Divine and Human⤒🔗

When someone says that God’s revelation has been given to people in human terms, this can easily raise suspicions with people who highly esteem God’s Word. How often has it not already been said that the Bible is a human word and a human book, and that it is not God’s Word? And how often has it not already been tried to separate the divine factor and the human factor in the Bible, such that all sorts of human traits that can be found in the Bible can in fact be discounted in the revelation? A man of our time can also start a discussion about all those human elements in the Bible. Much can be found in the Bible that relates to the human cultural horizon of the time that the Word was written! Should this not also form the basis for explaining what representations are found in the Bible; from a scientific viewpoint, but also as it relates to a knowledge of good and evil, of what is reasonable and what is morally good?

When we say that God’s revelation has been given to humans in human words, do we not then add fuel to the fire of Scripture criticism and of a modern theology in which autonomous man is the standard for everything?

It is not my intention to go deeper in this way into the human aspect of the Word of God. However, I do want to repeat once more: God’s revelation was given to humans in human words.

Whereas in this chapter we want to concentrate especially on this aspect it is certainly not our intention to draw the Holy Scriptures down to the level of a human book, in order to preserve as little as possible of the confession that God’s revelation is given to us in this book. On the contrary, what will receive our attention is the fact that God’s revelation — I am inclined to put it as: the divine nature of the revelation — is especially emphasized and brought to light. It will happen when we seriously consider that the Bible, especially because it is God’s Word, is a book tailored to man’s need.

Whatever we may reflect on in this regard will, in the meantime, need to be derived from Scripture itself. This will not be another human assault on the Bible, but rather a faithful listening to the Bible.

God is a God of People←⤒🔗

The most profound essence of God’s revelation is the fact that it is his self-revelation. God is the Eternal. When we try to grasp this our mind gets stuck. Without God there is nothing. The unfathomable mystery of existence is that God found reasons in himself to create the cosmos, the earth and man. Who will ask him to give account for the motives that he had? It was his good pleasure. All that we can say about this rests on what God himself has made known to us. In the Bible it is made clear that man can only look around him with deep respect for God. We find in Job 28 a beautiful description of the way in which God determined and planned everything: “He gave to the wind its weight and apportioned the waters by measure, when he made a decree for the rain and a way for the lightning of the thunder, then he saw it and declared it; he established it, and searched it out.” And then we find added: “And he said to man, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding’” (Job 28:24-28).

Two things are made clear in this about God and man. God is the great Creator of all things. In this man does not stand next to God, but below him. From the side of man only respect is fitting, as is also found in Psalm 33: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host...Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him! For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Ps. 33:6-9). Creation is the boundary that has been given to man. The creation is not ours, but it belongs to God. That is the only thing we can say.

But something else is made manifest by it; for God gives man a very special position. It is man who knows about all of this. It is man, who can understand what God is saying, who can be filled with amazement about what he sees of God’s works. Man is a creature, yet at the same time God is aiming for communication with that man. “The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man; from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds” (Ps. 33:13-15). For God there is also something in man to be fathomed! That is very special!

This special relationship between God and man has everything to do with the manner in which God has created man in his own image. Man is God’s creation — and yet man is different from all other creatures. In Genesis 1 you can read that plants and animals were created each according to their kind; it does not state this about man who is created in God’s image. Man is positioned almost next to God, to reign over the creation, over the fish, the birds and the land animals (v. 28). We read of man’s amazement about this in Psalm 8. It is amazing and remarkable that in the greatness of the cosmos God gave such an extraordinary place to a small human. That God considers him! That God has given him a place — almost divine! — in the fact that God allows him to reign over all that he has made!

Obviously God had the highest intentions with man in creation: to be God’s viceroy beside him. It was therefore also fitting that God came to visit and converse with man whom he had placed in the garden, and that man does not at all appear out of place. God, who lives in unapproachable light, comes to visit man. Not the other way around! God is keen on an open communication with man! A problem arises only after the Fall into sin when God again comes to look for man in the garden and when man hides himself from God. Sin made man to be naked. He can no longer appear before God. Nevertheless the Lord calls man, “Where are you?” (Gen. 3:9). We could call this the beginning of the revelation of God, as we now get to see it and reflect on it. It is God, who with sadness, with desire, with wrath, with serious judgments on account of man’s disobedience, yet still comes looking for him.

In fact, from this Word of the Lord you can deduce the manner of God’s revelation to us. God’s revelation is directed to and intended for man. God wants it to be like this for he has created man in his image. It is also clear that man cannot say that this is self-evident. Psalm 8 — “ What is man that you are mindful of him?” — clearly portrays this amazement. The greatness of the communication between God and man is not something that man can elevate himself to, that can afford him some pride. We know better than that. The fact that man has such a high position, that he is called toward communication with the Most High, makes the author of Psalm 8 conclude with words of deep humility and excitement at the same time: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” That is how things fall into place. God still wants to be the God of people! Let us bow down before him in deep wonder and profound respect. 

We have even more reason, because sin plays a role here as well. The creation of man in the image of God already provides sufficient reason for humility: a creature in a relationship to his Creator. But now much more so, now that our sin has caused separation between God and us — and that in such a thorough way (see Isa. 30:2). Our amazement has become all the greater. God thinks of man. God comes looking for man.

There is as yet another matter tied into this, something that can be recognized from the entire revelation of Holy Scripture. When God continues to take man seriously — and that is happening — then he also takes man’s sin seriously. The entire Bible may be regarded, as far as its content is concerned, as the book in which God searches for man. Essentially it cannot be any different because it speaks about guilt and about the necessity of salvation from this guilt, through atonement. That is what determines God’s actions with man. There you have the gospel in a nutshell. Atonement, salvation — but not in a way that it turns a blind eye to sin, no, but in a manner in which God takes man and his guilt very seriously. The glory of God’s revelation and the profound gravity of it are very closely connected. And this is on account of the fact that man is so closely related to God.

Also when God the Lord chooses for himself a people to be his own special possession, this gravity is constantly present. That explains why we can read such harsh words in the prophetic books of the Old Testament, directed at the people of Israel. The prophet Amos, for instance, says of God, “And I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good” (Amos 9:4). In his commentary on this Calvin writes that God, “though the Lord does not indeed spare unbelievers, he yet more closely observes us, and that he will punish us more severely, if he sees us to be obstinate and incurable to the last. Why so? Because we have come nearer to him, and he looks on us as his family, placed under his eyes; not that anything is hid or concealed from him, but the Scripture speaks after the manner of men. While God then favours his people with a gracious look, he yet cannot endure hypocrites; for he minutely observes their vices, that he may the more severely punish them...”.

That means then that God adapts himself to man, that he speaks his Word in a human way: God takes man absolutely serious: as creature in his image; as sinner; or as his child.

The Bible a Human Book←⤒🔗

This fully implies that the Bible is a human book. But now we also understand that there is no contrast between the fact that the Bible is God’s Word and the fact that the Bible is a human book. It is not a case where the divine and the human factors in Scripture are being positioned against one another, or as if we were able to separate the two through careful analysis.

The Bible is God’s Word. Yet the revelation of God is revelation to men. Not by coincidence, but because of the place God assigned to man in creation. Just as it is not by chance that God’s Son, in order to save the world, has become man, so it is no coincidence that God’s revelation is found in a human book.

That gives recognizable meaning to the manner in which Scripture speaks to us. Calvin, in his characteristic way, says that God adapts himself in his revelation to our ability to comprehend. God comes down to us. Sometimes the word “accommodation” is used to describe this. Just as parents will speak with children, so God deals with us in a childlike manner and condescends himself to our level.

There are times in Scripture when it becomes clear to us that God takes our limited comprehension into account. Scripture reveals to us who God is, but can his glory and his majesty be described such that we can truly fathom God? We know better than that. Just think of Moses’ special experience when he, the servant of the Lord, together with Aaron and his sons and the seventy elders of Israel may see God. They “went up, and they saw the God of Israel”. But in what is described we read only of what was under God’s feet, “as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness” (Ex. 24:9-10). Apparently anything more could not be passed on. It would go beyond the measure of our comprehension. We have no access to God’s inaccessible light (1 Tim. 6:16).

So also the revelation of God’s works is according to the measure of what is manageable for us to understand. Of course this raises profound questions that are not easy. Just think of what God has revealed about his work of creation. That is revelation to people. How can man think, as he reads Genesis 1, that he can fathom how God made everything? It is not for nothing that we read in the New Testament, “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God” (Heb. 11:3).

How will man be able to comprehend what moved God in his divine counsel when he decided to send his only-begotten Son to earth as the propitiation for the sins of the world? “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness — he was manifested in the flesh...” (1 Tim. 3:16). Indeed, a great mystery; who can grasp it? But it has been revealed!

In this way something essential is said about the manner in which God’s revelation comes to us. Not in such a way that we can explore everything, but yet in such a way that we can understand it by faith. And so we arrive at an important aspect of our thinking about the revelation, which we will discuss in our final point.

Understanding Through Faith←⤒🔗

Scripture has been adapted for people, was also written by people, with many typical human aspects, as these were evident at the time of writing. When we read God’s Word we always need to keep in mind the world in which the Word came to us. Then it does not raise any difficulties that in the Old and the New Testament we do not encounter any cars or airplanes, not to mention more. When we also realize that the span of time between the first and the last book of the Bible covers a period of about 15 centuries, then we experience the unity of Scripture as something even more amazing. This unity also comes out particularly in that it is attuned to man’s essence. With all the cultural and historical differences the patriarchs and the disciples are our brothers when it comes to the knowledge of God.

When we state it like this it is clear that faith is speaking here. That is how it needs to be. Only faith gives access to the uniqueness of Scripture. The Holy Spirit of God, who teaches sinful sons and daughters of men to understand who God is, opens hearts, ears and eyes for the Word. We need to deal with the Bible by faith.

The history of Bible exegesis has shown what will happen when God’s Word is approached without faith. In the era of the Enlightenment, in the 18^th century, the well-known philosopher Gottfried Lessing has said that coincidental truths from history can never be the proof of “necessary truths of the mind”. As far as he was concerned, he did not need the Bible. To him, it only contains some coincidental truths from history. An educated person however, will need to live with the autonomy of his own rationale.

This chasm is only to be resolved through faith. And faith is a gift from God. But where faith teaches us to know God as Lord, there it teaches to love Scripture. There it encounters the God who lets himself be known.

This does not answer all questions. Yet these stand in the light of the knowledge of God who has bent down to man, and because of it man may now say:

“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”