The Godhead’s Unlimited Presence
Ruth Ann Stites, Staff Writer
On my commute to Fayetteville, I usually travel Arkansas Highway 65 through the east side of Lowell. Once dominated by pastures growing cattle, more and more of the land is being devoted to developments “growing” houses. It is change made clearly visible. Of course, change is always at work in the countryside. Seasons change. There are wet times with fields covered in water and dry times when grasses are withered and brown. These cleared lands were once forested. And long ago, if the geologists are correct, all of it was covered with a shallow sea, leaving behind the thick, fossil-rich limestone so common in our mountains. And change continues all the way back to Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
One of the concepts associated with that stupendous creation event was the setting of “time’s arrow.” The simple meaning of this phrase is that in our perception of our universe we experience time in a linear fashion beginning with creation and continuing toward whatever end the Creator has in mind for His cosmos. [1] It also suggests that the Creator is outside of linear time as well as being outside of physical space as we understand it.
Back in 1973 J.I. Packer’s classic book Knowing God was first published and remains readily available today. I first read it some 10 years after its publication. Packer did an excellent job expanding on a popular phrase, “Don’t put God in a box.” Put in its simplest terms, it means no matter how much we think we know about God and His ways, we fall infinitely short of understanding His mind and heart in any significant manner. Yet, as Pastor McCarty is fond of saying, we know enough to follow and obey Him.
In an essay entitled “Theism for Our Time,” Packer provided a parable to explain the meaning of trying to understand the depths of the Godhead as follows.
Just as the two-year-old son of a man with a brain like Einstein could not understand all that was going on in his father’s mind if his father told him, so (we may be sure) it would be beyond us under any circumstances to understand all that goes on in the omniscient, all-wise, and not in any way time-bound, mind of God. But, just as the genius who loves his boy will take care that in talking to him he speaks in such a way that all he says can be understood, even though that means reducing it all nearly to baby-talk, and leaving much of his own thinking unvoiced, so God does when he opens his mind and heart in the written Scriptures.[2]
Paul, whom we revere as understanding far more of the mind of God than most people, wrote,
In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen. I Timmothy 6:13-16
Because of the unfathomable reality of a Godhead who is not only present in our world but also outside of its boundaries of space and time, our response should not be to learn more but to worship more. Our ambition in worship and in prayer should be the one expressed by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 3:16-19:
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Packer echoes Paul’s conclusion when he says in his essay:
Certainly [the Scriptures] reveal his essence, but we may be sure that there is more to his essence than they reveal. While they are all God’s teaching, they are the teaching of a God who stoops to speak to us, and who, we may be sure, limits the scope of what he says precisely in order that it may be clear, and clearly understood. Religiously, the point is that in our worship of God for what we know of him, and our witness to him in terms of that knowledge, we ought to be humble and modest, remembering that there is certainly a great deal in his mind that he has not told us.[3]
So how should this affect our prayers? In Psalm 100:1-2, 5 the author wrote: “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. … For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” Rather than speculate on understanding more than our human minds and emotions can grasp, we do well to focus on the proper response to a God who is larger than we can think. So, let our prayers reflect the grandeur of worship to the unchanging God who makes Himself able to be understood by His children.
Reflection Questions:
1. Is there anything in God’s created universe that brings into question the thesis that it is constantly changing ? What are some of the changes you think are important in your life experience? How can you put them into perspective with a changing creation?
2. What do you think of Dr. Packer’s example of a genius and his child to illustrate how limited, even at its most complex, is our understanding of the mind of God? How easy is it to fall into the temptation of thinking we know more than we do about Him and His ways? Does it reassure you to know that we have enough understanding to live lives pleasing to Him? Why or why not?
3. If we accept that we know far less of our infinite God than we think we do, how do you change your prayer life toward joyful worship as its primary goal? What practical steps can you take to reach that goal?
BONUS QUESTION: Psalm 100 is short, just 5 verses. Yet it has a lot of “meat on its bones.” Following our editor’s introduction, I found four great themes in this beautiful Psalm: 1) joining fellow believers as we enter His Presence with song. 2) Finding our place as His people, as the sheep of His pasture. 3) Experiencing the power of heartfelt Thanksgiving. 4) Living out His purpose of joyful worship. What do you think of these themes? Do you see others that move you to express your own grateful praise?
(Photo description and credit: Change of several kinds are evident in this photo: shadow to light, growth and decay, a path to travel elsewhere. Some changes are swift and some exceedingly slow, but change is all around us. Credit: R. A. Stites, Lake Atalanta trail, Rogers, AR, 2019.)
[1] While the time we experience is linear in the realm of space and time we are accustomed to, God’s cosmos is far more complex than we had considered a century ago. In a radical departure from classical physics, Max Planck introduced the concept of quantum energy in 1900 leading to the strange world of quantum physics and Albert Einstein published his special theory of relativity in 1905. But in the context of the exceedingly small (quantum theory) and the exceedingly large (relativity) evidence of change remains.
[2] J. I. Packer on putting God in a box | The Jesus Question
[3] Ibid.
