His only begotten Son, when He walked among us, felt our pains in their naked intensity of anguish. His knowledge of our afflictions and adversities is more than theoretic; it is personal, warm, and compassionate. Whatever may befall us, God knows and cares as no one else can. A.W. Tozer
These words, taken from Tozer’s classic, The Knowledge of the Holy, appear in a chapter entitled “The Divine Omniscience.” Omniscience is a word theologians use to describe the fact that God is all-knowing. Oftentimes, discussions on this topic center on human free will and determinism. If God knows all, so the argument goes, then He knows all that has been or will be, including all of our future actions. Therefore, all that we will do is already determined, which means that free will is only an illusion.
If you are hoping that I will now launch a discussion of human free will and determinism, I must offer my sincerest apologies. Don’t get me wrong—it isn’t that I don’t see the significance of such philosophical questions. I have suffered many sleepless nights, especially during my Bible college and seminary years, grappling with such questions. However, I have come to see that there are even more significant issues resident in theological topics like divine omniscience. And I believe Tozer has hit on just such an issue in his words above—divine omniscience means that God knows and cares as no one else can.
This is an important aspect of divine omniscience to consider not only because it gets beyond some of the “how many angels can dance on the head of a needle” kinds of questions which have no relevance for us in our daily lives. But it is also important because it touches on one of the most difficult realities we face as human beings: the feeling that we are alone.
You might wonder how a human being can feel alone even as population density is ever on the rise and more and more people make their homes in urban or suburban settings. As one who grew up on 20 acres of land that included “woods” to get lost in, I recall many times when I felt very alone physically. These days, such aloneness is harder to come by. With neighbors hemming us in on every side, traffic jams putting us bumper to bumper, and ever present noise pollution wherever we seem to go, feeling alone physically is not so common place.
But the kind of aloneness I am talking about is not the result of wide open spaces, physically speaking. It is more about emotional wide open spaces. When we face severe trials, we often feel extremely alone. Certainly, family, friends, spouses, and Christian fellowship all help to mitigate such feelings. Yet, even so, there are times when all of us simply feel alone.
But one of the most wonderful truths of Scripture is that we are never alone. God sees all that we face and with eyes of compassion. As we read in Psalm 103:13-14, “As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.” God knows. He knows us intimately and absolutely. That is what Tozer is trying to get at in the quote above. Divine omniscience, especially as expressed in the one who took on flesh and walked among us, experiencing human frailty firsthand, goes well beyond facts and figures. God’s knowledge of us is personal, warm and compassionate. What does that mean? It means that we are never alone.
In fact, this is the very promise of Joshua 1:5, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” We are never forsaken. We are never left alone. Even as David so powerfully put it in Psalm 139:
O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
God knows us more fully than even we know ourselves.
When we face trials, which we all do, it is important that we remember that the omniscient God not only knows everything, He knows you and me intimately. He is present with us, no matter what we face. We are never alone.
In Him, Pastor Dan