Afternoon Thoughts:

GOD PULLED BACK THE CURTAIN

The so-called “special revelation” that God gives includes Jesus Christ himself, the Word that was from the beginning and was with God and was God. Jesus put it this way: “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.” The other major example of special revelation is the word of God in Scripture, the living testimony of truth given through people with the special calling of prophets and apostles. This is the way the book of Hebrews puts it: “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets in many and various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son whom he appointed heir of all things and through whom he made the universe” (Hebrews 1:1-2).

The salient points are simple: God is real. God has spoken. We must listen.

We could philosophize about who God could be, and settle on the alternatives that seem most reasonable, but if God has spoken in the revealed word and in the Word made flesh, then doesn’t all other knowledge about him move to the margins of the page? The fingerprints of God may be evident in a spiral galaxy, in the wildflower petals of an Indian Paintbrush, and in the spiritual impulses that we experience, but what are fingerprints compared to Voice and Face? Give me the galaxies, for sure, but I will be able to know and adore and love a God who actually speaks.

There is a kind of “general revelation,” which the apostle Paul talks about in Romans when he writes, “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” (Romans 1:20). These and other biblical passages say that we as human beings have plenty of evidence that God exists and that he is powerful and superlative and beautiful as designer of the universe. But apparently this is not enough. Human beings easily turn away from the mere fingerprints of God with indifference. A fingerprint doesn’t call out to you, it can’t lead your life, and it does not embrace you when you need to be comforted.

So God spoke. He revealed. He pulled back the curtain, uncovering what was shrouded (“revelation” in the Bible means “an uncovering”). He spoke from heaven (that is, his realm of existence), but not by taking us up a ladder to heaven, but by extending heaven to earth in the person of Jesus. (Mel Lawrenz, Ph.D).