Dr. Harold Bryson tells of the two boys who went to their
pastor to request his advice on what they could do to help people.
The pastor told them of a blind man who would love to have
someone come and read the Bible to him. The man was delighted
when the boys came and told him of their plan. "Where do you
want us to begin," they asked? "Well," he said, "Since you will
be coming back each week, let's start with Matthew, and read
through the New Testament." So the boys began their reading,
and as you recall, they first chapter of Matthew is full of begats.
"Let's skip this list of names," the boys suggested. "No, read
them all," the blind man urged. It was an effort, but they
ploughed through the list the best they could. When they finished
they noticed tears coming down the blind mans cheeks. "What is
so emotional about a list of names"? one of the boys asked. The
blind man said, "God knew everyone of those fellows, and he
knew them by name. Boys, that makes me feel important to know
that God knows me, and He knows my name." You don't have to
make a name for yourself to be known by God, for God knows the
least as well as the greatest by name. In fact, God not only knows
all persons by name.
He has even assigned names to His inanimate creation. Ps. 147:4 says,
"He has determined the number of the stars and calls them each
by name." The implications of this are amazing, for if God even
gives names to the billions and trillions of stars, then you can be
assured there has never been a nameless person ever conceived.
The unknown soldiers of the world are known to God. The John
and Jane Does of the world have a name to God. All of the
unknown and unnamed of history are known and named in the
mind of God, for God is omniscient, which means, He is
all-knowing.
Even the human mind can be amazing in what it can know.
One night just before the orchestra was to play, the bassoon
player rushed over to the famous conductor Arturo Toscanini
and said his instrument would not play E-flat. Toscanini held his
head in his hands a moment and said, "It will be all right-the note
E-flat does not appear in your music tonight." He was a genius,
and knew every detail of his music.
This is impressive, but it cannot compare to Gods knowing the
number of hairs on our heads. This is not very stable
information, and it changes with every combing, yet it is not
impossible for an omniscient God to be aware of this constant
variation.
It makes even our best computers primitive by comparison. But
our text takes us to that which is beyond the borders of
comprehension. Jesus takes us into the realm of God's
omniscience that is so mind-boggling and incomprehensible that
many theologian reject it as impossible.
Jesus goes beyond saying God knows everything that has ever
been, that is, and that will ever be. That sounds like a sufficient
body of knowledge to qualify God for being omniscient. But
Jesus goes one step further into a realm of knowing that man
cannot follow. Jesus says God can even know what might have
been. God can actually know the answer to all of the what if
questions of life. What if Jesus would have come into history
centuries earlier, and done His miracles in Tyre and Sidon, or
even the notorious Sodom? Jesus says not only does God know
what would have been, and how these wicked cities would have
responded, but He says His judgment of these people will be
modified by this knowing of what might have been. They will be
less severely judged because God knows that they would have
repented had they gotten the same chance as Bethsaida and
Capernaum.
Jesus takes Gods omniscience into a realm that is so beyond
the mind of man that as far as I can determine it is an
embarrassment to many theologians. You sometimes have to
choose between the God of the theologians and the God of Jesus,
and here is a case in point. Many theologians lock God into only
being able to know what He has foreordained or predestined. In
other words, they say the reason God knows all is because He has
decreed to be. Even the great Jonathan Edwards said, "Without
decree foreknowledge could not exist." In other words, all God
can know is what He has decreed to be. But Jesus says God not
only can know what He would do in all possible situations, but He
can know what men would do in all possible situations. It was not
determined that Sodom would receive Christ's miracles and
repent. Just the opposite was the case, but God knew they would
have repented had they received those miracles. This is hard to
grasp-more like impossible, so the theologians back off from this
text. We need to thank God for tough passages like this, for they
set God free from the bondage of man's schemes. The omniscience
level to which Jesus exalts God is necessary, for without it theologians
would think they had gone beyond Paul, and were not limited to seeing
in part, and seeing through a glass darkly. They would limit God to a
system that is very human so that we could comprehend God.
The very goal of such a scheme, however, is contrary to the Bible.
Paul says in Rom. 11:33-34,"How unsearchable are His judgments
and His ways past finding out. Who has known the mind of the Lord."
It is an important part of our knowledge of God that we know
we cannot know Him as He knows us. He knows us completely,
but we can only know Him partially. This means God is by His
very nature incomprehensible. This means whatever we know
about God is not the ultimate in what is knowable about God.
God knows much more about Himself than what He could reveal
to us because it is beyond our capacity to comprehend. The
experience of the honest theologian is like that of the poet who
wrote-
I have ridden the wind, I have ridden the stars,
I have ridden the force that flies,
With far intent through the firmament,
As each to each allies;
And everywhere that a thought may dare
To gallop, mine has trod--
Only to stand at last on the strand
Where just beyond lies God.
God is always beyond us, or He would not be God. A God we
could fully comprehend would be unworthy of our worship and
adoration. We would worship our own minds if they had such a
capacity as to comprehend God. I like the way one theologian put
it-"We are not presumptuous Lilliputians, running out with
verbal stakes and threads, to pin down the tall, majestic Gulliver
of the Eternal and dance in theological exaltation round our captive."
The wise theologian and laymen alike recognize that God is not
bound by our grasp of him. Job 11:7-8 is a series of questions
that speak to this issue. "Can you fathom the mysteries of God?
Can you probe the limits of the almighty? They are higher than
the heavens-what can you do? They are deeper than the depths of
the grave-what can you know?" There is no basis for pride in
theology, for what we know of God, He has either made clear by
His creation in His world, or by His revelation in His word.
There is much basis, however, for humility as we consider how
much we do not know, and cannot know, because as God says in
Isaiah 55:9, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." How
much higher are the heavens than the earth? Even this is beyond
our measure, for we have not yet comprehended the creation of
God, and this is but the work of His fingers.
God created us to love Him, and not to comprehend Him. We
have to know much about Him to love Him, but to ever think that
we fully grasp Him is to begin to lose Him, for in pride we are
setting up our knowledge as a mental idol of the true God, who is
vastly superior to knowledge of Him. Only the humble theologian
is truly Biblical theologian, for He will not pretend to have God
boxed up with no loose ends, but will say with Alexander Pope-
Thou Great First Cause, least understood,
Who all my sense confin'd,
To know but this, that thou art God,
And that myself am blind.
Thank God He makes the blind to see and by His grace He has
given light abundant, and we know all we need to know about
God to be saved, and to fulfill His purpose. But let us never
forget He is always more than we know. When David considered
the omniscience of God in his own life, and of how God knew
when he rose or sat, went in or out, and knew the thoughts of his
mind, and the words he would speak before he spoke them, he
says in Ps. 139:6, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too
lofty for me to attain."
Wise theologian know how little they can know of God's
all-knowing. The old Puritans like Richard Baxter could say,
"You may know God but not comprehend Him." Richard Sibbes,
"You shall apprehend God but not comprehend Him." Stephen
Charnock, "It is visible that God is, it is invisible what He is."
What this means is, we can know how God knows much, but
we cannot know how He knows all. Some people can do two or
three things at once, and some have such powers of concentration
they can remember hundreds of things at the same time, but this
is all amateur night compared to God. God specializes in
everything, and attends to all things that exist at once. Some of
this is comprehensible. God naturally knows all that He has
predetermined. I can do this. I can know that tomorrow I will go
to the store, read John 1, take out the garbage, and change oil in
my car. If I have determined this is what I will do, it is no big
deal to know that I will do this. I can have foreknowledge of
these, and of who I will talk to if I intend to contact them. I can
relate to this kind of knowing and foreknowing, for I can have
this myself. The difference is that God can be sure He can do
what He plans, and I may not be able to carry out my plans.
Jesus does not limit God to knowing only what He has
foreordained. God did not foreordain that His son would be
known in the days of Sodom. In fact, He ordained that He would
not be born then. Nevertheless Jesus says God can know what
might have been had He chosen a different course of history. It is
no wonder theologians shy away from this passage. It is so
mind-boggling that nobody can grasp it. It makes God so free
and unbound in His knowledge that He cannot be made to fit into
any system of theology that man has devised.
All agree this is the hardest of the attributes of God to grasp.
We can grasp how God can know all He has ordained, for that is
fairly easy. We can see how it is possible for God to know what is
happening anywhere in the universe. His omnipresence makes
this inevitable. If God is everywhere present He will know
everything that is a part of reality. Prov. 15:3 says, "The eyes of
the Lord are everywhere keeping watch on the wicked and the
good." Heb. 4:13 says, "Nothing in all creation is hidden from
God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the
eyes of Him to whom we must give account." The eye has been a
symbol of God all through history. The ancient Egyptians used it,
and the seal on our dollar bills has the eye of God over the
pyramid, symbolizing His watchful providence over the land.
Knowing what is determined is not impressive knowledge.
Astronomers can predict when Haley's Comet will return, for it is
already determined. Knowing what is happening in your
presence is also not all that profound. We can know what is
happening in our presence. But when we move into the realm of
God knowing the free acts of men before they make them, this
gets more complicated and makes theologians struggle for
answers. Two of the easy ways out are to deny foreknowledge, or
to deny there are any free acts. Many go both ways, but they are
copouts from the Biblical view that says both are real.
If you deny that men are free to receive or reject God's will,
then you will be hard pressed to figure out why Jesus is so angry
at these cities of Israel. He is angry and threatens them with
severe judgment, for they had great evidence of the Messiah in all
the miracles of Jesus. In fact, many of the major miracles Jesus
performed took place in or around Capernaum. No other place
had such evidence, and to whom much is given much shall be
required.
Ignorance is an excuse, for you cannot be as accountable for
what you don't know as for what is made clear. They had clear
evidence, and God will hold them accountable in the day of
judgment for this evidence. They will be worse off then those in
Sodom, who never saw a miracle in their life. Those in Sodom
were more wicked, but they were so because of their darkness.
God does not hold them responsible for the light they did not
have. But He does hold those responsible who had the light.
Because men are judged according to the light they have, all agree
there will be different degrees of punishment of the lost. Jesus is
saying these sophisticated and religious Jews will suffer greater
judgment than those awful Gentiles who were so terrible God had
to wipe them off the face of the earth.
Alexander Maclaren, the great English preacher, points out
that we today are walking in light far greater even than that of
Capernaum. They did not have the cross, resurrection, ascension,
and promise of the second coming. We have the full gospel plus
two thousand years of its impact on history. They had a flood
light compared to Sodom's candle, but we have the noon day sun.
How much greater will be the judgment on the modern world if
they reject the salvation and teachings of Christ?
The apathy of those Jesus condemned was their greatest sin.
They did nothing in the face of overwhelming evidence to do
everything. They could have been the highest, but they will be the
lowest, for they did nothing with their light. "The measure of
light is the measure of responsibility." America has a higher
obligation to be Christian than does Libya, Russia, Syria, Iran,
etc. They do not have the light that we do. Guilt is relative to
knowledge. If I tell my son not to take my car because something
is wrong with it and I need to get it fixed before it is driven, and
he takes it anyway, my judgment is going to be more severe than
if I forgot to tell him of the problem. It is deliberate disobedience
when you go against knowledge. The same damage maybe done
in ignorance, but the person is not as responsible when they do it
in ignorance.
The people of Capernaum would regard the people of Sodom
with abhorrence, yet they were more guilty, and will suffer
greater judgment than the wicked people of Sodom, because they
sinned against light, and Sodom sinned in darkness. All people of
all time and all places will be treated equal by God, for they will
be judged on how they responded to what they knew, and how
they might have responded had they had the same light that
others had. You cannot beat this for fair and square justice for
all.
God's omniscience makes Him the only completely and
absolutely fair judge that has ever been or could ever be. No
other judge can know all of the facts, and all of the knowledge to
make an absolutely perfect judgment. Only God can have the
knowledge adequate to be the final judge of men, for He alone can
know what might have been had the guilty been given the same
opportunities as the innocent.
He also knows the opposite-what would the innocent have done
had they been confronted with the same temptations as the guilty.
"There but for the grace of God go I," is a famous statement we
all must say, for had we been raised in the same environment, and
had the same circumstances to face as those now in prison, would
we be there now as well? God only knows, but because He
knows, He also knows where those prisoners would be if they had
the blessings, love, and support we have had. They may be far
more thankful and responsive to the grace of God than we have
been. We can conceive of Jesus saying, "If the population of the
Stillwater prison would have had the spiritual resources you have
had, they would have done ten times with it what you have done.
So they will be better off in the day of judgment than you, for you
have returned little on the vast investment God has made in you."
When you get into God's omniscience on this level, it can be a
powerful motivator. It makes you think about how His
all-knowing will have an effect on all of our lives in judgment.
If this was the only place in the Bible that this idea of God
knowing what might have been, but never happened, then we
would have the right to be cautious, even though these are the
words of our Lord. It is not that we should ever doubt Him, but it
is right to question a rare idea, especially if it is based on one text
alone. But the idea of God's knowing what might have been is
illustrated for us elsewhere in God's word. In I Sam. 23 Saul is
pursuing David, and he hears that David has gone to the town of
Keilah. When David learned that Saul knew his whereabouts, he
prayed to God for guidance and said, "O Lord God of Israel,
your servant has heard definitely that Saul plans to come to
Keilah and destroy the town on account of me. Will the citizens
of Keilah surrender me to him? Will Saul come down as your
servant has heard? O Lord, God of Israel, tell your servant. And
the Lord said He will. Again David asked, will the citizens of
Keilah surrender me and my men to Saul? And the Lord said,
they will."
Now, if we stop here, we have God giving a direct positive yes
to these questions, and so it should be assumed that what God has
said will be, will be, for He said yes, Saul will come to Keilah, and
yes, the citizens of Keilah will turn you over to Saul. It is all cut
and dried. God knows the future, and He tells David what it will
be. But the surprise is in the next verse which says, "So David
and his men, about 600 in number, left Keilah and kept moving
from place to place. When Saul was told that David had escaped
from Keilah, he did not go there."
The very things that God said would be did not happen at all.
Saul did not come to Keilah, and the people did not surrender
David, for David used the knowledge of the future to change the
future so that the future that God foresaw did not take place.
The point is, God could know what would have been for sure had
David stayed there. It never became a part of history, but it
might have, and God knew what would have been, but never was.
God also said in forty days Ninevah will be destroyed. It was a
sure thing, yet it never happened because what God foresaw was
changed by their repentance. Had they not repented history
would have been just as he saw it. This is so fascinating that it
makes Bible study the most fun you can have in life. God's
knowing of something does not mean that it will certainly be, for
by prayer we can gain insight that can change what is going to be.
God sees all the possibilities. God may see that I will go off the
road and get injured. The fatalist says if God sees that, than its
all over, nothing can be done to change it. What is to be will be.
But the Bible led believer says, I will pray for God's guidance
before I make this trip, and I will be sensitive to the leading of His
spirit. This can enable me to use precaution, and take actions
that will prevent what God sees from being the actual story. God
saw what would be if David had not prayed, and had stayed. But
David did pray and did not stay, and this changed so that what
God saw was to be, never came to be. If this was not the case,
all prayer would be meaningless.
If all is locked in, and whatever will be will be, then asking God for
anything is a waste of time, for regardless of your prayer
whatever will be will be. The Bible says prayer changes
things-even the things God knows will be if things are not
changed. God knew Saul would come to Keilah, but David
prayed and changed his plans, and Saul didn't come to Keilah.
Prayer can even change what God knows will be. God has made
man not a mere puppet, but a co-writer of the play of history. We
can change the scene and the lines, and have an enormous role in
determining the course of history. This is why we need to pray
without ceasing, for every action we take, and every attitude we
express, is deciding our future.
God can see the future when we do His will, and He can see the
future where we do not do His will. He can see the future where
His name is honored through us, and the one where it is not. He
can see the future where we are delivered from temptation, and
the one where we are not. The point of prayer is to help us tap
into the all-knowing mind of God, and get the feed back we need
to make the choices that will produce the positive history rather
than the negative one of what might be. Prayer is so vital to our
not doing foolish, stupid, and sinful things. The brightness of our
future depends upon our being in a prayerful state of mind.
We cannot comprehend the omniscience of God, but like many
other realities of life that are beyond us, such as light, electricity,
gravity, etc. We can use it for making our lives more than they
can ever be without it. Let us never cease to pray, and seek for
more light in God's word, for by these resources we write daily a
better story of our own history, for by these means we plug into
the mind of our God who is omniscient.
