In the course of this study we have been looking at God's omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence—that God knows everything, is everywhere, and is all-powerful. But we have also seen that the overriding theme, the one for which the others are mentioned, is omniscience. Is knowledge of the perfect knowledge of God important? Is it practical? If we have understood the psalm thus far, we cannot doubt it. Here is what appreciation of the omniscience of God should do for every Christian.
As we concluded yesterday's study, we noted that we can rebel against God's knowledge and pursue evil, or we can ask God to search us with the goal of our being directed in his way. By repudiating the first and embracing the second option, the psalmist articulates a personal twofold response to this teaching.
What is it that David is pointing to in the perceptive wording of this psalm? He is speaking of his unique individuality from the first moments of his existence in the womb. From that very first moment, God knew him and had ordained what his life was to be: “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (v. 16). If that is how God views the unborn child, dare we call it only tissue and destroy the unborn, as we are doing in this country at the rate of more than a million and a half babies each year?
We have already seen that David is writing with his heart as well as with his head in this psalm, and this means that he is not thinking of God's omnipotence abstractly but as it applies to him. More particularly, he is thinking of the power of God in forming him while he was still in the womb of his mother. No wonder God knows me, he says. God made me. He formed me from my very first moments, from my beginning...
When I introduced Psalm 139 in last week's study, one of the things I said about it is that it is made up of four matched stanzas in which three of God's greatest attributes are discussed, namely, his omniscience (meaning that God knows all things) omnipresence (meaning that God is everywhere and is there at all times), and omnipotence (meaning that God is supremely powerful). The fourth stanza of the psalm is a response to these attributes.
