Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. Romans 11:
There are a lot of limits in life. Some people feel like being a Christian puts a lot of limits on our lives, a lot of thou shall nots. The actual truth is that being a Christian gives us total and complete freedom. We gain freedom from bondages in our lives, like the bondage of sin, shame, and guilt. Besides this freedom, we have a heavenly Father who has absolutely no limits.
One attribute (characteristic) of God is that He is Omniscient. That means that God has perfect knowledge. God knows all things actual, or possible; past, present or future; hidden or revealed; perfectly; from all eternity; immediately; simultaneously; and exhaustively. This attribute of God should make it easier for us to trust Him because He already knows the end of the story and what is on every page until them.
God's knowledge is not limited by time. God knows the temporal order. Time is real for God—not real as something outside of his control and as limiting him, but real as being known by him. The distinctions of past, present, and future belong to the very essence of the world order as historical. Hence God must know these distinctions; they must be real to him if his will is the ground of the existence of that order.
God's knowledge is not limited by space. God's omnipresence in both the spatial and temporal order would carry with it his perfect knowledge of that order. God's knowledge is not the result of inference on his part. God does not reason from cause to effect and thus infer what will happen in the future. He knows directly. All the forces that operate in the world as causes are grounded in his will. The events of history must be foreknown of God else the history of the world is a series of haphazard events moving toward no purpose or goal.
God is perfect wisdom. The fact that God is working out a purpose in the history of the world carries with it his perfect knowledge of the temporal order. This order is under his complete control. But it cannot be under his complete control unless it is under his perfect knowledge. There are no surprises that come to God out of the future. He knows the things that would happen, even though they never do happen.
God’s wisdom is pure. The wisdom of man is tainted by his nature and logic. God’s wisdom is not affected by any of the emotions or desires of man. It is not rationalized or reasoned from cause to effect. The whole world order is grounded in God. He knows these events as they as a part of the world order. Nothing is disconnected in the mind of God. The whole time series is present to the mind of God in an undivided and indivisible act of knowledge. And since God knows the historical world order as a whole, he knows it in its parts, in its single events. But he knows them as events in the world order, in all their connections or relations in that order.
Because we know that God’s wisdom and knowledge is so complete, we can totally trust Him with everything in our lives. He knows everything about us (nothing is hidden!) and He knows our future. Our future is secure and safe with Him. We can have faith, not because we know, but because He knows.
He determines the number of the stars; He gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; His understanding is beyond measure. Psalm 147:4-5
