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What truth about God do you see when you walk around your neighbourhood? The sights, sounds, and smells at every intersection reveal something true about God, if we have eyes to see it.
Christian theology distinguishes between general and special revelation. Special revelation is God revealing himself through his word to his people, illumined by the Holy Spirit. General revelation is God’s gracious revealing of himself to all people through his creation. It is like seeing an artist’s personality in their painting and having the artist tell you about themselves in a letter.
We ought to be students of both, but you’ve probably been better trained to be a student of the Word than a student of creation. After all, it is the word of God that reveals the sins of the heart and makes us wise for salvation in Christ (Psalm 19:7-14 & 2 Tim 3:16-17). But this shouldn’t be an either-or question. Lovers of God will delight in him in every way he makes himself known.
If I want God to show me what he is like, I should have both eyes in the Bible and both eyes on the world.
Since God reveals himself in all he has made, there is no corner of creation where we cannot see God. All creation declares the glory of God. His attributes, explained in Scripture, are seen in creation. John Calvin, in his Institutes of Christian Religion, points out that God’s general revelation doesn’t simply reveal that he exists, but reveals his attributes.
“Moreover, although our mind cannot apprehend God without rendering some honour to him, it will not suffice simply to hold that there is One whom all ought to honor and adore, unless we are also persuaded that he is the fountain of every good, and that we must seek nothing elsewhere than in him. This I take to mean that not only does he sustain this universe (as he once founded it) by his boundless might, regulate it by his wisdom, preserve it by his goodness, and especially rule mankind by his righteousness and judgment, bear with it in his mercy, watch over it by his protection; but also that no drop will be found either of wisdom and light, or of righteousness or power or rectitude, or of genuine truth, which does not flow from him, and of which he is not the cause.”
You hear echo’s of Paul declaring that God’s “invisible attributes, that is his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world” (Rom 1:20). Creation shows what is true about God.
Through general revelation God reveals he exists, what he is like, and how he acts in the world. When we look at the trees, for example, we see God’s artistry in their beauty, and his care as they help to provide clean air. We also see the life-sustaining and fruit-producing pattern of death and resurrection. I’m writing this during a January snowstorm. All the trees I can see are dead, but they will not remain this way. They will experience a type of resurrection in the spring. A pattern in creation preparing the way for the gospel story of Jesus’s fruit-bearing death and resurrection.
This revelation is not only external. God has, as Ecclesiastes puts it, placed eternity in man’s heart. By making humans in his image, God gives us the capacity to receive this revelation and know him.“To prevent anyone from taking refuge in the pretense of ignorance,” says Calvin, “God himself has implanted in all men a certain understanding of his divine majesty.” Therefore, Paul says, men are condemned, not for being incapable of knowing God, but for suppressing the truth about God clearly seen in the world around us.
In Christ, we see the world with new eyes. Jesus is our saviour from sin and the creator and sustainer of the entire cosmos. General revelation takes on a new significance. To the unbeliever who suppresses the truth, it hangs over him as condemnation. To the believer united to Christ, it nourishes their faith as they learn to see God more clearly.
General revelation is a pastoral blessing. Calvin gives us a great example of how general revelation nourishes our faith. “We must therefore admit in God’s individual works—but especially in them as a whole—that God’s powers are actually represented as in a painting. Thereby the whole of mankind is invited and attracted to recognition of him, and from this to true and complete happiness.” God teaches us through what he has made that in him we live and move and have our being and that we ought to seek him because in coming to him we have life abundant and everlasting happiness (Acts 17:17-34).
God makes himself known in his word and his world. We ought to be students of both because God reveals himself so that we might know him and be eternally happy in him. So, take a walk and watch for God.