Genesis 18:20-21 speaks of God coming down to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah saying, "I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.”
Is God ignorant that He needed to visit to Sodom to gain information that he did not already possess?
But as in Genesis 3:9, God is visiting sinful men in preparation for judgment. When God draws near to men in scripture, it is for blessing or for judgment. The emphasis is not on God gaining information to complete his own understanding of the situation, but rather on God as prosecutor gathering evidence to present an indictment. Genesis 19 vindicates God's judgment, for the two angels not only know about the wickedness of Sodom but actually experience it. The evidence is specific and concerete. The visit was to add knowledge relevant to judgment.
Also, the context of this text is theophanic, that God appears as a man and describes his knowledge in human terms, that is, anthropomorphically. God did not gain knowledge by His visit to Sodom, but only appears to gain it.
We ought to remember that the sheer number of omniscience texts is vastly greater than the number of apparent ignorant texts. God's omniscience is our confidence in the Lord's power and promises.
In the theophany of Genesis 18, there is a greater anticipated theophany of God in Jesus Christ. Jesus was fully divine, was omniscient during his days on earth (John 16:30). But he also gained knowledge by asking people questions, by having new experiences. At times, he was amazed at what took place (Luke 7:9). The theophanic incarnation of Genesis 18 also presents us with a being who is divine in some ways and human in others that we can reflect some analogies between this theophany and Christ.
References:
John Frame, The Doctrine of God
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