Knowledge of the Holy Part 3

Here we see that G.o.d uses change as a lowly servant to bless His redeemed household, but He Himself is outside of the law of mutation and is unaffected by any changes that occur in the universe.

And all things as they change proclaim The Lord eternally the same.

Charles Wesley Again the question of use arises. 'Of what use to me is, the knowledge that G.o.d is immutable?' someone asks. 'Is not the whole thing mere metaphysical speculation? Something that might bring a certain satisfaction to persons of a particular type of mind but can have no real significance for practical men?'

If by 'practical men' we mean unbelieving men engrossed in secular affairs and indifferent to the claims of Christ, the welfare of their own souls, or the interests of the world to come, then for them such a book as this can have no meaning at all; nor, unfortunately, can any other book that takes religion seriously. But while such men may be in the majority, they do not by any means compose the whole of the population. There are still the seven thousand who have not bowed their knees to Baal. These believe they were created to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d and to enjoy His presence forever, and they are eager to learn all they can about the G.o.d with whom they expect to spend eternity.

In this world where men forget us, change their att.i.tude toward us as their private interests dictate, and revise their opinion of us for the slightest cause, is it not a source of wondrous strength to know that the G.o.d with whom we have to do changes not? That His att.i.tude toward us now is the same as it was in eternity past and will be in eternity to come?

What peace it brings to the Christian's heart to realize that our Heavenly Father never differs from Himself. Incoming to Him at any time we need not wonder whether we shall find Him in a receptive mood. He is always receptive to misery and need, as well as to love and faith. He does not keep office hours nor set aside periods when He will see no one. Neither does He change His mind about anything. Today, this moment, He feels toward His creatures, toward babies, toward the sick, the fallen, the sinful, exactly as He did when He sent His only-begotten Son into the world to die for mankind.

G.o.d never changes moods or cools off in His affections or loses enthusiasm. His att.i.tude toward sin is now the same as it was when He drove out the sinful man from the eastward garden, and His att.i.tude toward the sinner the same as when He stretched forth His hands and cried, 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'

G.o.d will not compromise and He need not be coaxed. He cannot be persuaded to alter His Word nor talked into answering selfish prayer. In all our efforts to find G.o.d, to please Him, to commune with Him, we should remember that all change must be on our part. 'I am the Lord, I change not.' We have but to meet His clearly stated terms, bring our lives into accord with His revealed will, and His infinite power will become instantly operative toward us in the manner set forth through the gospel in the Scriptures of truth.

Fountain of being! Source of Good!

Immutable Thou dost remain!

Nor can the shadow of a change Obscure the glories of Thy reign.

Earth may with all her powers dissolve, If such the great Creator will; But Thou for ever art the same, I AM is Thy memorial still.

From Walker's Collection

Chapter 10.

The Divine Omniscience Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising and art acquainted with all my ways. I can inform Thee of nothing and it is vain to try to hide anything from Thee. In the light of Thy perfect knowledge I would be as artless as a little child. Help me to put away all care, for Thou knowest the way that I take and when Thou hast tried me I shall come forth as gold. Amen.

To say that G.o.d is omniscient is to say that He possesses perfect knowledge and therefore has no need to learn. But it is more: it is to say that G.o.d has never learned and cannot learn.

The Scriptures teach that G.o.d has never learned from anyone. 'Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to Him the way of understanding?' 'For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor?" These rhetorical questions put by the prophet and the apostle Paul declare that G.o.d has never learned.

From there it is only a step to the conclusion that G.o.d cannot learn. Could G.o.d at any time or in any manner receive into His mind knowledge that He did not possess and had not possessed from eternity, He would be imperfect and less than himself. To think of a G.o.d who must sit at the feet of a teacher, even though that teacher be an archangel or a seraph, is to think of someone other than the Most High G.o.d, maker of heaven and earth.

This negative approach to the divine omniscience is, I believe, quite justified in the circ.u.mstances. Since our intellectual knowledge of G.o.d is so small and obscure, we can sometimes gain considerable advantage in our struggle to understand what G.o.d is like by the simple expedient of thinking what He is not like. So far in this examination of the attributes of G.o.d we have been driven to the free use of negatives. We have seen that G.o.d had no origin, that He had no beginning, that He requires no helpers, that He suffers no change, and that in His essential being there are no limitations.

This method of trying to make men see what G.o.d is like by showing them what He is not like is used also by the inspired writers in the Holy Scriptures. 'Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard,' cries Isaiah, 'that the everlasting G.o.d, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?' And that abrupt statement by G.o.d Himself, 'I am the Lord, I change not,' tells us more about the divine omniscience than could be told in a ten-thousand word treatise, were all negatives arbitrarily ruled out.

G.o.d's eternal truthfulness is stated negatively by the apostle Paul, 'G.o.d... cannot lie'; and when the angel a.s.serted that 'with G.o.d nothing shall be impossible,' the two negatives add up to a ringing positive.

That G.o.d is omniscient is not only taught in the Scriptures, it must be inferred also from all else that is taught concerning Him. G.o.d perfectly knows Himself and, being the source and author of all things, it follows that He knows all that can be known. And this He knows instantly and with a fullness of perfection that includes every possible item of knowledge concerning everything that exists or could have existed anywhere in the universe at any time in the past or that may exist in the centuries or ages yet unborn.

G.o.d knows instantly and effortlessly all matter and all matters, all mind and every mind, all spirit and all spirits, all being and every being, all creaturehood and all creatures, every plurality and all pluralities, all law and every law, all relations, all causes, all thoughts, all mysteries, all enigmas, all feeling, all desires, every unuttered secret, all thrones and dominions, all personalities, all things visible and invisible in heaven and in earth, motion, s.p.a.ce, time, life, death, good, evil, heaven, and h.e.l.l.

Because G.o.d knows all things perfectly, He knows no thing better than any other thing, but all things equally well. He never discovers anything. He is never surprised, never amazed. He never wonders about anything nor (except when drawing men out for their own good) does He seek information or ask questions.

G.o.d is self-existent and self-contained and knows what no creature can ever know - Himself, perfectly. 'The things of G.o.d knoweth no man, but the Spirit of G.o.d.' Only the Infinite can know the infinite.

In the divine omniscience we see set forth against each other the terror and fascination of the G.o.dhead. That G.o.d knows each person through and through can be a cause of shaking fear to the man that has something to hide - some unforsaken sin, some secret crime committed against man or G.o.d. The unblessed soul may well tremble that G.o.d knows the flimsiness of every pretext and never accepts the poor excuses given for sinful conduct, since He knows perfectly the real reason for it. 'Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.' How frightful a thing to see the sons of Adam seeking to hide among the trees of another garden. But where shall they hide? 'Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?... If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night s.h.i.+neth as the day.'

And to us who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope that is set before us in the gospel, how unutterably sweet is the knowledge that our Heavenly Father knows us completely. No talebearer can inform on us, no enemy can make an accusation stick; no forgotten skeleton can come tumbling out of some hidden closet to abash us and expose our past; no unsuspected weakness in our characters can come to light to turn G.o.d away from us, since He knew us utterly before we knew Him and called us to Himself in the full knowledge of everything that was against us. 'For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.'

Our Father in heaven knows our frame and remembers that we are dust. He knew our inborn treachery, and for His own sake engaged to save us (Isa. 48:8-11). His only begotten Son, when He walked among us, felt our pains in their naked intensity of anguish. His knowledge of our afflictions and adversities is more than theoretic; it is personal, warm, and compa.s.sionate. Whatever may befall us, G.o.d knows and cares as no one else can.

He doth give His joy to all; He becomes an infant small; He becomes a man of woe; He doth feel the sorrow too.

Think not thou canst sigh a sigh And thy Maker is not by; Think not thou canst weep a tear And thy Maker is not near.

O! He gives to us His joy That our griefs He may destroy; Till our grief is fled and gone He doth sit by us and moan.

William Blake

Chapter 11.

The Wisdom of G.o.d Thou, O Christ, who wert tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin, make us strong to overcome the desire to be wise and to be reputed wise by others as ignorant as ourselves. We turn from our wisdom as well as from our folly and flee to Thee, the wisdom of G.o.d and the power of G.o.d. Amen.

In this brief study of the divine wisdom we begin with faith in G.o.d. Following our usual pattern, we shall not seek to understand in order that we may believe, but to believe in order that we may understand. Hence, we shall not seek for proof that G.o.d is wise. The unbelieving mind would not be convinced by any proof and the wors.h.i.+pping heart needs none.

'Blessed be the name of G.o.d for ever and ever,' cried Daniel the prophet, 'for wisdom and might are his: ... he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding: he revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.' The believing man responds to this, and to the angelic chant, 'Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our G.o.d for ever and ever.' It never occurs to such a man that G.o.d should furnish proof of His wisdom or His power. Is it not enough that He is G.o.d?

When Christian theology declares that G.o.d is wise, it means vastly more than it says or can say, for it tries to make a comparatively weak word bear an incomprehensible plent.i.tude of meaning that threatens to tear it apart and crush it under the sheer weight of the idea. 'His understanding is infinite,' says the psalmist. It is nothing less than infinitude that theology is here laboring to express.

Since the word infinite describes what is unique, it can have no modifiers. We do not say 'more unique' or 'very infinite.' Before infinitude we stand silent.

There is indeed a secondary, created wisdom which G.o.d has given in measure to His creatures as their highest good may require; but the wisdom of any creature or of all creatures, when set against the boundless wisdom of G.o.d, is pathetically small. For this reason the apostle is accurate when he refers to G.o.d as 'only wise' That is, G.o.d is wise in Himself, and all the s.h.i.+ning wisdom of men or angels is but a reflection of that uncreated effulgence which streams from the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.

The idea of G.o.d as infinitely wise is at the root of all truth. It is a datum of belief necessary to the soundness of all other beliefs about G.o.d. Being what He is without regard to creatures, G.o.d is of course unaffected by our opinions of Him, but our moral sanity requires that we attribute to the maker and sustainer of the universe a wisdom entirely perfect. To refuse to do this is to betray the very thing in us that distinguishes us from the beasts.

In the Holy Scriptures wisdom, when used of G.o.d and good men, always carries a strong moral connotation. It is conceived as being pure, loving, and good. Wisdom that is mere shrewdness is often attributed to evil men, but such wisdom is treacherous and false. These two kinds of wisdom are in perpetual conflict. Indeed, when seen from the lofty peak of Sinai or Calvary, the whole history of the world is discovered to be but a contest between the wisdom of G.o.d and the cunning of Satan and fallen men. The outcome of the contest is not in doubt. The imperfect must fall before the perfect at last. G.o.d has warned that He will take the wise in their own craftiness and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

Wisdom, among other things, is the ability to devise perfect ends and to achieve those ends by the most perfect means. It sees the end from the beginning, so there can be no need to guess or conjecture. Wisdom sees everything in focus, each in proper relation to all, and is thus able to work toward predestined goals with flawless precision.

All G.o.d's acts are done in perfect wisdom, first for His own glory, and then for the highest good of the greatest number for the longest time. And all His acts are as pure as they are wise, and as good as they are wise and pure. Not only could His acts not be better done: a better way to do them could not be imagined. An infinitely wise G.o.d must work in a manner not to be improved upon by finite creatures.

O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! In wisdom hast Thou made them all. The earth is full of Thy riches!

Without the creation, the wisdom of G.o.d would have remained forever locked in the boundless abyss of the divine nature. G.o.d brought His creatures into being that He might enjoy them and they rejoice in Him. 'And G.o.d saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.'

Many through the centuries have declared themselves unable to believe in the basic wisdom of a world wherein so much appears to be so wrong. Voltaire in his Candide introduces a determined optimist, whom he calls Dr. Pangloss, and into his mouth puts all the arguments for the 'best-of-all-possible-worlds' philosophy. Of course the French cynic took keen delight in placing the old professor in situations that made his philosophy look ridiculous.

But the Christian view of life is altogether more realistic than that of Dr. Pangloss with his 'sufficient reason.' It is that this is not at the moment the best of all possible worlds, but one lying under the shadow of a huge calamity, the Fall of man.

The inspired writers insist that the whole creation now groans and travails under the mighty shock of the Fall. They do not attempt to supply 'sufficient reasons'; they a.s.sert that the 'creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope.' No effort here to justify the ways of G.o.d with men; just a simple declaration of fact. The being of G.o.d is its own defense.

But there is hope in all our tears. When the hour of Christ's triumph arrives, the suffering world will be brought out into the glorious liberty of the sons of G.o.d. For men of the new creation the golden age is not past but future, and when it is ushered in, a wondering universe will see that G.o.d has indeed abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. In the meantime we rest our hope in the only wise G.o.d, our Saviour, and wait with patience the slow development of His benign purposes.

In spite of tears and pain and death we believe that the G.o.d who made us all is infinitely wise and good. As Abraham staggered not at the promises of G.o.d through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving the glory to G.o.d, and was fully persuaded that what He had promised He was able to perform, so do we base our hope in G.o.d alone and hope against hope till the day breaks. We rest in what G.o.d is. I believe that this alone is true faith. Any faith that must be supported by the evidence of the senses is not real faith. 'Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.'

The testimony of faith is that, no matter how things look in this fallen world, all G.o.d's acts are wrought in perfect wisdom. The incarnation of the Eternal Son in human flesh was one of G.o.d's mighty deeds, and we may be sure that this awesome deed was done with a perfection possible only to the Infinite. 'Without controversy great is the mystery of G.o.dliness: G.o.d was manifest in the flesh.

Atonement too was accomplished with the same flawless skill that marks all of G.o.d's acts. However little we understand it all, we know that Christ's expiatory work perfectly reconciled G.o.d and men and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. Our concern is not to explain but to proclaim. Indeed I wonder whether G.o.d could make us understand all that happened there at the cross. According to the apostle Peter not even angels know, however eagerly they may desire to look into these things.

The operation of the gospel, the new birth, the coming of the divine Spirit into human nature, the ultimate overthrow of evil, and the final establishment of Christ's righteous kingdom - all these have flowed and do flow out of G.o.d's infinite fullness of wisdom. The sharpest eyes of the honest watcher in the blest company above cannot discover a flaw in the ways of G.o.d in bringing all this to fruition, nor can the pooled wisdom of seraphim and cherubim suggest how an improvement might be made in the divine procedure. 'I know that, whatsoever G.o.d doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and G.o.d doeth it, that men should fear before him.'

It is vitally important that we hold the truth of G.o.d's infinite wisdom as a tenet of our creed; but this is not enough. We must by the exercise of faith and by prayer bring it into the practical world of our day-by-day experience.

To believe actively that our Heavenly Father constantly spreads around us providential circ.u.mstances that work for our present good and our everlasting well-being brings to the soul a veritable benediction. Most of us go through life praying a little, planning a little, jockeying for position, hoping but never being quite certain of anything, and always secretly afraid that we will miss the way. This is a tragic waste of truth and never gives rest to the heart.

There is a better way. It is to repudiate our own wisdom and take instead the infinite wisdom of G.o.d. Our insistence upon seeing ahead is natural enough, but it is a real hindrance to our spiritual progress. G.o.d has charged himself with full responsibility for our eternal happiness and stands ready to take over the management of our lives the moment we turn in faith to Him.

Here is His promise: 'And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.'

Let Him lead the blindfold onwards, Love needs not to know; Children whom the Father leadeth Ask not where they go.

Though the path be all unknown, Over moors and mountains lone.

Gerhard Teersteegen G.o.d constantly encourages us to trust Him in the dark. I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of bra.s.s, and cut in sunder the bars of iron: and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the G.o.d of Israel.'

It is heartening to learn how many of G.o.d's mighty deeds were done in secret, away from the prying eyes of men or angles.

When G.o.d created the heavens and the earth, darkness was upon the face of the deep. When the Eternal Son became flesh, He was carried for a time in the darkness of the sweet virgin's womb. When He died for the life of the world, it was in the darkness, seen by no one at the last. When He arose from the dead, it was ,'very early in the morning.' No one saw Him rise. It is as if G.o.d were saying, 'What I am is all that need matter to you, for there lie your hope and your peace. I will do what I will do, and it will all come to light at last, but how I do it is My secret. Trust Me, and be not afraid.'

With the goodness of G.o.d to desire our highest welfare, the wisdom of G.o.d to plan it, and the power of G.o.d to achieve it, what do we lack? Surely we are the most favored of all creatures.

In all our Maker's grand designs, Omnipotence, with wisdom, s.h.i.+nes; His works, through all this wondrous frame, Declare the glory of His Name.

Thomas Blacklock

Chapter 12.

The Omnipotence of G.o.d Our Heavenly Father, we have heard Thee say, 'I am the Almighty G.o.d; walk before me, and be thou perfect.' But unless Thou dost enable us by the exceeding greatness of Thy power how can we who are by nature weak and sinful walk in a perfect way?

Grant that we may learn to lay hold on the working of the mighty power which wrought in Christ when Thou didst raise Him from the dead and set Him at Thine own right hand in the heavenly places. Amen.

In the time of his vision John the Revelator heard as it were the voice of a great mult.i.tude and as the voice of many waters and as the voice of mighty thunderings sounding throughout the universe, and what the voice proclaimed was the sovereignty and omnipotence of G.o.d: 'Alleluia: for the Lord G.o.d omnipotent reigneth.

Sovereignty and omnipotence must go together. One cannot exist without the other. To reign, G.o.d must have power, and to reign sovereignly, He must have all power. And that is what omnipotent means, having all power. The word derives from the Latin and is identical in meaning with the more familiar almighty which we have from the Anglo-Saxon. This latter word occurs fifty-six times in our English Bible and is never used of anyone but G.o.d. He alone is almighty.

G.o.d possesses what no creature can: an incomprehensible plenitude of power, a potency that is absolute. This we know by divine revelation, but once known, it is recognized as being in full accord with reason. Grant that G.o.d is infinite and self-existent and we see at once that He must be all-powerful as well, and reason kneels to wors.h.i.+p before the divine omnipotence.

'Power belongeth unto G.o.d,' says the psalmist, and Paul the apostle declares that nature itself gives evidence of the eternal power of the G.o.dhead (Rom 1:20). From this knowledge we reason to the omnipotence of G.o.d this way: G.o.d has power. Since G.o.d is also infinite, whatever He has must be without limit; therefore G.o.d has limitless power, He is omnipotent. We see further that G.o.d the self-existent Creator is the source of all the power there is, and since a source must be at least equal to anything that emanates from it, G.o.d is of necessity equal to all the power there is, and this is to say again that He is omnipotent.

G.o.d has delegated power to His creatures, but being self-sufficient, He cannot relinquish anything of His perfections and, power being one of them, He has never surrendered the least iota of His power. He gives but He does not give away. All that He gives remains His own and returns to Him again. Forever He must remain what He has forever been, the Lord G.o.d omnipotent.

One cannot long read the Scriptures sympathetically without noticing the radical disparity between the outlook of men of the Bible and that of modern men. We are today suffering from a secularized mentality. Where the sacred writers saw G.o.d, we see the laws of nature. Their world was fully populated; ours is all but empty. Their world was alive and personal; ours is impersonal and dead. G.o.d ruled their world; ours is ruled by the laws of nature and we are always once removed from the presence of G.o.d.

And what are these laws of nature that have displaced G.o.d in the minds of millions? Law has two meanings. One is all external rule enforced by authority, such as the common rule against robbery and a.s.sault. The word is also used to denote the uniform way things act in the universe, but this second use of the word is erroneous. What we see in nature is simply the paths G.o.d's power and wisdom take through creation. Properly these are phenomena, not laws, but we call them laws by a.n.a.logy with the arbitrary laws of society.

Science observes how the power of G.o.d operates, discovers a regular pattern somewhere and fixes it as a 'law.' The uniformity of G.o.d's activities in His creation enables the scientist to predict the course of natural phenomena. The trustworthiness of G.o.d's behavior in His world is the foundation of all scientific truth. Upon it the scientist rests his faith and from there he goes on to achieve great and useful things in such fields as those of navigation, chemistry, agriculture, and the medical arts.

Religion on the other hand, goes back of the nature of G.o.d. It is concerned not with the footprints of G.o.d along the paths of creation, but with the One who treads those paths. Religion is interested primarily in the One who is the source of all things, the master of every phenomenon. For this One philosophy has various names, the most horrendous that I have seen being that supplied by Rudolph Otto: 'The absolute, the gigantic, never-resting active world stress.' The Christian delights to remember that this 'world stress' once said 'I AM' and the greatest teacher of them all directed His disciples to address Him as a person: 'When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.' The men of the Bible everywhere communed with this 'gigantic absolute' in language as personal as speech affords, and with Him prophet and saint walked in a rapture of devotion, warm intimate and deeply satisfying.

Omnipotence is not a name given to the sum of all power, but an attribute of a personal G.o.d we Christians believe to be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and of all who believe on Him to life eternal. The wors.h.i.+pping man finds this knowledge a source of wonderful strength for his inner life. His faith rises to take the great leap upward into the fellows.h.i.+p of Him who can do whatever He wills to do, for whom nothing is hard or difficult because He possesses power absolute.

Since He has at His command all the power in the universe, the Lord G.o.d omnipotent can do anything as easily as anything else. All His acts are done without effort. He expends no energy that must be replenished. His self-sufficiency makes it unnecessary for Him to look outside of Himself for a renewal of strength. All the power required to do all that He wills to do lies in undiminished fullness in His own infinite being.

The Presbyterian pastor A. B. Simpson, approaching middle age, broken in health, deeply despondent and ready to quit the ministry, chanced to hear the simple Negro spiritual, Nothing is too hard for Jesus, No man can work like Him.

Its message sped like an arrow to his heart, carrying faith and hope and life for body and soul. He sought a place of retirement and after a season alone with G.o.d arose to his feet completely cured, and went forth in fullness of joy to found what has since become one of the largest foreign missionary societies in the world. For thirty-five years after this encounter with G.o.d, he labored prodigiously in the service of Christ. His faith in G.o.d of limitless power gave him all the strength he needed to carry on.

Almighty One! I bend in the dust before Thee; Even so veiled cherubs bend; In calm and still devotion I adore Thee, All-wise, all-present friend Thou to the earth its emerald robe hast given, Or curtained it in sow; And the bright sun, and the soft moon in heaven, Before Thy presence bow.

Sir John Bowring

Chapter 13.

The Divine Transcendence O Lord our Lord, there is none like Thee in heaven above or in the earth beneath. Thine is the greatness and the dignity and the majesty. All that is in the heaven and the earth is Thine; Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, O G.o.d, and Thou art exalted as head over all. Amen.

When we speak of G.o.d as transcendent we mean of course that He is exalted far above the created universe, so far above that human thought cannot imagine it.

To think accurately about this, however, we must keep in mind that 'far above' does not here refer to physical distance from the earth but to quality of being. We are concerned not with location in s.p.a.ce nor with mere alt.i.tude, but with life.

G.o.d is spirit, and to Him magnitude and distance have no meaning. To us they are useful as a.n.a.logies and ill.u.s.trations, so G.o.d refers to them constantly when speaking down to our limited understanding. The words of G.o.d as found in Isaiah, 'Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity,' give a distinct impression of alt.i.tude, but that is because we who dwell in a world of matter, s.p.a.ce, and time tend to think in material terms and can grasp abstract ideas only when they are identified in some way with material things. In its struggle to free itself from the tyranny of the natural world, the human heart must learn to translate upward the language the Spirit uses to instruct us.