Consider for a moment the
Transcendence of God. Webster defines
transcendence as exceeding the normal limits.
As it relates to God he exceeds all imaginable limits. He is absolutely unlimited and
incomprehensible. A.W. Tozer, in talking
about the transcendence of God said " He is not the highest, he is
absolutely transcendent." We can
understand the difference between a bike and a jet. The bike has 2 wheels, the jet many; the bike
is powered by man, the jet by engines, the bike is limited to the ground, the
jet flies through the air; the bike is relatively slow by comparison to the
jet. Yet to compare the jet with God
there is an infinite difference.
The
Crab Nebula is exploding star discovered in 1054 ad by Chinese
astrologers. It is some 6000 light-years
away. When discovered, those astrologers
were only observing the light from its explosion shortly after its
creation. It is
3,520,000,000,000,000,000 miles away. It
would take you 85 lifetimes of 70 years a piece to reach the crab nebula. To put that in perspective, shining a
flashlight At the moon, the light would reach the moon in 1.5 seconds. It is difficult to grasp the immensity of our
universe.
It is
even more difficult to grasp the transcendence of God. Job
11:7-8 says "can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limits of the
Almighty? It is higher than heaven --
what can you do? Deeper than Hell --
what can you know?" Isaiah 55:7-8
says "for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your
ways," declares the Lord. For as
the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and
my thoughts than your thoughts." Romans 11:33 says "Oh the depth of
the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways." We
cannot begin to imagine how big and awesome God is. It is something that will never be able to
comprehend. God's transcendence must cause us to honor, respect, trust and
stand in awe of Him.
At
the same time is a personal God. The
psalmist called him "my Shepherd" and we can too. In one sense we ought to be overwhelmed with
the magnitude of God. However, we should
not be so overwhelmed that we just give up and sink into Deism which is often
referred to as the theology of despair: the belief that God got things started
and the only hope we have is a blind leap of faith. That theology tends to morph into elevating
experience over Scripture and leads us into inventing our own god, and worshiping
that god in our own way, pleasing the flesh and making us feel good about
ourselves.
So,
that leads us to ask a very important question: can we really know God? If God is incomprehensible and the Bible
tells us he is unsearchable than how can we or can we really know Him? The answer is in the fact that God is not
only transcendent he is also immanent which means He is near to us. We can know Him because he is near to
us. Psalm
145:18 says the Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in
truth. Psalm 34:18 says the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves that
crushed in spirit. When we come to
the Lord humbly he will be near us. We
often complain about not knowing Him or not being able to know him because he
seems so far away. The reason he is so
far away is often because we have made ourselves too big and He has become
small to us. We desperately need
God! Paul says it best in 1 Corinthians 12:9 my grace is sufficient
for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of
my weakness so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Understand
that while God is transcendence, He is also immanent. In your quest to get to know Him come to Him
humbly.
