|
Christians believe in
revelation.
We know God, not through our efforts and ingenuity, but by the gracious
gift of His self-revelation. The question of how God reveals Himself
will, therefore, affect every aspect of our theology. If we get this
issue wrong – everything else will go awry.
With this in mind let’s turn to Matthew 11:25-30 and hear Jesus set
us straight on the fundamentals of revelation.
At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of
heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and
learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was
your good pleasure.
"All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the
Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and
those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you
rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble
in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and
my burden is light."
From this, a number of things can be said:
Firstly, revelation is a fact. It is not a possibility. Revelation
of the things of God has happened. We must not waste any time wondering
about the “possibility of revelation”. We know that the infinite can
communicate with the finite precisely because it has happened!
How has it happened? Well at first glance we may get the
impression that God’s revelation is grudging, indistinct or enigmatic.
Verse 26 says the Father takes pleasure in hiding the truth from the wise
and learned. Verse 27 seems to present an impenetrable union between
Father and Son. The Father knows the Son and the Son knows the Father.
The question is, how can we break into this intimate family secret? Is
there a way into a knowledge of God?
Yes there is! The Son chooses to reveal the Father. In verse 27 we
see the hiding place which the Father has chosen for all the things of
God – all things are hidden in Jesus.
This must be a truth we live by as Christians. God the Father has
chosen to mediate all His revelation through Jesus, God the Son. “No-one
knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to
reveal Him.” To know God – we must come to Jesus. Jesus is the One to
Whom the wise and learned refuse to come. Yet He is the One to whom all
the little children can come in dependence and love. And when people come
to Him to learn the truth – Jesus liberally reveals the very deepest
things of God.
In verse 28, Jesus calls all people to come to Him, the great
Revealer, and He presents this coming in terms of entering rest. The
implication is clear – to come to true revelation is to come to true
salvation. Both are offered freely in the Son.
Jesus makes the link between revelation and salvation even more
explicitly in John 17:3. There He says: “This is eternal life: that they
may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
Coming to know God through Jesus is salvation. Revelation and
salvation go together.
The Bible gives us both sides of this truth again and again:
Fallen humanity does not know God
1 Samuel 3:7; Psalm 14; Matthew 7:24-27;
11:25-26; John 1:5; 1:18; 5:37-38; 7:28-29; 8:19; 14:17; 15:21; 17:25-26;
Romans 1:18; 3:10-18; 8:7; 1 Corinthians 1:21; 2:11-14; 3:18, 19; 2
Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 4:17-19; Colossians 1:21; 2:6-8
To know God is to be saved by Him
Proverbs 1:7; Matthew 11:25-30; John 1:10-13,
18; 14:6-9; 17:3; Rom 10:14-17; 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16; 2 Corinthians
4:1-6; Eph 4:17-21; 1 Tim 2:3-4
All that we know about God, we must learn from Jesus. Jesus is the
point of contact between God and humanity. God can only be known in the
place of His choosing. God chooses this place by committing all things
into the hands of Jesus. We must come to Him or we remain without hope
and without God in the world.
All Christian truth, all true statements about God, must be built
upon, defined by and shaped after Jesus, the Word of the Father, for we
have no other presentation of God.
The Apostles John and Paul agree:
John 1:18: No one has ever seen God, but God the One and
Only, who is at the Father's side, has made Him known.
Colossians 1:15: He [Christ] is the Image of the invisible God
Jesus is not an optional extra in our theology – He is the
foundation. He is the pole star that guides all our theological
enquiries. Anything we want to know about God the Father or indeed God the
Trinity, we must arrive at by thinking through ‘who is Jesus?’ The Father
has chosen Jesus as the point of contact between Himself and us, we must
always go to Jesus .
Objections
At this point people generally say: “Hang on. Don’t people know lots
of things about God? Aren’t there billions of people who may not trust
Jesus, but they have plenty to say about God?”
Well of course that is true. People have lots of things to say
about some kind of higher being – and many of them may even use the word
“God”. But using the same name does not at all mean that they know the
same person (or Persons)!
I share a name with my father which is very confusing for people
who think they know Glen Scrivener. People may know my father very well
indeed and be able to tell you all kinds of personal things about Glen
Scrivener, some of them may even be true of me! But they are NOT
describing me when they use those words. Any actual correspondence
between their words about my father and my own situation would be utterly
co-incidental. They do not know me at all.
The same is true of statements about “God”. A non-Christian may
have plenty to say about “God”, yet however similar their descriptions
may sound , they have no knowledge of the True God whatsoever.
Let’s look at four areas where people have attempted to by-pass
revelation in Jesus and come up with a knowledge of God:-
- Reason
- Other religions
- Biblical religion
- Creation
Reason
Perhaps we can use reason and logic to build up for ourselves a
true picture of God. Certainly we won’t be able to get the whole picture
– but basic truths about God as Creator, God as Intelligent, God as
Powerful – surely these can be deduced without the need for revelation.
Descartes is a good example of someone who believed this. From the
‘unshakeable’ foundation of “I think therefore I am”, Descartes set out
to build a picture of reality. This picture was based not on external
revelation – he doubted all external sensory experience – but trusted
instead the powers of his own mind to bring him truth. He used an age-old
philosophical argument for God’s existence – the ontological argument –
and came up with a definition of something he called “god”. At heart,
this “god” was a being of infinite perfections (whatever they are).
What do we make of all this? Is that the God we worship? Well
Matthew 11 has made us pretty dubious about a wise and learned approach
to God! Those famous verses from Proverbs 3 are an age-old warning:
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own
understanding… Do not be wise in your own eyes.” (Proverbs 3:5-7)
Combine this with three verses from Paul’s epistles and we see
that the human mind and its powers are not to be trusted:
Romans 8:7: the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit
to God's law, nor can it do so.
2 Corinthians 4:4: The god of this age has blinded the minds of
unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory
of Christ, who is the image of God.
Colossians 1:21: Once you were alienated from God and were enemies
in your minds because of your evil behaviour.
Our rebellion against God alienates us from God. This, we know.
Yet Paul says, strikingly, that the focus of this rebellion is in our
minds. Our minds are not dispassionate observers, collating data and
building logical pictures from assured foundations. Our minds are weapons
used against God. Reason will never come up with the truth about God, it
will only yield idolatry. Descartes’ so-called god is a philosophical
idol constructed in opposition to the God who is Father, Son and Holy
Spirit.
In Colossians 2:8, Paul warns us very sternly about the dangers of
philosophy:
“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and
deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles
of this world rather than on Christ.”
All our thinking must be based on Christ – built from His sure
foundation. The people who say they can get part of the way through
reason are utterly wrong. You can’t even get off the ground without the
foundation of Christ. We never reason our way towards Jesus, we must
start with Him.
As the 4th century theologian Athanasius said:
“The only system of thought into which Jesus Christ will fit, is
the one in which He is the starting point.”
World religions
The Bible often engages with human religions. Never does it assume
that such religions have any revelatory insights to offer.
Numbers 33:50-53; Deut 7:1-6; 12:1-3; 29:16-18; 32:15-21; Psalm
96:4-5; 106:35-40; Isaiah 41:21-24; 44:6-26; Jeremiah 16:19-21; Romans
1:23-25; 1 Corinthians 8:4-6; 10:20.
"We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that
there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in
heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many "gods" and many
"lords"), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from
whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord,
Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we
live." (1 Corinthians 8:4-6)
A religious person may speak eloquently about their “lords” and
their “gods” – aspects may seem similar to the Living God, yet they are
not speaking of the God who has made Jesus Christ the point of contact.
They are speaking about something else – not the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit.
Biblical religion
Ok, maybe world religions don’t have an angle on God. But surely
there is one religion in the world that does. Don’t the Jews have
revelation of the Living God? They share many of the same Holy
Scriptures. Don’t they know at least some truth about the One True God?
Well, what did Jesus think about that? Lets look at John 5:37-46:
The Father who sent me has Himself testified concerning Me. You
have never heard His voice nor seen His form, nor does His word dwell in
you, for you do not believe the One He sent. You diligently study the
Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These
are the Scriptures that testify about Me, yet you refuse to come to Me to
have life…
…"But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser
is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would
believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But since you do not believe what he
wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?"
Jesus acknowledges these men’s diligent study of the Scriptures.
Yet He denies outright that they have any knowledge of the Father or the
Son. They have sought to by-pass revelation in Christ and their very
means of attempting this will be their damnation.
To the person who does not come to Christ, the Scriptures leave
them utterly ignorant of the Living God. Even ‘diligent’ study of the
Bible leaves a person utterly lost unless they are drawn to the central
character of the Bible – Jesus. No part of the Bible – not Moses, not the
Prophets, nothing – reveals God outside of Jesus.
This of course has many implications for how we read the Old
Testament. These considerations will be considered in the fifth paper – The God who is proclaimed by Moses. There
we will see that Moses believed in and proclaimed the Triune Gospel of
the LORD Messiah. It is enough presently to note that the Bible does not
consider itself in any part to be a Christ-less revelation of God.
The Creation
I apologise in advance for the length of this section, yet the
claim that creation’s witness to God is Christ-less is extremely common.
It is often argued that revelation cannot be solely mediated in Jesus
since ‘general revelation’ is not a specific witness to Jesus. If this
were true then it would prove false the doctrine that all revelation of
God is in and through Jesus.
Let us then apply ourselves to the question ‘Does the creation
tell us general things about God without Jesus?’
Well the Scripture has a very high view of the creation. The heavens
and the earth were created very good and though the universe is now
fallen due to human sin, the Father is committed to redeeming it through
the Son and making planet earth His eternal home. In Romans 8, creation
itself groans in its longing for this time and cannot wait for its
liberation from the bondage to decay. Throughout the Psalms the
personality of the creation is proclaimed again and again. A famous
example is Psalm 19:
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work
of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night
they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice
is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the
ends of the world.” (vv1-4)
The creation is an evangelist – it declares continually and
universally the Glory of God. And notice, this is intentional evangelism.
It is declaring, proclaiming, speaking and displaying. The creation is
not concealing special clues in odd places. It is not that creation has
simply left marks of design that point to some kind of god. This is
proclamation. This is the pouring forth of speech. And there is no speech
or language where this proclamation is not heard.
So, many claim “there it is!” The creation reveals general truths
about God but without the need for Jesus.” Not so fast! Let’s see how the
Apostle Paul understands the Psalm:
“Not all Israel accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, ‘LORD,
who has believed our message?’ Consequently faith comes from hearing the
message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. But I ask:
Did they not hear? Of course they did:
‘Their voice has gone out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.’” (Romans 10:16-18)
Paul makes it abundantly clear that Psalm 19 is not declaring
general truths about some kind of god. Psalm 19 declares message of the
‘good news. The heavens of Psalm 19 are declaring “the word of Christ.”
We may ask, ‘how are
they declaring the word of Christ?’ Well let’s note, first of all, that
verse 1 of the Psalm tells us the heavens are declaring the Glory of God.
The Glory of God is not primarily a shininess of character– the Glory of
God is fundamentally His Son.
From verse 4, the Psalmist develops the way in which
the Creation proclaims the ‘word of Christ’ – he gives us one small
illustration – the sun:
“In the heavens he has
pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from
his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at
one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is
hidden from its heat.”
So the sun, which is the
light of the whole world (nothing is hidden from its heat) – is like a
Bridegroom who is also a Champion as He moves from east to west across
the sky.
What is the sun trying to tell us? Well it represents One who is
both Bridegroom and Victor and the Light of the World . Who could this be
but Christ? The Apostle Paul agrees! (Rom 10:17) The creation does not
mutter general truths about God but boldly proclaims the word of Christ.
What about Romans 1?
Perhaps the most frequently cited passage used to establish a
Christ-free revelation of God is Romans chapter 1. It is asserted that
these words from Paul prove that creation reveals God in a
non-Trinitarian, non-Christ-centred way. If this were true then Christ
would not be the sole mediator of revelation. Let’s look at the verses:
“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God
for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for
the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a
righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written:
"The righteous will live by faith." [For] the wrath of God is
being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of
men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known
about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For
since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities --his eternal
power and divine nature --have been clearly seen, being understood from
what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Romans 1:16-20)
Here we have a simultaneous revelation of the righteousness from
God and the wrath of God from heaven to earth. This revelation is (v17) in
the gospel. It is in the gospel that we see God’s anger at sin when the
Father metes it out on the Son at the cross. It is also in the gospel
that we see God’s offer of righteousness as Christ rises again to offer
us His righteous status before the Father. Both those things, the
righteousness from God and the wrath of God, are revealed in the gospel.
Unfortunately, v18, we suppress the truth of the gospel by our
wickedness.
But this does not deter the Living God from revealing Himself. No
– He continues to reveal these truths whether we suppress them or not!
Verse 19 shows that God reveals an incredibly vast amount about Himself
in the creation. “What may be known” about God is made plain to every
human being. This is very similar to what we saw in Psalm 19. In the
creation – if we have eyes to see it – God is revealing Himself in depth
and in deliberate universality. Verse 20 tells us that this revelation
could not be more full – even God’s invisible qualities can be clearly
seen. (We’ve already noted from Colossians 1:15 that the invisible God is
only made visible in Christ). We are told that this revelation explicitly
includes the power of God (which has helpfully been defined in v16 as the
gospel) and His divine nature.
All of this plain revelation of ‘what may be known’ about God
renders every single human being without excuse on judgement day. No-one
will be able to stand in front of Jesus, the Judge of the World, and say
“Who are you? The creation said nothing of You”.
The heavens declare daily, deliberately and universally the Jesus
Christ, who IS righteousness FROM God. That is why all humanity is
without excuse. The only excuse on judgement day IS the gospel of Jesus
Christ. Yet Paul says no-one can claim ignorance of this ‘excuse’. The
creation proclaims the word of Christ day after day, night after
night. Thus the creation removes
from people any excuse that they are ignorant of Christ since it
proclaims Him, every day, in every detail of His world.
It may seem like an odd idea to us that the creation speaks
specifically of Jesus (rather than just ‘some kind of god’). Most western
people think that if the creation is saying anything spiritual at all it
is proclaiming the god of western philosophy. However, if we asked a
Hindu they might say that the creation tells of many different gods. The
atheist claims that the creation says nothing spiritual. It is clear that
we only ever hear what we want to hear. That is the point of v18 – “we
suppress the truth by our wickedness.” Though the gospel is trumpeted
into our ears day after day, we pursue our own agendas in wilful
ignorance of the Truth. Verse 16 gives us the remedy though: ONLY as the
church does its work of evangelism, is the power of God unleashed to open
blind eyes, unstop deaf ears, and bring salvation to the world.
When Jesus picked up a seed to demonstrate some spiritual truth,
He didn’t say “Hey look how cool seeds are, they’re incredibly complex
and well designed, isn’t God a powerful and intelligent Creator?!” When
Jesus looked at a seed He saw a picture of His own death and resurrection
and from it the new life made possible for many! (John 12:24) When the
Apostle John is given ears to hear the song of creation in Revelation
5:13 it is explicitly about the Father and the Son who is the slain Lamb!
The creation does not reveal some kind of Unitarian non-Christ-centred
god who may as well be Allah. The creation is an evangelist – it tells
the Trinitarian gospel.
The Apostle Paul said it best in Colossian 1:23. Having told us
that Jesus is the image of the invisible God in v15, he tells us in v16
that He is the Creator of all things – the Father made everything through
Jesus and for Jesus. In v17 Paul writes that Jesus is the operating
system in which all things hold together. In v19 we see that all the
fullness of God dwells in Jesus. In v20 He is shown to be the universal
reconciler of all things in heaven and on earth. It is therefore no
surprise when we get to v23 that Paul says this:
“This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to
every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a
servant.”
Paul proclaims the same gospel that the heavens proclaim. Day
after day the non-Christian is confronted with Jesus Christ the image of
the invisible God, the Creator and Purpose of all life.
To summarize on creation
The proclamation of general revelation is, according to the
Apostle, the same as the proclamation of special revelation. And humanity
is equally blind to both in our wicked truth suppression. Only through
the preached word of Christ (Romans 10:17) are people able to see what is
most manifestly true about the universe – Jesus is LORD.
The pagan looking up into the night sky sees everything yet sees
nothing. He ought to know everything yet he knows nothing. He is without
excuse for Christ is proclaimed in every way possible. He is ignorant
exactly because he rejects Christ in every way possible.
In all this, it should be clear that Jesus is not incidental to
the question of revelation. Not a speck of the knowledge of God can be
credited to the one who rejects Christ. Yet it is Christ who the
unbeliever rejects, in every aspect of their being. For this they will be
judged – judged by the One who they have actively and wilfully resisted
all the days of their life.
Conclusion
Jesus is THE revelation of God. He is not simply the best
revelation of God or the seal of a series of improving revelations. He is
THE image of the invisible God. No-one has ever seen God, BUT Jesus – God
the One and Only – has made Him known. There is no presentation of God
that is not a presentation of Jesus. If we try to think about God without
thinking about Jesus we are sure to fall into idolatry.
In John 14:6 we see Jesus explaining His exclusivity to His
followers: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the
Father except through me.” If a Christian friend came to us saying they
thought there were other valid ‘ways’ of salvation we would fear greatly
for their Christian walk. If someone claimed there was life outside Jesus
we would be similarly concerned (especially given the meaning of “life”
in John’s gospel (e.g. 5:24)). Yet we are tolerant of claims within the
church that there is ‘truth’ that is available to all regardless of
whether the person has come to Jesus – the Truth.
How often people talk of ‘the wisdom of the world’ with a resigned
air of indifference – as though there really was truth outside of the
Logos. Certainly the Bible does not think so! (see esp. 1 Cor 1:18-2:14).
Truth is in Jesus (Eph 4:21) it is a property which no human has by
nature but is only grasped in Him. To know any truth whatsoever about our
Creator we must come to Jesus. To continue to grow in knowledge about our
Creator we must enquire of Jesus.
It is significant that, following Jesus’ magnificent proclamation
in John 14:6, Philip asks Jesus to show them the Father. Now perhaps we
think Philip ought to be commended for such a Christ-centred request –
after all he’s not asking Mohammed to show him the Father! Yet Jesus does
not consider Philip’s question to be Christ-centred enough, not by half:
Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have
been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the
Father. How can you say, `Show us the Father'? Don't you believe that I
am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you
are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing
his work."
Christ does not lead us by the hand to a place where we can see
the Father! If we want to see the Father we look at Christ. Jesus will
not have His followers avert their gaze from Him for a second. There is
nowhere else that Jesus would have us look except to Himself. The Father
is not a reality which we can consider outside of Christ – the Father is
IN Christ. Therefore to see the Father we focus all our seeing and
thinking on Jesus. Whatever is true of Jesus will be foundational for our
understanding of God. Whatever is not true of Jesus cannot form our view
of God – such ‘truth’ has clearly come from elsewhere.
The challenge for us is this: Is our view of Jesus this big?
Is Jesus the Image of the Invisible God, the Creator and Purpose
of the Universe?
Or is He just a tour guide who’s brought us to the Father (the real God)?
Is Jesus the height and breadth and length and depth of the fullness of
deity?
Or do you think of Him as somehow smaller or narrower than ‘God’?
Have we made peace in our thinking/praying/worship with a picture
of God which is not revealed in Jesus? The answer is almost certainly
“yes.” Therefore we must repent. Continually. And resolve to shape our
Doctrine of God solely in Jesus – the Truth.
Back to 'The God who is... '
|
