Our All-Knowing God
How often do we think upon the great truth that our God is all knowing? “Omniscience” is the formal theological word for the all-encompassing knowledge of God. Whether or not a person believes in the God of all creation and has accepted His Son as their Lord and Savior or wholly rejects Him, God knows each one with perfect intimacy.
God does not just know most things about each one of us, but He knows fully about everyone and everything. Here are some attempts by writers to define and so describe the omniscience of God:
God knows everything, things actual and things possible, effortlessly and equally well.
God knows all things actual and possible, past, present, and future in one eternal act.
To say that God is omniscient is to say that He possesses perfect knowledge and therefore has no need to learn. But it is more; it is to say that God has never learned and cannot learn.
This is to be an encouraging and comforting truth for believers, each and every day. Whether it be the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, God is all-knowing in His essence.
David speaks of the comfort and wonder it brought to His heart contemplating that God knows everything concerning him. In Psalm 139:1-6, David writes:
O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O LORD, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.
God knows when I sit down or and when I rise up, he knows what I am thinking and he knows where I go and when I sleep. God knows every word I say even before I say it and His hand is upon me in the sense of His knowledge of me is inescapable.
As I meditate on what He knows about me, in what ways should this alter my life before Him? I am told in Hebrews 4:13, “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.” How should this biblical truth impact me as a believer?
I see this as a great doctrine concerning my security in Christ. When I believed upon Jesus Christ for my salvation, God knew every detail about me. Despite His perfect knowledge of my depravity, He had sent His Son to die for my sin and called me to believe upon Him for the forgiveness of my sin. There is nothing hidden from Him so there is nothing that can arise in my life that is able to surprise God. I rest in the security of His omniscience.
An understanding of His omniscience ought to move me to be more sensitive to God in all that He has told me in His Word. Every warning is from Him who knows all things so He knows exactly what will befall me should I choose to disobey His Word. His love is displayed by His commands to me that protect me from harm.
I should see, as I grow in my appreciation for His omniscience, a drive to seek Him “who causes all things to work together for good.” Although I may seldom understand all that He brings into my life, I know Him who knows all things and so I am to rest in Him. I ought to read His Word with a desire to know Him more and more. This will be the reality of my future living in glory with Him, I will be learning of His person forever and ever.
I ought to be growing in having a settled heart, knowing that God is never in the dark about anything concerning me. Jesus said in Mathew 6:8 as He taught about meaningless repetition in prayer: “So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”
Since the Word clearly tells me that He is all knowing, I must soberly live in light of the fact that it is before Him I shall stand in the day of judgment. For believers, this is a judgment of rewards as seen in 2 Corinthians 5:9-10:
Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for His deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
Understanding more of this great truth concerning our great God and Savior is cause for us to praise Him more every day.
“Great is our Lord and abundant in strength; His understanding is infinite” (Psalm 147:5).