A Study of The Knowledge of the Holy - Chapter 2 - God Incomprehensible

Chapter 2 – God Incomprehensible

·        Prayer:  Lord, how great is our dilemma! In Your Presence, we best be silent, but love inflames our hearts and compels us to speak. Were we to hold our peace the stones would cry out; yet if we speak, what shall we say?  Teach us to know that we cannot know, for the things of God no man knows, but only by the Spirit of God. Let faith support us where reason fails, and we shall think because we believe, not in order that we may believe. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

·        What is God like? “God is not like anything; that is, He is not exactly like anything or anybody.”

·        We learn by using what we already know as a bridge which we pass over to the unknown.  It’s impossible for the mind to crash suddenly past the familiar into the totally unfamiliar.  Even the most daring mind is unable to create something out of nothing by a spontaneous act of imagination.

·        Read Ezekiel 1 – examine verses 5, 7, 13, 16, 22, 26, 27, 28

o       The prophet uses the words “likeness”, “looked like”, “like”, “appearance”, “appears to be”

o       Even the throne becomes “the appearance of a throne” and He that sits upon it, though like a man, is so unlike one that He can be described only as “the likeness of the appearance of a man.”

·        Scripture

o       God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. –Paul (1 Timothy 6:15,16)

o       “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? –Zophar (Job 11:7,8)

o       No one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
–Jesus (Matthew 11:27)

·        “The yearning to know What cannot be known, to comprehend the Incomprehensible, to touch and taste the Unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man. Deep calleth unto deep, and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster theologians call the Fall, the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its Source. How can this be realized?"

o       The answer – through Jesus Christ our Lord.  In Christ and by Christ, God is made known.

o       He shows Himself not to reason but to faith and love.

§         Faith is an organ of knowledge

§         Love is an organ of experience

·        “Truly, God is of infinite greatness, more than we can think, unknowable by created things.  But even here and now, whenever the heart begins to burn with a desire for God, she is made able to receive the uncreated light, and inspired and fulfilled by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, she tastes the joys of heaven.  She transcends all visible things and is raised to the sweetness of eternal life.” – Richard Rolle, Christian writer, Bible translator, 13^th century)

·        What is God like? If we mean “What is God like in Himself?” then there is no answer.  The name of God is secret and His essential nature is incomprehensible.

·        What is God like? If we mean “What has God revealed about Himself?” then there is an answer, for He in condescending love declared certain things to be true of Himself.  These we call His attributes.

Only to sit and think of God,

Oh what a joy it is!

To think the thought, to breath the Name 

Earth has no higher bliss.

--Frederick W. Faber, 19^th century theologian