Note, in the address of Elihu, his close observation of God’s works in nature, and the admirable use he makes of them.
I. The fact in nature. Wonderful creations of God are the clouds, well deserving our admiration and our study. What a beautiful fact is the balancing of the clouds! Think of the material of which the cloud is composed. There it is, a fleece asleep on the bosom of the blue. Can we explain the balancing? How the hard ice or heavy water turns into light steam, or how the steam condenses into water, or hardens into ice again? Why it is that one day may frown with the storms of winter, and the next smile with the light of spring? Heat, gravitation, electricity, are useful names for the facts we observe, but how much explanation do they give?
II. The fact in experience. Elihu’s words were intended to carry the thoughts of Job beyond the clouds of heaven: for the Book of Job is not a treatise of natural philosophy, but of moral and spiritual truth. Are there no clouds in our sky? Is all bright--without a single shadow? Such a sky would he more than we could bear. Our heads are too weak to stand it. Blessed be God for clouds! They temper the scorching sky, and make the atmosphere more sweet, more healthy. They open a new field for the exhibition of the Divine attributes; they present masses for the light of His character to irradiate and glorify. And is there no balancing of our clouds? Does a single affliction ever gather over us which God does not weigh and measure and control? Infinite Wisdom is at work to determine the form and degree of our earthly trials; and He will not “suffer us to be tempted above what we are able to bear.” Still, how little we know about it! We see the purpose of some of our sorrows; the evil they lead us to correct, the danger they teach us to avoid; but, for anything we can tell, God has many other purposes in them, of which we shall never know till they are revealed to us in heaven. (F. Tucker, B. A.)
Which is perfect in knowledge.
Of the omniscience of God
These words are a declaration of that Divine attribute, the perfection of knowledge.
I. God is a Being indeed with perfect knowledge.
1. Knowledge is a perfection without which the foregoing attributes are no perfections at all, and without which those which follow can have no foundation. Where there is no knowledge, eternity and immensity are as nothing; and justice, goodness, mercy, and wisdom can have no place.
2. That God must be a Being indeed with perfect knowledge, appears from His having communicated certain degrees of that perfection. For whatever perfection is in any effect, must of necessity have been much more in the cause that produced it. Nothing can give to another that which it hath not in itself. Though nothing can give what it has not, yet any cause may forbear to give all that it has.
3. From the immensity and omnipresence of God may the same truth be likewise clearly evinced. Wherever Himself is, His knowledge is, which is inseparable from His being, and must therefore be infinite.
II. The particular nature and circumstances of the Divine knowledge.
1. The object of this knowledge. It is a knowledge of all things absolutely. Our knowledge is short as our duration, and limited as our extent. The knowledge of God is a knowledge of all the actions of men; of all their thoughts and intents; and even of future and contingent events. Even the most contingent futurities, the actions of free agents, cannot be conceived to be hidden from his foresight. How can foreknowledge in God be consistent with liberty of action in men? Premise that our infinite understandings are not able to comprehend all the ways of infinite knowledge, and that the question is not whether men’s actions are free, but how that freedom of action which makes men to be men, can be consistent with foreknowledge of such actions. If these two things were really inconsistent, and could not be reconciled, it would follow, not that men’s actions were not free (for that would destroy all religion), but that such free actions as men’s are, were not the objects of the Divine foreknowledge. Foreknowledge does not cause things to be. The futurity of free actions is exactly the same, whether they can, or could not, be foreknown.
2. The manner of this Divine knowledge. We cannot, in particular, explain all the ways, manners, and circumstances of infinite knowledge. We can only make a few general observations. The Divine knowledge is not, as ours and the angels, a knowledge of things by degrees and parts. It is a perfect comprehension of everything, in all possible respects at a time, and in all possible circumstances together. It is not, as ours, only a superficial and external knowledge, but an intimate and thorough prospect of their very inmost nature and essence. It is not, as ours, confused and general, but a clear, distinct, and particular knowledge of every, even the minutest, thing or circumstance. It is not, as ours, acquired with difficulty, consideration, attention, and study, but a knowledge necessarily and perpetually arising of itself.
3. The certainty of this Divine knowledge. It is absolutely infallible, without the least possibility of any degree of being deceived.
III. A few practical inferences.
1. If the Divine knowledge is perfect, it is a proper object of our admiration and honour.
2. If God knows all, even our most secret actions; then ought we to live under the power of this conviction, in all holy and godly conversation, both publicly and in private.
3. Learn the folly of all hypocrisy; the obligation to purity of heart.
4. If God knows all future events, we may safely depend and trust on His providence, without being over-solicitous for the time to come.
5. See the folly of pretending to foreknow things.
6. If God alone knoweth the thoughts of men, we ought not to be forward in judging others. (S. Clarke, D. D.)
