Our Wondrous God: Introduction
Our Wondrous God: Introduction.
“O the depth of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God! What a deep wealth of wisdom and knowledge He has! How incomprehensible are His decisions, how unsearchable His judgments! How undiscoverable are His paths, how mysterious His ways, beyond finding out! Who has understood the mind of Yahweh? Who knows how the LORD thinks, or what His thoughts are? Can anyone discern the LORD’s intentions, His motivations? Who knows enough to give Him advice? Is there anyone qualified to be His counselor? Who has given Him so much that He needs to pay it back? Who could ever have a claim against Him? For everything was created by Him, everything lives through Him, and everything exists for Him; So to Him must be given the glory forever! Amen!” (Romans 11:33-36, also Isaiah 40:12-14).
Father God is Wondrous:
Pili (pil-ee) is the Hebrew word most often used to mean wondrous; miraculous; unsurpassed; something so wonderful that it is beyond comprehension; remarkable, extraordinary, marvelous; so awesome it cannot be understood by humans; so amazing that it seems impossible or too difficult to accomplish; so uniquely set apart from human understanding that it is God’s secret. The two related forms of “pili” which mean the same thing are ”pala” and “pele.”
‘Too Difficult?’ Some translations of the Hebrew Bible take the word “pili” and put a negative spin on it. Instead of translating the word as wondrous, marvelous, or extraordinary, they put it as, “Is nothing ‘too difficult’ for the Lord?” Or “Is there anything ‘impossible’ for God to accomplish?” Yes, it’s obviously true that nothing is impossible for God, but why not put “pili” in a more positive, wondrous light since that’s a perfectly acceptable meaning of the word? In other words, the following passages have accurately translated “pili” to mean:
- Genesis 18:13-14 = “Then Yahweh said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh, saying ‘Shall I in truth bear a child, old as I am?’ For, is anything too wondrous for Yahweh to do?”
- Jeremiah 32:17-20 = “Ah, Lord God! You made heaven and earth with Your great might and outstretched arm. Nothing is too wondrous for You!… O great and mighty God whose name is Lord of Hosts, you make wise plans and are mighty in deed, whose eyes observe all the ways of men, so as to reward them for the way they live and for what they do. You performed miraculous signs and mighty wonders in Egypt. You brought your people from Egypt with miraculous signs and amazing wonders, with a mighty hand and a powerful arm, and with great terror on the Egyptians!”
- Jeremiah 32:27 = “Behold I am Lord Yahweh, the God of all flesh. Is anything too wondrous for me?”
- Zechariah 8:1-6 = “Thus said the Lord of Hosts: I have returned to Zion, and I will dwell in Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be called the City of Faithfulness, and the mount of the Lord of Hosts the Holy Mount… Though it will seem too wonderful in the sight of the people, so amazing as to seem impossible, shall it also be too wonderful in God’s sight?”
- Psalm 118:22-24 = “The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This the Lord’s doing; it is wondrous in our sight. This is the day that the Lord has made – let us exalt and rejoice in it!”
- Psalm 139:4-6 = “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know the whole of it. Behind me and before me, you hem me in and rest your hand of blessing upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to understand.”
Remembering the Wonder of God. God is who He is. God will be who He will be…. beyond our comprehension; the Center of creation on whom all things depend; a mystery surpassing the reach of our minds; greater than all reason and knowledge; impossible to define in His divine nature. Anything we are blessed to see of Him are the merest of hints, barely audible echoes. As Job once said, we are merely on the borders of his ways.
Both Hands. So let us lift both hands to honor and revere our ineffable God. On the one hand, it would be disobedient to refrain from keeping His Name holy. We are instructed to make sure his Name is kept sacred. We are asked to pay close attention to those qualities of His that are within our reach. But on the other hand, it is also true that we need to trust in God’s holy and mysterious namelessness, to surrender to His wonderful transcendent nature. While concentrating on God’s known particulars, we acknowledge and rest in the unknowable Whole of His Being.
Relaxed Vision. Trained wilderness trackers call this wide-angled view the “relaxed vision.” This is the perspective that is able to scan the whole field of vision. Relaxed vision sacrifices sharpened clarity on the details in order to enjoy a breadth of awareness that is able to get the big picture. In God-centered prayer, both “focused vision” on His revealed Personhood and the “relaxed vision” of His ultimate Being is vital. Sometimes words are adequate during relaxed vision, but often it seems that we can only echo Job’s words, “I am unworthy. My words have been frivolous, what can I say? I had better lay my hand over my mouth.” (Job 40:4). Whether with words or without, relaxed vision involves a child-like trust in the Big Picture of God’s Personhood. Assuming that words might be inadequate to the task, may this prayer nonetheless lead into a faithful union with the nameless and wondrous God, in whom we live and move and have our being.
I Stand Amazed | Celtic Worship ft. Steph Macleod
Jesus Messiah is Wondrous: Jesus Christ engaged in a ministry of amazement, astonishment, wonder. Everywhere He traveled, He left people astounded and in awe. He caused a big stir wherever he went, and people left in His wake were amazed at who He was and what He was able to do, whether from His unusually wise teaching, His authoritative exorcisms, His unprecedented healings, His clever and insightful conversations, His dramatic miracles. It seemed everyone marveled at Jesus, despite His best efforts sometimes to be off the radar. There are three Greek synonyms that mean complete astonishment or radical amazement: ekplesso, thaumazo, and existemi. Are those of us who follow Jesus now, are we also amazed and astonished with Jesus?
- “And the people were astonished (“ekplesso”) beyond measure, saying, ‘Everything He does is beautiful (“kalos”), and is done with excellence!” (Mark 7:37).
“ekplesso” = a strong Greek word for astonished; amazed; dumfounded; awestruck; overwhelmed at something extraordinary; struck out of one’s senses; takes your breath away, even to the point of panic. There were at least fifteen gospel events in which the Greek superlative “ekplesso” was used to communicate a radical amazement, astonishment, wonder at Jesus.
- “But Jesus severely rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the child, and then restored the boy to his father. And all were completely astounded (“ekplesso”) at the evidence of God’s mighty power, His majesty and His magnificence. While they were all marveling (“thaumazo”) at everything Jesus was doing…” (Luke 9:38-43).
“thaumazo” = another strong Greek word that means… marveled at, astonished by; amazed at; filled with wonder to the point of being bewildered; being awestruck in admiration. There were forty-four passages in the gospels in which people were greatly amazed by Jesus, astonished to the point of awed by Him.
- “Then a blind and mute man under the power of a demon was brought to Jesus and He healed him, so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw. And all the crowds of people were overwhelmed with astonishment, stunned with amazement and practically out of their minds with wonder (“existemi”), and said, ‘This cannot be the Son of David, the Messiah, can it?” ( 12:22-23).
“existemi” = an extreme word that means to be out of one’s mind with amazement; crazy with wonderment; flabbergasted; a stunned astonishment so strong that one is beside oneself; to be overwhelmed so as to be bowled over; literally, to remove from a standing position. This word is used seventeen times in the gospels.
How Marvelous (LIVE) | Austin Stone Worship – YouTube
The Holy Spirit is Wondrous: “Many non-Jewish people are coming into obedience to the Faith by the power of the Spirit of God, which is displayed through mighty signs and wonders, both in word and deed.” (Romans 15:19).
Early Christians were convinced that the Holy Spirit, the finger of God, was inseparable with Jesus when He worked miracles in His ministry. They attributed the signs and wonders to the Holy Spirit, as Paul clearly states in Romans 15:19 above. The Holy Spirit is the meeting place where God meets with God’s creatures. It is where His supernatural power touches human need by the finger of God. The miracles accomplished by the finger of God were an important part of the Christian message, and validated the legitimacy of what the apostles were asked to do after the ascension of Jesus.
“Most clearly supported in the Bible is that the finger of God indicates the working power of the Holy Spirit as He is made manifest in actions that are out of the ordinary, like casting out demons and working wonders.” (Father Raneiro Cantalamessa, Come, Holy Spirit).
Touched by the Finger of God. It’s easy to think about the Holy Spirit as like the wind or a breath, since spirit, wind and breath are the same word in Hebrew, “ruach.” God’s Spirit is often thought of as Divine Energy or Life Force as well, since He serves in that capacity in the world. But it stretches the imagination a bit to think of the Holy Spirit as the finger of God’s right hand. A finger is tactile, an actual physical object that we can imagine. The wind, breath and energy, though, are formless, without shape. We can hold onto a finger, but of course we can’t grasp the wind or a breath. To feel the wind in our hair or a breath on our face is a completely different experience than being tangibly touched by a finger. But as we will see, we can be inspired by, or literally inspirited by, the finger of God as well as a divine wind or life force. Don’t we all have a desire to be “touched” by the Spirit?
“Signs and wonders are not all that the power of the Holy Spirit can achieve. They are simply the high notes in a song whose melody continues lower notes too. They are lights that surprise us in order to show us what sort of energy is at work in a quieter way everywhere in our everyday life.” (R. Cantalamessa).
Finally, this is the wonderful truth… All three Persons of the Trinity are wondrous; miraculous; unsurpassed; someone so wonderful that it is beyond comprehension; remarkable, extraordinary, marvelous; so awesome it cannot be completely understood by humans; so amazing that it seems impossible or too difficult to accomplish; so uniquely set apart from human understanding that it is God’s secret.