5.12.2026 - Matt Hekman

May 12

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. 3 They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. 4 Yet their voice[b] goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. Psalm 19: 1-4a

We continue our study of the Incomprehensibility of God. Psalm 19 tells us that all around us there are reminders in creation of the glory of God. We can’t avoid it any more than we can avoid seeing the stars on a clear night or feeling the heat of the sun on a summer day. Even without a word, they tell of the great and glorious one who made them.

And beyond the general revelation that is the creation all around us, shouting about the creator, we have the inspired word of God in the bible. He put into words all we need to hear in order to know him. So of course we can know about God, and also know him to the degree he reveals himself to us in his creation and in his word.

One of the many theologians I’ve read in my study of systematic theology is Herman Bavinck – a Dutch theologian from the late 1800s to early 1900s. He writes:

“Can we really and truly know God? Scripture leaves us in no doubt here, not for a moment. In Scripture, therefore, the knowability of God is never an issue. The fool may say in his heart, "There is no God," but those who open their eyes perceive from all directions the witness of his existence, of his eternal power and deity (Isa. 40:26; Acts 14:17; Rom. 1:19-20). We dare speak of God for only one reason: he has revealed himself. Our knowledge of God does not arise from our own investigation and reflection, but because God on his part revealed himself to us in nature and history, in prophecy and miracle, by ordinary and by extraordinary means. The purpose of God's revelation, according to Scripture, is precisely that human beings may know God and so receive eternal life (John 20:31).” Reformed Dogmatics, Abridged p148 Bavinck

It is clear that God is great beyond measure as we consider his creation. How far away is the farthest star? Who knows? It’s farther away than the farthest star you can see. And then probably further. How big is space? We have a hard time comprehending the size of our own planet, much less our solar system, galaxy, and beyond.

Here is a fun analogy: comparing a proton to the diameter of a human hair is about the same as comparing a grain of sand to the planet Earth. The difference is about 14 to 15 orders of magnitude, or 1 with 15 zeros. Compare a proton to the known universe? ~42 orders of magnitude, that’s 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000x larger. Give or take.

Humans have a hard time comprehending more than 2 or 3 orders of magnitude. Three orders of magnitude is 1,000x. I bet most of us are even bad at comprehending that. For instance, the difference between a million and a billion is 3 orders of magnitude, just 1000x. Consider this: one million seconds is about 11.5 days. One billion seconds is 32 years! I’m guessing that difference wasn’t as vast in your mind a couple of sentences ago.

Sorry, I warned you, I’m an engineer.

All that silly math to point out that we have a hard time comprehending what amounts to relatively small differences in the grand scheme of things. We can’t remotely comprehend how tiny we are compared the rest of God’s great creation. Yet the creator of it all has willed for us to know him.

Thank God with me today that the despite our smallness, and seeming insignificance, we are truly significant to our creator. He knows each one of us, even numbering the hairs on our head, and he desires us to know him. Consider the vast incomprehensibility of God’s creation and know that the creator is immeasurably more incomprehensible. Join with creation in declaring the glory of God to the (very far) ends of the world.