Audio Transcript
Why doesn’t God know what’s in my heart? That’s the question today, Pastor John, because there’s a trio of texts in the Old Testament that seem to raise this very question. In Deuteronomy 8:2, Moses writes that God led the Israelites through the wilderness to “humble . . . [and test] you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments.” Likewise, Deuteronomy 13:3 says that God is “testing you, to know whether you love [him] with all your heart and with all your soul.” Also perplexing, 2 Chronicles 32:31 says God left Hezekiah to be tested “to know all that was in his heart.” These three texts, and others, seem to present a fundamental contradiction. How can an omniscient God who knows everything need to “test” in order to “find out” what’s in someone’s heart? Doesn’t he already know what’s inside us to begin with?
The Dilemma
So:
- 2 Chronicles 32:31: God tested Hezekiah to know all that was in his heart.
- Deuteronomy 8:2: God tested Israel in the wilderness to know what was in their hearts.
- Deuteronomy 13:3: God granted a false prophet to succeed in foretelling the future, to know whether Israel loved the Lord their God.
- Judges 3:4: God left some pagan nations in the promised land of Israel to know whether Israel would obey.
In other words, God tested them in all these situations to bring words and behaviors out of their hearts that God could see and know in actual lived-out reality.
And the question is this: How do those passages fit together with these?
- 1 Chronicles 28:9: “The Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought.”
- 1 Kings 8:39: “Render to each [O Lord] whose heart you know, according to all his ways (for you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind).”
- Jeremiah 17:10: “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways.”
- John 2:25: “[Jesus] needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.”
- Acts 1:24: “They prayed and said, ‘You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen [to be Judas’s replacement].’”
In fact, in John 13:19, Jesus makes clear that his ability to see what is in Judas’s heart, and to know what he would do in betraying Jesus before he did it, was an evidence of his divinity. This is a big deal — foreknowledge is a big deal; it’s not marginal. This is part of what makes God God. Jesus says, “I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am” (John 13:19). That’s a reference, I believe, to that Old Testament divine name, “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14). “I am showing you right now, by my sight into Judas’s heart and mind before he does it, that I am God.”
“God wants to see the lived-out reality of what he knows is in us.”
This question about all these passages and how they fit together is important, not only because we want to see the consistency of biblical truth, but also because there are some theologians who have constructed an entire theology around the claim that God cannot know with certainty what the human heart will decide at any given future moment. Yes, that’s true; there are theologians who teach whole systems like that.
One of the names given to this theology is open theism, implying that the future is open to the mind of God — meaning, he does not know with exhaustive certainty what is going to happen either this afternoon or a hundred years from now. This is a profoundly different view (and I believe, a destructive view) from the view the Christian church has held for two thousand years. So, the question is important, both to see the consistency of Scripture and to protect the church from this kind of serious error.
Ways of Knowing
I think the solution to this apparent contradiction lies in the fact that we often speak of knowing something in more than one way. A wife may say that she knows her husband loves her — then, when he outwardly and practically expresses that love and does some amazing sacrificial thing for her, she may say, “Now I know your love in a whole new way.”
There are different kinds of knowing. The Bible uses the word know for sexual intercourse (“Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived,” Genesis 4:1) and for choosing and approving (“You only have I known of all the families of the earth,” Amos 3:2), and so on. It’s not surprising that God intends to know his people in more than one way.
Here’s a biblical illustration of Jesus putting Peter to the test about what’s in his heart when he actually knows what’s in his heart.
Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” (John 21:15–17)
Now, there is no reason to think that Peter was mistaken when he said that Jesus knew what was in his heart before he expressed it or acted on it. Jesus did not correct him when he said, “You know everything” (verse 17), which means there is a kind of knowing that Jesus and God have of what is in us and what will produce words and actions — and, similar to the wife who sees the love of her husband in action, God too delights to know the actualizing of what he knows is in us.
What God Wants to Know
So, he knows it’s in us, and he intends to know it another way — namely, in actualization. God wants to see the lived-out reality of what he knows is in us. There are two different kinds of knowing, and he tests us to bring out the second kind of knowing.
Here is one more pointer of God’s different kinds of knowing. Psalm 1:6 says, “The Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” So, there’s a kind of knowledge that God has of the path of the righteous that he does not have of the path of the wicked. “The Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” This is the knowledge of approval, the knowledge of delight, of choice, of embrace.
So, if the Bible can portray God as not knowing the way of the wicked (which stands right there in front of him, not in their heart; it’s their way), then we shouldn’t be surprised that the Bible can also portray God as not knowing what is in man’s heart — not at all meaning he’s unaware of it, but that it hasn’t yet been actualized into the practical path of action that God knows differently from when it’s only in man’s heart.
