If you were given the assignment to write an essay on God's Revelation of Himself, what would you write? That is my assignment for my theology class this evening. The following is what I am turning in tonight. If any of you make it all the way through, please let me know what you think. Thanks.
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How do I know God? This is the question that is the basis for all religion, and ultimately for the philosophy of life. How do I even know if there is a God? And if there is a God, how do I know about Him? How do I KNOW Him?
At the very root of the question of knowing God is a more basic question. Does God wish to be known? If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, while I am limited in my own knowledge and power, then for me to know God first requires that God wishes to be known. For no matter how much I personally would like to know about Him and to KNOW Him, my wishes would be for naught if He did not wish to reveal Himself. I am limited and finite. He knows no limitation and is infinite. I cannot know Him without His desire to be known.
Fortunately I love the God, who desires to be known as Abba - Daddy (Mark 14:36, Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6), who was also known as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Exodus 3:15, Matthew 22:32), who revealed Himself to Moses with the name “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14), and who revealed himself most supremely through His Son, Jesus Christ. The reason I love this God is because He first loved me (1 John 4:19) and revealed Himself to me. He has revealed Himself to me in many ways: first and foremost through the incarnation of His Son, Jesus; secondly, through His Holy Word, the Bible; third, through His creation; fourth, through history, and fifth, through His most precious Holy Spirit.
Before I consider each one of these revelations of God in turn, I should first address the issue of order. Is it possible to speak of one revelation in a priority fashion over another? Do I know God in one way first, which leads to my knowing him another way second... and third and so on? Can I prove the existence of God in my own mind by such a set order of priority?
No. I cannot speak of God, with authority, without referring to His Word. Such a reference presumes the authority of the Bible as His Word, as one way of God revealing Himself. How can I speak of His Son and His Spirit and His involvement within human history without at the same time quoting from Scripture? Yet, at the same time, I firmly believe that God has continuously revealed Himself to His creation long before the Bible was written. Another way of saying this is that the very writing of the Bible itself is the story of God revealing Himself. I don’t finish reading page one of the Bible before I learn that “God said to them,” (Genesis 1:28) referring to humankind. Genesis 3:8 tells me that it was God’s custom to walk in the garden in the cool of the day, that He was looking for Adam and Eve. It was God who initiated the relationship with Noah (Genesis 6:8), with Abraham (Genesis 12:1), and with Moses (Exodus 3:4). Trying to speak of God’s revelation of Himself without speaking of God’s Word is like asking the question, “Which came first - the chicken or the egg?”
Yet, in another sense, I can also speak of God apart from His Word. I sense the presence of His Spirit in my life. In the quiet moments of life I know His Presence. I see His working and His grandeur in His creation. I believe what I read in the Scriptures because His Spirit lives in me, guiding me and teaching me. When I pillow my head at night, I can almost feel my heavenly Father kissing me goodnight. When I awake in the morning, I often have the sense of Him waking me and letting me know He has work for me to do. As I pray with others, especially, I sense His Presence. These are all personal experiences. They are all the experiences of one man living life in relationship with the self-revealing Abba God.
While there is not a priority of God’s self revelation in order, there is a priority - in my mind - in importance. God’s greatest revelation of Himself is through His Son, the second person of the Trinity, who history knows as the man named Jesus. Without the incarnation of Christ, meaning without God becoming man in the physical person of Jesus, I would not know God the way I do today. All the other revelations of God, through Scripture, through history, through creation, through his Spirit, come to me the strongest through Christ. All other revelations point to Christ and Christ is the fulfillment of all the other revelations. The Old Testament leads to Christ. The New Testament testifies to Christ. History is divided by Christ. Creation is created by Christ. The Holy Spirit comes forth from Christ.
Jesus told his followers that “if you have seen me, you have seen the Father” (John 14:7 and 9), and “I and the Father are one” (John 10:10). The gospel writer John describes this Jesus as the Word who created all things (John 1:1-3) and who existed long before Abraham (John 8:58). The fact that God the Son put on human flesh (John 1:14, Romans 1:3, Galatians 4:4) tells me just how much God wishes to reveal Himself to me and to the rest of humankind. I cannot imagine how He could have put aside His pre-incarnate glory to humble Himself in human form (Philippians 2:6,7). The only way I can frame this in my mind is to begin comprehending the limitless love of God for me. He wanted me to know Him so much that He took on human form.
Writing on the importance of the incarnation Millard Erickson writes, “Here revelation as event most fully occurs. The pinnacle of God’s acts is to be found in the life of Jesus. His miracles, death, and resurrection are redemptive history in its most condensed and concentrated form.”
The incarnation of Christ could be likened to my becoming an insect if I so wished to communicate to an insect and so loved the insect. But even if I loved the insect and had the ability to change into an insect, this analogy falls far short of Christ’s Incarnation. The disparity between myself and the insect is minute compared to the glory of God in relation to that of humankind. My love for the insect world is nothing compared to God’s love for us.
Yet this analogy begins to inform me just how much God loves me. He was willing to become a man so that I might know more perfectly who He is. Jesus’ words were carefully recalled and taught by his apostles (Acts 2:42) and ultimately recorded in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And hence, I can know God by reading these words of Christ as recorded in the Bible.
This Bible is the second revelation of God. It is the written form of His words. Within these Scriptures, I read the words of Christ as remembered and taught by his apostles. I read the actions of God through His Spirit in the early church. Before the Incarnation, in the Old Testament, I can read of the actions and words of God in the history of the world leading up to and even predicting the Incarnation.
This written revelation of God is God breathed (2 Timothy 3:16), meaning that it is inspired by God. It contains the special revelation of God to those He chose to reveal Himself. These communications from God to humankind includes dreams, visions, theophanies, angels, and God’s divine speech to and through prophets. In these Scriptures are recorded the special occasions of God’s involving Himself directly into the events and lives of humans.
I cannot know everything there is to know about God through His Word, but I can know everything that He wishes to reveal about Himself through His Word. For example, I know about God’s eternality (Psalm 90:2), His freedom and independence from His creation (Isaiah 40:13-14), His holiness (Lev. 11:44; Josh. 24:19, Psalm 99:3,5,9; Isaiah 40:25; Habakkuk 1:12), His unchanging nature (Malachi 3:6 and James 1:17), His infinity (1 Kings 8:27 and Acts 17:24-28), His omnipotence (the word “Almighty” is used only of God 56 times in the Bible), His omnipresence (Psalm 139:7-11), and His omniscience (Acts 15:18 and Psalm 147:4). Most importantly I know of His love and grace, written about many times in many places in the Bible, but especially 1 John 4:8 and Ephesians 2:4-8, and summed up with an exclamation mark in the Gospel stories of the passion of Christ.
This writing of God’s involvement in humankind, including His divine speech and His divine-human Son are known as the special revelation of God. This “special revelation” is a theological term and means “God’s manifestation of himself to particular persons at definite times and places, enabling those persons to enter into a redemptive relationship with him.” When I speak of God’s revelation of Himself, I think first of this special revelation recorded in the Bible and exemplified through His Son.
I also know of God through His general revelation - how God chooses to reveal Himself to all people. I don’t learn all the attributes of God through this general revelation, but I can learn much and be given the desire to know even more. This general revelation is God’s creation - the natural world. This is the third source of God’s revelation. The psalmist writes, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1 ESV). From a very early age I can recall lying on the ground in the middle of a warm summer night staring at the stars above, marveling at the creation, and knowing there must be a Creator. This Creator must love beauty and order. Paul writes in the first chapter of Romans that everybody can know something of God through His creation. “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20).
This general revelation, I believe, should also include the history of humankind since Christ. This fourth area of God’s self-revelation is found in history. So much of life as we know it - especially in the West - can find its roots in the Christ faith. Our history is defined by Christ as either being before Him or after Him. His followers proclaimed His death and resurrection in the face of great persecution. His church has survived for more than 2,000 years even with the horrendous mistakes on the part of those who named Christ as their God. Despite the influence of sin, the values of love, mercy and grace are held in high esteem even as people, both within the church as well as outside of it, fall far short in their own efficacy. Undeniably the world is a different place because of Jesus.
I’d like to finish this essay on how I know God by writing about the fifth source of God’s revelation: His Spirit living today through me. In the final days of that first Easter week, Jesus promised his disciples that he would send them “another Helper, to be with [them] forever; even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:16,17 ESV). I know God and the truth of His special revelation because I know His Spirit dwells with me.
God’s Spirit has dwelt with me since I first prayed for Christ to come into my life at the age of 9. Praying at an altar at a Pilgrim Holiness Church in Kenmore, Ohio, I knew that Jesus lived in me. I knew I was “saved” and that my life would be different.
God’s Spirit dwelt with me, when at the age of 14, I was held hostage by gunmen wanting money for their drug habit. I knew my life could end at any moment, but I felt the presence of God so close to me - calming me and letting me know that this was not the end. I cannot explain the peace and tranquility I experienced on that fateful day. I know that God’s Holy Spirit was with me.
God’s Spirit dwelt with me when I received a phone call asking me if I would be willing to enter into full-time pastoring work at the age of 48. I cannot describe the emotions of that moment other than to use the words of joy and fulfillment. As I placed the phone receiver back into the cradle I immediately fell to my knees thanking God for this new opportunity in the back half of life. I could not have experienced such rejoicing over giving up a lucrative financial planning practice for the call to ministry without God’s Spirit dwelling in me.
And now, as I write this final paragraph, I know God’s Spirit continues to live and breathe through my life. I do not know exactly what my future will be. As is true of so many Americans, I have lost my job because of economic difficulties and now find myself unemployed. Several people are working with me to start a new church. I pray for its success, but from a human point of view, it’s hard to know what the future holds. But I do know Who holds my future. God is alive and well. My soul is alive and well in Him. This coming Easter Sunday we will sing about our new life in Christ because of His resurrection. As we will sing the familiar hymn, I will conclude this essay: How do I know He lives? He lives within my soul.
