What the Bible Reveals

From time to time surveys are undertaken asking people whether they believe in God. Surprisingly about 60% usually say they do, though only about 10% of them go regularly to a place of worship. But if the survey goes further, and asks these professed believers in God what they believe about Him, an almost incredible vagueness emerges.

Their general view of God reflects their view of themselves. Most people are inclined to be indulgent towards their own failings and they think of God as necessarily being the same. "I like to think of God", they say, "as infinitely kind, always forgiving and never condemning anyone, even wrongdoers. Others will say, "Well, if God exists, and I do what I think is right, I shall get whatever reward there is." Since in part of the Western world all religions are now regarded as equally true anyway, any approach to God is as good as any other.

The fact is that modern man is largely pagan. He has lost any sense of the authority of God, because he has lost any basis for belief. Left to his own imaginings, he lacks all conviction; he is confused and indifferent.

Where is the Basis?
It is surely self-evident that if a religion is to have any power and authority for mankind, it must be revealed by God Himself. For there is only one alternative: if the message is not from God, it must come from man. But how can any man presume to tell other men and women what is true and right?

The teachings of the great majority of the religions of the world obviously come from human thinking. There is one notable exception. The religion of the Bible -- the Christian religion with which this booklet is concerned -- is emphatically a revealed religion, the word of God for man.

Its message is never presented as of human authority. "The word of the Lord" comes to the prophet and he delivers it as just that. Old and New Testaments are alike in this. When that Word is written down for the benefit of future generations, it is, says Paul, "inspired of God". Literally he wrote, "God-breathed" (2 Timothy 3:16), a remarkable expression conveying the thought that God's Spirit (or 'breath') was in the very written words. So, says Peter, the Scripture "came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21). Notice the contrast: not "by the will of man", but from God direct by His Spirit.

This is why the Bible is the book of supreme authority. It is God's Word for us. But an important consequence follows: if this is so, we dare not neglect it. We must take it seriously.

God's Self-Revelation
So to the Bible let us go. What has it to tell us about God?

This information is not scanty -- it is abundant. It commences in the first page of the Bible and is maintained right through to the last, that is to say, all through the Law, the Psalms and the Prophets of the Old Testament, and then through the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament. But this picture of God is not complicated or confused, for there emerges one outstanding Personality with His own decisive character, closely concerned with the career of the human race and the future of the world. He cannot be relegated to the fringes of human concerns, nor pushed away "somewhere" in the distant heavens, to be conveniently ignored. If men and women do that, the consequences for themselves will be disastrous.

The commonest description in the Bible of the nature of God is "everlasting". Consider these examples:

"Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God" (Psalm 90:2). "Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding" (Isaiah 40:28).

"The LORD is the true God; he is the living God, and an everlasting King ... " (Jeremiah 10:10).

Here is a quality of existence entirely outside our experience. Indeed God indicates so Himself through His prophet:

"The Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit" (Isaiah 31:3).

Here there is an obvious contrast between "men/flesh" and "God/spirit". God's nature is "Spirit", and forms therefore an absolute contrast with human nature, which is limited in mind, weak in character, and perishing in death.

God is Eternal
The most explicit descriptions in the New Testament are from the Apostle Paul:

"Now unto the King eternal, incorruptible, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen" (1 Timothy 1:17, R.V.).

"The blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords: who only hath immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power eternal. Amen" (1 Timothy 6:16, R.V.).

It is remarkable that in these descriptions the two most explicit terms about God's nature are expressed as negatives. He is "incorruptible" (not corrupting) and "immortal" (not dying). God has a "nature" the direct opposite of "human flesh". So He is "eternal", literally "of the ages" (R.V. margin). It is significant that Paul uses this term three times in one verse: "... to the King eternal (of the ages) ... be glory for ever and ever" (unto the ages of the ages -- R.V. margin). How impressed he must have been with the thought of the everlasting nature of God.

The Greatness of God
The sheer supremacy of God and the glory which should be ascribed to Him by puny mankind is a constant theme throughout Scripture. It was well expressed by David, King of Israel:

"Blessed be thou, 0 LORD, the God of Israel our Father, for ever and ever. Thine, 0 LORD, is the greatness: and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty, for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, 0 LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all" (1 Chronicles 29:10,11).

Greatness ... power ... glory ... victory ... majesty ... all in heaven and earth ... kingdom ... exalted ... head over all. We do well to read slowly through these terms to appreciate David's profound sense of the majestic supremacy of God. It was shared by the Apostle Paul, as we have seen.

This deep conviction of God's supreme majesty is shared by all the faithful of Old Testament times. Now we should not neglect the Old Testament, for in it are revealed the foundations of the character of God, basic truths about Him which are confirmed and expanded in the New Testament. Furthermore it was to Israel that was granted the great revelation of God's supremacy over all the gods of mankind in the stirring events of their Exodus from Egypt. The Israelites saw the effects of the plagues upon the Egyptians and witnessed their own deliverance at the crossing of the Red Sea. Moses put it very strikingly 40 years later: "For ask now of the days that are past ... whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is? ... Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live? Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials (R.V. margin), by signs, and by wonders ... according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?" (Deuteronomy 4:32-34).

Upon this open demonstration of His power and salvation on their behalf, God based His appeal for their service towards Him:

"Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar (special) treasure unto me from among all peoples ... " (Exodus 19:4,5).

Notice particularly here that God's appeal for faith in Himself was solidly based not upon His moral excellence (of which He would give plenty of evidence later on), but upon the demonstration of His supremacy over the greatest pagan system on earth at the time (the Egyptian). This is reinforced when God reveals through Moses His Law for Israel, for the very first clause begins:

"I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" (Exodus 20:2).

Then follow the Ten Commandments, the kernel of God's Law for them.

The authority comes first; the moral teaching follows. It is impossible to dispense with this order. Strikingly, Jesus adopts the same position. The words he spoke, he said, were not his own, but his Father's. In prayer to God, he addresses Him as "Father, Lord of heaven and earth" (Matthew 11:25). Though God was a Father to all who sought Him, yet He remained "Lord of heaven and earth". Unhappily it has to be said that these priorities have been widely ignored in our days, even by many who would regard themselves as followers of Jesus Christ.