Omniscient God
What do these texts tell us about God’s knowledge? Ps. 139:1–4, 15, 16; Isa. 46:10; Matt. 10:30.
God is omniscient; that is, “he knows everything” (1 John 3:20, NIV). Nothing is hidden from Him. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes” of the Lord (Heb. 4:13, NIV). All the spheres of His creation are inundated by His presence, and therefore He knows every dimension of it (Ps. 139:7–10). His knowledge of us is perfect and complete. God alone possesses pure objectivity, because He alone knows everything from every possible perspective.
It is not only that the Lord fully knows what is; He also perfectly knows what will be in the future (Isa. 46:10; Matt. 26:34, 74, 75). The future is no more hidden from Him than is either the past or the present.
What does 1 Peter 1:19, 20 tell us about God’s foreknowledge regarding the rise of sin?
God's omniscience is of great significance for the doctrine of atonement. Because God knows everything, sin was not something that caught Him by surprise. The God who perfectly knows all His creatures knew in advance about the fall of one of His cherubim, and so He formulated a plan to deal with the problem of sin, even before it arose in humans: “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (Rom. 5:20, NIV). Therefore, God's decision to save us was hidden in eternity and revealed in Christ. This is “the mystery hidden for long ages past” (Rom. 16:25, NIV), “hidden in God, who created all things” (Eph. 3:9, NIV). Before God created anything, He had foreseen the origin of sin and decided to defeat it instead of fearfully running away from it. From the divine perspective Christ is “the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8).
God knows everything about you, things that no one else would even dare suspect. And despite that knowledge, He still loves you. How should that help influence how you treat others, despite their faults?
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