The God We Worship Is... Infinite
This is fourth in a series called The God We Worship Is…
The infinity of God is another of those attributes that has been forgotten or ignored by the modern church in an attempt to humanise Him. We often pay lip service to it, but fail to understand the theoretical and practical implications that follow from it. Much of the anaemia modern worship suffers from comes from a failure to meditate of the infinity of God.
Louis Berkhof describes God’s infinity in three ways: His absolute perfections, His eternity and His immensity. With regards His perfections, infinity ensures that we conceive of God in the way Anselm did, “Something than which nothing greater can be thought”. When looking at His attributes then, infinity controls the way we speak and think of them. He is not merely wiser nor more righteous than we are, as though He has more wisdom or righteousness than us. Rather, His wisdom and righteousness are wholly transcendent. His attributes are qualitatively, not quantitatively, greater than ours. Whatever we may think we are, God is infinitely greater.
His infinity in relation to time is called His eternity. Many people today, when thinking of God’s eternity, imagine it to be an infinite extension of His being into the past and the future. However, that would still make God bound up within time. Rather, that He is eternal points to the fact that He does not simply occupy the whole of time, but is above and outside the whole of time. If the heavens and the earth were created in the beginning (Gen 1:1), He who created the heavens and the earth must have been before the beginning. We pick this up again when looking particularly at God’s eternity. Suffice to say at this juncture that God’s infinity in relation to time refers to His timelessness.
His infinity in relation to space is called His immensity, otherwise called His omnipresence. This means that He is outside of space and unbound by any and every spatial limitation. He is simultaneously outside of time and occupies every inch of space. There is nowhere in the heavens or the earth where He is not. He is in the divine throne room where the cherubim and seraphim fear to tread, and is in the lowest depths of Hell where sinners sit under His judgment. Everywhere we turn, God is there. We must be careful not to conceive of it pantheistically, as though everything manifests Him, but that He fills every space (omnipresence) and transcends every space (immensity). Scripture tells us that no man can escape God (Psa 139:7-10). Jonah knew of this from first-hand experience – even as he fled across the sea, the winds and the waves pursued him as God commanded them (Jonah 1).
The infinity of God should make us painfully aware of our own limitations. When we contemplate deeper the majesty of God in the boundlessness of His being, we are brought to a greater realisation of how fragile and limited we are. How often have we found ourselves stretched too thin over too many things, exhausted and worn out! Yet God is not like us! His infinity assures us that He, in sustaining the cosmos, is never wrung out. Neither is He too preoccupied in maintaining creation that He cannot condescend to hear our cries. When the Psalmist called God his inheritance forever (Psa 73:26), he could say that only because of God’s infinity; only the Infinite One can be the inheritance of His people forever and ever without exhausting Himself.
And not just that He hears our prayers, but is too far to provide any comfort. Rather, God is everywhere we may be. Our prayers and worship need not be confined to any one location or time, but can be done everywhere and anywhere, as long as we approach Him in Spirit and in Truth (John 4:24). Whenever we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, He is with us, for He is not too far elevated above the darkness and tumult of our lives. He is everywhere, keeping His people safe and guiding their steps for their good and His glory.
Therefore, we must learn to cry out to Him for our strength and comfort. In the infinite God we have a Father who is neither exhausted nor distant in the giving of Himself. No matter how many times our weaknesses drive us into His arms, He stands able and near to provide grace for the day. In Him is infinite peace and love, strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.
Come and join in the worship of the infinite God.
- Psalm 73:26
