God is different from us (and that’s a very good thing).
We rightly find great comfort in the Incarnation—“the Word became human and made his home among us” (John 1:14). This truth helps us feel that Jesus can relate to us and our human experiences. But Jen Wilkin invites us to contemplate an opposite reality: how vastly, incomprensibly different God is from us. This week we explore content from Wilkin’s book book None Like Him, zeroing in on God’s infinitude and omnipresence.
Monday, November 21, 2016
Isaiah 40:12
“Who else has held the oceans in his hand? Who has measured off the heavens with his fingers? Who else knows the weight of the earth or has weighed the mountains and hills on a scale?”
Our Immeasurable, Measuring God
On the day I was born, the doctor who delivered me inscribed my birth records with a firm hand: 7 pounds, 11 ounces, 21 inches. It was the first legally attested evidence that I was not God.
God is infinite, unbound by limits. He defies measurement of any kind. His limitlessness underlies all of his attributes; his power, knowledge, love, and mercy are not merely great, but they are infinitely so, measurelessly so. No one can place any aspect of who God is on a scale or against a yardstick.
One of my favorite hymns speaks to the measurelessness of just one of God’s attributes: his love. The hymn writer reflects on the futility of trying to capture it:
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
Paradoxically, he who is immeasurable is himself the measure of all things. Note this beautiful contrast in Isaiah 40: “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel?” (Isa. 40:12–13, ESV).
Put succinctly, who has measured everything? God has. Who has measured God? No one.
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Job 11:7–9
“Can you solve the mysteries of God? Can you discover everything about the Almighty? Such knowledge is higher than the heavens—and who are you? It is deeper than the underworld—what do you know? It is broader than the earth and wider than the sea.”
The God of No Limits
God has no rivals. Not only that, but he measures and decrees the boundaries by which his creation will abide. There is none like our God. The God of the Bible is incomparable, infinitely above his creation. To say that anyone or anything is like him is to try to express the unlimited in limited terms. Any comparison will fall short. Just as the authors of Scripture searched for adequate human language to apply to heavenly visions, we find ourselves ill equipped to express God’s perfections. But we must still endeavor to try.
Like the Israelites with their sandals still damp from the sand of the Red Sea shoreline, we feel the weight of the question that hangs in midair: “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?” (Ex. 15:11, ESV). The psalmist, too, marvels: “Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth?” (Ps. 113:5–6, ESV).
The answer, of course, is no one. Creation, existing within the limits of time and space, cannot rival, much less fully articulate, the splendors of a limitless God.
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
John 4:23–24
“But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”
Fully Present Everywhere
A body is a set of limits. Our height determines the limit of what we can see standing in a crowd. Our mass determines the limit of how much water we will displace when we step into a swimming pool. Genetics—or more properly, God—determines our arm-span and the size of our shoes. By tethering our spirits to a body, God decrees that we will be present where we are present, and nowhere else. Yet God, who is spirit, is able to be everywhere fully present.
