NONE LIKE HIM: BEYOND COMPREHENSION
Who is God? As followers of Jesus, it would seem that this question would be easy to answer. Sure, we could explain the general ideas of who God is, such as He is the creator of the universe and everything that is in it. That He loves us and sent His son to die in our place and that one day He will send His son again to finish the enemy and redeem all of creation. However, these are all attributes that we can grasp and understand. When we look at Romans 11:33-35, Paul shows us that the ways of God are beyond anything we can understand.
When we look at the attributes of God, we might be able to explain them, but that does not mean we know how to comprehend what we are explaining. We do this a lot in many areas of our culture and lives. For example, when people, both normal citizens and politicians, talk about the national debt, they can point out that the debt is in the trillions of dollars, but most people do not really fully comprehend what a trillion dollars is compared to a billion, or a billion to a million.
God is everywhere. There is no place in space or time that He does not manifest or exist. He is with us always and will never leave us because He is everywhere and always faithful. God knows everything. He knows what is going to happen before it happens, and He knows what is going to happen because He ordained or allowed it to happen. Finally, God is all powerful. When God spoke the cosmos into creation in Genesis 1, I imagine that He did not even break a sweat doing it. He simply spoke and things became something out of nothing. Both Paul in Colossians and John in the Gospel of John, talk about how the universe is held together by Him and all things were created through Him. There is nothing in the universe that does not submit the sovereignty of God.
While these might be attributes that we can explain, they are not attributes that we can fully comprehend and understand how God does it. We cannot fully understand how God exists everywhere in space and time. We cannot comprehend the knowledge that God possesses. Our understanding of God’s power is so limited that science cannot even explain the details of His creation. My youth pastor growing up told me “if God was small enough to understand, then He would not be big enough to worship.” I am so glad that we worship a God that is bigger than anything we can comprehend.
Reflective Questions:
1. If someone asked you to explain who God is, how would you answer them?
2. Is not being able to comprehend God frustrating or comforting?
3. How can we allow the unexplainable attributes of God to increase our faith?