God’s Self-Revelation
By Jerry Batson, Th.D.
Special to The Alabama Baptist
If we grant that God has revealed something of Himself in nature, in us as His human image-bearers and most fully in His incarnate Son, we still need the lens of Holy Scripture through which to see accurately and understand fully to what extent God has revealed Himself in these ways. At the outset we must acknowledge that while we can know God as He had revealed Himself, we cannot know Him fully. This inability to know God fully has been described in the technical sense as “the incomprehensibility of God.”
This phrase is not intended to say that God cannot be known, only that the Creator cannot be fully or exhaustively known by the creature. Given His self-revelation, we confess that we can know God truly but not totally. Part of the reason for such incomprehensibility is our finiteness and part of the reason is God’s infinity. Such is the sense of Psalm 145:3: “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable.” In a similar vein Psalm 147:5 declares, “Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; His understanding is beyond measure.”
Knowledge of God
Given the inspiration of Holy Scripture, what it tells us about God is absolutely true. It is, however, not exhaustive. God is greater than even inspired words can tell and illumined human minds can receive. There is, however, a positive side to God’s incomprehensibility. For one thing, we will never run out of things to learn about God. Throughout our lifetimes and for all eternity believers will be able to go on increasing in their knowledge of God. The realization that God is greater than our thoughts of Him caused the psalmist to exclaim, “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand” (Ps. 139:17–18a).
What we can know about God’s self-revelation is captured in Holy Scripture. God chose to reveal Himself to His covenant people Israel through historical events interpreted and recorded by inspired prophets. Their prophetic consciousness enabled them to grasp God’s self-revelation through historical events, as well as through direct encounters with God mediated in visions and dreams and on occasion by verbal expressions, as expressed in Exodus 33:11 that “the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend” or the claim of Isaiah that he saw the Lord and then heard the voice of the Lord (Isa. 6:1–8).
Know God Himself
God’s self-revelation in Holy Scripture is given not only that we should know facts about God but more importantly that we know God Himself. If I should say, “I know George Washington,” the most I could mean is that I know some facts about the father of our nation. I could not say truthfully that I know him unless I had lived when he lived, met him, spent time with him and talked with him.
God’s communication with the prophet Jeremiah is to the point: “Thus says the Lord: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight,’ declares the Lord” (Jer. 9:23–24). God delights when we know Him better and better. Why not make this a goal in the new year?
Share with others: