The Incomprehensibility of God

Job 42:1-6,
You could say that Job endured a great trial, and even a torturous journey of faith. But the good news is Job comes out a better man. And Job learns about himself, but he also learns about God. Notice what he says. “I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes have seen you.” Essentially, he learns that God is God, “God is bigger than me; God is infinite, I am finite; God is big, I am small. God is not answerable to me, but I am answerable to Him, and God is not obligated to answer my questions.”

And the word that theologians have used over the hundreds of years, I think, going all the way back to the Reformation, is the word incomprehensibility. That's the word they've used to help us understand just how big God is. And here's what that means, “You can have a true knowledge of God, but not an exhaustive knowledge of God. You don't know everything about God. God is infinite, we are finite.” Dr. Packer puts it this way,

But twice in the book of Job, God's incomprehensibility is addressed by his so-called friends. Job 11:7-9, “Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?” And then again in Job 36:26, “How great is God beyond our understanding; the number of his years past finding out.” And we see that, don't we, in the story of Job with respect to creation, first of all. If you go back to chapter 38, God asked Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” And he asked them several more questions, I mean, there's what, 60 or so questions. And Job realizes his ignorance with respect to God's created order. But Job also realizes God's mystery in terms of divine providence, “Therefore, I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me I did not know.”

And there's a lot of things that happen in our lives, aren't there, in the world at large, that we could never really understand what's happening. What is God doing? God's reasons are hidden. But we have to trust him. In the words of William Cooper, 

But the incomprehensibility of God is seen in creation, providence and also salvation. That's why Paul, toward the back end of Romans, remember, he breaks out in doxology, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out. Who has known the mind of the Lord?” Who could have planned a salvation from eternity, that really started in terms of time and space, in a manger in Bethlehem, God incarnate? A salvation that demanded the greatest of love; the love of the Father, the love of the Son; a salvation where God sends His only begotten to save a lost world by dying on a cross of crucifixion. Who could have understood or explained the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement? People are still fighting and wrestling over that doctrine today, do you know that? Where the Son becomes sin for us, He becomes sin for us. Paul in 1 Corinthians 1 says that the wisdom of God's salvation through the cross appears foolish to human wisdom. But to us as Christians, it is the wonder of wonders, the mystery of mysteries.

How do we respond to God's incomprehensibility in terms of His person and His work? Well, there should be a response of humility, that's a good response; trust, that's a great response, He knows far more than we know; praise, worship, that's a great response; obedience, submission to a great God like that, that's a great response; and then prayer is a great response. So let's go to the throne of Christ, realizing how good our God is, but how great He is. We'll know Him, we know Him, but we will never, never, not even in heaven, know him exhaustively. In a book titled Trusting God by Jerry Bridges, he says, 

 Those are three truths that we have to constantly run through our minds in the midst of trials, the midst of sufferings, and the pains and disappointments of life.