The
Omniscience of God
What does it mean when we
say God is Omniscience? To break down the word “Omni” means all,
“And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things
are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” Hebrews 4:13 (NASB)
What this means is there
is nothing hidden from God, there is nothing that happens without His knowledge
of it. Past, present or future. Because God has infinite knowledge, He can not
increase in knowledge, (Psalm 147:5).
He knows every event that has happened from the beginning of time to the end of
history (Isaiah 46:9-10), and every
detail of every event (Matthew 10:29-30)
Because of His
Omniscience, God cannot learn, or be informed of anything new, not even in our
prayers do we inform God of anything new, or anything we may want, but through
prayer we come in line with what God has already preordained to be. Therefore nothing
happens overtly to His attention. God is neither surprised by the way the world
works itself out, nor shocked by the choices we make.
One
of my favorite Bible verses is
Romans 8:28 “And we know that God
causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who
are called according to His purpose.”
This passage has done more to strengthen me in times
of difficulty than any other passage, and I’m sure I’m not the only person that
can say that. But What exactly does that mean? Or how does God work all things
out for the good? And who are those that are called according to his
purposes? More importantly, what does
this has to do with Omniscience?
Omniscience, God’s knowledge of all things, past,
present and future, and of every event that will and has ever happened is the
passive part of another attribute of God called His Providence. What providence
is, is the natural events in history that God intertwines, their timing, location, and depth. So that they meet at a location in time perfect for God’s will and
purposes to be achieved.
We see this with Joseph who through a series of
otherwise wicked events was put second in command of Egypt so that his father
and brother’s family would have a place to live. We also see this in the Book
of Ester, where through a series of what looked like unrelated events in that Ester was made queen, Mortdecai saves Ahasuerus
life and Haman the Agagite who had devised a plot to annihilate the Jews was
made to look like he was molesting the Queen in the kings’ own house and was hung on the very gallow he built to hang Mortdecai. All of this happened to fulfill God's plan and promise that the seed of women
would crush the head of the serpent and Jesus would die on the cross at Golgotha
to reconcile us back to the Father in heaven. (Genesis 3:15,
So because God is Omniscience He could know all things
and every event in time and space, By his Sovereignty do what-so-ever he desired,
and by His providence intertwined every event, location person place, and thing
in such a way that His will and purposes are met.
Yet the knowledge of God is not limited to what he knows past, presence and future or God knowledge is not just limited by everything in time.
God also knows the outcome of every circumstance and every possible circumstance whether
it has actually happened or not. This type of God’s omniscience is called
Middle Knowledge, it presumes that
God knows the outcome of all counterfactuals or “if, then”
statement.
For instance Jesus
explicitly says, twice, that under different circumstances certain people would
have made a different free choice of whether or not to repent (Matthew
11:21–2, Luke
10:13).
Jesus also refers to different outcomes under different circumstances (Matthew
26:24; John 14:2).
God also references different choices leading to different results in the Old
Testament (Exodus
9:15; Isaiah
48:17–19). Further, the Bible clearly states that God
allows us to make choices contrary to His preferences (Matthew
23:37; 2 Peter
3:9; Psalm
5:10; Isaiah
30:1).
Though seldom taught this doctrine of God middle knowledge is well
within orthodoxy of scriptures.
If you love God you have to know that His omniscience and providence was not just working in ancient times. Many of us have not come from the best life. We may have done something that we are not proud of, lived a life lifestyle that we now regret, hurt people we should have loved, lied to those that trusted us, stole from those that would have given us the world, even some of us raped or murdered. But somehow right now, by the grace of God we no longer desire that past life. We put away that old man, and even though we really love God, we might be confused into thinking that we have changed our lives. We sometimes get it wrong when we say “I found Jesus” because it wasn’t Jesus that had gone astray, it was us.
Acts
17:26-27 says “ And he made
from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth,
having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands and territories., that they should seek God,
and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far
from each one of us”
God had been since the beginning of time searching to
put us in the right places and locations and situations to save us. And he did this
through his Omniscience, his knowledge of all things.
Your Brother in Christ
FireSpeaks
