It’s safe to say that the age of privacy is over, and the age of surveillance has begun. I don’t just mean security cameras filming you in the shops and restaurants. When you travel, your GPS and your Tracker know where you are, and store that information, so that where you live and work and frequent can be easily found. Cars are increasingly equipped with dashcams to film traffic, so that chances are increasing that someone will film you driving. When you go online, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Instagram are tracking the websites you visit, what you search for, and selling that information to advertisers. Sophisticated software today can gather up all your debit and credit card purchases to understand what you buy and where you shop. Wherever you go in public, someone is there with a smartphone, able to film you. And increasingly, camera technology has developed to where drones, mini-drones, lapel cameras, Google glasses, and even insect-sized cameras are a part of life. I hate to sound paranoid, but in modern life, someone is watching you.
Of course, that bothers us, because we don’t know these people, and we don’t know what they will do with the information they have about us. But on another level, Christians know a benevolent form of this experience. We have a God who always watches us, and knows everything about us. As David wrote so long ago:
O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off.
You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.
(Ps. 139:1-4)
The God of the Bible is not restricted to knowledge about us, though. The Bible teaches that He is omniscient, that is all-knowing.
Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite.
(Ps. 147:5)
God knows all that can be known. But that would be little comfort to us. Our governments are trying to use technology to achieve a kind of omniscience about their citizens, and this does not fill us with comfort. But in the case of God, He is not only omniscient – all-knowing –, He is also omnisapient – all-wise. Wisdom is the use of knowledge to understand perfect ends, and the perfect means to achieve those perfect ends.
Rom 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
To understand what an all-knowing and all-wise God is like, we turn to the ancient book of Job. Job was written somewhere around the time of Abraham, and it records the events that happened in the land of Uz, the area now known as Jordan. It centres on a man named Job, one of the great and wealthy men of his time, a noble who wielded great respect and influence. He was a prince in his land, possessing over 11,000 animals, and commanding a small army of servants and employees. More importantly, he was a godly man, who loved and feared the true and living God.
But Job was not destined to enjoy an uncomplicated life of serving God amidst his wealth, because he was to be caught up in a cosmic drama. Job’s righteous life was a testimony of God’s goodness and so a thorn in the flesh of God’s adversary, Satan.
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.
And the LORD said to Satan, “From where do you come?” So Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.”
Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?”
So Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing?”
“Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.
“But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”
And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.
(Job 1:6-12)
We saw this divine council last week in Daniel 7, and we see it here again, except now we meet someone called the satan in Hebrew, the adversary. God challenged Satan, the accuser, to consider Job, blameless and devoted. Satan disputed how blameless Job really was. He said, “Anyone would be good and obedient if they were spoilt the way you spoil Job. But take away his toys, take away what’s dear to him, and we’ll see how much of his devotion is left.” God accepted this challenge and gave permission for Job’s devotion to be tested.
And in the land of Uz, the tragedies began to hit Job one by one. Four messengers brought news of great devastation. First, crime. Sabeans came, stole the thousands of oxen, and murdered his employees. Then a natural disaster: lightning caused a massive fire, wiped out the sheep, and the servants died as well. Third, more crime: the Chaldeans came and stole the camels and murdered the servants. In one day, he had lost 11,000 animals: every penny. But he still had his family, at least. But then the fourth messenger came to tell him that all his sons and daughters had all been gathered in one place at one time, and huge wind collapsed the house they were in, and in one moment all ten of his adult children gone.
Job tore his clothes, shaved himself, fell on his knees, crushed by the blow of providence. You could not be more devastated on one day. But in that place of kneeling, sobbing, Job still said:
Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD.
But there was still round two to take place. The divine council met again, and God challenged Satan, the accuser, to consider Job, blameless and devoted even in spite of needless trials.
Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.”
So Satan answered the LORD and said, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life.”
“But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”
And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.”
(Job 2:3-6)
Satan answered “As long as a man’s suffering doesn’t touch his own body, he’ll secretly be glad the suffering happened to others. Touch his own being, and Job will curse you.” God gave permission, and Job broke out in painful, festering boils from the crown of his head down to the soles of his feet. And now, in physical agony, his own wife called on him to deny his faith, and end his pitiful life. “Curse God and die.” Job told her that she was siding with fools, and said, “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?”
Job’s suffering wasn’t over, because apart from an unbelieving wife, Job’s next trial was going to be the incessant comfort that three of his friends would provide. The three wise men, wise in their own eyes, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, began counselling Job, in a dialogue that runs from chapter 3 to chapter 31. Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, had a very binary view of providence: God is in control of the world, God is just, repeatedly evil things have happened to you, Job, so you must have been evil. Repent, and this will all come right.
But Job knew that no secret sin had brought this about. Why it had come, he did not know. But he disputed their accusations, and told them that they were miserable comforters.
Now Job began well, but as the trial went on, and as his three ‘friends’ kept poking him with the stick of accusation, Job became increasingly testy towards God. He began questioning why bad happens to good, why good happens to bad. He began wondering out loud if God was targeting him, cruelly prolonging his life when he’d prefer to die. He began demanding answers from God, demanding an audience with God, where God would give an account to Job of His treatment of Job.
In essence, Job was saying, I know God can do everything, I know He is sovereign, but this doesn’t seem just. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t seem wise. Job wanted God to explain the wisdom of what He was doing with Job.
Well, after a few preparatory words from a younger man present, named Elihu, Job got what he wanted, but it was much more than he bargained for. As the men sat in silence, the rustling of fallen leaves began to pick up, and they noticed a cold wind causing their cloaks to flap. No one had seen a storm approaching that day, but the wind became a gust, which became a gale, a whirlwind of noise. From the wind came more than whistling and rustling: a voice came, no doubt a voice with the deep, thunderous bass of a waterfall pounding the rocks. It was the voice of the Lord Himself.
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:
“Who is this who darkens counsel By words without knowledge?
Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me.”
(Job 38:1-3)
The true and the living God was now going to answer Job’s request, but not as Job had expected. God was not going to answer Job’s questions, nor was He going to give an account of Himself. Instead, God asked Job 77 questions of His own. It is an exam. It’s a God-exam. Every question God asks Job has to do with God’s knowledge of His creation, and His wise control over His creation. The implication of the exam is this: if you know the answers to these questions, then you have as much knowledge as God, as much wisdom as God, and then you’re qualified to understand or critique what He’s doing in your life.
I think God’s speech to Job is perhaps the pinnacle of poetry in recorded history. Alfred Lord Tennyson called it ‘the greatest poem whether of ancient or modern literature.’ We will not read all 77 questions, but dipping in to these words, we will discover five truths about God’s knowledge and wisdom.
God knows every event in the past, present, and the future
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?
To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone,
When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
“Or who shut in the sea with doors, When it burst forth and issued from the womb;
When I made the clouds its garment, And thick darkness its swaddling band;
When I fixed My limit for it, And set bars and doors;
When I said,`This far you may come, but no farther, And here your proud waves must stop!'”
(Job 38:4-11)
God stretches back to a time when there were no human observers and asks Job if he remembers the events of day 1, 2, and 3 of creation, giving detail not found in Genesis. God knows every event from the beginning of the notion of successive events – which is the beginning of time, through to eternity future.
God knows more than that.
God knows what no human has discovered
“Have you entered the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in search of the depths?
Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death?
Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this.
“Where is the way to the dwelling of light? And darkness, where is its place,
That you may take it to its territory, That you may know the paths to its home?
Do you know it, because you were born then, Or because the number of your days is great?
(Job 38:16-21)
By what way is light diffused, Or the east wind scattered over the earth?
“Who has divided a channel for the overflowing water, Or a path for the thunderbolt,
(Job 38:24-25)
Until the 1960s, man had never even observed ocean springs, but they had been there long before man knew of them. We still don’t understand death, or know what the experience is, though all kinds of experiments have been done. We still don’t understand all the properties of light, how it works, how it is diffused. We’re still understanding how lightning does literally carve out a path from ground to cloud. We’re 4000 years after Job and we don’t fully understand these things.
The saying goes, you don’t know what you don’t know. The effect of a knowledgeable mind on your own is to make you ask questions you had never asked yourself before then. Here God is asking Job questions he would not remotely have asked himself.
But God asks Job these questions, because Job felt God perhaps didn’t know what He was doing, or didn’t know how best to use His knowledge.
God takes care of creatures man knows nothing of
“Can you hunt the prey for the lion, Or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
When they crouch in their dens, Or lurk in their lairs to lie in wait?
Who provides food for the raven, When its young ones cry to God, And wander about for lack of food?
(Job 38:39-41)
God essentially says, who has been feeding lions all this time? Who knows about the ravens? Are they on your daily, to-do list, Job? Are the billions of creatures needing provision something you know about and know what to do about?
God knows what no other mind knows
By what way is light diffused, Or the east wind scattered over the earth?
“Who has divided a channel for the overflowing water, Or a path for the thunderbolt,
To cause it to rain on a land where there is no one, A wilderness in which there is no man;
To satisfy the desolate waste, And cause to spring forth the growth of tender grass?
(Job 38:24-27)
God says, Job, I know about rainstorms no one else knows about. You or one of your fellow-humans does not need to know or see something for it to be true and real. I am busy looking after my creation in ways you have no idea about.
And just to boot, God lists out several wild animals who are far from the pastures and herds of man, but God is watching over them.
“Do you know the time when the wild mountain goats bear young? Or can you mark when the deer gives birth?
“Who set the wild donkey free? Who loosed the bonds of the onager,
Whose home I have made the wilderness, And the barren land his dwelling?
“Will the wild ox be willing to serve you? Will he bed by your manger?
Can you bind the wild ox in the furrow with ropes? Or will he plow the valleys behind you?
“Does the hawk fly by your wisdom, And spread its wings toward the south?
Does the eagle mount up at your command, And make its nest on high?
On the rocks it dwells and resides, On the crag of the rock and the stronghold.
From there it spies out the prey; Its eyes observe from afar.
(Job 39:1, 5-6, 9-10, 26-29)
And if God sees what no one else sees, it is equally true that God sees all that people try to hide from Him. We think of Achan, hiding his treasure in his tent, but God knew all along, and exposed him. Sarah laughed to herself in her tent, but God said, “Why did Sarah laugh?” David perhaps thought that the murder of Uriah and the marriage to Bathsheba had hidden his sin, but God knew, and sent Nathan to expose him.
And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
(Heb. 4:12-13)
God knows every event and its cause
Notice, as God asks Job these questions how many of the events are things which we have been taught to call ‘natural events’ as if they are an inexorable, inevitable chain of mindless events. But God explains to Job who causes them.
“Have you commanded the morning since your days began, And caused the dawn to know its place,
Has the rain a father? Or who has begotten the drops of dew?
From whose womb comes the ice? And the frost of heaven, who gives it birth?
The waters harden like stone, And the surface of the deep is frozen.
(Job 38:12, 28-30)
“Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, Or loose the belt of Orion?
Can you bring out Mazzaroth in its season? Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs?
Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you set their dominion over the earth?
(Job 38:31-33)
Can you send out lightnings, that they may go, And say to you,`Here we are!’?
(Job 38:35)
He knows all events past, present, and future. He even knows what we call counterfactual events – events that would happen in a different set of circumstances. For example, when David asked God if the residents of the town of Keilah would surrender him to Saul if he stayed there, God told him that they would, and so David fled. Jesus told the cities of Capernaum that Sodom and Tyre would have repented, had they experienced the revelation that was given to those Israelite cities. God knows the actual world, with all its objects and events, but He also knows all possible worlds.
Put in theological terms, omniscience means God knows all that is possible for a holy God to know. As Tozer put it:
“God knows instantly and effortlessly all matter and all matters, all mind and every mind, all spirit and all spirits, all being and every being, all creaturehood and all creatures, every plurality and all pluralities, all law and every law, all relations, all causes, all thoughts, all mysteries, all enigmas, all feeling, all desires, every unuttered secret, all thrones and dominions, all personalities, all things visible and invisible in heaven and in earth, motion, space, time, life, death, good, evil, heaven, and hell.”
And all of this knowledge, He knows immediately, and effortlessly. He never discovers, nor does He learn. You cannot inform God of anything. He is never surprised or taken aback.
Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, Or as His counselor has taught Him?
With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him, And taught Him in the path of justice? Who taught Him knowledge, And showed Him the way of understanding?
(Isa. 40:13-14)
So we might then ask, Why does God ask questions of people in the Bible? Why do we read God saying to Abraham, “Now I know that you fear Me”? For that matter, why should we pray, if our prayers do not inform God? The answer is that God questions us and tests us not to learn from us, but so that we will learn – learn about Him, learn about ourselves. We pray not to give God information, but to pour out our desires, thanksgivings, admiration, confession. God desires that we so commune with Him.
Now all of these questions that God asks Job are aimed not only at showing Job that God knows all that is knowable, but that God is all-wise with that knowledge. It is as if God is asking, Do you see any mismanagement in My ways with the sea, the winds, the rain, the stars, the land animals, the birds, great sea creatures? As you see My ways with these things, is there any sign of wisdom? Is there any sign of goodness? Is there any sign of power mixed with gentleness, majesty mixed with meekness? If so, do you think it would be different when I deal with the crown of my creation, man? Do you think I would be less good, less gentle, less careful, less wise when dealing with My children?”
As we look around at rampant evil, we can ask the same kind of question. But Scripture assures us:
In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will,
(Eph. 1:11)
Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
(Rom. 11:33)
And here is the way the test works. Job tallies up his score out of 77, and if he gets an A or A+, he can talk to his fellow-god about the wisdom of how He runs the world. We can do the same.
And just for the record, how did Job do? He got zero, which probably disqualifies him not only from the basic knowledge competence test to be God, but most definitely from the advanced wisdom to use perfect means to reach perfect ends.
And can I suggest, that God graciously gave Job a grade one test, phonics for kindergarten test, so as not to crush Job under the weight of the knowledge and wisdom of God.
So how did Job respond?
Then Job answered the LORD and said:
“I know that You can do everything, And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.
You asked,`Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
Listen, please, and let me speak; You said,`I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’
“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You.
Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.”
(Job 42:1-6)
Job repented, and God restored to Job all he had lost and more. But that was not really the point of the incident. Job is wisdom literature that teaches God is all-knowing, and all-wise. What Job gained was a fuller, richer understanding of the sovereign, good, and just God. He does not have to explain all He is doing or give a full account to us to be omniscient and omnisapient. We can rest our lives in Him, and say with Jude:
To God our Savior, Who alone is wise, Be glory and majesty, Dominion and power, Both now and forever. Amen.
(Jude 1:25)