THE HIDDENNESS OF GOD

Truly,thou art a God who hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior.—Isa. 45:15  

By His very nature the God of heaven seems to be beyond man’s reach, even though He reveals something of Himself to us. Paul sees God as giving to all men “life and breath and everything” and as setting their allotted periods and boundaries “that they might feel after him and find him.” While the apostle insists that “he is not far from each one of us,” he makes it clear that God must be sought out and found. Once we learn this great truth of the hiddenness of God we will not be inclined to presume that we can put Him in a box and limit Him to the vagaries of our own sect.

Isaiah in the text referred to above saw the hidden God revealing Himself in the deliverance of Israel from Babylonia captivity. Something like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, Israel’s God had long secluded Himself, having assigned His people to two generations of captivity, but now He was ready to return them to their homeland on eagle’s wings. He had chosen Cyrus, a pagan king. “He is my shepherd,” the Lord said of the Persian King, “and he shall fulfill all my purposes. Even though Cyrus did not know the Lord, still God chose him and named him, even from his mother’s womb. The prophet says that God had grasped the right hand of Cyrus “to open doors before him” and thus deliver Israel. It was the second great exodus of God’s people (Isa. 44:28; 45:1-4)

At the first exodus, when the Lord chose Moses to deliver His people from Egyptian bondage, it was a hidden God who revealed Himself. Again the sun came out from behind the clouds, after hundreds of years of waiting, and God responded to the mournful cries of Israel. But the Lord always remains at least partly hidden. He appeared to Moses in a burning bush when He commissioned him for the task.

So it was on the sojourn to the promised land. When God gave the people the law at Sinai, His presence was oblique. “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Lo, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever.’” (Ex. 19:9). While the Lord kept Himself hidden, He had given the people sufficient evidence of His presence, and He expected them to believe Moses from then on. What a sobering revelation! What excuse is there for man’s disbelief?

The sojourn to Canaan really blows one’s mind, for it was actually directed by the hidden God of heaven. “The Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night; the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people” (Ex. 13:21-22).

This leaves us to wonder why God has always revealed Himself in this hidden way, either by bush or fire or cloud or even “a still small voice.” It is probable that it can be no other way, God being what He is, eternal, infinite, and perfect. While there is the promise that the redeemed will see God, we must suppose that this has its limitations. How can a human being, even in eternity, look upon the God of heaven in all His glory and majesty except in some hidden way? After all, we do not become gods in heaven, nor will we be perfect and infinite in the way that the Father is. We must presume, at least from the perspective of earth, that there is no way for infinite man to look fully upon the glory of God, even in heaven.

But it need not be. If we can but see a reflection of that glory like Moses did at Sinai, whose face became so illumined that the people could not look upon him, that will be enough, if not too much, for us. The mere thought of one day seeing the hidden God is staggering in its dimension. I can only conclude that there is no way for it to be except in some oblique way. But as I say, to be even in the outer edges of God’s glory will more than satisfy us. And God will have to prepare us even for that! Now to see the Lord and Savior, that I can comprehend. That is because Jesus is that part of heaven that became (and remains) like me!

That is why we can speak of knowing God only in a very limited sense. Paul could say to the Galatians (4:9) “now that you have come to know God,” and then sort of takes it back with “or rather to be known by God,” as if to concede that we never really come to know God, though it is safe to say that He knows us. Paul liked to quote Isaiah in saying, “For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” (l Cor. 2:16) In a very real sense the apostles saw the God of heaven as unseeable, unknowable, and hidden. “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!,” Paul could exult, “How unsearchable are his judgments and inscrutable his ways!” (Rom. 11:33)

It is understandable, therefore, that the hidden God has a storehouse of secrets. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God,” Dt. 29:29 assures us. The good news is that the God who holds secrets has revealed some things to us, for that same passage says, “but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children.”

The same book goes on to assure us that when God reveals Himself to us He does so clearly and unambiguously. What a marvelous truth that the hidden God reveals Himself plainly. “This commandment which I command you this day is not too hard for you, neither is it far off,” Dt. 30:11 tells us. “It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it” (Dt. 30:11-14).

There is a kind of economy in God’s disclosure of Himself. While He chose to reveal Himself to Moses, even “as a man speaks to his friend,” He wanted no one else around. “No man shall come up with you, and let no man be seen throughout all the mountain,” God said to Moses as he prepared to give him the tables of stone for the second time. Flocks and herds were not even to feed before the mountain at such a glorious time (Ex. 34:3).

Even to Moses on this splendid occasion God remained hidden. It was a difficult time for the prophet, with the people turning to idolatry and longing for the fleshpots of Egypt, and he wanted assurance from God that things would turn out right. “Show me thy glory,” Moses asked. God assured him of His approval, “But you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live” (Ex. 33:20). But the Lord did place Moses in the cleft, of a rock and covered him with His hand while His glory passed before him. When God removed His hand Moses could see His back.

Whatever we make of such stories, they surely point to the problem of finite man moving into the presence of the infinite, and they show that the hidden God economizes in disclosing Himself. The God of heaven has neither hand nor back, of course, but this was His way of revealing to us that one very special person for a very special purpose was able to look upon the outer edges of God’s glory. Can any person ever expect more than that?

And yet even in those ancient times God disclosed His attributes to Moses, attributes that manifest themselves throughout Scripture and in all that God does in history. He said to Moses: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (Ex. 34:6). Here we have the attributes of the hidden God: mercy, grace, longsuffering, love, faithfulness. These are gloriously demonstrated throughout history and perfectly personified in Jesus Christ, who “reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature” (Heb. 1:3).

We may conclude that it is in reference to these attributes that the Christ is “the very image of the invisible God.” The attributes are actually one, love, the others being expressions of that love. God is gracious and merciful because He is love, and that is why He is longsuffering and faithful. God may express Himself in many ways, even with wrath, but Scripture could never say that God is wrath as it says God is love.

God has made it possible for us to see His perfect love by giving us the Christ. In fact He has shown us Himself by revealing to us His son. Philip may have been naive in requesting of Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father,” but Jesus’ answer is cosmic in significance: “He who has seen me has seen the’ Father” (Jn. 14:9).

What is God like? God is love. And we see this love gloriously manifested in Jesus Christ. This love led to God’s suffering for sinful man, even to dying like a criminal. We can look to the Cross and see how God loves. It inspired this line from G. A. Studdert-Kennedy: The blistering flame of eternal shame that burns in the heart of God.

Just as the prodigal son found renewal when he set his heart on his father at home, so we will solve our problems, including that of a fractured brotherhood, when we set our hearts upon the God who hides Himself. “We love, because he first loved us,” Jn. 4:19 assures us. “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” When we are reluctant to accept each other, how can we be so free to accept God?

It is a compelling logic.—the Editor