God As We Know Him | Sunday, August 15, 2021

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. (Psalm 19:1) > > For since the creation of the world God's invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were they thankful, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Romans 1:20–21)

God has not left Himself unknown—He reveals Himself in creation, in speech, and finally in His Son.

General Revelation and the Excuse of Unbelief

Three thousand years ago Israel's King David observed that the heavens declare the glory of God and the earth shows forth His handiwork. With those words probably in his mind, the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Rome that since the creation of the world God's invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.

These passages are the basis for a theological concept called general revelation. Through creation and conscience, and through our awareness of these things in human consciousness, we are able to recognize that God is—that He exists, that He is powerful, and that He is intelligent. Thinking deeply about ourselves and the universe, we can also infer truths about goodness, beauty, morality, truth, and love.

According to Paul in Romans, these observable truths are sufficient to make us aware of God's existence and to make us accountable—or, as Paul says, inexcusable. Ultimately there is no excuse for unbelief, though skeptics and atheists will of course disagree.

"Not Enough Evidence"

Bertrand Russell, one of the most outspoken atheists of the twentieth century, was once asked to suppose he was wrong and one day stood before God on His throne of judgment—what would he say? Russell replied, "I will say, 'I'm terribly sorry, but you, God, did not give us enough evidence.'"

What fascinates me is that these same people who espouse rationality and what I would call scientism will spend billions on radio telescope arrays searching for signs of alien life. If they detected even the most rudimentary coded pattern in radio waves from the edge of the universe, they would call it evidence of intelligent life. Yet the very same people, when presented with the fine-tuning of the universe, the complexity of DNA, and the remarkable structure of physics, conclude that it all happened by random chance and mutation over 13.8 billion years.

That is amazing to me. A simple pattern in a radio wave indicates intelligence; the complexity of DNA is random chance. But Paul says, "Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God... their foolish hearts were darkened."

Where General Revelation Falls Short

These things—creation, consciousness, and conscience—are intended by the Creator to compel us to seek Him. As Paul tells the intelligentsia of Athens in Acts 17, God made the world in such a way "that they might seek Him and perhaps reach out and find Him, though He is not far from each of us." And here is the beautiful thing: those who sincerely seek will ultimately find. The author of Hebrews says the one who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

But there is a problem. General revelation is not enough. We can know that God is, that He is powerful and intelligent, and we can infer that He loves beauty and values truth and justice. But there are limits.

Consider a pen. If I found this in the wilderness, I would not say it assembled itself by random chance over billions of years. I would conclude there is a maker who has resources, power, and intelligence. I might even infer something about that maker—perhaps that the name on the cap, "Schaefer," tells me something. But the maker is independent of the thing made. By examining the object, I have very little knowledge of two crucial things: what God is like (His nature) and what God likes (His will).

The Need for Special Revelation

Through general revelation alone I cannot know God's nature and His will. But the unknown God wants to be known. That means we need a greater form of revelation—we need the God who is there to reveal Himself. We need, literally, an apocalypse of God.

I'm sure that word got someone's attention, but it does not mean what you think. The Greek word apokalypsis, from which we get "apocalypse," means revelation or disclosure. We need a disclosure of God—His nature and His will. And how do you make known what you are like and what you like? You have to speak. I can't know you and you can't know me if we don't communicate.

So the question is: has God communicated to us in language we can comprehend? As a Christian, I say yes. "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets" (Hebrews 1:1). Theologians call this special revelation.

The skeptic says this is absurd and impossible. If there is a God, they say—with great emphasis on the if—He could not possibly speak to us; we are too small and finite, He is too big. But is it impossible for a master engineer to make something with knowledge and intelligence, and then reveal his will so that the thing he made can understand and respond?

The Altair, Bill Gates, and a Language for the Box

Here is the amazing thing: the rational skeptics who say special revelation is impossible actually believe otherwise, and I can prove it with a story.

In the early 1970s a company in Albuquerque, New Mexico, called MITS—Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems—built a device around a new piece of hardware from a startup in Santa Clara called Intel: the Intel 8080 processor. MITS called their machine the Altair 8800 and called it a microcomputer. At that time, the idea of a computer sitting on your table was something out of science fiction.

In January 1975, Popular Electronics ran a cover article on the Altair 8800. Twenty-three hundred miles away in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a man named Paul Allen bought a copy and ran to the dorm room of his friend, a Harvard undergrad named Bill Gates. They were gripped by it.

Here is why the story matters. MITS had made an incredible machine that effectively couldn't do anything—it was mostly a giant paperweight. The engineers were convinced it was revolutionary, but they couldn't communicate with it because the Altair had no language. So Allen and Gates wrote a BASIC computer language that could speak to the box, started a company called Microsoft, and launched a revolution. Less than fifty years later we can say, "Hey Siri, I want a hamburger," and get a response.

God the Master Engineer

All of that makes one important point: special revelation makes it possible for the creator to reveal his nature and his will to his creation. Although many skeptics question whether such revelation is possible, we have watched it happen over the last forty-five years and now use it without thinking every day.

Someone may ask, "Pastor, are you saying God is a master engineer and we're a bunch of computers?" Yes—we're a bunch of organic computers, and God, who engineered all of this with phenomenal intelligence, power, and resources, gave us consciousness and language so He could reveal Himself to us. But remember: He is outside the box. This universe we call creation is something He made and is independent of, yet He has a way to speak into it.

So God has revealed His existence, power, and intelligence through creation, consciousness, and conscience—general revelation. And He has revealed His nature and His will through special revelation, speaking in languages people could comprehend.

How Do We Know It Is True?

How do we know this God who has apparently revealed Himself is really God? For one, we must consider what He has revealed about Himself in the Scriptures, and then use the minds He gave us to judge whether His self-disclosure aligns with what we can deduce about Him from general revelation. So what has He revealed? That brings us to Acts 17.

The apostle Paul is in Athens, alone, his associates in cities to the north in Macedonia. As always, he goes to the Jewish synagogue and also into the marketplace as a leatherworker, striking up conversations. Because what he says is new, he is invited to speak at the Areopagus, where the philosophers and intelligentsia of Athens gathered.

Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols... Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, "What does this babbler want to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods," because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. (Acts 17:16–18)

The Epicureans were those who wanted to live it up—eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. The Stoics rejected outward influence. We still have both today. The Athenians, Luke notes, "spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing"—which sounds like the Western world in 2021.

Paul at the Areopagus

Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things... so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being... Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead." (Acts 17:22–31)

I love this passage. Paul engages a skeptical, worldly crowd reasonably—the text says he reasoned with them daily—and that is what God wants us to do with the Epicureans, Stoics, religious, and non-religious people around us. And he engages them boldly. These people were in awe of something greater than themselves but did not know what it was. Paul says, in effect, "This thing you worship in ignorance—agnostically, where we get our English word—I will tell you exactly what it is."

Fourteen Things This Passage Reveals About God

Reading carefully, I underlined at least fourteen things this passage discloses about God:

1. God is a person, not an inanimate force or power. Paul does not say, "this thing you worship"; he says, "Him I proclaim to you." This is not the Force of Star Wars or a collective unconscious. 2. God made everything—"God, who made the world and everything in it." 3. God is Master and Lord of all—"Lord of heaven and earth." 4. God does not need us. He is independent of His creation; there is no necessity in God where He requires you or me. 5. God does not need anything we can give Him, though He is worthy of all worship. Some within the church wrongly say God is incomplete without us; that is not true. 6. God made us for His purpose—He "gives to all life, breath, and all things." 7. God has a determined plan—He made everything according to a purpose. 8. His handiwork is intended to cause us to seek Him—He determined the times and boundaries of nations "so that they should seek the Lord." 9. God is not far away—"though He is not far from each one of us." That is good news. 10. We live and are sustained by God—"in Him we live and move and have our being." 11. Nothing we make rightly represents Him—we ought not think the divine nature is like gold, silver, stone, or anything shaped by men's devising. 12. God is merciful and calls us to repentance—"now commands all men everywhere to repent." 13. There is a determined end and judgment—"He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness." 14. The resurrection of Jesus is the proof of all these things—God "has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead."

The Resurrection: Proof Point or Breaking Point

These are among the most basic things we can know about God's nature and will, and they do not conflict with what we observe and infer from general revelation. But they all hang on a single miraculous proof—a proof as improbable to the first-century Athenian as to the twenty-first-century skeptic.

When Paul says God has given assurance of all these things by raising Jesus from the dead, verse 32 says, "And when they heard of the resurrection from the dead, some mocked, while others said, 'We will hear you again on this matter.'" The resurrection, then and now, is the sticking point. But it is also the proof point or the breaking point of Christianity. All I am teaching you about the nature of God is either validated by the resurrection of Jesus or, if He did not rise, it is pointless. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, if Christ is not raised, we are pitiable and all of this is for nothing.

This is exactly what happened at the Areopagus. The Athenians gave Paul a hearing right up to the point that he said "resurrection," and then they mocked him and sent him away. Yet though this seems improbable when heard for the first time, there is something in every person that, hearing how God reveals Himself, says, "I would love for this to be true." It would have seemed incredible even to Paul—an intelligent man—until he met the resurrected Jesus. After a firsthand encounter with the One who had been crucified, buried, and raised, he had to step back and conclude that everything he thought he knew must be reevaluated.

From Athens to Corinth: Christ Crucified

After these things Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth (Acts 18:1). Years later he wrote to that church:

And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:1–2)

He left Athens, where he had spoken a well-articulated argument, and resolved to say nothing more than Christ crucified and raised.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God... For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called... Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18–24)

Personal Revelation in the Incarnate Christ

In His wisdom God has revealed Himself. First, through general revelation—creation, consciousness, and conscience—so that we are without excuse. Then through special revelation—God, outside the box, communicating in a language those inside can comprehend, revealing what He is like and what He likes.

But even that does not go far enough. Finally God reveals Himself in personal revelation through the incarnate Christ. God became a man to reveal His love, grace, and character. His incarnate power and wisdom are on display—foolishness to the worldly Greeks, a stumbling block to the self-righteous religious Jews, but to those who are being saved, the very power of God.

All these things seem improbable, and they all zero in on one individual and one extremely important event: Jesus and the resurrection. That is where we are going next time.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I pray that You would cause these things to be in our hearts. Speak to us, Lord. Help those who do believe, who trust that these things are true, to have boldness to reason about them with skeptics—religious and non-religious, the Epicurean and the Stoic philosophers who sit in the cubicle next to us, on the same construction site, or in the same classroom.

Give us the passion to speak reasonably with the people we interact with, going back to first things: what does creation tell us, what does our consciousness tell us, what does the conscience—this moral inclination toward justice, goodness, beauty, and truth—tell us? And as we look at the pages of Scripture, what does it reveal about who You are, and how does that align with everything we see in us and in this world?

Help my brothers and sisters who know You to recognize that we have a reasonable faith—not some blind, insane trust, but a reasonable faith in the living God. You have revealed Yourself. Give us the power and the boldness to reveal You to others. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.