Part 4. God’s Knowledge

Part four in the series on The Theology of God.

God begins to reveal this attribute very early:

  • when Adam and Eve try to hide in Genesis 3, God demonstrates that he knows where they are.
  • And then a few chapters later we have a story that tells of God’s exact knowledge of the future as well:
  • Abraham was old and had no children, but God foretells precisely what will happen:

Genesis 15

  1. …a son who comes from your own body will be your heir.”
  2. The LORD took him outside and said, “Gaze into the sky and count the stars — if you are able to count them!” Then he said to him, “So will your descendants be.”…
  3. Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign country. They will be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years.
  4. But I will execute judgement on the nation that they will serve. Afterward they will come out with many possessions.
  5. But as for you, you will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.
  6. In the fourth generation your descendants will return here…”

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  • Sometimes God seems to need knowledge:
    • Why does he test Abraham’s faith?
    • Not to find out, but to provide an opportunity for Abraham to exercise the faith that God knew he had.
  • This apparent need for God to gain knowledge is highlighted in the Sodom and Gomorrah account:

Genesis 18

  1. So the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so blatant
  2. that I must go down and see if they are as wicked as the outcry suggests. If not, I want to know.”