How does God reveal Himself to us?
God is not a subject we can research our way into; if He is to be known at all, He must step forward and show Himself. The commentators trace how He has done exactly that — in creation, in partial words to the fathers, and finally in a Person — and they are careful to mark what each of those can and cannot tell us.
The Need for Revelation
Before asking how God makes Himself known, the writers ask why He must. Their answer is that sin cost humanity the one knowledge it most needed, and no amount of thinking recovers it.
F. B. HoleOne serious effect of sin entering the world was that mankind lost the true knowledge of God. Once lost, that highest and best of all knowledge could not be regained by any effort of man's will or intellect. "Can you by searching find out God?" (Job 11:7), was the question of Zophar... Since, therefore, we cannot discover God, it is needful that He should make Himself known to us. Revelation becomes a necessity; and the crowning point of that revelation of Himself was reached when in Christ He made Himself known as Father.
What Creation Says
The sky and the world around us are a real voice, and the commentators refuse to silence it. But they are equally firm about its limits: it proves a Creator without disclosing His heart.
J Wilson SmithCreation should, indeed, speak, and its voice be heard. What is invisible in the Creator should be and is seen, and seen clearly, being understood by the things that are made — even His eternal power and Godhead — not, indeed, His grace, or truth, or love, but infinite power and design, so much so that people are left without excuse. (See Romans 1:20.) Creation declares the power of God. It does not reveal what He is in Himself — His nature — but to any, except those wilfully blind, it is evidence enough of the existence of a Creator-God!
Rays Before the Full Light
Long before Christ, God was already speaking — through sacrifices, prophets and events. One writer describes these as genuine light, yet deliberately incomplete.
C CrainBy types, by the shadows of the sacrificial system connected with the law, by specially appointed events — events happening by divine intervention and under divine control, God came out of the unapproachable light to give forth rays of what dwells in Himself. These rays, either singly or combined, while telling us something of the character of God, were in no way a full and adequate revelation of what He is. It was a true revelation, so far, but not the full truth.
From Messages to the Speaker Himself
The decisive shift is not that God said more, but that He came Himself. Commentators draw a sharp line between messages sent from God and God on display.
William KellyIt is an immense thing to have a revelation of God. I do not mean merely a revelation from God, but a revelation of God Himself. God has given us both: revelations, again and again, revelations of the most varied character; revelations in the most suitable order; but, most of all, and specially with a view to this, the revelation of Himself, the revelation of Himself in this world.
Because the Speaker is the Son, nothing further can be added to what He has said.
VariousA divine Person having become man could not express less than the whole will of God. If God has spoken as Son, no one can speak after Him... the Son has come, and no one can add to that which has been expressed by and in Him.
Shown, Not Described
Notice the method God chose. He did not hand us a definition of Himself; He acted where we could watch.
J. G. BellettWe are not left to gather our knowledge of God from description; we see and hear and learn for ourselves, through personal manifestation, Who and what He is... Scripture lets God show Himself by His acts, and does not take the method of describing Him. He has not committed the revelation of Himself to the pen of even inspired description. He has graciously chosen to be His own Revealer, in personal, living action, by His own sayings and doings — that simplest and surest way of making Himself known, the way in which the traveller may not go wrong, and in which the child need not mistake his lesson.
The Cross as the Fullest Display
If God reveals Himself by acting, then His deepest self-disclosure is at the place where He acted most costly.
J T MawsonIn Him also, the lonely and forsaken Man upon the cross, there appeared in full revelation every attribute of God... "All divine attributes were harmonized there — wisdom, holiness, mercy, justice, power, and truth" — and above all and through all the very nature of God, which is love, was declared triumphantly in the very place and hour where His justice demanded that sin should be judged to the uttermost.
How It Reaches Us Now
That revelation is not left to guesswork. One writer breaks the Spirit's work into three linked stages, ending inside the reader.
J. N. DarbyRevelation was by the Spirit; the communication took place by means of words taught by the Spirit; and, finally, the intelligence of him who received these words was given by the Spirit. Revelation, inspiration in the communication of revealed things, in fact intelligence or comprehension — all was "by the Spirit."
Summary
- Necessity. Sin lost us the knowledge of God, and no search of mind or will can recover it — so He must make Himself known.
- Creation. It shows His eternal power and leaves people without excuse, but it never tells us His nature or His love.
- Rays. Types, sacrifices and prophets gave true light in pieces — real revelation, but not the full truth.
- Person. In the Son we get not messages from God but God Himself, shown by living action rather than description, and supremely at the cross where every attribute shone at once.
- Reception. The same Spirit who revealed and worded the truth also gives the understanding to take it in.