By Fard Bell 2-1-2011
When I was a child I remember attending my first funeral. Growing up I remember being told and believing that God is always good. And that when people die they go with God yet at my first funeral I remember seeing everyone crying and weeping, and wondering to myself, if when people die they go with God, then how can that be sad? As I looked around, it was as if a voice inside of me was whispering to me “some are sad because they are going to miss their friend, and some are sad and angry because they don't understand.” That was the day I realized not even adults know everything. That was also part of the process of me having many conversations with God from then, and knowing I could always go to God with questions and He would always have the answer. As a child in those moments, I was experiencing the power of God's omniscience. He gave me revelation when I had questions I couldn't ask my parents. Since then, there are three things I have learned His omniscience:
1) God's knowledge is absolute and unquestionable, 2) God foreordains situations and events according to His omniscience, and 3) God is incapable of error or omission.
The first thing I learned about God is that His knowledge is absolute and unquestionable. In the story of Job, God's hedge of protection was removed from him and he lost almost everything, short of his life. Starting in Chapter 6, Job complains about his suffering, trying to make sense of his circumstances without knowing that what was really going on was between God and Satan. Because He was all-knowing, He knew that He would place Job's experience in the Bible and use it for the benefit of believers thousands of years later. Even though Job did not know that his experience and temporary suffering would impact generations of believers, through God's omniscience, He knew better. Job could only see how his circumstances affected his personal life, but he could not see outside of his present time as God does, who sits outside of time. In Chapter 38:17 God challenges the knowledge of Job as compared to the knowledge of God... “Have the gates of the depth 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.” God makes it clear that His knowledge is absolute and unquestionable. Isaiah 55:8-9 states, “'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,' says the LORD. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.'”
Next, I learned that God foreordains situations and events according to His omniscience. In Genesis 41, God foreordained that there were going to be seven years of great plenty, and seven years of famine in the land of Egypt, and that Pharaoh would select a “discerning and wise man” over the land of Egypt (Genesis 41:29-33). Long before these events took place God, in His omniscience, began making provisions. In Genesis 37, when Joseph was 19 years old, God began speaking to him in his sleep. Joseph shared those dreams with his brothers. His brothers had no clue that his “insulting” dreams were actually symbolic of foreordained events setup for their own good. They didn't know that his vision of them “bowing down to earth before him” (Genesis 37:10) would literally save not only their lives, but preserve the children of Israel. In their ignorance and jealousy, Joseph's brothers sold him to slavery and passed him off as dead to their father. Through the course of events, God eventually positioned Joseph as that “wise and discerning man” selected by Pharaoh as governor over the land of Egypt to provide for His people during those seven years of famine (Genesis 42:6). God knew His plans for Joseph and His people long before the events ever took place.
Finally, I learned that God is incapable of error or omission1. Everything came to pass that God showed Joseph in his dreams. In Genesis 37:7, Joseph shared his dream with his family. In Genesis 37:10, his father rebuked him and said to him, “what is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down before you?” His father saw no evidence of why they would ever bow down to him. By Genesis 42:6b, what God had revealed to Joseph came to pass exactly as God showed it years earlier. Although at the time that God spoke to Joseph it seemed to his family that the dream was in error, God was never mistaken, He showed them exactly what was to come.
1The Foundations of Christian Doctrine, by Kevin J. Conner.