God's Infinitude
Sunday, July 19, 2009 at 11:51PM Another repost (and substantial re-edit) of an old attribute of God post. I’ll be linking to it in this week’s Theological Term of the Week.
That God is infinite means that He is not limited in any way. There is no way to measure any of His characteristics, because they are are without bounds.
Because God is infinite, He is also incomprehensible. Psalm 145:3 tells us that God’s “greatness is unsearchable,” which means we will never be able to fully grasp all that He is. We may understand some of what He is, but we will never, even in eternity, come close to wrapping our pea brains around his infinite greatness.
That God’s attributes are infinite just means that God himself—his nature—is infinite. As finite creatures, we can only begin to grasp the infinity of God by separately considering the unlimited nature of his various attributes. So we look at God’s infinity in relation to time and call it God’s eternity, and his infinity in relation to space and call it His immanence and transcendence. We call His infinite knowledge omniscience and his infinite ability omnipotence. By looking at each of these aspects of the infinity of God separately, what it means that he is wholly infinite becomes a little clearer to us.
In thinking of God’s infinitude in relationship to all of His attributes, we need to go beyond thinking of each attribute as a boundless amount of a certain characteristic to thinking of each attribute as unlimited in quality as well. All of God’s attributes belong to him in perfection and without defect. His goodness, for instance, is not only boundless in quantity, filling the earth and beyond, but it is also of boundless quality. As with all his other attributes, God’s goodness is perfect. It cannot be added to or improved upon; it is always expressed flawlessly.
What does God’s infinitude mean to us? It means that the aspects of his character that He extends to us will never run out. God’s kindness toward us in Christ Jesus shows us the “the immeasurable riches of his grace” (Ephesians 2:7). Yes, he stoops down, way down, to raise sinners up, but no sinner is too low for the reach of God’s immeasurably rich grace. And throughout eternity, his people will remain in his presence on the basis of his neverending—or infinite—grace. Now that is graciousness we can rest in!
That God is infinite means we must “honor him as God”—as someone not like us, but in a class by himself (Romans 1:20-23). A right response to Someone so far beyond what we are and what we know is worship and awe.
I will extol You, my God, O King;
And I will bless Your name forever and ever.
Every day I will bless You,
And I will praise Your name forever and ever.
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
And His greatness is unsearchable.
(Psalm 145:1-3 NKJV)
Reader Comments (2)
Even contemplating the infinitude of God can only boggle the human mind! It is very deep, considering that when we are all glorified together with Christ in heaven He will continue to be infinite and we finite. We often have the false idea that when we get to heaven we will have perfect and complete understanding. Wrong. We will be able to experience the infinitude of God in all His glory for ever and ever, never getting to the end of it.
(Can you tell I like to contemplate the infinitude of God?)
It's one of my favorite things to think about, too. :)