There is the mystical quality of God: the Trinity incomprehensible dwelling in light inaccessible. Such mysteries are a source of great beauty and wonder. God, however, is not merely the God of the mystic. He is also the God of revelations within space-time history. The word of God (itself a revelation) is not simply a rule-book. It is written and recorded testimony to what God has done before and will do both now in Christian living and in the end with the final "revelation". God is a revelatory God, a sacramental God, an incarnational God: what has been heard has been and will be seen before our eyes.
God's relationship to His people and this world is not one-sided. He does not hide in absolute obscurity, leaving us to do all the work of worship and salvation in total blindness. The temple at Jerusalem was not a house of man where the people grope about in the dark for the unknown god. It was God's house, where His presence dwelt, where the high priest met with Him, where the people could commune with Him. God is a God of communion, of connectivity, of communication. There is not excuse for anyone; there is no impenetrable black box. God has revealed Himself in His word (II Tim. 3:16), by His Son (John 1:1, 14; Heb. 1:1-2), in the fabric of nature (Rom. 1:19-20), and even in our own moral conscience and imagination (Rom. 2:12-15). Our God is a God of revelation, of incarnation, of knowable communication: what has been heard has been seen and will be seen again (I John 3:2).
-Jon Vowell (c) 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment