Unfathomable

36 x 8" , watercolor on stretched paper protected by acrylic medium.

Last year I read C.S. Lewis’ Grand Miracle in which he images the incarnation by describing a diver pushing down through the colors of the ocean and coming up again. 1 I was reminded of that image and those colors as I studied Romans 11:33 which speaks of the depth of the riches of God’s wisdom and knowledge. I began word-searching deep, and depth and became aware of deepness…..the distance from the top downward from a given point; a downward measurement. The Greek word for deep used in this passage and others, 2 is bathos and it defines something of profundity, unsearchable, inscrutable, unfathomable and bottomless. Discovering unfathomable coincided with my image of deep water because I found the plumb bob or plummet in Scripture, 3 is the device used for measuring the fathoms or depth of water.

All of this study resulted in this image of blue, starting with the sky, down to the very darkest deep of the ocean. I was amazed at how fast I painted this piece because I had a complete gradation of color from the lightest to darkest in my pure paint tubes without mixing pigments. Because I included the horizon line, a cross was automatically created which reinforces the perfectly vertical standard of God’s word. The line does not go all the way to the bottom as God’s wisdom, knowledge, love and the deep things cannot be totally known. However, that does not stop me from trying to understand all that I can. 4 Perhaps Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase says it best in today’s language: “And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all Christians the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.” 2

1 C.S. Lewis The Grand Miracle, pp. 57

2 Ephesians 3:18

3 Isaiah 28:17

4 Hebrews 11:6

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