Do you remember the Samaritan woman, and her conversation with Jesus? He didn't tell her "everything she ever did," at least not in the way we usually think. Jesus did tell her about her past with 5 other men, having never met her before that moment. He knew something about her that He only could have known by revelation from God. But the Samaritan woman considered these secrets from her past "everything she ever did." These secrets defined her. And Jesus really knew them about her.
Now we come to what it means for God to really know something, or anything, or everything.
We as western or American Christians think of knowledge scientifically or informationally. You know how you'll watch a police show and some fancy FBI profiler comes in and says to a suspect,
"We know you went to Morehouse College in 1992 and studied chemistry. Your favorite book is 'To Kill a Mocking Bird,' and you used to stay at night in Hubert Hall reading this instead of your chemistry assignment. Your girlfriend Jean read it with you, and you both laughed in chapter 3 paragraph 4."
You know how they overwhelm the suspect with detailed trivial knowledge about his life that seems omniscient to the suspect. We think of God's omniscience like this. Just plain knowledge. He can read our minds. God can tell us everything about everything, because He just knows everything about everything, right?
Yes. He does. Even like this. But not like this at all.
You know how in the old school versions of the Bible when it talks about sex it says things like "the man knew his wife, and they had a son?" This is how God knows everything.
God really does knows everything---intimately, intuitively, and relationally.
It's the difference between talking to an FBI profiler for the first time and him giving you specific trivial details of your life, versus talking to someone you've never met who seems to always ask you the perfect questions. Questions you not only have been asking yourself, but that you've always wanted someone to ask you. Or questions you didn't know you had until you heard this stranger ask them. You don't feel like he's "reading your mind," but like he's talking to you in the way you think. Like he understands how your mind and heart work. He draws you inside and out, and he also lets you know him inside and out. In other words, it's not just him knowing "everything you ever did," but he also lets you know everything he's doing. It's intimate. He penetrates you, and he allows you to penetrate him.
God does know everything, even in the scientific way we American Christians usually think of omniscience. But He's not just an all powerful observer from eternity past. He knows us deeply and intimately and relationally. Go back to what I said in the first blog about Moses' miracles and Sodom and Gomorrah.
With the miracles of Moses, God thought of the elders relationally. He knew how their minds worked, and the choices they would have to make to believe the first, or second, or third miracles of Moses. That's why God says, "if" they don't believe the first or second miracle they may (or may not) believe the third. It's up to them to believe, and God is not going to make that choice for them. So though God does know which choice they will believe, it really is up to them to make the choice. And in a sense, God doesn't "know," or intimately experience their choice until they make it. Do you see that?
Or with Sodom and Gomorrah. You have the evil doers in Sodom and Gomorrah. And you have those who are crying out to God about the evil doers. God doesn't take either side. He doesn't ignore the outcries, nor does He immediately judge Sodom. He comes down from heaven (whatever that means) to see for Himself. To intimately and relationally experience Sodom and Gomorrah with His own eyes, if you will. Why do this? Was He trying to teach Abraham a "theological lesson?" Not from what we read. God thought to Himself about whether He would even share with Abraham what He planned to do about Sodom. Having considered Abraham worthy of this secret, God shared it with him. Then Abraham interceded for Lot. And why would Abraham need to do this? Didn't God already plan on saving Lot? Didn't God already know Lot needed saving?
God did. God knew about Lot, intimately and relationally, as He knew Abraham's heart. God knew what the elders would ultimately choose to believe...and what you will ultimately choose to believe. But God's omniscience is not merely scientific. It's intimate. It's connected. God searches you and knows you like a husband and wife search and know each other. God's omniscience is a deep connection that doesn't just yield information. God knows you with the eyes of deep powerful love.
God really does know everything....about you.
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