How God Reveals Himself to Us - Generally

How God Reveals Himself to Us - 

The heavens declare the glory of God;

The skies proclaim the work of His hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;

Night after night they display knowledge.

There is no speech or language

where their voice is not heard.

Their voice goes out into all the earth,

Their words to the ends of the world.

Psalm 19:1-4

The wrath of God is being revealed

from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness

of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,

since what may be known about God is plain to them,

because God has made it plain to them.

For since the creation of the world

God's invisible qualities --

His eternal power and divine nature --

have been clearly seen,

being understood from what has been made,

so that men are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither

glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him,

but their thinking became futile and their

foolish hearts were darkened.

Although they claimed to be wise,

they became fools and exchanged the glory

of the immortal God for images made to look like

mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Romans 1:18-23

The Bible talks about two kinds of revelation: (1) what is revealed about God in nature, which is called General Revelation, and (2) what is revealed about God in Scripture, which is usually called Special 
Revelation.

What is General Revelation?

The heavens proclaim the glory of God, the skies proclaim the works of His hands, we read in Psalm 19.


General Revelation, witnessed in nature, testifies to the existence of a Creator. Even more than that, they witness to His "glory." The stars and the sun are so glorious that the One who made them must be more glorious still!

Nature is "limited revelation," because it does not proclaim God's moral qualities -- attributes like mercy, justice, love, goodness, wrath, and compassion.

But creation does indeed testify to God's existence and power.

Paul is likely thinking about this psalm when he writes in Romans, chapter 1: For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities -- His eternal power and divine nature  --  have been clearly seen, so that men are without excuse (verse 20).

This is the meaning of glory in Psalm 19 -- the revelation of God's existence and power is so great that it should lead every human being on the face of the earth to seek God out, to thank Him for bringing him or her into existence, and to worship Him.

But this is not what we do.

Paul says in his letter to the Romans that we actually suppress the truth of God witnessed in His general revelation, and if He did not actively intervene in our lives to save us, we would never seek Him out nor find Him.


Besides the fact of General Revelation in Psalm 19, David also gives us some profound truths about it:


1). General Revelation is continuous. 

David tells us,

"Day after day....night after night..." So God's General Revelation is not occasional, or intermittent.

Every single day and every single night God's message regarding His glory is visible, without fail.

There has never been a moment since Creation when the revelation in nature was not apparent.

2). General Revelation is abundant. 

It "pours forth speech...." In Hebrew the word image here is literally of a surging spring that gushes forth continually the refreshing waters of God's revelation.

It is known everywhere. In all languages throughout the earth.

But all men, as Paul remind us in Romans, choose to suppress and even deny the truth so visible to them.

If God did not intervene in our lives in His sovereign way, we would never acknowledge His truth and receive His message of salvation through His Son.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption

that came by Christ Jesus.

God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement

through faith in His blood.

He did this to demonstrate His justice....

Romans 2:23-26