Journal: Journal of Dispensational Theology
Volume: JODT 13:40 (Dec 2009)
Article: How Immeasurable Is God? A Vision Of The Greatness Of God In Isaiah 40:9-20 Examined
Author: Kenneth R. Cooper

JODT 13:40 (December 2009) p. 47

How Immeasurable Is God? A Vision Of The Greatness Of God In Isaiah 40:9-20 Examined

Kenneth R. Cooper, Ph.D., D.D.

Senior Editor, Tyndale Seminary Press

In his magnificent song exalting the victory of Yahweh over Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt, Moses cried, “Who is like You among the gods, O LORD? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, Awesome in praises, working wonders?” (Exod 15:11, NASB). The question is at best rhetorical, since among all the gods of the earth in all the ages of time, there is none like the God of Moses. He is incomparable! He is indescribable! He is incomprehensible! Along these lines, C. J. Labuschagne noted, “The distinctiveness of Old Testament religion can be explained solely by the distinctiveness of the God of the Old Testament.”1 However, in spite of man’s inability to comprehend God, He has revealed Himself in the pages of Scripture and in the Person of His Son. Had He not offered such a revelation, one would have no knowledge of God except scrawny images conjured in the imaginations of men. And these images invariably have resulted in the grossest forms of idolatry.

Still, in spite of all that God has done to reveal Himself, men have failed to apprehend that revelation. In the preface to The Knowledge of the Holy, for instance, A. W. Tozer wrote regarding what he called, “the loss of the concept of majesty” in the minds of men. Tozer added, “The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshiping men.”2 Tozer explained this loss as a gradual diminishing of the concept of God as the concerns of the world and its culture encroach upon the church. The affairs of life amalgamate until “With our loss of the sense of majesty has come the further loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine Presence. We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence.”3 More and more the influence of the world has overtaken believers and drawn them from the spiritual realm, as mankind in general has turned its attention to the natural world. Francis Schaeffer described the situation succinctly.

The vital principle to notice is that, as nature was made autonomous [by educated men of the past], nature began to “eat up” grace. Through the Renaissance, from the time of

JODT 13:40 (December 2009) p. 48

Dante to Michelangelo, nature became more gradually autonomous. It was set free f...