In yesterday’s study we ended with the idea of general revelation, which includes the revelation of God in nature. In 1 Corinthians 1 we were talking about the foolishness of this world’s wisdom, and the example of this from Carl Sagan’s program Cosmos. He looks at the wonders of creation, all the glories of the universe, and marvels at all of it. But he cannot see the God who is responsible for it. This shows the utter blindness of the human eye where general revelation is concerned. Paul would say that it is not only the immensity of the universe that ought to point us to a God great enough to create it. Paul would also say that even the smallest detail of the universe ought to lead us to believe in and obey so great a God. There would be enough evidence in a fingerprint, or in the petal of a flower, or even in a single snowflake to cause us to seek out and worship this God.
Consequently, men and women suppress that truth about God. They try to hold it down and deny its existence, because if they acknowledged it they would have to recognize that they are creatures and must worship Him. And that is the one thing they do not want to do. It is this rebellion for which the wrath of God is poured out from heaven against all who act on those principles.
The second aspect of revelation is known as special revelation. J. I. Packer says that this special revelation of God has three parts. First of all, there is a revelation in history because God intervenes in history to do certain things. History is not merely the outworking of human desires and passions. It is that, but it is also at specific points the direct result of the outworking of God. God intervenes in history, for example, when He calls Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees, and establishes him as one through whom God is going to create a special people in order to accomplish great things.
God intervenes to protect the Jewish people by leading them out of Egypt at the time of the Exodus, and establishing them in their land. Eventually, God acts in history to send the Lord Jesus Christ to be our Savior through His life, death, and rising again from the dead. God then sends the Holy Spirit in history to establish the Christian Church.
Second, God also reveals Himself specially by the writing of the Scriptures. It is not merely that God acted in certain historical events; He also acts through His holy prophets and apostles to explain those special historical events to us. As a result, they produce what we know as the Word of God, the Bible. It explains what all these great events in history mean, and where history is going as it awaits the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Third, the God who reveals Himself in history and in the Bible also speaks to the individual mind and heart as that one reads the Word of God. This is what is known as “illumination,” when we begin to understand what it is that God has done.1 The interesting thing, however, is that apart from the work of God’s Holy Spirit in our heart, none of us understands that writing.
Thus, not only do unbelievers fail to recognize God in nature; they also fail to see how God is revealed in the coming of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. God’s “secret wisdom” has now been given, but apart from the Holy Spirit people are unable to perceive what God has truly communicated and performed in the person and work of Christ. If the people of Jesus’ day had really understood God and His revelation, they would not have put Jesus to death.
Paul then quotes from the Old Testament: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him.” Is that because there is nothing there to be seen? No, it is there to be seen. We have eyes to see; we just do not perceive its meaning. Is it because there is nothing to be heard? No, God has spoken, but we do not hear what He is really saying. Are our minds not able to conceive the Gospel because it is incomprehensible to the human mind? No, the Gospel is perfectly rational and clear. It is the great wisdom of God. It is what makes sense of everything. But apart from the Holy Spirit no one can be saved because no eye would see, no ear would hear, and no mind would conceive this wonderful, glorious message of the Gospel. Moreover, the Spirit must give illumination if we would see the Bible for what it really is, which is the inspired and inerrant Word of God.
[1]J. I. Packer, “On Knowing God,” in Our Sovereign God: Addresses Presented to the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology 1974-1976, ed. James M. Boice (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1977), 67-68.
