Our God is Incomprehensible (Part 2)

Lord help us to understand it more and more. Help us to know you better. Help us I pray to stand in awe of our God even as we study your word this morning. Teach us Lord. Teach us about yourself and teach us about your ways we ask in Jesus name. Amen. So our God is incomprehensible just by way of review we’ve looked at several verses in Job then we’ve looked at the Psalms.

Then now we’re in Isaiah let’s say we had four verses in the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, we had I think five or six at least six maybe seven in Job and so in each case the Lord is describing in the scripture the Lord is describing the fact that whatever of his attributes and we’ve covered a lot of things his deeds, his wonders, his power, his years, his righteousness, his judgments, his works, his thoughts, his greatness and we go on and on every one of those in scripture is described as incomprehensible.

In other words there’s no end to it. It’s a line with arrows on both sides and although as I said we can perceive these things the extent of those things is as eternal as God himself and so let’s pick up in Isaiah chapter 40 verse number 18 the Bible says this, to whom will ye liken God or what likeness will you compare unto him? And then in the next verse it talks about the workman that melts a graven image and so obviously in this context the Lord is saying you can’t compare me to a graven image, an idol, a statue and you certainly can’t compare God to anything that that graven image is supposed to represent because people who worship idols, a lot of people don’t know this if you’ve not actually interacted with actual idolaters that is who worship statues made of stone and gold and such is that many of them they say that they do not worship the idol but they worship the thing the idol represents.

You know when we were missionaries in Cambodia the thing that it represented though was Buddha. Well Buddha is not worthy to be compared to God right? It doesn’t matter if it’s a golden calf, a calf is not worthy to be compared to God or what about the statue of Diana mentioned in the book of Acts? Diana is not, no matter how she might be described is not worthy to be compared to the God of scripture the true and the living God and so the Lord says to whom then will ye liken God or compare unto him?

Now there is one comparison we’ve seen in scripture, one comparison that the Lord repeatedly uses to help us to understand the incomprehensibility of God and his attributes and what, can anybody remind me of that? What is the one thing that scripture uses to compare God to? Maybe not an object, anybody want to take a stab at that? The whirlwind, yeah even broader? No, well I mean these are all true, these are all true.

What I’m getting at is what we talked about last week which is the extremities of nature, the tallest mountain, the deepest ocean, the furthest part of the heaven. But the comparison is if we can know the breadth of the earth, if we can know the height of if we can know the depth of the sea, those kinds of things, that’s the comparison used which in each case implies we don’t, we don’t know that, we can’t know that which is the whole purpose.

And so look at Isaiah 40 verse number 28 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. There is no searching of his understanding. Look at chapter 55, some of these we’ll come back to in a minute but I just want to read these, kind of put in our, put in our hat here.

Verse number 8, the Bible says this, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens, there it is, are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Notice this, the comparison, as the heavens are above the earth, in other words you can’t reach the height, you know, it’s inexhaustible from, you know, from our perspective it’s inexhaustible.

Alright, let’s go to the New Testament, look at Romans chapter 11, because these same truths are reiterated in the New Testament of course. Romans 11, let’s look at verse 33, the Bible says this, oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out, his ways past finding out. Lastly we’ll go to Ephesians chapter 3, just a couple pages or several pages over, Ephesians chapter 3, verse number 8, Ephesians 3 verse 8 says this, unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.

So many riches you can’t find out the number of them. Then you drop down to verse number 18, which this is where it gets a little bit interesting here, if you look at verse number 17 to pick up the context says this, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend. Now this is different language, is it not, than what we’ve read so many times in the Old Testament.

In the Old Testament it says there’s no searching of his riches, it’s incomprehensible, it can’t be, we can’t wrap our brain around it. But this verse tells us that by the aid of the spirit of God we can, I could say it, maybe say it like this, we can approach ever closer to comprehending these unsearchable and incomprehensible riches of God. Notice what it says, verse 18, may be able to comprehend, this is us now, with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, remember this is all Old Testament language right, the mountains, the depth of the sea, the breadth of the earth, the height of the heaven, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.

So imagine this, this is in the context of God’s love directed at his people, God’s love directed at the church, alright. So here’s what we can take away from this, and you know this is, again we’re dealing with things that can only be just barely described, but we can put it like this perhaps, God loves us more than we can ever comprehend, right. God loves us more than we can ever comprehend, and we have firm scriptural ground to say that, I know we say that and it sounds overused and trite, God loves us more than we know, but that is not just a sentiment that we might say, it is a scriptural truth, it is a scriptural truth.

And so let’s kind of summarize what we have here, all of God’s attributes that are described in scripture as incomprehensible, we’ve seen many of those, but we’ll pick up there, his thoughts, his greatness, his understanding, his wisdom, his knowledge, his ways, his riches, and his love, all of which in scripture are described as something that cannot be searched or known fully. And so every attribute, we can say every attribute of God is an attribute that is unsearchable.

God is not only righteous, but his righteousness has no boundary. God is not only a kind and loving God, but his love has no, you can’t sound the depth, there’s no bottom to it. And so no matter how much, and you see this in scripture, no matter how much of those attributes of God that are you might say expended, or used, or exercised, or shown to us, it is impossible to exhaust it.

This is why, if it was, there might be a day, if there was some way to exhaust God’s grace, then there might be a day in heaven when finally we got to the very end of his grace, and the Lord’s like, you know, I’m good, you know, find somewhere else to live. But that could never happen. Same is true with his love. The same is also true with his justice.

And this is where we start to cross into the area of the gospel. When the justice of God was meted out on his own son, that justice, that infinite justice, is also infinite. And that the truth that comes from that is then also infinite. And so there is never a time, you know, the scripture says, his mercy endureth forever. That’s what we’re talking about here. There’s never a time it can be exhausted.

Now yes, there are times that God ceases to show mercy, but he ceases to show mercy not because his mercy is exhausted, but because his mercy is rejected. So long as his mercy is received, it’s inexhaustible. It’s amazing. Because all of us know what it’s like when you deal with someone and you get to a point that you cannot do it anymore. That never exists with the Lord.

And so as we’ll do with all of these attributes, we’re going to, we’ve looked at the scriptures, now we’re going to look at three things. The first one is the relationship of the incomprehensibility of God to our practice, our daily life, the application. Then we’re going to look at the relationship of the incomprehensibility to God, to Jesus Christ. And then lastly, we’re going to look at the relationship of God’s incomprehensibility to the gospel.

So to practice, look at Job 42. Job 42. And we’ve seen this and hinted at it, but let’s just look at it in full. There’s several practical applications when we meditate upon the fact that God is incomprehensible. Job 42, verse number five, says this. Now this is at the very end. God has given Job a piece of his mind. Now you’ve got to remember the context. Job has been through a lot of suffering.

A lot of legit, I mean he’s legitimately upset. He’s not just, you know, he’s not just, you know, he’s having a bad day. So Job has reason and cause to be depressed. And this is beyond depression. But the Lord has now given him a piece of his mind, just a little piece. And the Lord has revealed some of the extent of his wisdom. And he, where was thou when I, you know, when I formed the heavens?

You know, that’s how the Lord spoke to him. The Lord described the incomprehensibility of his attributes to Job. And Job was accusing the Lord of not doing justice by him. And so this is Job’s response, verse five of Job 42. I have heard thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eyes seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. Look at Psalm 147.

Psalm 147. So Job’s reaction to being challenged with the extent of God’s attributes was just utter abhorrence. Utter, in other words, it made him, it made him understand that he was so small that his problems were nothing, were nothing in comparison to the extent of God’s attributes. The result was that he basically fell down before God in humility, despite all of the things that have happened to him.

That’s what we have to understand. At this point, Job’s situation has not changed one iota. The only thing that has changed in Job 42 is God has just pulled the curtain back a little bit to help Job see this one attribute of his. And even though his situation is no different, his response is totally different. And that was nothing more than seeing God as he was. Right?

Psalm 147, look at verse number six. That doesn’t seem right. Let me look back at my note here. Okay, yeah, that’s right, verse five. Look at verse five. Great is the Lord, great is our Lord, and of great power, his understanding is infinite. The Lord lifteth up the meek and casteth the wicked down to the ground. This is what you have to see. When we understand that God’s understanding is infinite, then the Lord, just like in Job, the Lord pivots to the meek.

In other words, the effect of that is supposed to be, it’s supposed to humble us. It’s supposed to humble us. And it’s supposed to set our issues and our problems and our understanding in the right perspective. A lot of these attributes that God has that we’ve been reading, and we’ll read more of them, whether it’s his justice or his love or his mercy or compassion or whatever the case, his power, his righteousness and all of those things, we have some of those things.

Right? We have practical righteousness. We have love. We have mercy. We’re able to exercise some of these same attributes that God has. But when the Lord pulls the curtain back and allows us to see him in his attributes, the result, the natural result of that, and this is what you see in various characters in Scripture. Isaiah chapter six is one. The natural result of that is ours is nothing anymore.

Right? Isaiah was a righteous man. But when he saw the Lord on his throne in Isaiah chapter six and the Seraphim saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, his response was, my holiness is nothing. He says, I am undone. I am unclean. Even though he was a righteous man, but when you see that which is incomprehensible in God’s righteousness, ours is nothing. And so really a lot of our problem with the way we view ourselves and being haughty and high-minded comes from not having a right view of the Lord.

And so the natural result of God’s unsearchable characteristic is humility. And you think about another aspect of this incomprehensibility and you think about how that we’ve seen in Scripture how that the Lord compares himself to different aspects of nature, heights of the heaven, depth of the sea, breadth of the earth, and those things. And you think about in science how that as man advances in technology and his instruments become finer and more accurate and all of those things, man is learning more and more about the material universe.

But the more he learns, the more he learns, because of this, the Scriptures make this kind of comparison, the more he learns the greatness of God. Because God who created it at the first said, I am like this but far more. So the more we learn, the more our minds are able to comprehend by the natural world those things that God has used to compare to his own attributes.

And so that’s why when you look at, you know, this kind of stuff interests me, it might be boring to you, but it interests me when you look at how God has created the universe and how he holds it together. All of those things make us see more and more clearly the infinite wisdom of God. And you know, it used to be that people thought that it was essentially magic that is the substance of the universe.

And now we’ve learned there’s actually, there were cells and then they learned there were atoms that make up the cells and the various chemical compounds and such. And now they know, now it’s, they theorize by mathematics that there are actually particles that build atoms even that are subatomic particles. It blows our mind. But when you see that, you say, this is the infinite. His understanding is infinite.

That’s why studying the natural world has always resulted in those who do it, that is in the fear of God, always come away with a greater understanding and appreciation for who God is. His understanding is infinite. Not only that, because the Lord says over and over in scripture that he is incomprehensible, we should expect, should we not? We should expect that there are many, many things about our God and his ways that we will not be able to fully reconcile.

He tells us, my thoughts are way higher than yours, you will never be able to attain that. And so it is expected that there are parts of the Lord’s nature and of his ways and thoughts that we will not understand. It might be hard for us to, kind of a big horse pill for us to swallow, but that is a natural conclusion. If God is incomprehensible, there are surely things that he will do and think and be that we will not be able to get, right?

As a believer in our natural life, again, go back to Job. Job walked away from that drama saying, God’s great, I’m less than nothing, and I still don’t understand what happened, right? And so we should, as a believer, limit our expectations of what we will be able to figure out. You know, for highly analytical people, this is a problem. It is. Because we want to figure it out.

We want to have answers for every question. But the Lord tells us, you’re not going to figure it all out. Especially as it deals with God himself and his work in our lives. It’s just not going to happen. What we do know, though, is what God has revealed of himself in Scripture. That will never answer every question. Now go to Isaiah 55 again, if you would. Getting kind of warm in here a little bit.

Yeah. Isaiah 55, look at verse number 5. We’ve read this, but we’ll read it again here. I’m sorry, verse 8. Look at mine, I know it’s wrong here. Isaiah 55 verse 8. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Now just, verse 9 is so key. I would challenge you to spend some time. One of the lost arts of Bible study is meditation. I would challenge you to take 10 minutes, 15 minutes, some time this week, look at Isaiah 55 verse 9, and think this. Just sit and ponder what it’s saying. Ponder it. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

So we can say this. Whatever it is that we can comprehend in our own mind, using our own thoughts and our own ways, which is of course all we know, whatever, however broad and wide and tall and deep our thoughts or our ways might be able, we might be able to comprehend of them, it is silly to think that God is operating in that level. His ways, He is simply not operating within the realm of our comprehensibility.

He is not. It is far beyond that. His ways and thoughts are not operating such that we can comprehend them. Therefore, now here’s the key. We must trust Him and His word. The incomprehensibility of God drives us to trust what He tells us, not what we can figure out. The incomprehensibility of God drives us to trust Him and what He says to us, rather than what we can figure out.

Because we simply cannot understand what He is doing outside of what He has told us. You know, sometimes the only time we will obey the Lord is when we understand. That’s not faith. That can’t be. He tells us, you’re not going to get it all the time, because I’m on a different level. Trust me and what I say to you. Now in relation to the Lord Jesus Christ, in relation to the Lord Jesus Christ, look if you would at John chapter 1.

What does the incomprehensibility of God show us about the Lord Jesus Christ? Or how is it related to the Lord Jesus Christ? John chapter 1, look at verse number 18. So we know that God cannot be comprehended. But we also know, as a matter of fact, that the Lord Jesus Christ, who is very God in the flesh, came into this world that we do comprehend. So in the Lord Jesus Christ, God who is incomprehensible crossed the chasm from that realm, if I can put it like that, into the realm of comprehensibility, where we live, where we understand.

And he tells us this, John 1 verse 18, he says this, No man hath seen God at any time. The idea is God is mysterious, he is invisible. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. Not just with his words, it is he himself is the word, the declaration of God, his attributes, his will, his ways, put in a way that we understand.

That’s part of what Jesus Christ came to do in his incarnation. Now the problem is though, that modern Christianity, I feel like has demoted the Lord Jesus Christ to basically a buddy figure, who’s there to serve us. That’s how he’s presented. And yes, I know the scripture says that he calls us friends. He calls us friends. We call him Lord of all. Right? That’s a little distinction.

The Lord Jesus Christ, and we’ll get to this later with the Trinity, but the Lord Jesus Christ is that same incomprehensible God come into the flesh. He is still incomprehensible. His attributes are still incomprehensible. He is not somehow this buddy, this just a comprehensible figure. No. All the descriptions of God in scripture apply to him the same as they apply to Jehovah as seen in the Old Testament.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the express image of God’s person. we know the God who is incomprehensible. In other words, God wanted to reveal himself in terms that we could comprehend. Not the extent, but in terms. And he did in Christ. Christ is that revelation. And so this also leads us to one other thing concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, which is when we talk about the Trinity, because that’s all we’re talking about.

The deity of Christ, the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. It is impossible that we will be able to fully comprehend the Trinity because we know God is incomprehensible. His nature is that way. This is one of the things that gets Jehovah’s Witnesses and other cult sects in so much trouble. And they think they have a good question when they give us a gotcha and they say, well, If Jesus was God, then how can he pray to himself in the garden of Gethsemane?

Is he praying to himself, they say. But again, this is where trust comes in. We see in scripture, it is clearly revealed that God is a Trinity. The father, the word, and the Holy Ghost, the Easterly one. It is clearly revealed. So we accept that by faith. We trust God. We don’t have to understand it because we acknowledge what God has already said about his own nature.

He is incomprehensible. So it’s not surprising to us that this attribute of God is hard for us to get. But yet he says it. So we believe it. We understand it might be incomprehensible. The fact that we cannot fully understand the interaction between the father and the son and the Holy Spirit does not mean it is not true. It means it is incomprehensible, which we then expect from a God who is incomprehensible.

One of the problems that Jehovah’s Witnesses have is in their zeal to demote the scriptural place of the Lord Jesus Christ to essentially just a human being. In their zeal to do that, they have set a standard that they must understand God to believe what he says. And that has led to where it is now, with Bible translation that is corrupt as they come and all of those things.

So that’s in relation to the Lord Jesus Christ. And last of all is the relationship to the gospel. Look at Romans 11. Romans chapter 11. What relationship does God’s incomprehensibility have to the gospel? Romans 11.33. Now what you might not, it might not be readily apparent is that Romans 11.33 is at the tail of a three-part, a three-chapter argument that Paul is making. Starts in chapter 9, the infamous, chapter 10, which is more familiar to us, and then chapter 11.

But they’re all related. They’re all discussing essentially the same truth, which is interesting if you know that and you study chapter 10 in that light, it totally changes what chapter 10 is all about. But we won’t do that today. So you get to chapter 11 in verse number 33, the Bible says, oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out.

What is he talking about? Paul is talking about 9, 10, and 11, which is the whole God’s purposes regarding the Jew and the Gentile and how they will come to faith in Christ and the gospel being given to them. And there are some difficult things in relation to this. Look at Romans 11 verse 8. I’m going to show you one of the difficulties. I want you to understand how this incomprehensibility applies.

Romans 11 verse 8. So in verse 7, he’s talking about how the Israel was blinded. Verse 8 says this, according as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear unto this day. So this verse plainly says that God closed the eyes of Israel. Now, that’s hard to reconcile with a God who in other parts of scripture says without any question, no matter how, no matter the naysayers and how they try to weasel out of it, says that God loves and desires to save every human being, every sinner.

And yet you see, he closes the eyes of some. Now you could say, well that’s talking about Israel corporately. Yes, it is. Some of you have heard that line. But does not Israel corporately also include individuals? Yes, it’s made up of individuals. So we have an issue here. Why would God as an active agent close the eyes of some? Well we know in the passage is because his desire was to save the Gentiles.

That’s what 11 is talking about. But it’s still hard to reconcile. And in 9, 10, and 11, listen, we do not accept any of the tenets of Calvinism. But that does not mean that everything is neat and tidy and easy in Romans 9, 10, and 11. It does not mean that we got this whole salvation thing and God’s plan and purposes for everyone all figured out because we do not, most certainly do not.

I don’t think you can read 9, 10, and 11 and walk away saying, well I got that figured out. No. Anytime God is involved, you know there’s incomprehensibility associated with it. And how God could blind some people to save others and still love and want to save them and how that interacts with their own desire and to blind their own minds and all of those things, that is hard to wrap your brain around with the scripture.

But what we can’t do is change the Bible to meet some doctrine. And we can’t ignore what the scripture says concerning the Lord when he plainly tells us, I love everyone on earth. Christ died for everyone on earth. You have to take these seeming contradictions and in faith say, Lord, at this point your In fact, that is exactly what Paul does in verse 33 of 11. He says this, oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments in his ways past founding out.

I’ve read, me personally, I’ve read chapter 9, 10, and 11 and before I got to 33 I thought to myself, wow. I cannot understand all that God has done. This is in the area of his incomprehensible nature. And so there is reason, there is reason for us to stand in awe and say, Lord, you know what you’re doing. I believe what you say. I can’t explain everything and how you do what you say on the subject of the gospel, but I believe what you say, knowing full well that God’s plan is much bigger than we can comprehend.

So hopefully that’s a blessing to you about God’s incomprehensibility. Let’s pray together.