I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies:
For all my ways are before thee (Psa 119.168).
The doctrine of God’s omniscience is a fundamental element of our orthodox Christian faith with the most practical implications for our godly Christian conduct. In the simplest way, David confesses his faith and shows its outworking in his life. This illustrates the truth that doctrine matters.
Speaking to the Lord, David says, “All my ways are before thee.” Here he uses anthropomorphic language, speaking of God as if he were a man. The original language has a literal sense like this, “All my ways are in your plain view, right in front of you.” Of course a human being has eyes in the front of his head, not the back, so that to say something is right in front of us amounts to saying we behold it and therefore have knowledge of it. If we say of someone, “She has eyes in the back of her head,” we mean that she has an uncanny awareness of what is happening around her even when she is not looking.
With the full support of Scripture, our confession says that God is “a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions.”1 God is not a human being composed of both spirit and body in unity. God does not have a physical head, or physical eyes. Yet David’s metaphorical language is absolutely true as conveying God’s omniscience, that attribute which is simply infinite knowledge. The apostle John wrote of the same divine trait when he reported seeing “a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth” (Rev 5.6). The Lord Jesus Christ is the all-knowing King perfectly able to exercise his reign over the whole world in both salvation and judgment at his pleasure. In The Attributes of God, A. W. Pink wrote,
God is omniscient. He knows everything: everything possible, everything actual and all creatures, of the past, the present, and the future. He is perfectly acquainted with every detail in the life of every being in heaven, in earth, and in hell. “He knoweth what is in the darkness” (Dan 2.22). Nothing escapes his notice, nothing can be hidden from him, nothing is forgotten by him. Well may we say with the Psalmist, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it” (Psa 139.6). His knowledge is perfect.2
If we really believe that, as David did, and keep it in mind from day to day, by grace it will become a great help to a life of spiritual and ethical integrity.
David shows that he meditated much upon this far-reaching reality of God’s comprehensive knowledge. He thought about how it was relevant to him personally, writing, “all my ways are before thee.” This is more than an affirmation of orthodox belief; it shows us David realized that everything about himself was under God’s all-seeing eye. The same godly man wrote, “O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether” (Psa 139.1-4).
I seem to recall reading somewhere in classic literature3 that when the primary character was about to commit a heinous crime, he hesitated because a cat was there watching him. A cat! And yet God beholds the conduct of all people everywhere, noting each detail for our accountability on Judgment Day, when he will reward each person according to their works (Prov 15.3; 5.21; Job 34.21-22; Jer 32.18-19; Eccl 12.13-14; Jer 17.10; 1 Kgs 8.32; Psa 62.12; Matt 16.27; John 5.29; Rom 2.6-10; 2 Cor 5.10; Rev 2.23; 20.11-15; 22.12).
Now the omniscience of God is, with good reason, a terror to an unrighteous man, for daily, “after [his] hardness and impenitent heart, [he] treasurest up unto [himself] wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (Rom 2.5). And yet David, a truly righteous man, testifies with pleasure in this verse from Psalm 119 of God’s omniscience, and links it with his obedience to God.
This was David’s candid testimony in God’s hearing: “I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies.” Though unusual in Psalm 119, David uses two words designating Scripture, and this suggests that he meant to describe a full and comprehensive regard to the whole counsel of God in Scripture. He was not claiming sinlessness but integrity. David’s life as a whole was a clear and undeniable proof of his fear of God and faith in Scripture. Many years later when David had gone to his eternal rest, the Lord himself would testify to others about this.
Thou [wicked King Jeroboam] hast not been as my servant David, who kept my commandments, and who followed me with all his heart, to do that only which was right in mine eyes (1 Kgs 14.8).
The connection of David’s obedience with his habitual awareness of God’s omniscience is evident from the word “for.” “I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies: for [because] all my ways are before thee.” Paraphrased, “I have followed your guiding principles and your written instructions, because my whole life is in front of you.”4
So although God knows a wicked man’s sins no less than a righteous man’s service, why do they behave so differently? Consider three reasons.
A RIGHTEOUS MAN MEDITATES UPON GOD’S OMNISCIENCE
A godless man suppresses whatever awareness he has of God’s real existence and unlimited awareness of his creation. Paul says of the heathen, “they did not like to retain God in their knowledge” (Rom 1.28), and that they “hold [suppress] the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom 1.18). John wrote that “this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved” (John 3.19-20). Isaiah proclaimed:
Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us? (Isa 29.15)
Deep down, the workers of iniquity try to convince themselves that they can ultimately get away with their crimes; they are self-deceivers with respect to “payday someday” (Dr. R. G. Lee).
David, on the other hand, was fond of dwelling upon God and his excellence in all respects, including his perfect knowledge. It was a comfort for David to remember that God’s eye was always upon him, and that he was always in God’s thoughts, because David believed God’s promises of salvation to those who trust in him. As the poet put it,
Why should I feel discouraged, / Why should the shadows come, / Why should my heart be lonely / And long for Heav’n and home, / When Jesus is my portion? / My constant Friend is He: / His eye is on the sparrow, / And I know He watches me.5
A RIGHTEOUS MAN DELIGHTS IN GOD’S OMNISCIENCE
As a man of faith trusts the Lord and does his commandments, it is a pleasure to remember that God sees him. No truly good deed, flowing from a heart jealous for God’s glory, shall finally go unrewarded. The NT assures believers that
God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister (Heb 6.10).
The certainty that God is paying attention to our consecrated lives and will honor us on Judgment Day with his commendation is no small part of a godly person’s motivation to persevere in Christian service. To strengthen this hope, Jesus said, “For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward” (Mark 9.41).
A RIGHTEOUS MAN REGARDS GOD’S OMNISCIENCE
Finally, true Christian believers, conscious of their loving heavenly Father’s constant and interested gaze upon them, are loathe, because of their renewed nature with its zeal to please him, to do anything which would grieve him, or to turn from it earnestly and quickly when they realize they have sinned. In an exhortation he knew would make an impression on his Christian readers, Paul wrote, “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption” (Eph 4.30).
If a wife’s love for her husband will restrain her from displeasing him, and a child’s love will help him behave well, how much more will a Christian’s love for the Lord, coupled with certainty that God sees and knows, strengthen that saint in the secret place to pray with all his heart and resist any temptation to do that which God hates, and which will provoke painful discipline from a loving Father?
If your belief in God’s omniscience operates upon your heart to induce sincere obedience to him, you can be assured of his loving interest in you and commitment in the gospel to save you at last. Amen.
Notes:
1 1689 LBCF II.1.
2 P. 17.
3 Perhaps in the writings of Edgar Allan Poe.
4 GOD’S WORD Translation.
5 Civilla D. Martin, 1869–1948.