To Whom Will Ye Liken God? Incomprehensibility and Faith

Isaiah 39:18 opens with a penetrating question: "To whom then will ye liken God?" Joseph S. Exell's Victorian homily traces how humanity perpetually distorts the divine nature through carnal reasoning.

From Noah's descendants onward, men abandoned revelation for idolatry. Rather than worship the pure, spiritual Being dwelling in highest heaven, they crafted sensible figures—gods they could see and touch. The Jews replicated this pagan impulse, desiring visible idols over the incomprehensible Yahweh. Even in Exell's own era, rationalists denied miracles because they witnessed none, subjecting infinite reality to finite sensory apparatus.

The heart of the problem: those who refuse mystery become the most irrational reasoners. A man claiming to comprehend the Deity—who created and sustains this vast universe—is a "puny worm of the dust" arrogating godlike understanding. Yet Scripture never contradicts genuine reason; daily we accept truths whose mechanisms remain unexplained. Why should the Trinity—the incomprehensible nature of God—appear irrational in spiritual things alone?

This incomprehensibility becomes a peirasmos (trial, testing) of genuine faith. Elohim could have revealed His will with such obviousness that Christ's resurrection transpired before multitudes, leaving Pharisees and Sadducees no ground for denial. Instead, mystery remains—demanding that we trust the character of God beyond our comprehension.