What does God like to keep ambiguous?
Job 11:7“Can you solve the mysteries of God? Can you discover everything about the Almighty?”
Job 26:14“These are just the beginning of all that he does, merely a whisper of his power. Who, then, can comprehend the thunder of his power?”
Job 36:22-33“Look, God is all-powerful. Who is a teacher like him? No one can tell him what to do, or say to him, ‘You have done wrong.’ Instead, glorify his mighty works, singing songs of praise. Everyone has seen these things, though only from a distance. Look, God is greater than we can understand. His years cannot be counted. He draws up the water vapor and then distills it into rain. The rain pours down from the clouds, and everyone benefits. Who can understand the spreading of the clouds and the thunder that rolls forth from heaven? See how he spreads the lightning around him and how it lights up the depths of the sea. By these mighty acts he nourishes the people, giving them food in abundance. He fills his hands with lightning bolts and hurls each at its target. The thunder announces his presence; the storm announces his indignant anger.”
Job 37:5“God’s voice is glorious in the thunder. We can’t even imagine the greatness of his power.”
Job 38:4-5“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much. Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line?”
Job 38:33“Do you know the laws of the universe? Can you use them to regulate the earth?”
Psalm 147:5How great is our Lord! His power is absolute! His understanding is beyond comprehension!
Ecclesiastes 3:11Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.
Ecclesiastes 11:5Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things.
Isaiah 40:13Who is able to advise the Spirit of the Lord? Who knows enough to give him advice or teach him?
Isaiah 45:15Truly, O God of Israel, our Savior, you work in mysterious ways.
Isaiah 55:8-9“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
Romans 11:33-36Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! For who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice? And who has given him so much that he needs to pay it back? For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever!
God’s character is not ambiguous as in uncertain, but he is an enigma. He is inexplicable in his creation, his work, his power, his ways, and his understanding. As finite beings, we are not able to understand the infinite. For example, we are limited by time and space—God is not. Would we want a God absent of mystery, one we could fully comprehend? Then we would be his equal, and he wouldn’t be God. To fully understand God and his ways is impossible for us.
Matthew 11:27“My Father has entrusted everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
Matthew 13:35This fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet: “I will speak to you in parables. I will explain things hidden since the creation of the world.”
Luke 8:10He replied, “You are permitted to understand the secrets of the Kingdom of God. But I use parables to teach the others so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled: ‘When they look, they won’t really see. When they hear, they won’t understand.’”
Luke 10:21At that same time Jesus was filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit, and he said, “O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding these things from those who think themselves wise and clever, and for revealing them to the childlike. Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way.”
1 Corinthians 1:27-28Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.
James 2:5Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters. Hasn’t God chosen the poor in this world to be rich in faith? Aren’t they the ones who will inherit the Kingdom he promised to those who love him?
God chose his Son to reveal himself to the world. But some of his teaching reveals hidden meanings only to those who truly want to hear and understand. Jesus often chose ambiguity in the world’s eyes to speak clarity to his followers’ hearts.
