I have here a subject to which I refer quite often. In fact, I did just that not more than a couple of weeks ago. But upon examining my notes, I find that it is something which I have never addressed directly or in any great detail. This is important enough for me to correct right now. Our scripture brings it to our attention once again, and I’ve decided not to jump over as I usually do. “And Jesus knew their thoughts.” What are the implications of that statement?
The Bible gives abundant EVIDENCE of Christ’s omniscience.
Of course there are all those scriptures which speak about the omniscience of God – or the God-head. It is a part of the nature of deity to know all things – otherwise God would not be God. Any god, who is not omnipotent nor omniscient, or omnipresent, is an imitation – a vanity – a false god. So we aren’t in the least surprised to find a myriad of scriptures which declare – or prove – Jehovah’s knowledge of all things – including our own innermost thoughts. Psalm 44 – “If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god; shall not God search this out? For he knoweth the secrets of the heart.” The theme Psalm 139 is praise to God for his all-seeing providence. “O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.” “There is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.” Because, “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea.” “Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.” “My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret….” “Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
I hope that Jeremiah 19 rings a very loud bell. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” The next verse declares that the Lord intimately knows that wicked heart of yours. “I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.” As I say there are many more verses like these which declare the omniscience of God. But my theme this evening is the omniscience of CHRIST. And it goes without saying that He is omniscient because He is Second Person of the God-head.
Using my concordance and computer in a matter of five minutes I had a list of a dozen verses which declare or illustrate Christ Jesus’ supernatural knowledge of human hearts. I should make you hear them all, but that would probably be overkill, so I will limit myself. There is Matthew 9:4 – “Behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves” (in their hearts), This man blasphemeth. And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?” Matthew doesn’t say that Jesus guessed, or deduced from their expressions, what they were thinking. He declares that Christ knew exactly what their thoughts contained. In Mark’s account of the same incident, he puts it this way: “And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them…..” The word “perceived” is “epiginosko” and means to know something in an absolutely perfect way – “EPI- ginosko.” Out that first dozen scriptures that I found, I’ll read just one more – John 2:24 – “Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.”
Before we get to the practical implications of Christ’s omniscience, I want to turn to the THEOLOGY.
As God – the “theos” – Christ’s knowledge is UNIVERSAL. The scientist whose eyes are looking through an electron microscope all day, may not know very much about the stars. And the astronomer, who sleeps all day and spends his night’s peering into space, may not know much about electrons and protons. But the God who created all things intimately knows both – perfectly – He knows all things. In fact He knows beyond all things. We look at a tree and we can perhaps identify that tree – it is a good Canadian Sugar Maple. But we may not know anything about the root, or the health of that tree, or how long it will live. God knows the tree, its health and its root. He knows how many gallons of maple syrup that tree could produce if it lived a hundred years. He knows how many squirrels live in that tree, and how many there will be in that tree ten years from now. He knows the depth of the root of that tree and the number of its leaves. He knows how many blades of grass would be crushed if it died and fell over to the west. And it knows how many ants would be displaced if it fell toward the north. Jehovah knows all the possibilities that would be created for each of a million “ifs” – if this…, if that…. He knows all things and all possible and potential things. God knows everything that has taken place, and He knows all that will take place.
Now let me digress for just a moment. The English word “foreknowledge” can mislead a person at this point. When the Bible uses the word “foreknowledge” it is not the same thing as prescience or seeing something before it happens. Prescience is certainly one of the attributes of Jehovah. But Biblical “foreknowledge” involves an additional divine attribute – predetermination. Peter makes that point in Acts 2:23 – Christ “being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:” God didn’t just merely foresee that Jesus would be crucified by the Romans. The “determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” guaranteed the crucifixion. The foreknowledge of God was a part of foreordination of the crucifixion. In fact Greek word translated “foreknowledge “ comes from the root word translated “to foreordain.” The same is true in I Peter 1:2 which says, that the saved are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” Christ’s knowledge of the future is not the same thing as His “foreknowlege” of the same event – but they are certainly related.
Christ’s knowledge is universal and it is INTUITIVE. That means that what He knows comes from within Himself, not from outside testimony or observation. Again I refer back to Mark 2 – “And immediately when Jesus perceived IN HIS SPIRIT that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them…..” It wasn’t Jesus’ guess that those wicked people were thinking blasphemous thoughts. The infinite deity knows all things simply because there is something to know. You might say that God cannot help Himself in that regard – it is the nature of God to know all things..
And again there is the testimony of John 2:24 – “Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.” In Luke19 there is an account of Christ’s last journey toward Jerusalem. Verse 1 – “And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. And, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature.” It is quite apparent that Zacchaeus had never met Christ, nor apparently even come close to him before. “And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house.” How did Christ know the name of Zacchaeus? Intuitive divine knowledge. How did the Lord Jesus know about the moral and marital situation of the woman in Samaria? Again they had never met or spoken before. “Thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband.”
By the way, Christ’s infinite, intuitive knowledge wasn’t something confined to His earthly ministry. After His resurrection and ascension into Heaven, He still knew and knows all things. “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” “Who art thou, Lord?” Early in the Book of Revelation, Christ tells those churches of Asia, “I know thy works.” If you are picturing the angels of God, flying back and forth from earth to heaven, carrying news about what’s going on, you are wrong. If you think that those angels have some sort of secure communication system through which they send reports into an heavenly data base, accessible by God, again you are wrong. And the Lord isn’t peering down toward earth looking through a telescope or microscope. As the apostle said about the Lord while He was still here – He perceives such things “in his spirit.”
Christ’s knowledge is universal, intuitive and INTIMATE. Think about Peter’s mother-in-law apparently nearing death, burning up with a fever? In our medical world, there would be blood tests and other examinations made in order to diagnose the problem. Maybe the doctor wouldn’t even be able to determine the precise cause of the fever. Maybe time limits would require some sort of immediate response – based on only an intelligent guess. But the Lord Jesus knew exactly what the woman needed, and He immediately cured her. That is an example of the Lord’s intimate knowledge of hidden physical maladies. And as we’ve already seen in several scriptures, the Lord also knows the maladies of the mind & heart. He knows all the thoughts, all the feelings and all the desires of the human heart. He knew what it was that Zaccheus wanted, and He was more than willing to satisfy that want. I believe that he knew what the woman with the issue of blood wanted and needed. He was not surprised by her approach or her touch. He wanted her to identify herself for her own good and for a testimony to all the others who were there.
I realize that my next thought runs contrary to what I’ve tried to say about the nature of omniscience. But there is enough scriptural evidence to convince me of its truth never-the-less. It would be well worth our time to spend a few minutes meditating on the wonderful words of John 10. Among the many exquisite things that the Lord revealed in that chapter, He said, “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.” There is no reason to think that Christ’s sheep know Him as well as the Good Shepherd knows them. The Lord knows us infinitely, microscopically, and eternally better than we can know Him. But then in the next breath He added a dimension which is important. “As the Father knoweth me, even SO KNOW I the Father.” How well does the infinite God know the infinite Son? Infinitely. And according to the testimony of Christ Jesus, the Son knows the Father with same divine intimacy. Furthermore, I believe that we have every right to take that back to Christ’s knowledge of His sheep. In some ways the Lord knows us, more intimately and wonderfully than He knows the lost man. How is that possible in the light of the Lord’s omniscience? I’m not really sure, but I’m not going to worry over it. The Lord’s knowledge of us is not just a matter of details and data – the Lord is talking about a loving knowledge of the heart, mind and soul of His people. Is that somewhat contradictory? Yes, it is, but there is a mystical truth in it nevertheless.
What are the IMPLICATIONS of Christ’s omniscience?
Like nearly all of the attributes of deity – omniscience has a polarizing effect. There is a good result and then just the opposite. Have you ever looked at someone and had a disparaging thought about him or her? A few months ago, I told you about seeing a person on the corner of Brown and 3rd in Spokane. I couldn’t tell if the person was a man or a woman. Whatever the gender was, he or she was perhaps the ugliest person that I had ever seen. What if circumstances forced us to have had a conversation that day? And what if that person could read my mind? It wouldn’t have been a very good situation. The Pharisees were thinking and telling others that Christ was casting our devils by the prince of the devils. Would they have said that to Jesus’ face? I rather doubt it. When Christ mentioned the wicked name of Beelzebub, the lord of the flies, were they embarrassed? They should have feared what Christ might have done. Even if they believed what they were saying, there should have been some fear, because that prince of the devils could probably do them bodily harm.
The omniscience of God, or the omniscience of Christ, should create fear in the hearts of the wicked. In John 8 a group of “scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned; what what sayest thou?” In other words, “What are you going to do about this?” And what did the Lord do? “Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground.” I don’t know what it was that the Lord wrote. But to get those wicked accusers to retreat, I think that it was probably something quite personal. I think that perhaps Jesus wrote names, dates and events known only to those Pharisees. Perhaps there were sins hidden to the eyes of man, but known to the Lord. I think that Christ revealed His omniscience to those people. When they saw what He had written and heard Him say, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her,” they retreated under the conviction of their own consciences. Contemplation of the omniscience of God should bring terror to the heart any sinner — Christian or lost. Deception is an impossibility before God – so why even try? And who in the Bible condemned hypocrisy more than Christ Jesus? Isn’t it because hypocrisy is as clear as glass before the eyes of the all-seeing God?
I have no doubt that there will be a divine judgment of every soul who has ever lived. The dead small and great will stand before this one to whom all judgment has been given. The wicked will stand before Christ as He sits upon His great white throne. And the Christian, at a different time will also stand before the Bema judgment. Yes, there will be books opened, but they really won’t be needed because of the omniscience of the Judge. Believe me, those will not be fun events.
On the other hand, to be one of the Lord’s sheep and to be intimately known by Him should be a blessing to the Christian heart – beyond any problem the world might throw at us. For example, what comfort there is to know that the Lord is more aware of our health than we are. What should give us more peace of mind – a colonoscopy or a realization that Christ knows us better than our endocrinologist and all his fancy equipment? That medical technician may be able to scan your brain or your heart and see a tumor or a bad value. But Christ knows what that brain has been thinking, and He sees what that heart yearns. The Son of God with His perfect omniscience once said, “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are…. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.” It is probably not the case for every saint of God, but some of us know the exquisite joy of praying for something and receiving that blessing, only to find that the Lord started the answer long before we asked.
And what comfort there is in the thought that there never will be a temptation taken you but which the faithful God will enable you to escape or bear it? There has never been one of the Lord’s sheep who was so remote, so small, or so weak that the Lord somehow lost or forgot him. There has never been a single tear fallen from a Christian eye, which the Lord has not caught – not just caught sight – but caught. There has never been an ache or a pain which our Great High Priest did not feel in His special way. As I have said a hundred times – you are not the center of the universe. You are not the focus of the Lord’s salvation; you are not critical for the Lord’s glorification. But at the same time, the Lord has placed you in the center of His focus, and upon you the Lord has laid a multitude of promises. He will not loose one of His sheep. And not one curly hair from the fleece of one of His sheep will ever be lost – they have all been numbered.
The omniscience of Christ may be a point of Christian theology, but it is not JUST a point of Christian theology. Just as we might say about each of the attributes of God or Christ – they contain blessings which this earth in all its glory could never duplicate. As the Psalmist said, “My tongue shall speak of thy righteousness, and of thy praise all the day long.” I don’t think that either the Lord or David would be upset if I altered that verse just a bit – “My tongue shall speak of thy omniscience, and I will praise thee for it all the day long.”