts are very deep. Psalm 145, 145.

Verse number three. There’s a good memory verse here. Sometimes people memorize Psalm 145, three. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. His and his greatness is unsearchable. So here’s just a little tidbit here. If God’s greatness, now you understand what we mean by greatness. This is another attribute of God, but greatness refers not to his quality of goodness. That’s not what greatness is in scripture.

It refers to his bigness, his bigness, how big God is. So when the Bible says how, or when the song says how great thou art, it’s referring to how large God is. He’s everywhere. But notice, our praise of God’s greatness is supposed to match the extent of God’s greatness. So what is the extent? You take that attribute and then you lay it on that scale, it never ends, right?

And so therefore our praise throughout all of eternity will be of God and his attributes, of his greatness. Look at another. Psalm 147 nearby here. We’re getting close to the end, hang in there. Psalm 147.

Verse number five. Great is our Lord and of great power. His understanding is infinite. Pretty good. Now let’s go to another book, Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes three, verse number 11.

He hath made everything beautiful in his time. Also, he hath set the world in their heart so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from beginning to end.

Limitless. Now let’s move to the prophets, to the book of Isaiah, chapter 40. Isaiah chapter 40. Verse number 18 and verse number 28. Verse 18, Isaiah 40, verse 18 says this. To whom then will ye liken God? Or what likeness will you compare unto him? Notice the next verse. The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold and casteth silver chains. This is the fundamental problem with idolatry when we talk about physical idols.

Is physical idols make a representation of God which due to God’s nature cannot, cannot be represented. Cannot be represented. I wanna say, and there’s, you know, I wanna tell you something a little dirty, little secret about idolatry.

You know that in Roman Catholicism and in Greek and Russian orthodoxy, in Catholicism they absolutely use images as aids in worship, right? They do, that’s a fact. Every church has one, it is a thing, okay? In the orthodox, in the orthodox religion, they don’t use so much images, they use icons, which are depictions, like paintings and stuff like that. But again, they use them in the same way.

And the excuse is this. So you say, well how can you do that? How can you have images of Jesus or images of Mary or any images of anybody that is venerated like that and it be okay with scripture when the scripture clearly prohibits idolatry? And basically the excuse is that, well since, because Jesus came in the flesh and he came in a way that he could be touched and felt, therefore it is the Lord set the example so that we can now use images and aids to worship in the same way that Jesus was manifest in the flesh.

Okay, that’s the pretext. But the problem with that is that it fundamentally misunderstands the nature of Jesus. Not only that, but the fact of Jesus’ incarnation, the fact that Jesus came into the world as a man, that he was manifest in the flesh, doesn’t negate the second commandment. Doesn’t like, well nevermind on the second commandment. But also, the fact that Jesus came into the world, he revealed himself in a way that we could see and touch and feel, right?

That was his purpose. But he still retained all of those attributes that are infinite. He has those attributes. That didn’t change. The problem with idolatry is that it sets boundaries around God. And so the question is asked, to what can you liken God? God’s not like any of this. God’s not like any of this. Lastly, for today, let’s look at Isaiah 40, verse number 28.

Isaiah 40, verse 28. The Bible says this, hast thou not known, hast thou not heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary, there is no searching of his understanding.

God’s attributes and his character as described in scripture that are called incomprehensible, the ones we’ve covered so far, his deeds, his wonders, his power, his years, his righteousness, his judgments, his works, his thoughts, his greatness, and now his understanding. All can be put on that eternal scale.

Now, I thought we would get through all the verses, but we didn’t. So we still have a few left. We’ll pick up there next week. Let’s pray together.