The incomprehensible of
God
by J. C. Philpot
What Christ is to the Church, what the Church is to
Christ, can never be really known until time gives place to eternity, faith
to sight, and hope to enjoyment. Nor even then, however beyond all present
conception the powers and faculties of the glorified souls and bodies of the
saints may be expanded, however conformed to the glorious image of Christ,
or however ravished with the discoveries of his glory and the sight of him
as he is in one unclouded day—no, not even then, will the utmost stretch of
creature love, or highest refinement of creature intellect, wholly embrace
or fully comprehend that love of Christ, which, as in time so in eternity,
"passes knowledge," as being in itself essentially incomprehensible, because
infinite and divine.
Who can calculate the amount of light and heat that dwell
in, and are given forth by the sun that shines at this moment so gloriously
in the noonday sky? We see, we feel, we enjoy its bright beams; but who can
number the millions of millions of rays that it casts forth upon all the
surface of the earth, diffusing light, heat, and fertility to every part? If
the creature be so great, glorious, and incomprehensible—how much
more great, glorious, and incomprehensible must be its divine Creator!
The Scripture testimony of the saints in glory is that
"when Christ shall appear they shall be like him, for they shall see him as
he is;" (1 John 3:2;) that they shall then see the Lord "face to face, and
know even as also they are known;" (1 Cor. 13:12;) that their "vile body
shall be fashioned like unto his glorious body;" (Phil. 3:21;) that they
shall be "conformed to his image," (Rom. 8:29,) and "be satisfied when they
awake with his likeness;" (Ps. 17:15;) that they shall be "before the throne
of God, and serve him day and night in his temple;" (Rev. 7:15;) that "their
sun shall no more go down, for the Lord shall be their everlasting light;"
(Isa. 60:20;) that they shall have "an exceeding and eternal weight of
glory;" (2 Cor.4:17;) and shall "shine as the brightness of the skies, and
as the stars forever and ever." (Dan. 12:3.)
But, with all this unspeakable bliss and glory, there
must be in infinite Deity unfathomable depths which no creature, however
highly exalted, can ever sound; heights which no finite, dependent being can
ever scan. God became man, but man never can become God. He fully knows us,
but we never can fully know him, for even in eternity, as in time, it may be
said to the creature, "Can you fathom the depths of God or discover the
limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens--what can you do?
They are deeper than the depths of hell--what can you know? Their measure is
longer than the earth and wider than the sea." (Job 11:7-9.) But if, as we
believe, eternity itself can never fully or entirely reveal the heights and
depths of the love of a Triune God, how little can be known of it in our
present time state! And yet that little is the only balm for all sorrow, the
only foundation of solid rest and peace.