Why does God seem hidden today when He was so evident in the Bible?
The Bible is full of burning bushes, parted seas, and dead men walking out of tombs — and then the story seems to stop, leaving many to wonder whether God has left the building. The commentary in this collection takes the question seriously, and answers it from several directions: what miracles were ever for, what God has already said, and where He is actually working now.
Miracles Were Bursts, Not the Background
Even inside the Bible, wonders were not spread evenly. They cluster at the start of something new and then thin out, and one writer traces the reason to what replaced them.
William KellyIn the latter part of the New Testament we do not read much about miracles — very little — and less and less as time passes. We can understand that, at the opening of a new dealing of God, there should be, in His goodness, a wonderful working and display of these mighty answers, to awaken the attention even of careless men. But as the truth of His presence was established, and the new communications of God were gradually written, so that there was not merely the evidence of outward tokens but actual Scripture committed to human responsibility, we can easily see that external proofs were no longer so necessary.
Sight Never Produced Faith
We assume that if we had watched a sea split, we would believe. The record of the people who did watch it says otherwise.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinMen easily crave miracles; but the whole generation in the wilderness, who constantly witnessed them, nevertheless perished for their unbelief. Miracles work no faith, although they might, and would, awaken attention to what God presented as an object for faith.
God Has Already Said Everything
If God seems quiet, it may be because the message is finished rather than withheld.
F. B. HoleThe revelation is complete and absolute. The Lord Jesus could say, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). He is "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15). God spoke in time past by the prophets, but now He has spoken to us, not by or through anyone, but "in His Son" (Heb. 1:2). He Himself, without any go-between, spoke to us in that character, for the Son was and is God equally with the Father. So there is nothing more to be said.
The Silence Is Mercy
The same writer takes the complaint head-on, and turns it into something no one asking it would want reversed.
F. B. HoleWe today are living in a long period that has been called the Silence of God. Men are greatly perplexed because God seems to have retired into His heaven and shut the brass gates. The world is being shaken, and yet there does not seem to be any word from the divine lips... Unconverted people blame God and ask, Why does He not do something? But if He did, they would be overwhelmed in condemnation. Having said all He has to say in grace, He is silent until He speaks again in judgment.
Hidden Is Not Absent
One book of the Bible was written exactly for people who cannot see God at work. In Esther, God's name never appears once — and commentators read that omission as deliberate design.
William KellyThe main object is to show His hand secretly working where His name could not rightly be proclaimed. Far from being a fault, this is one of the most strengthening considerations, when we remember that we have to deal with a similar secret providence every day.
Isaiah says the same of God directly, at the very moment God was arranging world politics to free His people.
F. B. HoleThe power of God... would only be perceived by faith. So the prophet exclaims, "Truly You are a God who hides Himself." A servant of God has very truly and aptly remarked, "God's ways are behind the scenes, but He moves all the scenes which He is behind."
Who Is Actually Hiding
The Bible's first case of a hidden God turns out to run the other way round.
W. T. TurpinIt was not God who hid Himself from Adam, but Adam from God. So now He does not hide Himself from sinners; rather poor sinful man, afraid of the light and ignorant of the blood, withdraws himself from God.
Where God Is Meant to Be Seen Now
There is still something for the world to look at. It is just no longer fire from the sky.
H. Forbes WitherbyChristians read God in Christ; the world reads Christ in Christians. If the letter is blotted and unclear, if the life lived is unlike Christ, no wonder the world does not understand Christianity.
Summary
- Spoken. God's clearest word was not a wonder but a Person: He has spoken in His Son, and "there is nothing more to be said."
- Withdrawn. Signs marked the opening of a new dealing of God; once Scripture was written, "external proofs were no longer so necessary."
- Powerless. Even at full volume, wonders converted no one — a whole generation watched them and "perished for their unbelief."
- Merciful. The silence is not indifference but restraint; if God spoke now in judgment, the very people demanding it "would be overwhelmed in condemnation."
- Working. As in Esther, where His name never appears, He is "behind the scenes, but He moves all the scenes which He is behind" — and what the world can still see of Him, it reads in Christians.