If we are to know God at all, it is necessary that he reveal himself to us. Even when discussing the revelation of God that comes through nature, Paul says that what can be known about God is plain to people “because God has shown it to them” (Romans 1:19). The natural creation reveals God because he chose to have himself revealed in this way.
The necessity for God to reveal himself to us is seen in the fact that sinful people misinterpret the revelation about God found in nature. Those who “by their wickedness suppress the truth” are those who “become futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened…they exchanged the truth about God for a lie” (Romans 1:18, 21 & 25). Therefore, we need Scripture if we are to interpret natural revelation correctly. Hundreds of false religions in the world are evidence of the way sinful people, without guidance from Scripture, will always misunderstand and distort the revelation about God found in nature.
God is infinite and we are finite (limited), we can never fully understand God. In this sense God is said to be incomprehensible, unable to be fully understood. This sense must be clearly distinguished from the more common meaning, “unable to be understood.” It is not true to say that God us unable to be understood, but it is true to say that He cannot be understood fully or exhaustively.
Other verses support this idea: as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God’s ways higher than our ways and His thoughts than our Thoughts (Isaiah 55:9). Job says that God’s great acts in creating and sustaining the earth are “But the outskirts of His ways,” and exclaims, “how small a whisper do we hear Him! But the thunder of His power who can understand?” (Job 26:14)
We may know something about God’s love, power, wisdom, and so forth, but we can never know His love completely or exhaustively. We can never know His power exhaustively. We can never know His wisdom exhaustively, and so forth. In order to know any single thing about God exhaustively we would have to know it as he himself knows it. That is, we would have to know it in relationship to everything else about God and in its relationship to everything else about creation throughout all eternity! We can only exclaim with David, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it” (Psalms 139:6).
Even though we spend time in Bible study and fellowship with God every day of our lives, there will always be more to learn about God and His relationship to us and the world, and there will always be more that we can be thankful for and for which we can give him praise. When we realize this, the prospect of a lifelong habit of regular Bible study, and even the prospect of a lifetime of study of theology, should be a very exciting prospect to us. To study and teach God’s Word in both a formal and informal ways will always be a great privilege and joy.
Even though we cannot know God exhaustively, we can know true things about God. In fact as I wrote before,, all that Scripture tells us about God is true. It is true to say that God is love (1 John 4:8), that God is light (1 John 1:5), that God is spirit (John 4:24), that God is just or righteous (Romans 3:26), and so forth. To say this does not imply or require that we know everything about God or about His love or righteous or any other attribute.
Thus says the Lord, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; 24 but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord.
Here God says that the source of our joy and sense of importance ought to come not from our own abilities or possessions, but from the fact that we know Him! The fact that we do know God himself is further demonstrated by the realization that the richness of the Christian life includes a personal relationship with God. We have a far greater privilege than mere knowledge of facts about God. We speak to God in prayer, and He speaks to us through his Word. We commune with him in his presence, we sing his praise, and we are aware that he personally dwells among us and within us to bless us (John 14:23). This personal relationship with God the Father, with God the Son, and with God the Holy Spirit may be said to be the greatest of all the blessings of the Christian life.