I want to continue on our journey concerning the attributes of God and we talked last time about certain attributes that God has that we do not have, and that are really what we would call incommunicable attributes. These attributes had to do with the fact that God is spirit. So, He is independent, first of all, and He doesn’t depend upon anybody or anything. Therefore He is an eternal being; the eternality of God, the timelessness of God—all these are factors. We looked at the unity of God and then we looked at some of the attributes of God’s being.
In terms of communicable attributes, and though God is spirit, we saw that we also are spiritual beings. So, we see a sense of a connection there. God is invisible and his invisibility means that the total essence of His being will never be seen by us, but He still shows Himself to us in certain ways. We know that He is omniscient and though we know that we are not omniscient, we share knowledge and we come to understand that God knows Himself and that He knows all things actual and all things possible and He is fully aware of everything, and all things are fully present in His consciousness. His knowledge never changes or grows.
Having said that, we still have bounded knowledge, but I think it is quite exciting to realize that we are never going to be bored with God because His knowledge is unfathomable and unlimited. It is something that, I think, will always be full of surprises. Therefore you will never be able to plum the depths of the profound wisdom and glory of God. Speaking of wisdom, that brings us to the next attribute that I would like to talk about. When we say that God is wise, we mean that God always uses the best goals and the best means to those goals. Wisdom not only has to do with having the right goals but also the best way to get there, and the best timing as well. We have often done a good thing at the wrong time, or in the wrong way, or in the wrong amount. If we look at Psalm 104, we see how the whole earth is filled with His glorious creation and how harmonious and intricate all things really are in His creation. When we look at His wisdom, not only in creation, but the wisdom that He manifested in His redemptive work, that wisdom seems foolish to us.
When we think about the wisdom of God in 1 Corinthians chapter one, it invites us to realize that the wisdom of God is greater than the wisdom of men and in fact humans have a way of thinking that the wisdom of God is foolishness. Therefore Paul said, “…but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” He is telling us that Christ became to us the wisdom and righteousness from God—righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
When I think about the wisdom of His plan, and Paul reflects on this in Romans chapter eleven, we realize that He has wisely crafted the world and history and He is working in it and through it. Paul reflects at the end of Romans eleven, having looked back and reflected on ‘how can God be just and the justifier of people who are opposed to His purposes’? How is it possible for God to reach down and to do these things? He shuts up the Jews in disobedience so that He might show mercy to the Gentiles. Through their mercy the Jews will become jealous. Paul reflects on this when he says in Romans chapter eleven verse three, “O the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments. How inscrutable are His ways.”
We see as well that the manifold wisdom of God is going to be made known to the Church to the heavenly places—to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. So, God has an amazingly wise plan, and with humans He is capable of bringing unity out of diversity. He is capable of creating a community of the redeemed. He is capable of taking things and creatively ordering things.