The Revelation of God (Perspectives in Theology, Part 1)
Series: Perspectives in Theology (Part 1)
Authors: Drs. John M. Frame and Steven L. Childers
Title: The Revelation of God
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1). Genesis begins with creation as a magnificent act of God that reveals God to us as the creator of everything that exists.
The world God created consists of personal and impersonal beings and things. Humans are personal beings with names. Impersonal things include matter, space, time, motion, energy, the law of gravity, thunderstorms, oranges, and bicycles.
Many believe that humans are ultimately just impersonal matter that has come into being through a mysterious and random convergence of mass and energy over billions of years for no apparent reason and for no purpose.
The Bible teaches that humans are created by God in his image with intrinsic worth and dignity (Gen 1:28). All matter, space, time, motion, and energy are tools created and used by God to organize and rule over his creation and humanity to accomplish his purposes.
But how can we know all this? How can we really know what God is like?
We can’t think or reason our way to God
First, we can’t merely think or reason our way to God. When Moses writes the first verse of the first book of the Bible, he begins with a faith statement: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1).” Moses does not first prove scientifically that God exists.
Instead, he makes a huge theoretical assumption with the full knowledge that everyone who reads this verse may not share this assumption. Saying that our beliefs about God are based on a faith premise, however, does not in any way mean our beliefs are not scientifically and intellectually credible.
But we must be on our guard against anyone who claims to know the answer to how the world and humanity began without having a faith basis. Even the most atheistic scientists have at the core of their strongest beliefs about the origins of the universe—a faith premise. And it’s a very religious faith premise no matter how non-religious they may consider their premises to be.
This is because it takes religious faith to believe that the origins of the universe and humanity somehow mysteriously came into being through a “big bang” followed by even more mysterious processes over billions of years.
It takes as much, or more, religious faith to believe that everything that exists is only material or energy that has existed forever in some form and has been mysteriously shaped into all of its present complex forms, including humanity, only by pure chance—than to believe the historic Judeo-Christian account that it’s all the work of a personal, infinite, creator God.
It is dishonest to present a view of the origins of the universe and humanity and to claim that this view does not have a deeply rooted faith premise at its very core. And it’s even more dishonest to somehow try to position one view of origins as being scientific and not faith-based and others as being faith-based and religious.
So our faith premise is that there is an infinite, eternal, unchangeable God who exists and has created everything that exists. This means that reality is not limited to the physical but expands into the metaphysical, the spiritual. We do not live in a closed system but an open system.
To know God, he must reveal himself to us
This leads us to our second point, that for us to know anything about God he must take the initiative and reveal himself to us. The good news is that God has graciously broken through and revealed himself in several ways, including nature, the Bible, and the human conscience.
For example, we learn in Exodus 3 that when God appeared to Moses he revealed his personal name YHWH (Yahweh) or LORD. By revealing his personal name, God reveals that he is a person and not an impersonal force or higher power.
In Exodus 3:15, the word LORD is often translated with all capital letters to indicate the divine name YHWH (Yahweh). With this personal name, God reveals himself as a personal, faithful, covenant-keeping God of grace who promises to deliver his people by his great power.
In the New Testament, God translates his personal name YHWH as Lord (kurios) and connects it with the Lord Jesus Christ (Phil 2:9-11). And there is a new personal name for God added by Jesus. It’s the name “Father.” Since the Father is made known to us by Jesus through the Holy Spirit (John 16:13), the full, abundant revelation of LORD’s name is now Trinitarian: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matt 28:19).
God has revealed his personal qualities
When the historic Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647) answers the ancient question, “What is God?”, the answer contains a list of God’s personal attributes found in the Bible: “God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.”
Theologians often use the word attributes to describe God’s personal qualities. After defining God as “a Spirit,” i.e. not having a physical body like humans, God’s being is described as infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. Theologians sometimes classify these kinds of attributes of God as incommunicable attributes that only God can possess.
God’s infinity means his being is not confined by any limits. God’s eternality means he has no beginning and no end, no before or after. And God’s immutability means it is not possible for God to change.
However, the attributes of God we share more fully are called God’s communicable attributes, including his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
God’s revelation is limited but true
We must be careful in how we describe God’s attributes and how we describe the way in which we share any of God’s attributes. It can be helpful to think of God’s incommunicable attributes in a separate category from God’s communicable attributes. But we must do so with great care and wisdom or we’ll be thinking of God in an unbiblical way.
This is because there is a sense in which we, as limited, created beings, don’t have the capacity to understand or share fully any of the attributes (including the communicable attributes) of an unlimited, uncreated, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable God. In Isaiah 55:8-9 God says:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts
But not being able to know God as fully as he knows himself does not mean we can’t know him at all, or that all our knowledge of God is false. Instead, we must understand that, although our knowledge of God is limited, it’s still true, trustworthy, adequate, and good knowledge.
