Revelation Implication

This morning I was reading through the first chapter of John's gospel and came across a couple of verses that I just love:

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus
Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself
God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
(John 1:17-18)

This got me thinking about the ways in which we believe God chooses to be revealed and the ultimate implication of those choices.

First there is what is known as General Revelation. This is the way in which God reveals Godself through creation (and I would include, through relationship too). When I'm sitting on my surfboard at 6:30am and the sun is rising behind me, sending cloud-filtered fingers of sunlight into the water around me, and I notice the pelicans gliding in formation along the line of the swell, and wonder at the vast expanse of blue stretching across my vision, my being is pointed to Something bigger than the sea and sky. This is general revelation.

Or when I am the recipient of an act of kindness, or observe forgiveness and reconciliation in a relationship, this too points me to Something larger and beyond the scope of what I know.

The second type of revelation is specific, and refers to God's revelation of Godself in Scripture (both Old and New Testaments), with the fullness of that revelation coming in and through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

This is where things can get a little tricky for some. Many people wonder at the so-called "God of the Old Testament", a Being that many see as vengeful, capricious, and--at worst--sadistic. If God is love, the questioning goes, then why is God so often portrayed as bloodthirsty?

It's a valid question, and I think understanding the nature of revelation helps.

It's as if God in the Old Testament is something far off in the distance, kind of blurry and difficult to make out. We who are watching can make out the general scope of what is happening but, sometimes, because of our distance and lack of clarity, we see things (or think we see things) that are contradictory or don't make sense. In other words, we get a general sketch of who and what God is from the Old Testament (and from natural/general revelation), but the picture remains out-of-focus and unfinished.

Jesus, then, is like a pair of binoculars that enables us both to see this God close-up, and to focus in more on the details. (It's like a football game I went to recently where--though I was following and enjoying the game from my seat far from the field--I was unable to see the details and really understand all that was happening. My friend then loaned me his binoculars and the effect was dramatic.) Jesus brings a clarity and certainty to what we once guessed at. Using the picture analogy, Jesus fills in the rough sketch of God, bringing definite form and body to that which was vague and undefined.

Those verses from John's gospel say as much. Moses brought the law to the people, which was a partial representation of God's love and plan for humanity; Jesus--the fullness of God--brought grace and truth, making "the Father" known in an intimate, accessible way.

The implication is that if we really want to know God--if we want to know the why and the what and the how of this Being that woos us through the natural world--then we will focus our attention primarily on Jesus. This is potentially very life-giving and very dangerous, for the Life that Jesus came to give us is not the life most of us naturally are inclined to live. But that's the subject for another post.

(One note: Even though Jesus is the fullest revelation we have of God, we must acknowledge that the picture of God remains incomplete--or at least, still fuzzy around the edges. For God cannot ultimately be pinned down and put in a box, even one labeled "Jesus." This is the mystery of God: that even in revelation God remains somewhat hidden.)