The Bible Study Hour

Guest (Male): Psalm 139 addresses some of the weightiest concepts of theology. It speaks of the omniscient, omnipresence, and omnipotence of our God. And yet, while the Psalm deals with these profound truths, it's much more than a dry study of doctrine.

Dr. James Boice: Welcome to The Bible Study Hour, a radio and Internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. Psalm 139 has been called a theology of the very best sort, because it addresses the heart, as well as the head. The Psalm speaks to our emotions, as well as our intellect in a wonderfully personal way. Join Dr. Boice as he explores a Psalm that speaks of God's attributes in ways that deeply affected the psalmist, and continue to inspire God's people today.

Dr. James Boice: Somewhere in the voluminous writings of J.I. Packer, there's a comment about the Puritans. It goes like this, he said that their theology is theology of that older, better, wiser, and more practical sort.

Dr. James Boice: Well, that's true of the Puritans, but it is perhaps even more true of the Psalm that we're about to study now, because here in Psalm 139 is theology that is even older, even better, even wiser, and as we're going to see perhaps even more practical. It's theology of the very best sort.

Dr. James Boice: We sometimes talk about doing theology today, and one of the things we often talk about is the conflict between the head and the heart, saying that either one alone is inadequate. If we have a theology that is of the head alone, it tends to become cold, dry, barren, and of little practical value.

Dr. James Boice: On the other hand, if we have a theology of the heart alone, it may very well be warm and comforting and practical, but it lacks substance, or will tend to, and because it lacks substance, it's often unable to stand up and be strong when the hard times come.

Dr. James Boice: Now, Psalm 139 has both head and heart. It's wonderfully theological. It deals with some of the greatest theological concepts of all, the omniscience of God, the omnipresence of God, the omnipotence of God. Is probably the weightiest part of the Bible for discussing God's omniscience. And yet at the same time, it's also wonderfully personal because it speaks of these attributes in ways that impact the psalmist and that also impact us.

Dr. James Boice: Let me just give you a few quotations from scholars. H.C. Luopold, the Lutheran scholar, observed that the thinking of the Psalm is not formulated in theological abstractions, but in terms of personal religious experience. Leslie Allen, who has contributed to the Word Biblical commentary, calls it applied theology.

Dr. James Boice: Alexander McLaren, one of the great expositors of a previous generation, wrote, "Not mere omniscience, but a knowledge which knows him altogether, not mere omnipresence, but a presence which he can nowhere escape. Not a mere creative power, but a power which shaped him, or what fill and thrill the psalmist's soul."

Dr. James Boice: Now, what those reflections mean, of course, is that this Psalm is the very essence of worship because that's what we've been talking about here in our studies of these later Psalms. It's worth noting in connection with that that the Psalm is dedicated to the director of music, obviously, for his use in the worship of the temple. Or we can say it another way.

Dr. James Boice: Although Psalm 139 deals with some of the highest and most important of all theological concepts, the omniscience, the omnipresence, the omnipotence of God, it nevertheless has a twofold practical application that becomes clear as we get to the end of the Psalm.

Dr. James Boice: The first part is that the writer wants to separate himself from all who deliberately practice evil. And the second application is that he wants God to search him out, to know him, to expose the hidden inner secrets of his heart in order that he might turn from sin and walk in the way everlasting. Now, nobody can have a fault with theology that operates like that.

Dr. James Boice: In terms of the outline, it's really quite brilliant. It falls into four easily recognizable parts. There are the first six verses that deal with God's omniscience. And the next six verses deal with God's omnipresence. The next six verses deal with God's omnipotence. And then the final six verses of these 24 are reflections upon all of the above.

Dr. James Boice: It even has a more sophisticated outline than that, and each of these four sections, each one consisting of six verses, there is an initial stanza of four verses which presents the doctrine didactically. And then there are two more verses which are somewhat of a reflection on what has gone before, an application of it if you will.

Dr. James Boice: And it's an interesting thing that each of those application sections in one way or another bridges to the section that's going to come next. Now we're going to look at the first half of the Psalm, that is the first two of the four main sections in this study, and then we're going to look at the second half of it next week.

Dr. James Boice: Now, the theme of the first six verses is the omniscience of God, as I've said. That's the proper word, theological word for the truth that God knows absolutely everything. But but here, this doctrine is not expressed as mere doctrine. That is something to be speculated about. It's confessed in wonder and adoration, as all the other doctrines that are going to be introduced throughout the Psalm will also be.

Dr. James Boice: We have to remember, because we're thinking about worship in these studies, that confession, we've already seen it in an earlier study, confession of doctrine and faith is one way in which we worship God.

Dr. James Boice: What can we say about God's omniscience? Well, the unique quality of the knowledge of God, which is what that refers to, is its perfection. That is, God knows all things and he knows them exhaustively. We also know things. That's why we have some idea what we're talking about when we talk about the omniscience of God, but we only know partially and imperfectly. And often when we think we know, we don't actually know.

Dr. James Boice: But in the case of God, he knows all things and he knows all things in perfection. Here's the way Arthur Pink describes God's knowledge. God knows everything, he wrote, everything possible, everything actual, all events, all creatures, of the past, the present and the future. He is perfectly acquainted with every detail in the life of every being in heaven, in earth, and in hell. Nothing escapes his notice, nothing can be hidden from him, nothing is forgotten by him. He never errs, he never changes, never overlooks anything.

Dr. James Boice: A.W. Tozer, a great pastor and devotional writer of an earlier age, expands this by adding negatives to it. God has never learned from anyone, he says. Indeed, Tozer wrote, "God cannot learn." Could God at any time or in any manner receive into his mind knowledge that he did not possess and had not possessed from eternity, he would be imperfect and less than himself.

Dr. James Boice: To think of a God who must sit at the feet of a teacher, even though that teacher be an Archangel or a Seraph, is to think of someone other than the most high God, who is the maker of heaven and earth. God knows instantly and effortlessly all matter and all matters, all mind and every mind, all spirit and all spirits, all being and every being, all creaturehood and all creatures.

Dr. James Boice: Every plurality and all pluralities, all law and every law, all relations, all causes, all thoughts, all mysteries, all enigmas, all feeling, all desires, every unuttered secret, all thrones and dominions, all personalities, all things visible and invisible in heaven and in earth, motion, space, time, life, death, good, evil, heaven, and hell. Because God knows all things perfectly, he knows no thing better than any other thing, but all things equally well.

Dr. James Boice: He never discovers anything, he is never surprised, never amazed, he never wonders about anything, nor except when he's drawing men and women out for their own good, does he seek information or ask questions. Well, that's what the psalmist is writing about.

Dr. James Boice: He states the theme in verse one. Do you see it there? Oh, Lord, you have searched me and known me. That's really what he's going to develop throughout the whole Psalm. And then when he begins to reflect on aspects of that knowledge of God, he elaborates it by three statements, God knows his thoughts. You perceive my thoughts from afar, verse two. God knows his ways. You're familiar with all my ways, verse three.

Dr. James Boice: God knows his words. Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely. Oh, Lord, verse four. And then in verse five, he begins to anticipate the next section. That's what I referred to later. But he doesn't get off the track, and verse six, as he wraps up the first stanza, he comes back and reflects on God's knowledge, saying, such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Dr. James Boice: That, incidentally, is exactly the note that the Apostle Paul strikes in that great doxology that comes at the end of the 11th chapter of Romans, after the greatest doctrinal section of the greatest doctrinal book in the Bible. Paul writes there, "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his thoughts, and his ways past finding out."

Dr. James Boice: Now, the perfection of God's knowledge is also disturbing. And we haven't really treated it properly, unless we reflect on that. It's one reason why people try so hard not to think about God. As long as we only think about God knowing other people or things, and don't really consider any of it personally in terms of God knowing us, it's not so bad. The knowledge of God might just become somewhat amusing.

Dr. James Boice: I think of a group of schoolchildren, for example, who were asked by a Christian teacher whether they thought God understood computers. And the children agreed in large measure that God didn't understand computers. We we find that kind of amusing because we know he does, but when we begin to think of God actually knowing us, it's quite a different story.

Dr. James Boice: Arthur Pink, whom I mentioned just a moment ago, says that the thought of divine omniscient fills us with uneasiness. Tozer is even stronger, "In the divine omniscience, we see set forth against each other the terror and the fascination of the Godhead, that God knows each person through and through, can be a cause of shaking fear to the man who has something to hide, some unforsaken sin, some secret crime committed against man or God."

Dr. James Boice: Roy Clements, a Baptist preacher in England, our contemporary, he says that David's description of God is like some master detective who snoops into every detail of his existence armed with X-ray cameras and laser probes. He's like the oppressive all-seeing eye of Big Brother in George Orwell's novel 1984.

Dr. James Boice: Well, for the unsaved person, that is an apt description. That is what the omniscience of God means. That's the application to it to the heart of the unsaved man. Fear, terror, before the fact that God knows us perfectly and through and through.

Dr. James Boice: But it's interesting, isn't it, that that's not the way David is reacting. That's not the tone of this Psalm. He's not trembling when he thinks of God's omniscience. On the contrary, he is sheltering himself in the knowledge of God, and he marvels at it.

Dr. James Boice: For David, the psalmist, knowledge that God knows him is not a cause of terror, but rather it's a refuge. Now, we ask at that point, though, isn't it a natural reaction when we think about the omniscience of God, to want to try to get out from under his gaze, perhaps escape him?

Dr. James Boice: Now, David is not doing that, but I suppose it's reflections along those lines that leads to the second of these four stanzas because here he begins to talk about the omnipresence of God. Some commentators do suggest that he's trying to escape from God's gaze, but he's really not doing that. He he is meditating on God's omniscience. Remember that I said verse one is really the theme of the Psalm.

Dr. James Boice: And as he reflects on the omniscience of God, he is led logically to think about the omnipresence of God because the reason God knows everything and sees everything is that he is everywhere to see and know it. And so as he begins to unfold this, he reflects that he can't escape God, even if he wants to, no matter where he might go.

Dr. James Boice: I mentioned Luopold, the commentator, the Lutheran, who suggests that we might really get a better translation of verse seven if we would render it this way. Where could I go from your presence? He's not saying how can I get away, but he's just reflecting that it would be impossible.

Dr. James Boice: Where could I possibly go is what he's saying. The New International Version doesn't do too badly when it translates that, where can I go? Could you ask the question? Well, yes, where where can I go if I want to get away from God? David begins to explore the options and then he dismisses each one. The first thing that might occur to us when we think of trying to escape the gaze of God is to go so high that he can't reach us or go so low that he can't stoop down to find us in some pit.

Dr. James Boice: And so David begins to talk about going up and going down, but his point is we can't get away from God by moving vertically. If you go up to heaven, you can't escape God because God is obviously there. And if you go down to hell, a Hebrew word is Sheol, you can't escape God there because God runs hell. That's that's the tragic thing about hell. Hell is not an escape from God. Hell is a place of punishment that God has established for those who will not have his righteousness in Jesus Christ.

Dr. James Boice: We have funny ideas about it because of what's happened in some of the great poetic literature of the world, especially English. John Milton, who wrote that masterpiece, Paradise Lost, is probably most guilty at this point because he has that description of Satan triumphing and ruling hell.

Dr. James Boice: At one point, shortly after he wakes up in hell, having been thrown out of heaven, Satan says, "Hail horrors, hail infernal world, and thou profoundest hell, receive thy new possessor." He meant that he was the new king of hell. "One who brings a mind not to be changed by place or time, a mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."

Dr. James Boice: Well, the mind can certainly make a hell of heaven, but it can't turn hell into heaven. And Dante was undoubtedly closer to the truth when he pictures in the Divine Comedy Satan occupying the very lowest level of the very lowest ring of hell.

Dr. James Boice: Now, Amos uses almost the same language that David does here, thinking of height and depth when he writes, "Though they dig down to the depths of the grave, from there my hand will take them, though they climb up to the heavens, from there I will bring them down." There is no escaping God by going up or down.

Dr. James Boice: Well, then David says, if you can't escape God going up or down, maybe you can escape him by going east or west. That is horizontally. As a dawn rises in the east, and from David's perspective in Israel, the far side of the sea was the west, that is beyond the Mediterranean. His phrase there, to rise on the wings of the dawn, probably means to flash from east to west, as fast as the dawn's early light flashes from horizon to horizon.

Dr. James Boice: He's saying, even if that were possible, which it's not, you couldn't escape God, because when you reach the far side of the earth, God is already there waiting for you. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me and your right hand will hold me fast. Jonah tried to do it. Jonah tried to escape from God by sailing from Joppa to Tarshish. Tarshish was a town on the far side of Spain, the limits of the known world in that day. But God pursued him in the great storm, caused him to be swallowed up by the great fish and brought him back. He learned that there's no escaping from God.

Dr. James Boice: Well, we say, you can't do it by going up or down or east and west. Maybe we're thinking in the wrong categories. Spatially, let's let's think in terms of the darkness. Maybe we can hide there. Lots of people try to hide in the dark, thinking, verse 11, surely the darkness will hide me. But even the darkness is light to God. Light is God's own creation. You read about it in Genesis, and he doesn't need the light to know what's going on in the secret places.

Dr. James Boice: These are some of the best known verses in the Bible, and rightly so. Many people have memorized them because they really do point us in a special way to the greatness of our God. Now, we're going to go on from this point in the next study to see how David responded to this meditation on God's omniscience and omnipresence. It's the response of one who has learned what it is to be known by God.

Dr. James Boice: With all of his imperfections and sins, and to be loved by God anyway, it's a marvelous ending to this theological reflection. But let me ask here, what about those who don't know God as David did? How do these doctrines have bearing upon you if you're still trying to get away from him? Do you really think that you can escape the presence or the all-gazing eye of God?

Dr. James Boice: These verses, you probably know, stand behind the best known of Francis Thompson's poems, the one called the Hound of Heaven. I'm sure you've heard it read at one time or another. One of the stanzas goes like this, "I fled him down the nights and down the days. I fled him down the arches of the years. I fled him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind, and in the midst of tears, I hid from him and under running laughter."

Dr. James Boice: "Up visage hopes I sped and shot precipitated down to tannic glooms of chasmed fears from those strong feet that followed, followed after." Thompson fled from God, but he couldn't escape him because God was always following, following, following after.

Dr. James Boice: Now I ask, if you're not a Christian, how are you going to come to terms with the omniscience and omnipresence of God? Because he certainly is all of the above. If he's not omniscient and he's not omnipresent, he's not God. There is a God, that's what he's like. How are you going to deal with him? One day you're going to have to stand before him in judgment.

Dr. James Boice: And on that day, all of the things that you consider hidden, perhaps from yourself, you try awfully hard to hide them, and certainly from other people, all of those things are going to be brought out. The Bible says, nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.

Dr. James Boice: And you're going to have to give an account one day. What are you going to do on that day when all your sins will be read out? On that day, you'll be confounded, speechless, overwhelmed, as God unfolds the record of your past sinful life paragraph by paragraph and page by page. You're going to cry out for it to stop, but God will not stop until every sinful thought, every evil deed, every curse, every theft, every lie, every neglect of what you should have done is read out and justly punished.

Dr. James Boice: What you see what the Bible encourages is that you don't wait for that day. Because today is the day of salvation, and God has sent Jesus Christ as the savior to bear the just punishment for exactly those sins. And God is pursuing you. He's pursuing you now in order that you might be saved.

Dr. James Boice: And what you have to do is turn from the sin and come to him through faith in Jesus Christ, whom he has sent to be the savior. The Bible says that if you do that, if you believe on Jesus and trust him fully, you will be saved.

Dr. James Boice: Our Father, we do ask you to bless this word to our hearts. You are the one who knows our hearts. You know them better than we know ourselves. You know what we need. And where we need comfort in the assurance that you know us and love us and have saved us in Christ, we pray that you'll provide that comfort. But where we need to be confounded and rebuked and called up short because we've been running away from you. We ask that you will provide that as well so that in your grace those who somehow have deluded themselves into thinking they can escape the omniscient, omnipresent God might see the folly of their sin and repent of it and find your grace in Jesus. In whose name we pray. Amen.

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