Have you ever gotten frustrated trying to explain a movie to someone who had no clue what you were talking about? What about that time when someone did that unbelievable thing at school and you tried with all your intellect to explain what happened and how it happened so that your audience could understand a glimpse of what you saw? Doesn’t it make it worse when the person across from you starts to get bored with your story?
There are many times when we just can’t find the words to express what we saw. How much more so with God? Have you ever felt the mental and emotional frustration when trying to express the infinite glory of God with finite words?
The Incomprehensibility of God
God is incomprehensible. Do you know what incomprehensibility means? It means that you’re not able to fully understand it. Just like the ocean, it drowns your intellect. When we talk about God being incomprehensible we mean that even though we can know true things about God we still don’t know all that there is about God. Just when you start to think you have a grasp of who God is, He is like the undertow at the beach that sweeps you out into the depths.
Our minds are like a glass of water. If you take that glass of water and put it at the bottom of the ocean we can make a true statement by saying that the glass is full of water. But, we cannot say that the glass contains the fullness of the ocean. In the same way, we can say that we know God and yet simultaneously admit that God is far beyond our greatest intellect. If we know everything about God then that is not God because God is infinite and we are finite. Anything less than an infinite God is useless and no God.
There should be a holy frustration at times with our words (even the words that God gives us). How can a four-letter word (“love”) truly encapsulate the loving affection of the King of Kings? How can a word like “wisdom” really grasp the fullness of what God is doing in this world? How can a word like “eternity” truly gives us a full picture of what it means for God to exist outside of time? There should be times when we are like a young child who gets frustrated because others don’t understand us.
If we have a God who makes total sense to us then we have no clue who God really is. If we have a God who bores us then we have no clue who God really is. If we have a God who we think we don’t need to study and pursue more then we have no clue who God really is. Those who pursue God further never come away regretting it.
In C.S. Lewis’ famous book The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, we see a see where one of the children is about to meet Aslan. “Aslan is a lion—the Lion, the great Lion.” “Ooh!” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.” “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver…. “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course He isn’t safe. But He’s good. He’s the King I tell you.” I wonder, is your God safe like a house cat or is He the King like a Lion? Is He theologically tamed for you? Is He a doctrine that is dormant?
Two Books That Helped Me Fear God
When I was a new believer, I came across the attributes of God pretty early on. Thankfully, I had heard of these guys named J.I. Packer and A.W. Tozer. I decided to get their books Knowing God and The Attributes of God. I am pretty sure that more sentences in Knowing God are underlined than there are sentences that are not underlined.
In arguably the most important book in the past fifty years, J.I. Packer begins his book Knowing God with someone else’s words. He only gives the introduction.
On January 7, 1855, the minister of New Park Street Chapel, Southwark, England, opened his morning sermon as follows: “It has been said by someone that ‘the proper study of mankind is man.’ I will not oppose the idea, but I believe it is equally true that the proper study of God’s elect is God; the proper study of a Christian is the Godhead. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father.” Packer goes on to say, “These words, spoken over a century ago by Charles Spurgeon (who at that time was only 20 years old) were true then and they are true now.”
Look, I was twenty years old when I was reading that. I felt like I was drowning in the words of Spurgeon.
I also remember reading Tozer’s The Attributes of God. Specifically, I remember his chapters on the Infinitude of God and the Immensity of God. I remember sitting outside just looking up in the night sky of Alabama thinking about how puny and small I was. That’s a pretty good spot for a boastful college football player to be in. I have underlined in that book the following:
“Infinite” means so much that nobody can grasp it, but reason nevertheless kneels and acknowledges that God is infinite. We mean by infinite that God knows no limit, no bounds and no end. What God is, He is without boundaries. All that God is, He is without bounds or limits.
The Wonder of the Gospel of God
Dear reader, do you understand the God of the Bible? Do you understand that He is far beyond your wildest imagination? Do you believe that angels long to look into the things of God? Do you marvel at the fact that the great business of heaven will be pursuing a greater and more intimate knowledge of God for eternity? How is this a God we can be bored of?
This is what makes the gospel so startling. This infinite, immense, incomprehensible God became flesh. The infinite became finite. The immense and transcendent One became a man located in time and space. The incomprehensible One adopted our language. Jesus Christ, the God-Man, died a cursed death on a tree. The very God who created wood, forests, and all different kinds of trees is the same God who died a splintery death upon the Cross. Are you not astounded by this?
There is a wild unknown in our oceans. Do you know that 80% of the ocean is left to be explored? Think about all the footage and studies that Marine Biologists have done and yet after all this time only 20% has been explored! Now, think about how much we’ve explored outer space. Even in our scientific research, we are drowning in the depths of our lack of knowledge. How much more so with God?
Aren’t we creatures who love adventure? Aren’t we a people who dare to dream big? How much bigger and adventurous does it get for us to draw near the Holy One? How foolish are we who think that studying theology irrelevant! We try to satisfy ourselves on the cheapest of sermons, podcasts, and books. We barely prioritize the worship of the infinite God. We are like those who come face to face with a buffet of the riches food at free cost and yet decide to go eat the scraps we can find in the dumpster.
What marvelous grace God has given us to keep pursuing us! What astounding mercy He has given us to make Himself known to us! We live in an age where celebrities often try to hide from the paparazzi and yet we pursue them as if we stumbled upon a unicorn. At the same time, we have the God of infinite majesty and beauty who pursues us and we are more enamored with Netflix and Social Media. How blind we are to His greatness!
When will we feast our eyes upon the Lion? When will we bow down to the King? May He grant us to truly fear Him and follow Him. That’s what the Holy Spirit empowers us to do. Do you sense Him calling you to pursue Him further? Follow the Spirit and immerse yourself in His Word. Don’t be satisfied until you feel overwhelmed with your lack of words to describe His greatness.
Last year I heard Kevin DeYoung give a story about Sinclair Ferguson. After a sermon that Ferguson preached, DeYoung came up to him immediately after to talk about how much that word meant to him. He had told him how beautiful of a sermon it was when all of a sudden Dr. Ferguson gave an interesting response. He responded with, “Oh Kevin, that was only a dog’s breakfast.” Isn’t that what our best often feels like? It feels like it is something that is so small. This is more so a declaration of God’s greatness more so than a pity party of our weakness.