How Do We Know God Exists?
Notes
Transcript
HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW?
HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW?
GENESIS INTRODUCTION
GENESIS INTRODUCTION
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
How we do we know that the first five words of our English Bible are true?
In the beginning, God...
The opening words of the Bible come with a claim—that before all of creation, there was God.
He existed.
How do we know that this is a statement that has veracity?
How can we be sure of the truthfulness of the claim?
This is really my task tonight—to deal with “In the beginning, God...”
And since the Bible says that He is God from “everlasting to everlasting,” and that He is the “Alpha and Omega,” —the first and the last, then we are not just dealing with, “Did God exist in eternity past?”
We are also asking, “Does He exist now?”
And furthermore, we are asking, “Does He exist forever?”
This is a massive question to deal with in around 45 minutes. After all, humans have been wrestling with it as far back as history records.
And yet, God’s Word is not silent on the matter.
GOD is not silent on the matter.
EPISTEMOLOGY
EPISTEMOLOGY
But before we can jump to our question for the evening, I think we have to back up and ask ourselves, “How do we know what we know, in the first place?”
This is a question of epistemology.
Maybe that is a new word for you.
Here is how RC Sproul defined the word:
Epistemology, a subdivision of philosophy, is the science of knowing.
R. C. Sproul
Others call it the theology of knowledge.
And just like everyone walking around on the earth has a theological stance whether they realize it or not, everyone also has an epistemological stance.
Everyone on the earth has adopted some some theory of knowledge as their lens and they see the world through it.
Their epistemology is what they believe takes their worldview beyond mere opinion to a justified belief.
Understanding epistemology is helpful because it actually pairs down that which we must refute as Christians.
There are lots of opinions on their about how many epistemological stances there are, but I agree with Jeff Johnson, who says you can boil it all down to four.
There is an epistemology of rationalism.
There is an epistemology of empiricism.
There is an epistemology of existentialism.
And there is an epistemology of revelation.
And if that is true, we really don’t need to run around refuting every branch of every religious or irreligious belief system on the face of the earth.
We really only need to refute the handful of epistemological viewpoints that those systems are born out of.
It’s relieving.
RATIONAL EPISTEMOLOGY
RATIONAL EPISTEMOLOGY
Those to whole to a rational epistemology say that reason is the chief source and test of knowledge.
But what a lofty view of the human mind this proves to be!
Can we really leave the defining of ultimate reality to our finite ability to reason and rationalize?
I am 39 years old. When I was 6, you could still smoke on an airplane.
It wasn’t until 23 years ago that smoking on planes was banned all together.
TWENTY-THREE YEARS!
We’ve had SOME idea that 2nd hand smoke can cause cancer since the Nixon Administration!
And yet, many are satisfied to make faulty human reason and rationalization is the arbiter of truth.
As Christians, we know this is futile.
Adam’s fall ushered in the curse of sin and has left the human mind darkened. It’s reason cannot be the sole source of trust in the realm of knowledge.
EMPIRICAL EPISTEMOLOGY
EMPIRICAL EPISTEMOLOGY
People who hold to a purely empirical epistemology are those who say we know what we know by what we can observe.
By what we can see, touch, taste, smell and hear...
By what we can measure in a lab or carbon date...
There is nothing wrong with scientific method and empirical data.
They help us to learn about this world that God has indeed made.
But this can only take us so far.
A purely naturalistic mindset will find itself constantly stretched and constantly falling short when it comes to answering massive questions that bear on the human soul.
For example, when we ask natural science to start answering metaphysical questions like “What is the meaning of life?” or “Why do we love?” it begins to look like a little book wearing his daddy’s coat.
The questions are too big for the lab.
When we ask empirical data to give us answers regarding morality, it ends up look like a muscle that got stretched too far and finally tore off the bone.
For example, the empiricist can create the nuclear bomb, but he has no way to deal with the ethics of using it.
Oppenhemier, anyone?
And if you look throughout history, just as people get hurt when a muscle tears from the bone, humanity is often injured by sciences that cannot operate with any consistent morality.
Furthermore, natural science is always a cat chasing it’s own tail.
The more it discovers, the less it knows.
The more mysteries it uncovers, the more it is exposed for not having all the answers.
EXISTENTIAL EPISTEMOLOGY
EXISTENTIAL EPISTEMOLOGY
And then you have the existential epistemology, which will say that every individual should look within in order to know what is true.
Every person has the ability to look within and create their own meaning.
I recently watched a documentary where a political commentator went all around the world asking the question, “What is a woman?”
He ran into plenty of existentialism along the way as people would say, “A woman is whoever says they are a woman.”
He would ask, “Am I a woman,” even though he was clearly a man.
They would say, “I don’t know, are you?”
What did they mean?
They meant, “You have to look within and tell me. I can’t tell you.”
This is the mindset behind the played out, overused, vain and ruinous phrase, “Find your truth.”
Well what happens when my truth tells me that you should no longer exist?
Or what happens when my truth tells me that stealing your property is ethically okay considering my need and my circumstances?
No one actually lives this way. They only live this way when it is convenient for them.
Everyone knows there are objective truths outside of themselves that they are bound to, no matter how much they look within.
REVELATIONAL EPISTEMOLOGY
REVELATIONAL EPISTEMOLOGY
As Christian people, we do not find our primary basis for knowledge in human reason or a lab or within.
We find our basis for knowledge in God Himself.
In His words. In His works and what His words tells us about His works.
Therefore, we have a revelational epistemology.
God is a self-revelating God.
He has revealed Himself and we look to His revelation as the foundation of knowledge.
This is important for us to understand from the outset here at Theology Week.
Consider these words from Herman Bavinck:
Theology is the science which derives the knowledge of God from His revelation, which studies and thinks into it under the guidance of His Spirit, and then tries to describe it so that it ministers to His honor.
Herman Bavinck
That is what we are doing this week. In a nutshell.
But listen to what Bavinck says in the same breath:
And a theologian, a true theologian, is one who speaks out of God, through God, about God, and does this always to the glorification of His name.
Herman Bavinck
We aren’t making stuff up here.
We aren’t doing guesswork.
We are looking to the self-revelating God and we are basing what we know on what He has revealed, to the glory of His name.
God is the source of our knowledge. His revelation is textbook on our school-desk.
HOW HAS GOD REVEALED HIMSELF?
HOW HAS GOD REVEALED HIMSELF?
BAPTIST HISTORY AND CATECHISMS
BAPTIST HISTORY AND CATECHISMS
The question is, “How has God revealed Himself?”
To answer this question, we ultimately turn to God’s Word, but we can also look to our Baptist ancestors to help us with some initial direction.
The 1689 2nd London Baptist Confession is a cornerstone confession for Baptists—Southern Baptists included.
The Confession opens with ten paragraphs on the Holy Scriptures.
The first one is particularly helpful to us tonight:
The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience, although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and His will which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord at sundry times and in diversified manners to reveal Himself, and to declare (that) His will unto His church; and afterward for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan, and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which makes the Holy Scriptures to be most necessary, those former ways of God's revealing His will unto His people being now completed.
The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, 1.1
Keach’s Catechism, which is attributed to the Baptist divine, Benjamin Keach, helps us cut through these words with some simple question and answer.
Q. 3 How may we know there is a God?
A. The light of nature in man, and the works of God, plainly declare there is a God; but his word and Spirit only do it fully and effectually for the salvation of sinners.
Keach’s Catechism, Q3 &A
In my personal catechism of choice, we find it stated in even simpler terms. Here is Adam Murrell’s Young Baptist’s Catechism:
How do we know God exists?
He reveals Himself to us.
How does He reveal Himself to us?
He reveals Himself to us in nature, in His Word and in His Son, Jesus Christ.
THE TWO BOOKS
THE TWO BOOKS
The 1689 Confession and these catechisms are pointing us toward what we would call “God’s two books of revelation.”
The first would be the book of general revelation or natural revelation.
This is the knowledge of God that comes through the created order.
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them,
and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
The second would be the book of special revelation.
This is the knowledge of God that comes to us in the Scriptures.
Psalm 19 has something to say about this book as well:
The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple;
the precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the Lord is clean,
enduring forever;
the rules of the Lord are true,
and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
God’s two books are not at odds with each other.
Instead, they work in tandem.
They reinforce one another.
They complement one another.
And they both help us answer our question tonight regarding God’s existence.
They both help us with the business of believing and understanding and standing on, “In the beginning, God...”
And I want to spend the rest of my time flipping through both in order to set us up for the rest of the week, as we will continue to study the doctrine of God.
GENERAL REVELATION
GENERAL REVELATION
Let’s start with God’s book of general revelation—sometimes called natural revelation.
What is it and what does it do? Who receives it?
Well the reason I am going to use the term general revelation over natural revelation is because I think general speaks to the nature of it.
This is revelation from God that is universally received by all people.
John Calvin spoke of it in this way:
Because God desires that the chief end of the blessed life should be to know his name, he reveals himself clearly to everyone, so that he should not seem to want to deny some men entry into happiness. For although in his nature he is incomprehensible and hidden from human understanding, he has impressed on each of his works certain signs of his majesty by which he makes himself known to us according to our small capacity. Signs, I say, so familiar and so obvious that the blindest and most untutored of men have no excuse for ignorance.
John Calvin
Calvin is echoing the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 1 as He speaks about people who suppress the truth about God so that they can carry on in unrighteous living.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
But why? Why are all people without excuse?
What is it about nature of general revelation that removes any excuse the sinner would attempt to make about not being aware of God and their accountability to Him?
Well the two passages that we have looked at so far—Psalm 19 and Romans 1, both help us to understand.
GENERAL REVELATION IS IMMEDIATE
GENERAL REVELATION IS IMMEDIATE
First of all, people are without excuse because general revelation is immediate.
In a moment, we will see how special revelation is mediatory. I’ll explain that when we get there.
But General Revelation is not this way. It is immediate, meaning, it is experienced without a mediator.
I will illustrate it this way.
In 2019, my Washington Nationals went to the World Series.
I watched 6 of the 7 games in mediatory fashion.
Meaning, I watched them on the television. I wasn’t there. I was reliant on the mediator of television and broadcasting to get the feed to me so that I could see what was going on.
However, when it comes to Game 3, I watched the game in an immediate fashion.
Our loving church body threw money together and bought me a ticket and I was there in the flesh.
I saw what happened before people on TV at home because there was no delay. People at home were watching with anywhere from a 10-60 second delay, depending on what TV service you have.
General revelation is immediate in the sense that one can go outside and see an Earth and know that it must have a Maker.
Just as we might see a shirt we like and check the tag to see who produced it, operating under the assumption that someone did, we look at nature and we have an immediate awareness that there must be a Creator.
Psalm 19:1 demonstrates this when the Psalmist says:
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Look at the stars in the sky above—they tell you with immediacy and without a mediator, that they were hung by hands infinitely more powerful than yours.
Bavinck understood this and used the term “spontaneous” to describe the way general revelation communicates with immediacy.
In talking about man’s knowledge of God, he said:
Knowledge of God never need to be instilled in people by coercion or violence, nor by logical argumentation or compelling proofs, but belongs to humans by their very nature and arises spontaneously and automatically.
Herman Bavinck
GENERAL REVELATION IS CONTINUOUS
GENERAL REVELATION IS CONTINUOUS
Secondly, general revelation is continuous.
It doesn’t stop. From creation, there is no gap in the record of it.
God’s handiwork in creation is always on display.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
From the zebra’s stripes to the unsettling looking fish with no eyes and giant teeth in the darkest recesses of the ocean;
From the stars you see with your naked eye to the ones that require the highest-powered and most technologically advanced telescopes for viewing;
From the spitting volano to the serene North Carolina beach;
From the domestic house cat to the oak tree he sits under--
God’s creation never stop proclaiming His glorious existence.
GENERAL REVELATION IS UNIVERSAL
GENERAL REVELATION IS UNIVERSAL
Thirdly, general revelation is universal.
This is made clear by Psalm 19:3-4
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
Everyone hears this revelation.
This is why there are no Atheistic tribes.
Not one.
No Atheistic peoples.
You have to be taught Atheism. It does not arise spontaneously.
Instead, for as long as we have historical records, we have people either worshipping the true God as He has revealed Himself to them, or we have people worshipping in what old Bavinck calls distorted forms.
All the false religions and all of man’s attempts to appease the divine are an admittance that they have received general revelation.
Calvin confirms when he says:
Yet, even as the heathen admit, there is no nation so barbarous, no race so wild that it does not have a heartfelt impression that there is a God.
John Calvin
Paul can say that no one is with excuse because everyone has received general revelation.
They prove it in their assumption of divinity.
GENERAL REVELATION IS EFFECTIVE
GENERAL REVELATION IS EFFECTIVE
Fourthly, God’s general revelation is effective—meaning He gets His point across.
For what can be known about God is PLAIN to them. (Romans 1:19)
It is known. It is clear. It is revealed.
And why is it plain? Because God has shown it to them. (Romans 1:19)
His attributes, which we will talk about later this week, though they are invisible, they have been clearly perceived.
General revelation does its job. God reveals Himself in His works and His eternal power and His divine nature are distinct and legible. They are obvious.
And it has been this way since the beginning in Genesis 1.
GENERAL REVELATION IS EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL
GENERAL REVELATION IS EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL
We have talked a lot about the external nature of general revelation. We have talked a lot about what is perceived in external creation.
But we cannot stop there.
God has also revealed Himself in a general sense in the human conscience.
Much like the universality of religious endeavors, there is a universality to certain objective truths. There are certain moral laws that are common to all different sectors of society because they have sprang up out of humanity’s image-bearing conscience.
Genesis 1:26 (ESV)
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”
God is an eternal, moral being.
He is perfectly righteous and He determines the standards of rights and wrongs.
The fact that societies universally outlaw things like murder and theft serve as proof of God’s stamped image on humanity.
This is another example of how God has generally revealed Himself to all people.
GENERAL REVELATION REVEALS JUDGMENT
GENERAL REVELATION REVEALS JUDGMENT
Now, you might hear all of this and think, “Well, this is so obvious. Why doesn’t everyone just fall down and worship the Potter who formed their clay lives?”
Well, as a revelational people, we know that God has told us that our first parents, Adam and Eve, fell in the Garden.
They ate of a tree that was forbidden by God’s spoken law and they transgressed that law.
They ate of a tree that meant certain death and their sin brought death into the world, which spread to everyone of their kids born from two human parents.
This is why you cannot go out into the world without a Bible in hand and build a theology about God based on what He has generally revealed to everyone.
Our hearts and mind have been darkened by the stain of original sin.
It is a poison in the well of every human heart.
People suppress what they know to be true about God so that they can press on in unrighteous living however they see fit according to their own eyes.
But as much as they may try, they cannot escape the reality of God’s existence, and His general revelation to all people reveals His wrath against the idolatry and immorality of man.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
Notice that Paul says “revealed” in present tense. This is something happening now.
This is not the revelation of a future judgment day…This judgment comes through God’s acts in history, such as giving sinners over to corrupting desires and a worthless mindset for rejecting him. God’s providential abandoning of a society to degradation and self-destruction is a public revelation of His wrath.
Joel Beeke
So if you keep reading Romans 1, what you will see is that Paul teaches that when people keep suppressing the truth and pushing God away, He will unhook the leash and reveal His wrath by allowing them to delve further into heinous sin.
As they exchange the truth about God for a lie, He turns them over to the lie.
He gives them up to a debased mind to do what ought not be done.
Paul views Lesbianism, homosexuality, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, slander, gossip, murder, strife, lies, hatred toward God, insolence, pride, disobedience to parents, inventing evil, faithlessness, heartlessness and ruthlessness as evidence of God revealing His wrath by giving people over to their suppression of truth as a judgment for suppressing truth.
This is why Psalm 14:1 says:
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
there is none who does good.
The Psalm is not speaking to an intellectual foolishness, but a moral foolishness.
The moral fool says there is no God, so they can keep up the ruse that they are getting away with something.
All the while, that something is actually wrath being revealed against their ungodliness.
Furthermore, Adam’a fall and the curse of sin has subjected creation itself to futility, so we have creation crying out in pain like a woman in labor. We have it groaning for redemption.
For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
With each natural disaster...
With each tragic occurence in biological life...
We are witnesses to the results of sin and the providential judgment of God on display all around us.
This is all more evidence for His undeniable existence.
THE LIMITATIONS OF GENERAL REVELATION
THE LIMITATIONS OF GENERAL REVELATION
And yet, General Revelation has its limitations.
You cannot build a salvific theology from that which is naturally perceived in General Revelation because our perception is darkened by sin.
If you go out into the world and you attempt to start building a ladder up to God based on general revelation—which many have done—you will get to the top of that ladder and find that in your depravity, you have created a God that looks like you.
A God that approves of however you want to live and whatever you want to do.
General Revelation cannot reveal to us things we must understand if we are to be in a covenant relationship with God.
For example, we cannot perceive the Triune nature of God through General Revelation.
We cannot conclude that God has sent His Son as a sacrifice for sin just studying the intricate design of a giraffe or researching other planets.
This is where the second book of God’s revelation must enter in. This is where we turn to special revelation.
Here is Calvin again from his institutes:
If we think how inclined the human mind is to forget God, how easily it is led into error, by what flights of fancy it dreams up, hour by hour, new and counterfeit religions, we may readily understand how necessary it was for the heavenly doctrine to be couched in written form, lest it perish through forgetfulness, or be lost through error, or be corrupted by the impudence of men.
John Calvin
SPECIAL REVELATION
SPECIAL REVELATION
Special revelation is that 2nd book spoken of in Psalm 19, in verses 7-11.
The law of the Lord that is perfect and soul-reviving.
The sure testimony of the Lord which transforms the simple into the wise
The right precepts of the Lord which bring joy to the heart
The pure commandment of the Lord that enlightens the eyes
The true and righteous rules of the Lord
Is is better than the finest gold and the sweetest honey
And walking in it brings great reward.
General revelation is received by all, but special revelation is not.
Everyone needs it, but not everyone has it.
Special revelation holds the hand of God’s sovereign purposes in salvation, with it being truth revealed to those who have the ears to hear and the eyes to see.
The Father has chosen.
The Son redeems.
And the Spirit quickens those whom the Father has chosen for the Son’s redemption to see and hear God’s special revelation to His people.
THE BASIS FOR SPECIAL REVELATION
THE BASIS FOR SPECIAL REVELATION
The basis for revelation, is God Himself.
Like general revelation, special revelation comes from God and it shows His desire to intimately communicate with His covenant people.
Theologian John Frame says that revelation reveals the communicative nature of the Triune God.
God eternally communicates his love and purposes within the Trinity…This communication is essential to God’s nature. He is, among all his other attributes, a speaking God.
John Frame
But as we have clearly established tonight, we are sinners. We are unrighteous. No one does good. Not even one.
God is holy. He always has been and He always will be.
So there is this massive gap between God and man.
Just like there was a massive gap between Yorktown and Houston during Games 1, 2, 6 and 7 of the 2019 World Series and I needed a TV to mediate the images of the game to me, we need the revelation of the Triune God mediated to us.
The only difference is the gap is much, much bigger.
It would take a mediation much more grand in scale than what Hulu or YouTube TV could offer.
This is where God’s only begotten Son enters in.
THE SON IS THE MEDIATOR OF SPECIAL REVELATION
THE SON IS THE MEDIATOR OF SPECIAL REVELATION
I want to say from the outset that Joel Beeke and Paul Smalley’s Reformed Systematic Theology was crucial to me in preparing this portion of tonight’s talk.
They beautifully lay out how each Person of the Trinity work together to provide us with the Godhead’s special revelation. I want to give you a brief overview and then we will see how these two books comes together to reveal the truth of God’s existence to us.
First of all, The Son is the mediator of special revelation.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Jesus is the Word.
Jesus is God’s living revelation and He has been from the beginning.
And as the Mediator of God’s special revelation, he bridges the gap between sinful man and holy God.
As the image of God invisible in whom all wisdom and treasures are hidden, He takes what His Father delivered to Him and He reveals it to whom He chooses, thus revealing the Father.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
THE FATHER IS THE AUTHOR OF SPECIAL REVELATION
THE FATHER IS THE AUTHOR OF SPECIAL REVELATION
Secondly, we would say that the Father is the author of special revelation.
Jesus made this clear.
So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.
Again in John 12:49
For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak.
Once more in John 14:9-10
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.
With this being the case, Beeke says that revelation takes place through the Son, who is the Mediator, according to the will of the Father, who is Author.
Revelation is an act of divine sovereignty, in which the Father hides himself from some sinners but reveals himself to other, not according to their worthiness, but according to his good pleasure.
Joel Beeke
This is illustrated in Matthew 11:25-26
At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.
THE SPIRIT AS THE POWERFUL AGENT IN SPECIAL REVELATION
THE SPIRIT AS THE POWERFUL AGENT IN SPECIAL REVELATION
And then, finally, we have the Spirit of God who acts as the powerful and effective agent of special revelation.
As Christ, the Mediator of revelation, is sent by the Father, the Author of revelation, he is anointed by the Spirit—the Agent at work in revelation.
As Jesus begins His ministry, he reads this from the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
Just before that, Luke explains that as Jesus exits His wilderness temptation, He comes back to Galilee, “in the power of the Spirit.”
And Jesus promised that after His death, resurrection and ascension, He would pour out the gift of His Spirit on His church as they took the message revealed to them to the world:
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
In John 16, Jesus says that the Spirit will not speak of Himself. Instead, He will glorify Christ by showing what the Father has given to the Son.
All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
And then, as you get into the book of Acts, the church receives the Spirit at Pentecost and the Spirit is again the divine Agent who is empowering the preaching of God’s revelation to the lost world. (Acts 1:8)
Furthermore, we know that is the Spirit of God who has divinely inspired the written Scriptures we hold in our hands.
The Bible shows God revealing Himself verbally.
The Bible shows God revealing Himself visually in theophanies and visions and dreams.
The Bible shows God revealing Himself providentially in His activity in the world and through lot-casting and Urim and Thummim.
The Bible informs us of God’s work in creation, thus giving us a lens to even understand General Revelation by.
But in all of these words, the Spirit was speaking by God’s servants.
The believers who pray for boldness state this clearly.
who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit,
“ ‘Why did the Gentiles rage,
and the peoples plot in vain?
2 Timothy 3:16 famously says:
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
The Scriptures are God-breathed.
They have come from God.
They come out of God.
They are not by the will of man. Instead, those that wrote them were carried along by God’s Spirit.
who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
This is inspiration. And the inspired Scriptures do not just tell us that God exists, but what He is like.
INCARNATIONAL REVELATION
INCARNATIONAL REVELATION
Now, here is the thing about God’s inspired Word—His Special Revelation...
Many have opened it and read it who are not Christians and they have walked away unchanged.
They have tried to climb the mountain of God’s revelation, only to get up to the top and shrug and go back down or they get up at the top and they are still twisting God’s Word to create a god of their own liking.
But If you truly climb the mountain of God’s revelation, here is what you will find at the pinnacle:
Like Peter and James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration, you will find Christ in His glory.
You will find Christ the Messiah, for He is what Millard Erickson calls “the consummate mode of revelation.”
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
There was a time in which God spoke through the prophets, but now He speaks to us in the pinnacle of His revelation—His Son, Jesus Christ.
The Creator of the world took on flesh and is God’s ultimate communication to us.
He is the Mediator of God’s revelation.
He is the Maker of our world.
He is the Messiah for His people.
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
If you read the Bible and you come to any other conclusion than this, start again.
You have missed the point.
Jesus is the jewel in the ring of Special Revelation.
The Mediator is the Majesty in God’s revealed Word.
In Him, God has tabernacled with us as the ultimate revelation of Himself.
HOW THE TWO BOOKS WORK TOGETHER
HOW THE TWO BOOKS WORK TOGETHER
Now we close up tonight, I want to encourage you look to Acts 17 and Paul speaking to the pagans at Mars Hill in order to see how general revelation and special revelation go hand-in-hand.
How they compliment and confirm one another...
How they can be used in our mission to evangelize and make disciples...
Paul is in Athens and there are Epicurean philosophers who believe that the supreme good was the absence of pain.
There are Stoics who believe the universe governed by reason and the goal is inner peace.
They think Paul is a babbler, much like our post-modern world that stands on two rickety epistemological legs:
Empiricism and Existentialism.
Measure in labs and look within, but whatever you do—don’t say that there is a self-revelating God we are accountable to.
Paul says to them:
Acts 17:22–29 (ESV)
“Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for
“ ‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
as even some of your own poets have said,
“ ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.
Paul is using the book of General Revelation to make his point to them. To point to God’s existence.
General Revelation is good for this work.
It is a cannon that blows the Atheist and idolater’s shield out of their hand and leaves them unguarded.
I believe Frances Turretin is the theologian who best helps us understand how to do this.
As we have seen, people pre-suppose God exists because of creation and conscience.
Some suppress the truth and become idolaters, while others become full on Atheists.
They hold up their shield of rationalism or empiricism or existentialism.
Many Christians are so intimidated by these shields, that they turn and run or remain silent.
But in truth, as those with Bibles, we can look back through the lens of Scripture and understand General Revelation through Special Revelation in a way that the natural, fallen mind cannot.
We should not be afraid—we have God’s truth!
The revelation of God in creation and conscience takes the pagan philosopher’s shield away and leaves them exposed.
It leaves them in epistemological crisis.
But this is when we must turn to the Sword of the Spirit and unsheath the truth of God’s revealed Word.
This is what Paul does in Acts 17.
The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Paul’s audience further suppressed the truth by mocking him, despite their being exposed by the truth.
This is what many men will do.
They drink rain and thank clouds.
But we faithfully, press on, letting all people know they are without excuse, and they must believe in the Gospel of God’s salvation.
They must repent of sin and trust in His Son, the only Mediator, Jesus Christ.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
How do we know God exists?
He reveals Himself to us.
How does He reveal Himself to us?
In nature, in His Word and in His Son, Jesus Christ.