Wisdom and Knowledge
One of the most amazing of the divine attributes is God’s omniscience. He not only understands the complexities of relativistic science and higher mathematics, but also ordained them! The same applies to every other discipline of study and activity.
And He knows all about each of us! “O LORD, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising; thou understandest my thought afar off” (Psalm 139:1-2).
As far as human knowledge is concerned, it is vital to know that “the fear of the LORD” is the very foundation of “knowledge” and of “wisdom” (Proverbs 1:7; 9:10). Many of the greatest scientists of the past acknowledged that they were seeking merely to “think God’s thoughts after Him.”
How foolish it is to ignore or to oppose God! There are only four places in the Bible that speak of God laughing (Psalm 2:4; 37:13; 59:8; Proverbs 1:26), and each of them describes His response to such folly.
Instead, we should marvel at all the wonders of His creation and providence. "O, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out!” (Romans 11:33).
Today’s text above actually refers explicitly to the Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten and eternal Son of God. It is He who has given us access to the Creator God and, therefore, to divine knowledge and understanding. Part of the still-effective dominion mandate (Genesis 1:26, 28) is to learn what we can about God’s creation, always remembering that Jesus insisted that—no matter what unbelievers say—“the scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). HMM
BY HENRY M. MORRIS, PH.D. | Days of Praise
Bible Study Notes
139:1 known me. Psalm 139 is a remarkable testimony to the attributes of God. It is divided into four stanzas of six verses each. Psalm 139:1-6 describes His omniscience; Psalm 139:7-12 deals with His omnipresence; Psalm 139:13-18 emphasizes His omnipotence; and Psalm 139:19-24 stresses what might be called His omnirighteousness. The first stanza says that God knows everything about each of us; the second says He sees everything around us; the third shows that He does everything for us; and the last notes that He judges everything in us.
He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.
1:26 Laugh at your calamity. Whether “kings of the earth” (Psalm 2:2, 4) or “simple ones” (Proverbs 1:22), those who rebel against Him or just scoff at Him and His words will eventually encounter God’s own derisive laughter as He faces them in judgment. Note also Psalm 37:12-13.
11:33 wisdom and knowledge. All the treasures of both wisdom and knowledge are found in Christ (Colossians 2:3), for He is the Creator and Sustainer of all things (Colossians 1:16-17; Hebrews 1:3). In fact, “the fear of the Lord is the [very] beginning” (Proverbs 1:7; 9:10) of both knowledge (awareness and comprehension of facts) and wisdom (the correlation and application of facts).
11:33 past finding out. God is inaccessible to scientific research. “Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?” (Job 11:7). Paul confirms the negative answer to this rhetorical question in many references (e.g., I Corinthians 1:21: "The world by wisdom knew not God").
1:26 in our image. God is, as it were, taking counsel here with Himself, not with angels, since man was to be made in the image of God, not of angels. “Our image,” therefore, implies human likeness to the triune Godhead. Plants possess a body, while animals possess both a body and a consciousness. Man was not only to have a body (of the created “earth”) and a consciousness (of the created “soul”), but man was also to possess a third created entity, the image of God, an eternal spirit capable of communion and fellowship with his Creator.
1:26 likeness. Man was not only created in God’s spiritual image; he was also made in God’s physical image. His body was specifically planned to be most suited for the divine fellowship (erect posture, upward-gazing countenance, facial expressions varying with emotional feelings, brain and tongue designed for articulate symbolic speech—none of which are shared by the animals). Furthermore, his body was designed to be like the body that God had planned from eternity that He Himself would one day assume (I Peter 1:20).
1:26 dominion. The “dominion” man was to exercise was to be over both “the earth” and all the other living creatures on the earth. Such dominion obviously was under God as a stewardship, not as an autonomous sovereign. Man was to care for the earth and its creatures, developing and utilizing the earth’s resources, not to despoil and deplete them for selfish pleasure.
10:35 Scripture cannot be broken. Jesus is here basing His entire defense against the charge of blasphemy on one word, "gods," in a relatively obscure psalm, commenting that the “scripture”—that is, the “writing,” the word actually written down—cannot be broken. This constitutes a very important testimony by Christ to the plenary verbal inspiration and authority of the Bible. The reasoning of Christ is very subtle, yet powerful, relying entirely on the use of this precise word in its context.
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