How great is our God? The short answer – He is infinite. He is infinitely greater than anything we could hope to imagine. Even His basic nature of having no beginning and no ending (Psalm 90:2) is something we mere mortals just can’t get our minds around. Want a simpler example? I challenge you to try to imagine a new color that is not a mixture of any known colors you have seen before. Impossible, right? Yet, with the very phrase “Let there be light!” (Genesis 1:3), God invented every color there is and every form and mixture they might ever take. Truly, a high and Christian view of God requires an understanding that He is infinite. He cannot be contained, and He has no limits, save those He might place upon Himself (Titus 1:2, Malachi 3:6, etc.). To believe less, one might as well be worshiping one of the pagan gods of old, but the temptation remains for we mere finite mortals to try to force our infinite God into a box of our own understanding. And yet it requires only a look to the night sky to stretch that understanding as we ponder God’s relationship with the closest thing to infinite He has ever created – the universe itself.   

One night long ago, King David of ancient Israel looked up to the starry heavens and was overwhelmed by the immense majesty of what he saw, and his relative inferiority. Yet, even as he watched those milky stars and the brilliant moon dominating the night, it was not lost on him that there was someone who was much more amazing than everything that was before his eyes. In Psalm 8, he proclaimed in worship and awe:

O, Lord our Lord,How majestic is your name in all the earth,Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!” (v. 1) (NASB).

~

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;What is man that You take thought of him,And the son of man that You care for him?” (v. 3-4) (NASB).

Any true believer who has looked up to the night sky can’t help but express a similar sentiment. Our universe is vast beyond all comprehension, and yet the God who created it is infinitely more so. He has created each and every one of the countless trillions of stars for His glory. Galaxy’s spin for Him, pulsars pulse for Him, nebula swirl for Him, and comets light up the night all for Him. In fact, the scriptures declare in Psalm 19:1-2:

“The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge” (NASB).

Exceedingly far beyond scientific discovery and any human desire for exploration, the universe’s number one purpose and priority is to glorify God. Actually, that should be the purpose of everyone and everything, but the starry cosmos has been getting it right every night since its inception, so let us be clear on a few points.

First, there is only one God – eternally existent in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Lord made this perfectly clear in His own words in Isaiah 43:10-11:

You are My witnesses,” declares the Lord,
“And My servant whom I have chosen,So that you may know and believe Me
And understand that I am He.Before Me there was no God formed,
And there will be none after Me.I, even I, am the Lord,
And there is no savior besides Me” (NASB).

This truth is echoed many other times in scripture, including Deuteronomy 4:35, 2 Samuel 7:22, Psalm 86:10, John 17:3, and 1 Timothy 2:5 to name a brief handful. I make this rather obvious point to any true Christian reader because even if you were to search the universe in its entirety, you would find no other God but the Lord. This truth is imperative to an understanding of God’s relationship to the universe.

Second, God made everything there is, including the universe. The book of Genesis lays this out in detail, but John 1:1-3 provides a beautiful summary of the creation account saying:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being” (NASB).

The fact that “apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being” by implication means God (here describing the second person of the Trinity: Jesus Christ) did not Himself come into being; He has always existed. It is also clear that from the smallest atom to the largest galaxy everything owes its existence to Him. Hebrews 11:3 echoes this saying, “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (ESV). The idea that there is another god out in the universe creating things is incompatible with scripture. Our God created it all!

Third, the Lord fills and transcends the universe. God’s omnipresence is a basic Christian doctrine. The scriptures leave little room for doubt about this.Indeed, the Lord said in Jeremiah 23:24, “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” (NASB). King David also alluded to the Lord’s omnipresence in Psalm 139:7-10 when he said:

“Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the dawn,
If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
Even there Your hand will lead me,
And Your right hand will lay hold of me” (NASB).

There is a not a nook or cranny in the universe where you could go to escape God’s presence; and make no mistake – the limits of the universe do not mark the boundaries of His presence. When dedicating the temple, King Solomon said in 1 Kings 8:27, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You, how much less this house which I have built!” (NASB). The best scientists have only educated guesses about how big the universe is, but there should be no doubt it is immense in the extreme. Next to the sun, Alpha Centauri is the closest star to the Earth at approximately four light-years or 24 trillion miles distant. That measure alone is beyond the current ability of man to traverse outside of the imaginings of science fiction. According to NASA.gov, escape velocity from the Earth requires a spacecraft to reach a speed of 25,000 miles per hour. Assuming that speed could be maintained indefinitely, by my calculations, it would take approximately 109,589 years to get to Alpha Centauri at Earth’s escape velocity. And that is just the next star system over! Based on studies of light from distant galaxies, astronomers have proposed the most distant stars observable in the universe to be about 13 billion light years away. Biblically, we understand that these stars are only visible in our young universe because God allowed them to be – stretching their light across the cosmos – again all for His glory. However, the Bible leaves no room for argument – no matter how big the universe is, God fills and transcends it all in infinite measure.

Fourth, God has an intimate understanding of everything in the universe. Even in the day to day trappings of our own individual lives, there are far too many details to maintain in our thoughts and memories. What is causing us anxiety and stress today will likely be completely forgotten by this time next year. God, however, holds knowledge of everything perfectly for eternity. Note a specific example here on Earth – man himself. Back in Psalm 139, King David said in v.1-6:

“O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
You understand my thought from afar.
You scrutinize my path and my lying down,
And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
Even before there is a word on my tongue,
Behold, O Lord, You know it all.
You have enclosed me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is too high, I cannot attain to it” (NASB).

John 2:24-25 says of Christ, “But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man” (NASB). Christ Himself said in Matthew 10:29-31, “Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows” (NASB). As complex as man is, God understands him exhaustively, yet an argument could be made that the created universe is vastly more complex than any man. So, what do the scriptures say?

Let’s camp out with the stars. They are, after all, among the most easily observable things in the universe. We are told in Genesis 1:14, “Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years…’” (NASB). The sun and the moon are the most significant of these lights that we are acquainted with, but verse 16 adds almost as an afterthought, “…He made the stars also” (NASB).Even if they were a mere afterthought, God made the stars so innumerable that they would be forever beyond man’s ability to count with perfect precision – even to this day. One of the first “signs” the stars were used for in scripture occurred in a conversation between God and Abraham in Genesis 15:5 when the Lord said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them…So shall your descendants be” (NASB). The Lord employed this illustration to show Abraham that counting his descendants would be a humanly impossible task – just as counting the stars would be.

Though not exactly the purpose of this article, it is worthy of noting, that in Genesis 12:3b, the Lord had also said to Abraham, “And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (NASB). This blessing was ultimately fulfilled in Christ, and we see the fruit of the promise in Revelation 7:9 which reads, “After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands…” (NASB). The Lord seems to enjoy doing things in uncountable numbers. Oh, how great is our God!

But, back to the stars. If the stars could potentially be counted by man with perfect precision, the Lord’s promise to Abraham would be far less impressive. Even the best astronomers today can only make an educated guess about how many stars there are. But of the Lord and those countless stars the scriptures say in Psalm 147:4, “He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them” (NASB). Then again in Isaiah 40:26 it says, “Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, not one of them is missing” (NASB). Psalm 147:5 adds, “Great is our Lord abundant in strength; His understanding is infinite” (NASB). If His understanding is infinite, managing a vast universe and naming countless trillions of stars is a relatively simple task.

One of my favorite passages in the Old Testament is Job 38. After enduring unspeakable torments from the hand of Satan, some rather inappropriate advice from his wife, and the unwarranted scolding of his friends, Job had reached a point of bitter complaint. He cries out to God in Job 30:20-21 saying:

I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer me;
I stand up, and You turn Your attention against me.
You have become cruel to me;
With the might of Your hand You persecute me” (NASB).

By the time chapter 38 rolls around, God Himself has shown up, and His first words are:

Who is this that darkens counsel
By words without knowledge?
Now gird up your loins like a man,
And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!” (v. 2-3) (NASB).

What follows is both sobering and delightful as God outlines His preeminence over all creation and Job’s utter inferiority. By verse 31, the Lord has turned His instruction and Job’s attention to outer space. He asks in Job 38:31-33:

Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades,
Or loose the cords of Orion?
Can you lead forth a constellation in its season,
And guide the Bear with her satellites?
Do you know the ordinances of the heavens,
Or fix their rule over the earth?” (NASB).

Pleiades, Orion, and the Bear are all constellations. If the Bear is what astronomers refer to as Ursa Major then it also includes a very famous group of stars called The Big Dipper. Even as advanced as mankind has become, we are basically still in Job’s boat when it comes to manipulating the stars. We can look at them, navigate by them, and collect scientific data about them, but lead them, no. However, truly the Lord can, “…lead forth a constellation in its season.” I won’t belabor my point by going into how huge even one star can be – and God controls and names them all!

My fifth and final point is that God both sustains and will one day end the universe. Hebrews 1:3 says of Christ, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power” (ESV). All that is created in this vast universe cannot continue to exist without the continued will of God that it do so. One day, however, the universe’s time will come. As it is written in 2 Peter 3:10, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up” (NASB). Then in Revelation 20:11 John wrote, “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them” (NASB). The universe as we know it will have an end. Thankfully though, “…according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13, NASB). If the first universe has done such a good job “…declar[ing] the glory of God…” (Psalm 19:1a, ESV), how much more the second!

Truly, our God is exceedingly great! Yet it is important to be reminded that though the Lord “…stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in…” (Isaiah 40:22, NASB), the greatest thing He has ever done was send His one and only Son to die to pay the price for our sins “…so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life” (John 3:15, NASB). He is infinite, but He is also close to and intimate with any who call on His name in repentance and faith. The size of the universe is not a threat to this. He can handle it all. And the eternal life He offers also comes with one more benefit that most Christians probably don’t think about. Scripture seems to indicate that though believers missed out on the creation of the first universe, we will be witnesses of the creation of the second (Revelation 21). Oh, how, glorious! When countless saints add their voices to that day of praise, I can only imagine that it will be exceedingly greater than that day of the first creation “…when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy…” (Job 38:7, NASB). Let it be so! Come, Lord Jesus, come! 

Bible References

Primarily the scriptures have been taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE ®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved. Used by permission. 

Other scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Other References

“Escape Velocity: Fun and Games.” (2009). https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/k-4/features/F_Escape_Velocity.html (Accessed April 18, 2020).  Levy, David. The Nature Company Guides: Skywatching. San Francisco: Time-Life Books, 1994.

Photo Credit

The sculpture “The Eagle Has Landed” featuring Michael Collins, Neil Armstrong, and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin from the Apollo 11 crew and sculpted by Joey Bainer, Mark Lundeen, and George Lundeen was photographed at Kennedy Space Center by David Scott Fields II.

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