God Is Omniscient Series

But here it is His knowledge of the individual life that is particularly in view. In 1988 it was estimated that there were 5,000,000,000 people in the world. Yet God is intimately acquainted with each one. He knows all about every one of us. (MacDonald, W., & Farstad, A. (1997, c1995). Believer’s Bible Commentary : Old and New Testaments (Ps 139:1). Nashville: Thomas

Nelson.)

• God knows this morning if you really want to be here. If learning about Him is really interesting to you. If you are growing in faith or playing religious games. Everything is laid bare before Him.

Addressing the all-knowing God, the psalmist notes that he has been searched (Heb chaqar), which originally meant to dig, a word applied to the search for precious metals (Job 28:3) but here metaphorically used of a moral inquisition. (KJV Bible commentary. 1997, c1994 (1174). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.)

• He knows our words and deeds, thoughts and motives. He knows us inside out.

• When it is said that He has known me it means more than just intellectual awareness. It means knowing by relationship.

There are biblical passages that seem to say that there are things and people which God does not know but later learns, things which do not enter His mind or things which he forgets.

Matthew 25:12 [12]But he answered, ’Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ (ESV)

• It does not say that does not know what they have done.

When God spoke to Abraham after he was willing to sacrifice his son:

Genesis 22:12 [12]He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." (ESV)

• The “now” in this verse relates to fulfillment in time. The “know” relates to evidence of fulfillment.

Jeremiah 32:35 [35]They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin. (ESV)

• The not entering into God’s mind relates to the lack of command. It is a figure of speech to say that such an action would never be God’s intention or desire of his heart.

Jeremiah 31:34 [34]And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ’Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." (ESV)

• It does not say God will actually forget what we have done.

In explaining these texts, John Frame said it best:

Quote: “Remember” in these texts simply means that God fulfills his covenant promises. Human beings are prone to think that God has forgotten his promises when their fulfillments are delayed. So when the fulfillment comes, it is as when (note the anthropomorphism) a man remembers something he has forgotten. But Scripture makes it clear that God never actually forgets his covenant. “Forgetting,” then, is the temporary delay as seen from a human point of view. Forgetting can also be, as in Jeremiah 23:39, God casting someone out of the covenant fellowship.( Frame, J. M. (2002). The doctrine of God. A theology of lordship (499). Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.)