We have seen on Part 1: Knowing about God Through Creation that God has not only manifested the desire to be known but that He has provided us with means to know Him or means of revelation. These means are Creation, His inspired Word - The Bible, and Jesus Christ - The Way. Theologically these means are also referred to as "General or Natural Revelation", "Specific Revelation" and "Special Revelation." By General or Natural Revelation we mean that God reveals Himself through His creation.
Romans 1, 19-20, Paul said "because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse." Moreover, Psalm 19:1 says, "The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge." By observing creation, which includes human beings themselves, we are left with proof of God's existence. The heavens declares or announces the glory of God; in another words, the heavens speaks aloud that it is God's wonderful work, that it did not came into being by change or from nothing.
Since the recorded history of our civilization we have never seen things come into existence without someone actively and intentional bring that into being. The things that we so enjoy all have been planned, fashioned and manufactured by someone. Therefore, it is even inconceivable in our minds to entertain the idea that natural things that surround us just came into existence through unguided, mindless, evolutionary processes - such possibility defies the laws of logic and the simplest observations we can make on everyday life on how things come into existence.
The device you so hold on your had that allows you to receive communication without being connected to any cable, aka wireless, was projected by someone even if by the time it gets to your hand you don't even have to know anything about the engineer who did so, and frankly we don't, yet you know someone envisioned, design, engineered and manufactured it. So did the heavens, the earth, and everything that exist - even if we don't know anything about the Creator, The Creator does exists and the things around us bear witness of Him.
Specific Revelation - The Bible
Natural revelation provides every men with evidence of their Creator and hindering us from idolatry in our pursuit of Him, so that all men will be without excuse on the day of judgment. While one cannot ultimately know Who The Creator is, yet he will have conscience of His attributes by observing the things created. Natural revelation does it job but calls for special revelation, The Word of God. While one can know who God ought to be based on the things He created, he will only know Him His Specific Revelation the Word of God. It's when natural revelation is coupled with specific revelation that we can know who God is. The bible is God's specific revelation to humanity, and its very first verse writes:
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters." Genesis 1:1-2
The bible picks up exactly where natural revelation leaves everyone off. While natural revelation says "The creator exists," specific revelation begins by endorsing such statement and presenting God as The Creator of everything. It says in the very opening verse, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. [...]" Before time, space or matter were as we know on earth, God is, and the beginning came into being when He first created. "In the beginning God...," nothing else, only God. Psalm 90:2 says, "Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God." God is before everything. This is how the bible begins, by presenting God as The Creator of everything in testimony of the witness of natural Revelation.
Believing in the God of the bible is not a mere blind believe but it's a conclusion that one attains by personal experience through salvation and full persuasion based on the truth of God's Word. God claims that He created everything around us from nothing in the beginning, and He describes these things one by one, from a macroscopic level to a microscopic level. Before we came to know so many things about the universe and nature, the bible described them; hence, it compels us to believe in Him once we see that the claims much our daily observations. For instance, God said, "Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day." Genesis 1:3-5. Still today do you see the division between day and night? Do you see that the day is preferable by all, meaning light is good? This simply distinction we see everyday, God claims to have intentionally created.
Additionally in Genesis 1:14-19, God said, "Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day." God is saying that He created the greater light, the sun, to rule the day and the lesser light, the moon, to rule the night, and He created the starts also and set them in the firmament of the heavens to light on the earth. Question: Is there a sun, moon, and stars in the skies? Yes, we see them everyday. Does the sun appears during the day, meaning ruling it? Yes. Does the moon appears during the night, meaning ruling it? Yes. Do we see starts in the skies? Yes. Do they give light on earth? Absolutely.
If you have said yes to all of the questions above, what does it tell you? It should at the very minimum tell you that God claims are true, He told us the truth. But the verses don't stay there, there is a lot more that the verses above reveal to us. It also says, "Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years;" Genesis 1:14. We see indeed the sun dividing the day from the night. When the sun begins to rise, the transition between night to day happens. But not only that, God also said, "let them [sun and moon] be for signs and seasons, and for days and years." This is remarkable because since ancient times people used the position of the sun and moon to determine the hours of the day, and from modern science we know that the rotation that the earth makes about it axis and its orientation in relation to the sun and moon is what determines what regions will experience day or night.
Moreover, the rotation of the earth around the sun is what causes the seasons we experience, and what we call a year is simply the earth completing a full rotation around the sun. Thus, when God says that those lights will be in the firmament "for signs, seasons, and for days and years," the claims are all true. Again, God told us the truth. The Psalmist exclaimed saying, "'Forever, O Lord , Your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness endures to all generations; You established the earth, and it abides. They continue this day according to Your ordinances, For all are Your servants.'" Psalms 119:89-91. God's Word can be trusted, the things God created continue and will continue functioning the way God created them for. In spite of the fall of men and the alteration that the universe as a whole had, the sun will continue to be sun and rule the day, the moon will continue to be moon and rule the night, the starts will brighten the skies and shine on earth, and etc. God is Faithful. The claims above are just a fraction of all the things God reveals in His Word that we can confirm with simple observation of the things around or examination of our own lives. There is a lot more that God revealed in His Word.
The Veracity and The Nature of the Bible
What is the point of all of these? The point is that if the claims God made in His Word are true, and we have already seen that they are, then God is Truthful and is telling the truth. Therefore, we ought to take the bible very seriously. When The bible presents God as the creator of everything, it is true. God created everything in the world, including us, and He Himself claims it. There are not many gods claiming to have created everything and giving us detailed explanation creation, but the One and True God does. If you search for creation account from other major religions or even secularists and atheists, you will be very surprised at their claims. Many religions don't even have explanations for the origin of the universe, and secularists and atheist are yet to come up with an explanation to explain how everything came into being, how everything works, and why we are here! We can wait until they invent an explanation, but what should we do with our lives until then? Should we put life on pause until secularist and atheists catch up? No! In His word, God explained all this things for us. God created everything including us.
General revelation helps us to believe God exist and formulate an idea of who He might or ought to be; whereas, The Specific Revelation that God gave of Himself in His Word helps us to know for sure His identity through the various things He disclosed in it about Him. The bible is supernatural in origin and divine in inspiration. God breathed the Words and men wrote them. Though written by human agents they were led and inspired by the Holy Spirit, The Spirit of God, The Spirit of Truth. It's written, "knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." (II Peter 1:20-21). In another words, the prophecies or the things recorded in the bible never came from the prophet's own understanding, desire, or effort, rather the things contained in Scripture came about as holy men, meaning men chosen and separated by God to do so, spoke or wrote on behalf of God as inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Inspiration is not a novelty for us. We often hear composers, musicians, actors, writers, engineers, architects, and anyone else involved in creative roles talking about it, on how they had been inspired to do what they did. Inspiration itself is not a foreign concept we know what it is; however, who or what inspired them is the big question. Judging by the fruits of some of the things people say they had be inspired to do, we can tell that many are not inspired by God. But it is not the case with the bible. The was was written by men for men using their experiences and background yet they did not speak out their own volition they spoke what God wanted them to speak, "holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." This is not an extraordinary thing for God to do. He who created the heavens and the earth can do anything consistent with His will. Human beings are His creation and He knows how to move them to write something without their human flows.
For instance, in Numbers 22, a king called Balak called Balaam, a man who practiced divination and loved money, to curse Israel the people of God. For three times Balaam could not curse them in spite of all the silver and gold that Balak promised him. In the last trial Balak gets mad at him and says, "Then Balak’s anger was aroused against Balaam, and he struck his hands together; and Balak said to Balaam, “I called you to curse my enemies, and look, you have bountifully blessed them these three times! Now therefore, flee to your place. I said I would greatly honor you, but in fact, the Lord has kept you back from honor.” So Balaam said to Balak, “Did I not also speak to your messengers whom you sent to me, saying, ‘If Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the word of the Lord , to do good or bad of my own will. What the Lord says, that I must speak’?" Numbers 24:10-13. If God were capable of restraining a greedy man like Balaam from cursing His people and instead bless them, He is indeed able from restraining the biblical authors from writing their own ideas and instead lead them to write His. However, the biblical authors were led and not restrained like Balaam had to because they loved God.
God meticulously chose specific vessels, trained them in righteousness for many years to walk with Him, learn about Him, to love Him, be devoted to Him, and then and only then, God used them to accomplish His supernatural work. God did not rush to write the bible. "The books of the Bible were written at different times by different authors over a period of approximately 1,500 years. But that is not to say that it took 1,500 years to write the Bible, only that it took that long for the complete canon of Scripture to be penned as God progressively revealed His Word. [...] The books of the Bible were not being written continuously. For example, 400 years elapsed between the completion of the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, and the beginning of the New Testament with the gospel of Matthew. The “400 years of silence” occurred because the Spirit of God did not inspire any Scripture during that time. [...] We do know that each of the Bible’s authors wrote only as much and as long as they were led to do so. Each author wrote at the direction of the Holy Spirit who “breathed out” Scripture to him." (1)
God took His time in leading people to write the bible so we can know Him through it, but not only know Him, but know His creation, know ourselves, instruct us, help us understand life, know why things are the way they are in our world, and know where things are heading. It's written, "'All Scripture is God-breathed [given by divine inspiration] and is profitable for instruction, for conviction [of sin], for correction [of error and restoration to obedience], for training in righteousness [learning to live in conformity to God’s will, both publicly and privately—behaving honorably with personal integrity and moral courage]; so that the man of God may be complete and proficient, outfitted and thoroughly equipped for every good work.'" 2 Timothy 3:16-17 AMP. However, the apex of the biblical revelation is for us to know God.
In short, while Natural revelation gives us some hints of who God is, The Bible gives us the specifics about Him. The bible contains the various descriptions of God: His attributes, His names, His actions, His will, and etc., and the sum of all these things leads us to know Him, to have the correct view of God based on what He revealed about Himself, and not based on what we want or think He is. The bible is a vehicle that is supposed to lead us to the knowledge of God. Through everything written, as we meditate, as we seek God, and etc., at the end we should know God Himself more and more, and obtain the knowledge of Him. It is written, "My son, if you receive my words, And treasure my commands within you, So that you incline your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding; Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding, If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will understand the fear of the Lord , And find the knowledge of God.'" Proverbs 2:1-5.
God can be known, and He wrote us a personal letter: The Bible. '“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord . “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.'" Isaiah 55:8-11.
"'Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! “For who has known the mind of the Lord ? Or who has become His counselor?” “Or who has first given to Him And it shall be repaid to him?” For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.'" Romans 11:33-36
May God bless you and may you know Him more and more.
References:
(1) "How long did it take to write the Bible?", Article, GotQuestions.org
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