Knowledge Without Limit

Omniscience means all-knowing — the complete, perfect, and exhaustive knowledge of all things. God's knowledge has no gaps, no blind spots, no learning curve. He does not discover things; He does not remember things He once forgot; He has never been surprised.

David's meditation on this attribute in Psalm 139 is among the most beautiful passages in Scripture:

O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. — Psalm 139:1-4

Before the word is on the tongue, He already knows it. There is no thought, no motive, no secret corner of the heart that is concealed from Him.

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What God Knows

**All of history — past, present, and future.*

• Isaiah's argument for the uniqueness of God repeatedly appeals to His knowledge of the future: "I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning." (Isaiah 46:9-10). Only the one who inhabits eternity knows the end from the beginning.

All human hearts. "The Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought." (1 Chronicles 28:9). This is both the most comforting and the most sobering aspect of omniscience: there is no performance before God. He sees through every pretence and knows the reality beneath.

Every creature and event. "Not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from your Father." (Matthew 10:29). The granular specificity of God's knowledge extends to every detail of the created world.

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The Double Edge

Omniscience is both sobering and comforting.

It is sobering because there is no hiding. The person who maintains a public face of righteousness while privately living otherwise is not deceiving God — "no creature is hidden from his sight." (Hebrews 4:13).

It is comforting because there is no situation in which God is unaware of what is happening to His people. When you are in the darkest, most forgotten, most invisible place — He knows. He sees. He is not absent or unaware. "You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?" (Psalm 56:8).