God Knows
God knows: Idiom/ used to describe a completely unknow-able thing/
The idea behind this clever phrase is that some things are so “un-knowable” that only God would know.
But let’s think about it from another perspective.
Not only does he know these ‘God things’ that no one else knows, he also knows ‘human things’– the things that we all go through and know about, as human beings.
Could there be a thing more comforting — to have a God who knows what it means to be human?
Jesus knew. Fully God and fully human while he lived, Jesus knows what it is like to feel pain and temptation, friendship and betrayal… even anger. He ate and slept, bled and wept.
But though Jesus knew what it was like to be human, there was one human aspect that did NOT apply to him — sin.
In his letter to the Hebrews, St. Paul calls Jesus “[a high priest] who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” But could he sin? Well, Satan is neither layabout nor fool — if he spends every minute prowling around regular people waiting for them to slip up, why would he waste precious weeks on Jesus, trying to tempt a man incapable of sinning?
Ergo, Jesus was capable of sinning, but didn’t.
Yet there he was, a sinless man in the company of certified “sinners” — prostitutes, tax collectors, adulterers and the like. When the question arose one day of why Jesus wasn’t more careful in who he associated with, he told the Pharisees to, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” [Matthew 9:13]
How those scripture scholars must have bristled in humiliation!
Not only was Jesus telling them to “look it up”, he was quoting God himself, through the prophet Hosea. God had already been, for thousands of years, teaching humankind through his prophets what he wants from us — but somehow there was still much to “go and learn”.
But where would these scholars go to learn? Keepers of the laws given to Moses, they made sure to live by the books of Leviticus and Numbers, offering up burnt offerings, grain offerings, first fruits, offerings of well-being, sin offerings and more. These were laws that told them what to offer, how to offer, when to offer it and even what not to offer to God to earn his favour.
But what the scholars and Jews of Jesus’ time hadn’t learnt yet was the why.
If God knows all, including our thoughts, why does he need a sacrifice to know that we are sorry, or grateful?
Let me make this more relatable to you —
Now picture yourself when you do something that you know would hurt God. You’re sorry about what you did, but you just don’t know how God will react. No blue ticks to guide your responses here!
Too scared to come home to God, you might just decide NOT to.
But God knows this too. It’s been happening to him since his first humans. When Adam and Eve ate of the fruit they weren’t supposed to, they too were ashamed to answer God when he called out to them asking where they were. They were so guilty and afraid that they forgot that he knows and sees everything.
Adam and Eve didn’t realise that God wasn’t really asking where they were — he was telling them that he was there.
Like our ancient ancestors, we too sometimes forget the things that God knows. And so, we fail to understand the things he says… and the way he loves. We imagine that God loves the way that we do — conditionally. When someone hurts us, we get angry or upset — and we stay angry or upset, until the person shows some remorse and asks for forgiveness. It’s usually only then that we go back to loving them.
But God doesn’t love in the same way that we do.
When Adam and Eve disobey God and realise that they are naked, they hide themselves from him. What does God do? Yes, he does ask them to leave the Garden forever (and this too, out of love, as you will discover here!)
But before that, he makes clothes for them out of animal skins. The God who only needed to say the word to form the sun and stars, oceans and wildlife, chose to fashion Adam and Eve in far more intricate fashion, using the dust from the ground and breathing his own breath into it. With the same love now, he makes clothes with his own hands for his erring children, covering their shame gently with his love. Love covers all sins. [Proverbs 10:12]
And this picture of a loving father coming out to reassure his children of his love for them reminds us of another story — this one, from Jesus’ book.
A man had two sons, and one day the younger one, deciding that he would much prefer his own freedom, asked his father for his share of the property. Now this is no small thing — his father must have been terribly heartbroken to have to divide up his property while he was still living. But he agreed, and gave the younger son his share.
What followed next is no surprise — with zero life experience, sudden inherited wealth, and no direction, the younger son’s lifestyle devolved into debauchery. Until one day, the money was gone and the boy found himself forced to work as a farm-hand, taking care of pigs. The boy had sunk so deep into the mire that he was covered in the dung of what the Jews consider one of the un-cleanest animals. And it is here that he comes to his senses. He decides to go back to his father, where even the servants have more to eat than he does. So he prepares in his head what he will say to his father to show him just how sorry he is, and then he sets off for home.
How does his father respond? This is what scripture says.
“…while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.” [Luke 15:20]
The boy’s father didn’t wait for an apology, or for tears, or to hear the speech his son had prepared. He was only waiting for him to return home.
The father embraces his errant son while he is still covered in pig dung, in the stench of his disobedience. And yet, the father holds his son close to himself, and orders the servants to put the best robe on him — his love covering the shame of his son.
But the story doesn’t end here. Remember that the man had two sons? Now the older son, who hadn’t taken his share of the property was working in the field while all this was happening. When he hears of it from the servants, he becomes angry and refuses to go into the house.
The father comes out to this son too, pleading to him to come inside. When he complains that his fealty has unfairly gone unnoticed, his father earnestly reminds him that he is not servant, but son. “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” [Luke 15:31]
Here too, it is a patient and forgiving father, coming out to cover his son in love.
All of us are like either one of the two sons — we either believe, like the younger one, that our sins are too great for God our father to continue to love us, despite them…. or like the older one, we believe that it is our good behaviour that will win God’s love. But this was the point of Jesus’ story.
God loves us not for anything that we have done, but simply because we are his children — and he is a good father. There is no sin too great that can separate us from the love of God.
But wait, you say. If God knows us so well and loves us so much — if there is nothing that can separate us from God and his love — why did we need a sacrifice to come back home to our Father? Why did so much blood need to be shed — all that livestock in the Old Testament and Jesus’ in the New?
