the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Encyclopedias
Incomprehensibility of God
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
or This is a relative term, and indicates a relation between an object and a faculty; between God and a created understanding: so that the meaning of it is this, that no created understanding can comprehend God; that is, have a perfect and exact knowledge of him, such a knowledge as is adequate to the perfection of the object (Job 11:7; Isaiah 4 o).
God is incomprehensible,
1. As to the nature of His essence;
2. The excellency of his attributes;
3. The depth of his counsels;
4. The works of his providence;
5. The dispensation of his grace (Ephesians 3:8; Job 37:25; Romans 11). The incomprehensibility of God follows,
1. From his being a spirit endued with perfections greatly superior to our own.
2. There may be (for anything we certainly know) attributes and perfections in God of which we have not the least idea.
3. In those perfections of the divine nature of which we have some idea, there are many things to us inexplicable, and with which, the more deeply and attentively we think of them, the more we find our thoughts swallowed up, such as his self-existence, eternity, omnipresence, etc.
This should teach us, therefore,
1. To admire and reverence the divine Being (Zechariah 9:17; Nehemiah 9:5);
2. To be humble and modest (Psalms 8:1; Psalms 8:4; Ecclesiastes 5:2-3; Job 37:19);
3. To be serious in our addresses, and sincere in our behavior towards him. (Caryl, On Job 27:25; Tillotson, Sermons, sermon 156; Abernethy, Sermons, vol. 2. nos. 6. 7: Doddridge, Lectures on Divinity, lecture 59; Martensen, Dogmatics, p. 89; Buck, Theolog. Dictionary, s.v.) (See GOD).
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McClintock, John. Strong, James. Entry for 'Incomprehensibility of God'. Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/i/incomprehensibility-of-god.html. Harper & Brothers. New York. 1870.
