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When the sovereign God seems to be surprised, part 1

Theologians speak of the omniscient God who knows everything from the beginning to the end. This characteristic is built into the mind of God and part of what makes God God. There is no knowledge that He does not know, no future that is uncertain, and there is nothing that He cannot do. Luke 1:37 says, “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

This is implied in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God [alef-tav] created the heavens and the earth.” The Hebrew letters, alef and tav remain untranslated in most English Bibles, yet these letters are in the text itself. These are the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet and serve as the Greek equivalent of alpha and omega in Revelation 22:13, where Jesus claims:

¹³ I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

In other words, Jesus Christ was the Creator, the God alef-tav, at the beginning. John expounded upon this in John 1:1-3,

¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

Yet He is also the Tav, or Omega, the “end” of all things. The alphabet of history ends with Him. When all things that came into being at the beginning reach their final end, they bump into Jesus. The implication is that the original purpose for creation will be fulfilled in the end, in spite of the wild ride of history.

Paul puts it another way in Romans 11:36, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.” All things come from (or out of) Him; all of these are sustained through Him; and all things ultimately return to Him at the restoration of all things.

Existence and Historical Manifestation

Paul wrote in Romans 4:17 (NASB) that God “calls into being that which does not exist.” In other words, existence itself originates in the spoken word of God. This is what happened at the time of creation, but it took time (history) for these things to manifest in the divine order “through Him.”

For example, you were brought into existence at the beginning, but you were not manifested in the earth until you were conceived by your parents. What were you doing in the interim? I do not know, but it is an interesting question. This “interim” implies that time exists in the heavens, when in fact pre-existent beings are not bound by time until they are manifested in the earth. Our manifestation subjects us to both time and space.

Hence, we ought not to use time-words when speaking of heavenly things, for with God all time is one. He views history as a single event, and for this reason, He knows ahead of time all that has ever transpired and all that will ever transpire. Nothing, then, can take Him by surprise.

God Limits Himself

But here is where we find something that appears to be contradictory. God often conceals His sovereignty and omniscience by relating to us more as a man than as God. Because nothing is impossible with God, He is able to enter into our own earthly experience and relates to us as if He were limited by earthly factors.

The ultimate example of this is seen in Jesus Christ Himself, who divested Himself of His glory in heaven and “emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant and being made in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself” (Philippians 2:7, 8). Christ, the great Alef-Tav, gave up His life of privilege for a season and submitted to time and space by being born in the earthly realm.

Yet this is not our only example. We find numerous examples in Scripture where He did this, and many times He spoke from this lower position as if His sovereignty were limited. The Self-existent One manifests Himself on earth in many ways just because nothing is impossible for Him to do.

We read in Genesis 6:5, 6, 7,

⁵ Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ⁶ The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. ⁷ The Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.”

How is it that God can apologize, as if He had made a great mistake? Can God make mistakes? No, it was not a mistake from His position as the Alef-Tav. Yet from His self-imposed limitation when manifesting His character and plan to men (in this case, to Noah or Moses), He apologized, regretting that He had created all things.

God created all things out of Himself, as Paul says. All things were made of God particles, the smallest particles from which matter is derived. Today these are named Higgs-boson particles.

“The Higgs boson is the fundamental force-carrying particle of the Higgs field, which is responsible for granting other particles their mass. This field was first proposed in the mid-sixties by Peter Higgs  —  for whom the particle is named and his colleagues.

“The particle was finally discovered on July 4, 2012, by researchers at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) — the most powerful particle accelerator in the world — located at the European particle physics laboratory CERN, Switzerland.”

https://www.space.com/higgs-boson-god-particle-explained

In other words, God did not create all things out of nothing (“ex-nihilo”). He created all things out of Himself. Furthermore, Paul tells us that all things are also “through Him.” The meaning of this remains undefined, but we can safely say that it refers to the interim between the beginning and the end. God is still personally involved with His creation throughout history.

This history includes Adam’s sin and all of its consequences throughout history. Did Adam’s sin catch God Alef-Tav by surprise? God forbid! Was He taken by surprise in the days of Noah, when “He saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth”? Surely not. He foreknew all of the chaos resulting from Adam’s sin. The existence of sin was part of the divine plan that was spoken from the beginning, or else how could all things go through Him? Was sin an exception?

At this point, it is helpful to understand the difference between God’s will (thelema) and God’s plan (boulema). God’s will is set forth in His law, as we read in Romans 2:18,

¹⁸ and know His will [thelema] and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law.

We are instructed to do the will of God. In other words, do not steal, do not worship false gods, do not covet, etc. However, when Paul spoke of God in His sovereign role as Alef-Tav, he said in Romans 9:16-19,

¹⁶ So then it does not depend on the man who wills [thelo] or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. ¹⁷ For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” ¹⁸ So then He has mercy on whom He desires [thelo, “wills”], and He hardens whom He desires [“wills”]. ¹⁹ You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will [boulema, “plan”]

The will (thelema) of God to Pharaoh was, “Let My people go” (Exodus 5:1). Yet the plan (boulema) of God was to harden Pharaoh’s heart until 10 plagues had been sent. The will seemed to be contrary to the plan, but the difference was time. God’s will was indeed fulfilled, but the plan delayed it to the appointed time (Passover).

The plan was something that was established by God Alef-Tav at creation. The will of God has always been subordinate to His plan. When God speaks on an earthly level, He often reveals His will without telling us of the plan. But this is not always the case. God told Moses ahead of time that He was going to harden Pharaoh’s heart (Exodus 4:21) to delay the Exodus.

Most of the people were told the will of God, but God revealed His plan to Moses. If we want to be “in the know,” as Moses was, we must understand the difference between thelema and boulema. His will eventually will be done, but only after time-delays that were established at the beginning when the great Alef-Tav created time.