Sounding the Depths

Sounding the Depths

It has been said by someone that “the proper study of mankind is man.” I will not oppose the idea, but I believe it is equally true that the proper study of God's elect is God; the proper study of a Christian is the Godhead. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls Father.

There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subjects we can compass and grapple with; in them we feel a kind of self-content, and go our way with the thought, “Behold I am wise.” But when we come to this master science, finding that our plumbline cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the thought that vain man would be wise, but he is like a wild ass's colt; and with solemn exclamation, “I am but of yesterday, and know nothing.” No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind, than thoughts of God...

But while the subject humbles the mind, it also expands it. He who often thinks of God, will have a larger mind than the man who simply plods around the narrow globe....The most excellent study for expanding the soul, is the science of Christ, and Him crucified, and the knowledge of the Godhead in the glorious Trinity. Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the Deity.

And, whilst humbling and expanding, the subject is eminently consolatory. Oh, there is, in contemplation Christ, a balm for every wound; in musing on the Father, there is a quietus for every grief; and in the influence of the Holy Ghost, there is a balsam for every sore. Would you lose your sorrow? Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead's deepest sea; be lost in his immensity; and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated. I know nothing which can so comfort the soul; so calm the swelling billows of sorrow and grief; so speak peace to the winds of trial, as a devout musing upon the subject of the Godhead. It is to that subject that I invite you this morning.

C.H. Spurgeon January 7^th 1855

New Park Street Chapel, Southwark, England

The insight and depth of sounding by Spurgeon is that not of greatness alone, but that of one who “Knows God”. Preaching this sermon at only 20 years of age is that of one who has sought and explored every aspect of the character and attributes of God that has been revealed. Spurgeon, and as we will see later, Martin Luther and John Calvin truly understood what is known in theology as the Incomprehensibility of God.

Many have misunderstood this doctrine over the years and more than one heresy has sprung up from it as well. Namely Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism which in short base their holiness in a mystical knowledge, and know nothing of faith, grace, or sacrifice. Many believe, as the title does imply, that God is unknowable and unable to be comprehended. This is certainly not the case, although there are many attributes and characteristics that God has not revealed to us, there are many that he has bestowed upon us clearly.

Of the limited, yet abundant information that God has revealed to us, we categorize that information into two basic categories. The character of God and the nature of God. To give these subjects even a cursory look would take more pages than we have available at the moment. But in short these two categories take in all that we know of and about God. Both what he does and is. The amount of information that God has revealed to us, is far more than sufficient to fulfill the two primary goals of the whole of Theology and Christianity. God has revealed himself to us so that all of his elect may know how one is to be redeemed, and also once redeemed, how one can have fellowship with him. All aspects of what we know about God in all of Theology and Christianity is summed up in these.

The focus in the doctrine of the Incomprehensibility of God, is the distance between God and his creation. Not in an actual physical measurement of distance, but in that of character and attributes. John Calvin, in understanding this subject coined the phrase, “Finitum non capax infinitum” that is, (The finite cannot grasp the infinite). Calvin insisted that we do not have a comprehensive or whole knowledge of God because we are finite and he is infinite. But he also taught that what God does reveal to us, we are to long to know. He says: “His essence, indeed, is incomprehensible, utterly transcending all human thought; but on each of his works his glory is engraven in characters so bright, so distinct, and so illustrious, that none, however dull and illiterate, can plead ignorance as their excuse.” and also “Since the perfection of blessedness consists in the knowledge of God, he has been pleased, in order that none might be excluded from the means of obtaining felicity, not only to deposit in our minds the seed of religion...but so to manifest his perfections in the whole structure of the universe, and daily place himself in our view, that we cannot open our eyes without being compelled to behold him.”

Even in our glorified heavenly bodies we are not to believe that we will have a knowledge equal to God's. For to know all of God, we would have to be infinite beings. Even our all powerful God cannot make the finite, infinite. As 1 Cor 13 teaches we will “know fully even as we are fully known” but only to the limits of finite knowledge. To know all of God we would have to be God.

Martin Luther wrote that God is both a hidden God (Deus absconditus) and a revealed God (Deus revelatus). He said: “...a distinction must be observed when the knowledge or, more precisely speaking, the subject of the Divine Being is under discussion. The dispute must be about either the hidden God or the revealed God. No faith in, no knowledge and no understanding of, God insofar as He is not revealed, are possible... What is above us in none of our business. For thoughts of this kind, which want to search out something more sublime, above, and outside that which has been revealed about God, are thoroughly diabolical. We accomplish nothing by them except to hurl ourselves into destruction, because they propose an object to us that defies investigation, to wit, the unrevealed God. Let God rather keep His decrees and mysteries in hiding.”

It is very important that we take the study of God, (theology) very seriously. If we truly love our God, we would wish to know all that we can that he has revealed to us. God reveals himself to us through his creation, (natural revelation) but more precisely through his scriptures, (special revelation). (See Psalm 19) Through both these methods God himself has spoken to us. To hear what he has said is not a boring hobby or for dusty theologians. It is for you and me, and every Christian. Everyone should be a theologian. We shouldn't be happy with skimming a chapter or two a day, or thumbing through “The Daily Bread.” Its time for Christians to seek the deep things of God and enjoy them. If you do not know God you can never know yourself. As Calvin says in his Institutes of the Christian Religion: Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes, and gives birth to the other. For, in the first place, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the God in whom he lives and moves; because it is perfectly obvious, that the endowments which we possess cannot possibly be from ourselves; nay, that our very being is nothing else than subsistence in God alone.” “On the other hand, it is evident that man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he have previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself....So long as we do not look beyond earth, we are quite pleased with our own righteousness, wisdom, and virtue; we address ourselves in the most flattering terms, and seem only less than demigods. But should we once begin to raise our thoughts to God, and reflect what kind of Being he is, and how absolute the perfection of that righteousness, and wisdom, and virtue, to which as a standard, we are bound to be conformed, what formerly delighted us by its false show of righteousness, will become polluted with the greatest iniquity; what strangely imposed upon us under the name of wisdom, will disgust by its extreme folly; and what presented the appearance of virtuous energy, will be condemned as the most miserable impotence. So far are those qualities in us, which seem most perfect, From corresponding to the divine purity.”

It is my prayer and so should be yours to be faithful to the scriptural teaching by holding to both aspects of the knowledge of God, his hiddeness and his self-revelation. (Deuteronomy 29:29)