There are times in the Bible
When seeming contradictions appear
And God’s use of humanlike terms
Is troublingly unclear.
Genesis 6:6
Before He had flooded the earth
God repented he had created man
And again, when He made Saul king
As the reign of Israel’s kings began.
Genesis 18:21
One time he said he’d go down
To see if something had actually happened
Couldn’t He tell from where He was
What was happening in Sodom?
He told Abraham, “Now I know,”
As though he didn’t know before,
And you’d recall the case with Hezekiah
Where he lived fifteen years more.
God had said he would die
But seemingly changed His mind
When Hezekiah pleaded his case
And God gave him more time.
Numbers 23:19
But God cannot change His mind
The Bible stoutly affirms,
He is not a man and cannot lie
As we note in human terms.
So, what do we make of these cases
Where he speaks in humanlike terms?
He is speaking anthropomorphically;
That’s a huge word to learn.
Speaking as a human speaks:
That is all that this term means
And it makes for a clearer understanding
As we view these panoramic scenes.
Isaiah 46:10
God knew he would flood the world
Before He had created man
And this flood was an historic event
Even before time began.
That which was unfolding in time
God already had seen,
He declares the end from the beginning;
The entire timeline is “has been”.
1st Samuel 8:10-18
He had explicitly told Samuel
What a human king would do
But the Israelites demanded a king
That they could physical view.
Not long after this revelation
Saul repeatedly played the fool,
All of Israel’s kings and most of Judah’s
Were used as the devil’s tools.
Genesis 22:12
God knew Abraham’s faithfulness,
He knew exactly what he would do
But hindsight is where we are at;
It’s from that vantage point we view.
Abraham’s witness was for us
God had known it all along,
To treat God’s “Now I know” as humanlike
Is most definitely wrong.
Isaiah 38:5
God knew when Hezekiah would die
But Isaiah was sent with a word,
God knew how Hezekiah would respond
So, his time was not really deferred.
Isaiah saw the action in real time
God had seen it long before,
Ignorance is not one of God’s traits
He knew Hezekiah had fifteen years more.
Speaking anthropomorphically
Does not relegate God to man,
Instead, it raises the level of man’s thinking
And helps him to better understand…
The purpose for God’s intervention
In the affairs of human society
Through the panoramic plan that unfolded
To make us His eternally.
Genesis 3:15
To this end, each and every scene
Pointed to the suffering of the Christ,
Neither the good, the bad nor the indifferent
Could prevent this sacrifice.
It is finished, three victorious words
Resonated across Jerusalem,
The Word incarnate had come in human flesh
To make the whosoever God’s children.
Repent! There’s that word again
But totally different from God’s usage,
Calling the penitent to turn from their sin
And heed the Gospel message.
Numbers 23:19
God is not a man, that he should lie;
Nor the son of man, that he should repent:
Hath he not said, and shall he not do it?
Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
The next time you encounter a scripture
Like those of the foregoing,
Just remember that God, the Father is:
Omnipresent, omnipotent and all-knowing.
Stewart Russell © June 2020
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