Linked Together: Knowing God

Three suggestions for weekend reading on the character of God.

As He Is
“Let’s be sure to delight in the character of God and not in a caricature of God.”—Erik Raymond

What He Knows
God knows everything:

Divine omniscience includes the following: First, God fully knows himself, his infinite knowledge encompassing his infinite being. As Scripture notes, the Father knows the Son, and the Son knows the Father (Matt. 11:27), and the Holy Spirit knows all the mysteries of the Godhead (1 Cor. 2:10). Second, God fully knows his own decree or eternal purpose, and all the events that transpire as the outworking of this sovereign will (Acts 15:18).

From a human, timed perspective, God fully knows the past, present, and future. Thus, third, he fully knows the past, which is as vivid to him as the present. Accordingly, God’s “forgetfulness” of our past sins refers to his commitment not to count them against us (Heb. 10:17). Fourth, he fully knows the present, from its loftiest realities (the number of the stars in the universe; Psa. 147:4) to its smallest details (the number of the hairs on one’s head and the death of a sparrow; Matt. 10:29-30). Fifth, God fully knows the future, even the free will decisions and actions of his creatures (for example, the future home of Israel in the promised land, the birth of Isaac to old Abram and barren Sarah; Gen. 15:16; 18:10).

Moreover, sixth, he fully knows all actual things, that is, people and events that actually exist and happen; and seventh, all possible things, that is, all people and events that could possibly exist and happen but never do (for example, the would-be response of people long gone if they had witnessed Jesus’s miracles centuries later; Matt. 11:20-22).  

Read Dane Ortlund’s whole interview with Gregg Allison.

About His Wrath
Five biblical truths about the wrath of God: 

1. God’s wrath is just.
2. God’s wrath is to be feared.
3. God’s wrath is consistent in the Old and New Testament.
4. God’s wrath is his love in action against sin.
5. God’s wrath is satisfied in Christ.

Read Joseph Scheumann’s explanation of each of these truths.