Tuesday, February 11, 2014

College Study #63: "God's Invisibility, part I: Where is your God?"




‘Behold, the Lamb of God’

ide o amnos tou theou

College Study

63rd teaching

2.10.2013

 

“God’s Invisibility, part I: Where is your God?”

 

 

Mystery Question: What is one thing the church can’t stand to lose?

Project Scriptura:  no Project Scriptura for next week

Review:

          What was our subject last week? What does the word majesty mean? Can anyone identify one of the differences between God and Zeus that we named last week? What was in the vision Daniel saw that we covered last week? What’s a good New Testament example of someone reacting to God’s majesty? So what is the reaction to God’s majesty? What is the relationship between God’s infinity and God’s majesty? How about between God’s sovereignty and God’s majesty? Since God is the Monarch over all, what were three things we noted involved in His being the Universal Majesty (the three things start with R’s)? In the Revelation, Jesus is called the Lion of the tribe of Judah; what does this title mean? What is so unique about the King of kings that He did for His own subjects? And we concluded last week with the concept that since we call God ‘Lord’, what should we do to Him?

End of Review

 

          Much of what we have before us tonight deals directly with the issues of belief and non-belief.

          Tonight’s study is entitled: “God’s Invisibility: Where is your God?”

          I suggest to you that if God were really tangible, visible, something physical that you could go and see and touch and audibly hear, in all ages of history, then there would be much less worry about belief or non-belief in Him. If we could say to people, God is real and He loves you and He’ll be at my house at 7pm on Monday nights and you can meet Him and see His miracles, watch Him create a matter out of nothing, listen to His wisdom, and so on, then it would be a whole different ball game at the very least.

          Bertrand Russell once asked: “God, if you are there, why are you so hard to find?”

          But the fact of the matter is that God is the Invisible God. And that presents a problem for many, causing the unbeliever to ask: where is your God? How can I know He is there? What evidence do you have He even exists at all?

          Turn to Psalm 42.

          As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually say to me, ‘Where is your God?’

            When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go with the multitude; I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.

            O my God, my soul is cast down within me; therefore I will remember You from the land of the Jordan, and from the heights of Hermon, from the Hill Mizar. Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; all your waves and billows have gone over me. The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me—-a prayer to the God of my life.

            I will say to God my Rock, ‘Why have You forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?’ As with a breaking of my bones, my enemies reproach me, while they say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’ Why are you cast own, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.”

          One of the underlying themes in this psalm is the searching and the seeking after the invisible One. The psalmist remembers a time when he used to go with the multitude to seek the Lord in the assembly. His soul still desires God, pants out of thirst for God, only God seems silent.

          You get this sense that he finds himself distant and depressed; distant from God and depressed because of His circumstances. Surely, if we can relate with nothing else, we can relate to that. I’m sure we have all felt distant from God at one time or another, and thus depressed.

          And twice the psalmist is asked the nagging question: Where is your God? If you’re so depressed, where is your God? If you’re not actively seeking Him, where is your God? If your enemies are shaming you, then where is your God?

          And so you find the psalmist wrestling with the ideas of the nearness of God, the love of God for him and the invisibility, the unseen-ness of God. Tonight we’ll see how this is a biblical truth about what God is like, that He is invisible, and how this presents several problems, both for the believer and unbeliever, and how we can hope to rise above these problems.

          So if you’ve found yourself feeling distant from God, unloved, isolated, searching after Him and finding only silence and hiddenness, struggling with your faith, having your doubts, while your soul is ever more downcast and the unbeliever says to you ‘Where is your God after all?’ then tonight’s study of God’s Invisibility is for you. I think that we can often find ourselves exactly where the psalmist was. I think we can often have this very real experience of asking ourselves whether God is really there.

          So then, we have several points to address. Firstly, we want to understand this biblical doctrine of Divine Invisibility, and we’ll do that in the first two points. Then we’ll move on to address three problems that the invisibility of God presents and how to overcome these problems.

1.   What is the Doctrine of Invisibility?

          In the past, we’ve devoted time to the meaning of the sometimes complex theological terms we’re presented with in studying God’s attributes. But I think we all know what invisible means: literally, not-visible, unseen. We’ve known about invisibility since the playful days of our youth when said to our playmates “You can’t shoot me, I’m invisible”, “I’m touching the base, I’m invisible” or even earlier days when our parents played for us the game of ‘Peek-a-boo’.

          We know what invisible means enough so that if we were to pick up the great H.G. Wells’ novel the Invisible Man and read about some guy taking his clothes off and running naked through the streets claiming his invisibility until he was deservedly arrested, we should say ‘well, he certainly wasn’t invisible’. In order to be the invisible man, he would have to go running about in his birthday suit unseen to anyone.

          Thus when applied to God, the theological meaning of this attribute is clear. The doctrine of God’s Invisibility simply means God is invisible. So there you have it, let’s all go home.

          Not only is the meaning of this attribute clear to us, but we know this from our own experience. None of us, short of the rarest of visions or dreams, has ever seen God. I know I have never had a vision like Daniel where I saw the Ancient of Days with His fiery eyes seated on His throne in heaven. Nor was I alive when the incarnate Son of God walked the earth in the flesh. And I dare say, neither were you.

          So from the meaning of this attribute and from our own experience of never having seen Him, we can agree that God is invisible. Note that this doesn’t mean the same thing as undetectable or indiscernible or imperceptible. God can be detected and discerned and perceived through several means, but not through our ordinary vision. Simply, God is invisible to our eyes.

          A few things I’d like to say on God’s Invisibility.

          Firstly, it’s kindred doctrine. Remember what kindred doctrines are? They are two or more doctrines, that is teachings, which have very similar meanings. For example, there’s the doctrine of God’s Oneness or Unity, and the doctrine of God’s Simplicity. Both have very similar teachings: that God is one God and not made up of parts. Or there’s the kindred doctrines of God’s Impeccability and God’s Moral Perfection: impeccability says God cannot sin, while moral perfection says God does not sin. Very close, very similar meanings.

          Thus when we come to the doctrine, the biblical teaching of God’s Invisibility, what do you think is its kindred doctrine?

          It’s immateriality! God is metaphysically immaterial. What does that mean? If you remember when we studied these kind of attributes, metaphysical attributes describe what God is, sort of like what He is made up of. Just like our physical attributes describe what our bodies are made up of, so too metaphysical (God’s literally beyond-physical) attributes describe what God is “made up of”.

          And we discovered that since God is a Spirit that He is not made up of anything! Least ways, He is not made up of materials or matter. He is metaphysically immaterial. And His immateriality is a kindred doctrine to His invisibility.

          Consider that since God is metaphysically immaterial that He is also invisible. Since God is not made up of things we can see, being immaterial, therefore we simply can’t see Him. In other words, His invisibility is a consequence of His immateriality. God is invisible as a result of being immaterial.

          The Bible doesn’t say, like the Greeks believed of their gods, that God is just a great big muscular man with a long white beard and toga who simply dwells out of sight and remains out of sight. No, the Bible makes it clear that God is not seen, that He has no form, that He is hidden, that He dwells in unapproachable light, and that aside from any attempt on His part to take visible form, He is basically invisible.

          There’s another kindred-doctrine here, which is God’s Incorporeality. Anyone take a shot at what that means? It means God does not have a body. Very similar to these other attributes here. God is immaterial, so God also doesn’t have a body (this is aside from the incarnation of course), and since God is an immaterial and bodiless Spirit, therefore He is invisible.

          So immaterial, incorporeal and invisible are three kindred doctrines.

          Secondly, I like you to notice that God’s invisibility is a non-moral attribute. You might have forgotten that we’re studying this final grouping of God’s attributes we like to call the non-moral attributes. We considered God’s attributes in three phases: His metaphysical ones (which I’ve just explained what metaphysical attributes are), His moral ones, which mean His attributes that have to do with His moral character, and finally His non-moral attributes.

          Now the title ‘non-moral attributes’ doesn’t mean immoral or amoral attributes. We’re talking rather about attribute which do not directly relate to morals of God nor directly relate to the nature and essence of God (which is metaphysics). So the non-moral attributes have more to do with how God relates to His creatures and His universe He made, and the various actions and methods He takes with it. So God’s beauty which is perceived by His creatures, God’s wisdom which is used to make His choices and God’s sovereignty which is His governing over the universe are all non-moral attributes.

          Invisibility is a non-moral attribute by this classification we’re using. Why? Because it doesn’t fit into the moral category; there’s nothing either moral or immoral about being invisible. Neither does it fit into God’s metaphysical category. That spot is occupied by His kindred attributes of immateriality and incorporeality.

          And since God is invisible as it pertains to His creatures, the human beings He made, it is a relational attribute which fits comfortably in the category of non-moral. Now you may take that or leave it. It doesn’t entirely matter. Categorizing is merely the realm of the science of theology as an aid to understanding the attributes of God.

          Okay, so now we know what God’s Invisibility is. It is a non-moral attribute, with kindred doctrines immaterial and incorporeal, which states that God is unseen and non-visible.

          Origen, an early church father who didn’t necessarily have all of his theological facts straight, did say this quite correctly: “God, therefore, is not to be thought of as being either a body or as existing in a body, but as an uncompounded intellectual nature…” We stress again that this refers of course to God’s nature as distinct from the incarnation, when God became flesh in Jesus Christ.

          So what does the Bible have to say about this?

2.   The Biblical Basis for God’s Invisibility

          Direct usage of the word invisible is pretty uncommon in Scripture. The New King James version only uses the word invisible a handful of times in the New Testament and not once in the Old Testament. So you were forced, hopefully, to get creative with finding your Project Scriptura verses, since there are many references made to this attribute which never use the word invisible at all.

          What did you find?

 

 

          Deuteronomy 4:12, “And the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the first. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; you only heard a voice.”

          John 6:46, “Not that any man has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father.

          1 Peter 1:8, “And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.”

          *Moving on: now that we know what God’s invisibility is and what the Bible says about it, let’s next address three problems associated with God’s invisibility.

          First problem and our third point:

3.   The Problems of Scriptural Language

          Probably this is a problem which crossed your mind at least once, maybe even when you were trying to find your Project Scriptura verses. The problem is this: how is God invisible if there are so many times in the Bible when He was seen? I mean, if invisible means unseen, then how do we account for the times when He apparently was seen such as when Moses saw His back, when the incarnated Christ walked the earth, when His disciples saw Him transfigured on the mountain, when the prophets had their visions of God, and so on.

          I think there are several different answers for these several different references, but let’s take a few of them on:

A.   Image of God

          First, consider the biblical term the “image of God”. As Calvin, not John Calvin, but Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes said: “What if we die and it turns out God is a big chicken?? What then?!” to which his parents responded “just eat your dinner”.

          One of the earliest doctrines in Scripture, if not the very first biblical teaching about mankind, Genesis 1:26 says “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…” The Bible says mankind is made in the image of God. Problem: how can anything be made in the image of something that is invisible?

          Sounds like as much of an oxymoron as if I said you should paint with all the colors of the wind, or tell you to look at this picture of an invisible pink unicorn. You just can’t, because invisible things, by definition, are non-visible. And since humans are neither invisible nor chickens, it isn’t necessarily clear that God is invisible or that He is a chicken.

          How then can we understand our being made in the image of God?

          Consider that there are several ways in which humans have a kind of unique likeness to God. God is rational; human beings are rational. God is personable, human beings have personality. God is spiritual; human beings have a spirit and exhibit spiritual behavior and tendencies. God hears, acts, moves and speaks; human beings have ears, hands, feet and mouths to hear, act, move and speak. God is a moral Being; human beings are also moral beings. God is truth; human beings can understand truth.

          So there is a kind of physical analogy between our design and God’s Being, but it isn’t purely physical. God’s image is in mankind in a way which does not mean that God is just a bigger, stronger, more beautiful version of an adult human Himself. The term “image of God” then refers to a likeness between God and man which touches on man’s behavior, his mind, soul and body, his reason and his spirit, which in no way denies the fact that God Himself is invisible.

B.   Anthropomorphic descriptions

          Do you remember looking at a house and seeing eyes in the windows and a mouth in the door? Probably, and especially after watching the Brave Little Toaster. But does this mean that such a house that resembles a human face really is the same thing as a human face? Of course not. The key word here is resembles. There’s a resemblance to a human face in this picture of a house, but it doesn’t mean the house is identical to a human face.

          Similarly, the Bible makes statements about God such as God having arms (Deu 33), God having eyes (II Chron 16) or God even having wings (Psalm 91). However, you’d be mistaken to take these statements about God as literal truths about His metaphysical nature. We have arms and eyes as part of our physical nature, but the invisible and incorporeal God does not, in the same way that the house you saw as a child did not really have eyes or a mouth, but it was merely a resemblance.

          When the Bible uses this kind of language, we mustn’t understand it as literally true, although they say true things about God. God analogically has “eyes” in that He sees. God analogical has “arms” in that He holds up His people. These statements are known as Anthropomorphisms, that is, human form. These are statements which describe God in human form, not literally, but figuratively, conveying a truth to be understood not that God has literal hands, but that God literally acts in a way which resembles our ability to act with our hands.

C.   Face to Face

          Here’s a short survey of three verses: Genesis 32:30 says, after Jacob wrestled with God until the dawn, “So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: ‘For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” Exodus 33:11 says, “So the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” And also Numbers 14:14, which reads: “They have heard that You, LORD, are among these people; that You, LORD, are seen face to face and Your cloud stands above them, and You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.”

          At least these three times in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, we’re told that men spoke with God very closely, in a personable way, described by the phrase “Face to face”. How are we to understand this phrase, especially in light of passages that seem to indicate that seeing God is fatal, or when God told Moses that he could not see His face Exodus 33?

          Should we despairingly agree with the critics of Scripture and say with them that the Bible is full of errors and inconsistencies? Absolutely never! That’s the easy way out. The hard path is doing the research, the consideration and the study!

          At “face” value, consider that there’s a difference between seeing God face to face and seeing God’s actual face.

          When we say “I met so-and-so face to face” or “we talked face to face”, we are using a figure of speech. Consulting a dictionary, we can discover that “face to face” is a figure of speech that means “Being in the presence of another; in person”.

          We can assume then, with ordinary use of language and figures of speech, that the meaning of these words isn’t that they saw God’s face but rather spoke with God intimately and personally, in the presence of God, “face to face”. That alone would be tremendously rare and unusual considering how very few people even in biblical times actually experienced such an encounter.

          The Bible says God spoke to Moses face to face but that God also forbid Moses to see His face… there is no contradiction here when the phrase “face to face” is recognized not as a literal statement but as a figure of speech conveying the closeness with which God and Moses communicated, as a friend speaks to a friend.

          *But what about when Scripture is clear that the saints really saw something?

D.   Theophanies

          Theophany comes from a Greek word that meant “appearance of god”. So this referred to the concept of God or a god visibly appearing to a human being. And the Old Testament is particularly full of such occurrences. There’s the burning bush, the pillar of cloud and fire, the descent upon Mount Sinai, the Angel of the Lord, the Man who wrestled with Jacob, not to mention the many prophetic visions of God.

          In Genesis 18:1-3 we read “Then the LORD appeared to [Abraham] by the terebinth trees of Mamre, as he was sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day. So [Abraham] lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing by him; and when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself to the ground, and said, ‘My Lord, if I have now found favor in Your sight, do not pass on by Your servant…”

          And if you read on you’ll see that these three men were none other than God Himself accompanied by two angels in visible form. But that’s just it, Abraham saw God in visible form, not necessarily any more than a representation that God could take up and take off just as we take up clothes. And no more than clothes are actually ourselves, so too the Bible says both that God appeared to men and also that no man has seen God at any time. These “forms” God takes during appearances are enough to say that it is God appearing but not enough to say that God is truly and ultimately seen.

          We take this then to mean that while God appeared in various forms and visions to men through the ages, that no one has ever seen the essence, the essential nature of God.

          And it’s interesting to me that when they saw God, the prophets especially, that there’s very little description of God Himself other than in vague and intangible words such as fire and light. Take Isaiah’s vision of God in Isaiah 6 or John’s vision of God in Revelation 4, there’s little actual description of what God looks like. Isaiah merely describes God’s robe filling the temple as He sat on a throne, and John gives hardly any more details, appealing to colors and gemstones and lightning to give us an impression of what He saw.

          And that’s basically it: these visions gave an impressions of the invisible God, but His actuality, His essence remained unseen. Literal appearances of God may not have been more than mere representations of God in visible form, but not what God actually was. Thus God’s invisibility is preserved. More can definitely be said about the matter but we must press on.

          The first problem with God’s Invisibility was the Scriptural Language, and how to reconcile the Bible’s claim that God is unseen yet that He appeared to people throughout history. We covered that, next:

4.    The Problem of the Hiddenness of God

          We read in Isaiah 45:15 says “Truly You are a God who hides Himself, O God of Israel, the Savior!

          Notable atheist Richard Dawkins        was once asked the question (by Ben Stein in the film Expelled): “What if after you died you ran into God, and he says, what have you been doing, Richard? I mean what have you been doing? I've been trying to be nice to you. I gave you a multi-million dollar paycheck, over and over again with your book, and look what you did.”

          To which Dawkins responded: “Bertrand Russell had that point put to him, and he said something like: sir, why did you take such pains to hide yourself?”

          Friedrich Nietzsche, previous owner of an impressive moustache, but no more friendly toward God than Dawkins, was a German philosopher who coined the phrase “God is dead”. Nietzsche also touched on the subject of the hiddenness of God when he said this: “A god who is all-knowing and all-powerful and who does not even make sure his creatures understand his intentions —could that be a god of goodness? Who allows countless doubts and dubieties to persist, for thousands of years, as though the salvation of mankind were unaffected by them, and who on the other hand holds out frightful consequences if any mistake is made as to the nature of truth? Would he not be a cruel god if he possessed the truth and could behold mankind miserably tormenting itself over the truth?”

          Essentially, Nietzsche questioned whether God could even be called good if He demanded so much faith of His creatures and yet made such an effort to hide himself.

          The Hiddenness of God is a subject directly related to the biblical truth of God’s invisibility, but it has become an all-too-common argument in the atheist arsenal.

          Atheists have had a field day with God’s invisibility, attempting to portray it as a ridiculous fact leading to any ridiculous belief, such as summed up in the atheist mascot: the flying Spaghetti Monster. Because after all, if God is invisible and unseen and hidden, He might as well be anything, even made of noodles and meatballs.

          But more seriously, atheists will claim the invisibility of God, the silence of God, the hiddenness of God goes to show that He isn’t even there at all. Atheists will ask “If God exists and bases our eternal fates on whether we accept Him or not, shouldn’t He have done a better job of making His truth clear?”

          Basically they’re asking “Why isn’t God more obvious?” And it’s an interesting question to consider. Why didn’t God send His Son in an age of television and the internet, when we could all see recorded evidence? Why didn’t God write His signature on every atom and molecule, or inscribe “made by God” upon every sunset? Why doesn’t God just write the letters in every language across the sky “Hey, I exist!”

          We should consider the question of God’s Hiddenness. Not merely because of its interest, but because there are real people who may be genuinely stuck over this issue, bracing up their entire unbelief upon it.

          Like the psalmist whose work we read earlier, we too are confronted by the question: “Where is your God?” If God is hidden and invisible, why be that way? Why not show the world? Why not give more evidence or stronger evidence to convince everyone that He exists? Why not make Himself visible so that many can come to Him to be saved? Why withhold Himself? Why hide Himself?

          Well, actually we’re going to address the argument of the Hiddenness of God fully next week. Since there’s no Project Scriptura, here’s what I’d like you to do. Think about this argument of God’s Hiddenness. Think about why God might not make Himself more obvious. Think about how you would respond to this argument if an unbeliever brought it up to you and wanted an answer. What would you say?

          So then next week we’ll come together and you’ll have a chance to join up in groups and answer the question of God’s Hiddenness.

          But here’s one final thought on God’s invisibility.

          Consider that while God is invisible, we shouldn’t be. Ironically, the invisible God uses visible servants.

          The church of God, the body of Christ, is the active agent of the invisible God. The world can see us whereas it can’t see God, and you’ve no doubt heard it said that our lives may be the only Bible anyone ever reads. We are living epistles, living testaments of God the invisible One.

          How necessary then that you and I remain visible.

          John Chrysostom, an early church father, once said “It is an easier thing for the sun to be quenched, than for the church to be made invisible.” Is it?

          Frankly, we live in a time when the church has become invisible. How so? Churches line the streets of America. Christians walk the avenues. There are more printed Bibles than ever before. There is more Christian merchandise than ever before in history, but the church has become largely invisible.

          It is no longer any kind of statement that you go to one. Nor does anyone bat an eye or ask a curious question if we mention our Sunday ritual to them. The church somewhere along the road has largely lost its effectiveness, its saltiness, its shining light in the world.

          And it isn’t because the church-institutions aren’t trying hard enough to be relevant, aren’t staying up to date enough with the technology, aren’t keeping up with the trends in fashion, speech or music, or aren’t having enough events or playing its concerts loud enough. It is because the church-institution is full of church-members, what the church actually is, members who are invisible.

          Ask yourself the question: do the unbelievers you associate with expect you to talk about God with them because they recognize you’re Christian? If not, why not? It is because in the weakness of our flesh and our failure to come to God and be filled and led by His Spirit as we abide in Him that we’ve sacrificed our visibility.

          The Bible says we’re a kingdom of priests, yet we do not lead others to God as priests are expected to do. We’re content merely to talk as the heathen talk, watch what the heathen watch, read what the heathen read, etc. We content ourselves to blend right in. We are content to let others turn our conversations to the miserable and wasteful things of the world. We are content to keep our silence, hands over our mouths, as millions march unawares over the precipice of eternity into damnation.

          If the atheist complains of the hiddenness of God, that’s really to our shame. Are we making God more hidden than He really is? Are we concealing God by not revealing Him in our lives?

          Can they ask you in your self-absorption, “hey, where is your God? I don’t really see much evidence in your life that He’s really out there.” Who would want that stinging indictment?

          Well, no more!

          Jesus Christ said in Matt 5, “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

          You’re that visible light of the world. You cannot hide yourself. You have what this perishing planet so desperately needs: Jesus.

          You might say in yourself “But I don’t feel like the light of the world. I feel dirty and useless and distant from God.” Doesn’t matter. Jesus said you are the light of the world, as a matter of fact, not only whether you feel like it or not. You are that light. Your choice is whether you’re going to hide it or not.

          Our God may be invisible, but He never intended that we be so. Let your light shine. Maybe this is the night when God would call you to cast off your camouflage. You’re no longer children. You can no longer hide in the pews of the church and expect everyone else to do the teaching, to do the evangelism and the discipleship and the prayer and the reaching out to the lost. Maybe God would call you, this very night, to make the decision to be a visible Christian, so far as your strength allows and His Spirit enables you.

          Hide no longer.

         

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