God is Transcendent

What is God like? That is the question we have been asking ourselves in this study on the attributes of God. Transcendent means God is wholly independent and beyond all physical laws. God is exalted and far exceeds both the universe and human knowledge. God is incomprehensible and incomparable. He cannot be fully known. He is also above all in magnitude, spirit, being, nature, character, and every quality and aspect of life.

If God transcends all things, then all of His attributes are transcendent like His love, power, sovereignty, holiness, beauty, glory, knowledge and wisdom. Since He is infinite and eternal, His transcendence was, is, and will always be in surpassing abundance forever. He has no equal. There is no comparison. He is not like anything or anybody the human mind can ever imagine. 

God cannot be fully grasped, seen, or attained.He will always supersed our highest thoughts of Him. He is truly mysterious. He is deeper, wider, longer, fuller, richer, and beyond greater.

In Job, “How great is God—beyond our understanding! The number of His years is past finding out,” “The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power.” [Ps 97:9] “For you, Lord, are the Most High over all the earth; You are exalted far above all gods.” [Ps 150:2b] “Praise Him for His surpassing greatness.”[Is 55:8] “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

God is totally outside and not confined in any way to the world. He is Creator and we are creatures. In Rom 1, “For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” God intentionally built into creation some of His attributes so everyone would know that He exists and is real. But God isn’t nature or in nature. He transcends nature. He is like no other. 

Throughout history, man fashioned their gods based on their own moral beliefs. Nations created what they thought God was like and built whole societies around that view. We have to be careful that we don’t do the same today. We can create an imagine of who we think God is and build our lives around that image. In the first two commandments God says we are to have no other gods before Him. And we should not make for ourselves an idol in the form of anything. Because God has no visible form, any idol intended to resemble Him would be a sinful misrepresentation of Him. Idolatry, whether a physical or mental idol, defames God’s character and assumes that God is other than He is. It is a substitute for the one true God.

Jesus is an exact representation of God.  Jesus said, if you have seen me, then you have seen the Father. [Matt 11:27] “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.” Jesus came not only to redeem us but to reveal the Father through the way He lived in perfect obedience, His non-condemning interactions with people, the authority of His teachings, His supernatural miracles, and His resurrection power from the dead.  

Jesus also has transcendent qualities. Eph 3 says the love of Christ surpasses knowledge. It is not unknowable, but so great that it cannot be completely known. Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” It says in Phil 4:6-7 “The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” God’s love and care are beyond human comprehension.

This transcendent, incomprehensible, incomparable God asks us to seek His face even though we can never fully know. He promises that those who seek Him will find Him. The knowledge of Him is so precious that you'll want His thoughts and His ways to become your thoughts and your ways.

Transcript

Intro to Attribute

Transcendence is the aspect of God’s nature and power that is wholly independent of the material universe, beyond all known physical laws. Thus, God is exalted far above both the universe and human knowledge. Basically, as we discuss this attribute, we have to also say that God is incomprehensible and incomparable. He is not like anything or anybody the human mind can even ever imagine. 

He is above and beyond the earthly things that we know of. God describes Himself as the High and Lofty One but that is only for our benefit to understand Him. It is not about Him being physically above the earth in space or beyond the universe if we can even grasp that; but, He is above all in magnitude, spirit, being, nature, character, and every quality and aspect of life.

If God transcends all things, then it reasons that all of His attributes are transcendent. This includes His love, power, sovereignty, holiness, beauty, glory, knowledge and wisdom. Since He is infinite and eternal, His transcendence was, is, and will always be in surpassing abundance forever. He has no equal. As a matter of fact, the distance between Him and any other supposed god is infinite. There is no comparison.

God cannot be fully grasped, He cannot be fully seen, He cannot be fully attained, and He cannot be fully known. We would feel more secure if God could be reduced down to a picture of something more understandable and manageable; but He should actually be exalted higher than higher. He will always supersed our highest thoughts of Him. He is truly mysterious. He is deeper, wider, longer, fuller, richer, and beyond greater.

So, what is God like? That is the question we have been asking ourselves in this study on the attributes of God.  God knows He is incomprehensible and unknowable to us, so He reveals Himself in a way that we can understand. He doesn’t have to reveal anything of Himself. But when He chooses to reveal something of Himself, or His ways, or His divine attributes, it can be an act of love like experiencing His mercy and grace; or it can be a warning statement about His justice and power. Let’s explore some of the ways He has revealed certain truths about Himself through the word, creation, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.  

I.        How does God reveal Himself as Transcendent through the Word

Since the word transcend or transcendent was used only once in the NIV bible version, I looked up other words like beyond, surpass, and far above to describe this attribute of God in scripture.

In Job it says, [Job 36:26] “How great is God—beyond our understanding! The number of His years is past finding out.” [Job 37:5] “God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; He does great things beyond our understanding.” And [Job 37:23a] “The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power.”

[Ps 97:9] “For you, Lord, are the Most High over all the earth; You are exalted far above all gods.”

[Ps 150:2] “Praise Him for His acts of power; praise Him for His surpassing greatness.”

[II Cor 3:10] “For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory.”

[II Cor 9:14] “And in their prayers, their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you.”

[I Tim 6:16] God, “who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.”

[Is 55:8] “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

David says in Ps 8:3-4, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”

This verse touches on the fact that God so transcends us, so superior, so above and beyond, that we are mere dots on the planet. Have you ever thought, while you are up in an airplane, about all the hundreds of thousands of people below you and how small and insignificant they seem from your position overhead? The contrast between God and us is great. Yet God knows each person so intimately and personally, counting even the number of hairs on each head, and He wants a deep personal relationship with them all. He knows exactly what is in their hearts, their hurts and their joys. This transcendent God gives breath to each person, He created them all uniquely, each person has high value to Him, and He gives purpose to each life. 

II.      How does God reveal Himself as Transcendent through Creation

In our world, with our limited understanding, we tend to define things like time, matter, and space in tangible and measurable terms because that is all we know and are familiar with. If we try to do this with God though it always comes up short. He transcends all visible things. He doesn’t fit into a box where you can define Him in earthly terms. He is like no other. It is inadequate to say He is the highest being of some kind of categorical order starting with the smallest particle like an atom and then building your way up from plants, to animal, to man, to angel, and then to God. That is like listing God as a part of the created world which He is not. He is totally outside and not confined in any way to the world. He is Creator and we are creatures. As Creator though, He is completely involved in all things. Without Him nothing works in creation. He didn’t just start the world and then leave it alone to fend for itself. He runs and rules over all.

The bible uses the word spirit to define the nature of God, it says God is spirit. Spirit is supernatural and is not easily described in the natural. Spirit is beyond understanding and cannot be quantified. Jesus used creation to illustrate this point. [John 3:8] “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So, it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” It takes faith to believe in the supernatural, in what we cannot touch or see or understand. But although faith is a huge part of the equation when it comes to believing in an invisible transcendent God, God gives us an incredible amount of substance and facts to reinforce our faith. It isn’t a blind faith.

[Rom 1:19-20] “Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” God has intentionally built into and displays in creation some of His qualities and attributes so everyone would know that He exists and is real. But God isn’t nature or in nature. It is an extreme injustice to describe Him only through nature. 

Throughout history, physical idols and imagery have been created by man to explain their gods. They seem to believe that a god of some type exists. But they use their own vain imaginations based on what they saw around them and formed an image or idol to worship. Some idols looked like animals or combinations of man and beast. Man will fashion their gods based on their own moral beliefs. To me, Greek and Roman gods were fashioned like our comic book super heroes, with supernatural powers, human characteristics, and flaws. Groups of people and nations created what they thought God was like and built whole societies around that view. We have to be careful that we don’t do the same today. We can create an imagine of who we think God is and build our lives around that image.

God clearly states in the first two of the ten commandments that we are to have no other gods before Him. And we should not make for ourselves an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. My NIV commentary says, “because God has no visible form, any idol intended to resemble Him would be a sinful misrepresentation of Him.” Tozer says, “The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him.” Idolatry, whether a physical idol or a mental idol, defames God’s character and assumes that God is other than He is. It is a substitute for the one true God. An idol of the mind is as offensive as an idol made of wood or stone.

Let’s see what God is like through creation from various bible stories. Adam and Eve heard the sound of the Lord God as He was walking in the garden [Gen3:8]. The Lord came to Moses in a pillar of cloud whenever he was in the tent of meeting [Ex 33:10]. When Moses asked to see God’s glory, God said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” Moses was able to see His back but not His face [Ex 33:20,23]. Isaiah in his vision, he saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple [Is 6:1]. Daniel said the voice of His words were like the voice of a multitude. In Revelation, John says the one seated on the throne in heaven had the appearance of jasper and carnelian (which is a brownish-red semi-precious gem stone) [Rev 4:3]. “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light.” This is an uncreated light emanating from God.

When the prophets and apostles where brought up to heaven, they would use earthly examples to try and describe unfamiliar things in their visions that there were no words or language for. Their descriptions were an attempt to explain what they saw and prove the existence of something beyond our knowledge. Paul said when he was caught up in the third heaven that He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell. In these visions, we get a peek into the unknown and unseen. From there we take what we have been told from God’s infallible word and we believe and exercise our faith in all the rest that is untold. All this to say that our faith in God and the heavenly realm cannot be said to be baseless, it has a solid foundation.

III.    How does God reveal Himself as Transcendent through Jesus

Jesus is an exact representation of God.  Jesus said, if you have seen me, then you have seen the Father. [Matt 11:27] “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.” Jesus came not only to redeem us but to reveal the Father to us. The Father sent His Son to disclose Himself. Showing us His love, holiness, mercy, grace, power, knowledge, and gentleness. All this and more were displayed through the way Jesus lived His life in perfect obedience, His non-condemning interactions with people, the authority of His teachings, His supernatural miracles, and His resurrection from the dead.  

Jesus also has transcendent qualities. [Eph 3:18-19] says the love of Christ surpasses knowledge. NIV commentary says it is not unknowable, but so great that it cannot be completely known. [Phil 3:8] “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ.” Coming into personal knowledge of transcendent Jesus brings about transformation, because you are putting your faith in someone who is greater than the world. If you need help or answers, go to Jesus.

Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” This is a peace that transcends the world and cannot be found in the world. It also says in [Phil 4:6-7] “The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” NIV commentary says that the full dimensions of God’s love and care are beyond human comprehension. If you want true love and true peace in your life, you can only find it in God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. We as humans cannot generate these intangible things, it comes from a supernatural and higher source.

Jesus said in John 16, all that belongs to the Father is mine and that the Spirit of Truth would take from what is Jesus’ and make it known to us. [I Cor 2:9-10] states that, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him—but God has revealed it to us by His Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.” The things of God are spiritually discerned. God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit wish for us to know Him. 

IV.   How does God reveal Himself as Transcendent in our Heart

Remember, here is this transcendent, incomprehensible, incomparable God who asks us to seek His face even though we can never fully know Him as He is. He promises though that those who seek Him will find Him.  I believe the more you desire and seek to know Him, the more you will know of His character. It should not be just head knowledge but an experiential and personal knowing in your heart of Him which is again life transforming. You’ll find that the knowledge of Him is so precious that you want His thoughts and His ways to become your thoughts and your ways.

When the men of the bible came into the presence of God, there was a healthy terror, awe, and a sense of dread due to their undeniable sinful condition. And after their encounter, they had a clearer understanding of the Almighty and who He is and it energized their lives to boldly proclaim that all should bow before this transcendent God and to walk in obedience to all His commandments. They felt that fear and wonder from being in heaven with God and then they walked out their fear of God in confident faith on earth. And that is what we should do as well. We need to get to know God as He is and live because we know who He is.

When we try to fit God into a description that we completely understand; then you lose your sense of wonder in who He really is. When you have a low and calculable view of God and not one where He transcends all, you will not worship Him as worthy and adoringly. You will not be in awe of Him and with a sense of His majesty and glory. You won’t humble yourself to His holiness and divine presence. There will be no inward desire to be reverent of His power and magnitude. The danger in bringing God down to knowable terms, then you will never have Him be a God that disapproves of anything you do. If you don’t fear God, you won’t fear His consequences, and you will freely sin and disobey His commandments without hesitation. 

[II Cor 10:5] “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” We need to seek to know Him rightly so we can praise Him worthily and only think about what would be pleasing to Him.

Tozer says, “Without doubt, the mightiest thought the mind can entertain is the thought of God, and the weightiest word in any language is its word for God. Thought and speech are God’s gifts to creatures made in His image; these are intimately associated with Him and impossible apart from Him.”

Living a Radical Life for Jesus means believing that God is Transcendent.