WHAT IS GOD LIKE?
#10 THE GOD WHO SPEAKS
Copyright Rosemary Bardsley 2007
The God of whom the Bible speaks is the God who makes himself known, the God who reveals himself, the God who speaks. Indeed, he is the God who wants to be known, who wants us to know him, for in knowing him, and only in knowing him, can we enjoy the life for which he created us [John 17:3].
He reveals himself through the things that he has made:
'The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his handsDay after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world' [Psalm 19:1-4]' ... what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For 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, so that men are without excuse' [Romans 1:19,20] .
He reveals himself by means of special revelation which he communicated to people, and which they recorded in writings now known as the Bible:
'In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways' [Hebrews 1:1],
'... no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. ... but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit' [2 Peter 1:20,21],
'All Scripture is God-breathed...' [2 Timothy 3:16].
He reveals himself, finally and fully, in Jesus Christ, his eternal Son, who claimed:
'No one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him' [Matthew 11:27],
'I and the Father are one' [John 10:30],
'When a man believes in me, he does not believe in my only, but in the one who sent me. When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me. I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness' [John 12:44-46],
'Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father' [John 14:9].
' ... the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge' [Colossians 2:2,3].
'God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him ... in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form' [Colossians 1:19,29].
'The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. ... No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known' [John 1:14,18].
As the late Francis Schaeffer indicated in the title of one of his books 'He is there and he is not silent'. The God of the BIble is not a 'god' who exists in inscrutable mystery or impenetrable slience. He is not a 'god' who cannot speak and whom we cannot know.
If we do not know him it is not his fault, it is ours ... our love of darkness rather than light [John 3:19], our preference for religious lies rather than the word of the living God [Jeremiah 5:31], our terrible refusal to believe that what he has revealed about himself is true:
'You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life' [John 6:39,40]
'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, ... how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings; but you were not willing ' [Luke 13:34].