Sin had interposed such a barrier between God and man that to man, in the condition in which he is found by nature, God is not only unseen but unknown. Hence at Athens, the very center of human wisdom, an altar was erected “to the unknown God” (Acts 17:23). To know God is the highest and deepest of all knowledge, and the wisdom of the Greek only brought him to the infinite unknown. There he stood, after all his searching, conscious that whatever knowledge he had acquired, he knew not God. But God has revealed Himself in many wonderful ways.
CREATION
The invisible things of God (Rom. 1:20) are clearly seen in creation, “even His eternal power and Godhead.” That which could be known of God men cared not to know, and, instead of acknowledging their ignorance, they professed to be wise. But God’s purpose to reveal Himself was not to be frustrated. The revelation of Himself is of interest to a wider circle than to man or this world.
When earth was created, there were unfallen beings who discerned in its creation His eternal power and Godhead. And as they beheld a fair creation spring into being, “The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” Even fallen man might have apprehended this from creation, but he would not. He “did not like to retain God in his knowledge,” hence the science (falsely so-called) of the present day doubts if there be a God at all, denies creation, and substitutes a theory of evolution by natural laws for God. But after all, creation with all its glory, tells only of His power and Godhead.
PROVIDENCE
Providence joins the voice of creation in telling us that God is good. He left not Himself without a witness in that He did them good, “filling [their] hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17). He makes His sun to shine on the evil and the good, and His rain to fall on the just and the unjust. Thus again He partially reveals Himself, going further than to show His power and Godhead. He gives a little glimpse of His mercifulness and goodness. To this, man is also blind. He glorifies Him not as God, neither is thankful (Rom. 1:21).
Yet there was much more in God which was still unrevealed. Deep in the bosom of God was hid the unopened fountain of grace.
GRACE
To unseal this fountain, to display this wondrous attribute in its fullness, to show it in harmony with all His other attributes, was from eternity the purpose of God. It was before creation, for before the foundation of the world the Lamb was fore-ordained for sacrifice, so that creation and the fall are only so many stages towards the great platform whereon God was about to reveal Himself. Herein lies the ultimate design of the stupendous mystery of the incarnation, the sacrifice, the resurrection, and the glorifying of the Son of God. To save a lost people was a purpose worthy of God, but even this is not the ultimate design. Rather is it “that in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7). It is the opening of the very heart of God, that He, the Unknown, might be known–that, being known, He might be loved with an ever-deepening love, and praised with a fuller joy by every unfallen and redeemed being.
Oh, the deep, deep meaning of that word uttered by the only One who had fully known God, who knew Him by dwelling from eternity in His very bosom. “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent” (Jn. 17:3). It is life eternal to know God; not to know Him is death. It has pleased God, therefore, to make Himself known in the person of His Son.
INCARNATION
He is “the brightness of [God’s] glory, and the express image of His person” (Heb. 1:3). “God manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16). So perfectly, so accurately represented to us, that in answer to Philip’s request, “show us the Father,” He could say, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father” (Jn. 14:9). But the natural man does not have the capacity to comprehend even the perfect manifestation which God has given of Himself in His Son. “He was in the world…and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (Jn. 1:10-11). “Had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8). Those only recognized Him who were taught of the Father. It has been remarked that the flesh of Christ was that which veiled and yet revealed the Godhead. It was a veil so thick that the carnal eye could not penetrate it. The natural man only saw in Him “a root out of a dry ground,” a man with visage marred, the son of Mary and Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth.
But through that veil of flesh there shone with holy, tempered radiance a glory such as faith could discern. “And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:14). To the opened eye, He was God manifest in the flesh, Immanuel, God with us.
The WORD and the SPIRIT
But the Word made flesh is no longer on earth. We see Him not, though we love Him. In the meantime, there is given to us the written Word and the Holy Spirit of God, to take of the things that are Christ’s, and show them unto us (see Jn. 16:13-14). We are thus not left without a Comforter. In fact, it was expedient for the disciples that Christ should go away, that the other Comforter should come–through whose teaching and anointing they should know more of Christ than had He remained with them on earth. And it is through the written Word that the Spirit of God ministers Christ to the souls of His people, for therein has God with infinite skill treasured up for us His Christ, giving us every line of His character, every detail of His work, His sufferings, and His glory, every relationship that He bears to God, to His saints, and to the sinner.
No mere historical record could accomplish this; no biography ever attempted it–the idea is God’s. To effect this, He has therefore resorted to a great variety of methods.
There is the purely historical record of the four Gospels, giving us Christ as seen by man among men, His outward life as He passed before the world and His disciples.
Then there are the Prophetic Scriptures of the Old Testament, to which the book of Revelation in the New might almost be regarded as an appendix and a key. These give the official glories of Christ as the Heir, and a glimpse here and there at the sufferings through which He acquired the glory.
Distinct from these stands the Book of Psalms, where we are brought, as it were, to listen to the very breathings, to feel the very throbbings of the heart of Christ in the midst of those sorrows, and temptations, and agonies, that were relieved by no human sympathy. This is the way God has taken to lead His loved and highly-privileged children into a nearness and intimacy with the only-begotten Son, into which no biography, however detailed, not even personal acquaintance, could have introduced them. To this class belong the book of Lamentations and the Song of Solomon–the one giving the sorrows and the other the joys, that found no outward expression among men, and therefore could not find a place in the history of His outward walk as given in the Gospels.
Finally there are the types and shadows where Christ is set forth so vividly, ages before He appeared on the earth, that no reasonable and unbiased mind could come to any other conclusion than that these overshadowings are indeed divine. These constitute a veritable picture gallery of Christ, in which every aspect of His work and His personal fitness for it, of His atonement and His priestly intercession, are abundantly unfolded.
Doubtless there is room in such enquiries for mere natural ingenuity to work. It is well to watch against this, and rather to come short of the full understanding of a type for a time than to press into its interpretation that which was not in the mind of the divine Author. And while unhallowed curiosity and the desire of the fleshly mind to intrude into things that are hidden from it has its bounds assigned and its rebukes ministered in the Word of God (Ex. 19:21; Num. 4:20; 1 Sam. 6:19), there are, nevertheless, the inquirings in His temple to which He delights to respond (Ps. 27:4). The desire to look into the things that are revealed, whether in angels or in saints, is well pleasing to God.