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
- …a son who comes from your own body will be your heir.”
- 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.”…
- 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.
- But I will execute judgement on the nation that they will serve. Afterward they will come out with many possessions.
- But as for you, you will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.
- 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
- So the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so blatant
- that I must go down and see if they are as wicked as the outcry suggests. If not, I want to know.”
