By T.C. Lo (盧天賜); December 31, 2015
Shortly after his 50th birthday, Einstein was interviewed by a German journalist George Sylvester Viereck and was asked if he was an atheist. To this question, Einstein replied, “To be an atheist would need to answer more questions than a theist would because to posit an absolute negation presupposed infinite knowledge. The evidences of the existence of God are so overwhelming; we are in a position of a little child entering a huge library marveled by the obviously well-organized shelves and clearly marked labels of categorization. The complexity and order of even the daily life stuffs preclude the “chance” and even a child would conclude that someone must have written those books even though he had no idea what are their contents.”
Let’s go back in time 3000 years ago when men’s cosmic view was very rudimentary. The shepherd king, David, had been anointed by Samuel as King while Saul still ruled and reigned the kingdom of Israel. Out of jealousy, King Saul wanted to kill David and David was on the lam fleeing from Saul’s men. At night, he slept on the desert-floor dotted with patches of pastures. He saw the moon and the starry heaven and was awe-stricken by the handiwork of God. He wrote, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in heaven, what is mankind that You are mindful of them? (Psalm 8)” When the inky sky turned bright in the morning, he saw the sun rose from the eastern Moabite mountains, he was motivated to write, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands (Psalm 19).” Today, the modern men have lost their sense of wonder and consider the sun-rise and sun-set are one of the ordinary routines and take things for granted. We have forgotten the Creator.
From Psalm 19, we learn that God’s revelation through nature is continuous intending to reach out all people because the loving God wishes that everyone should be saved and no one goes to perdition.
Psalm 19 also reveals to us that God’s natural revelation is speechless. Silence is a powerful means of communication which transcends languages, races, and ethnic diversities. No one can say that God is for certain group of people and not for me. God is impartial as far as redemption is concerned because God loves us all unconditionally.
In the Christmas Eve of 1968, three astronauts in Apollo 8 were orbiting about the moon ten times. On their last lap as they went around the dark side of the moon and just before they fired their engine on their earth-bound journey, they saw something that no human being had never seen before: The mother earth was rising above the moon horizon against the black void space. The rising earth was bordered by the glistering light of the sun draped in a beauteous mixture of white and blue. Silence spoke louder than words: One great step for science became, for these awe-inspiring men, an immensely greater leap in philosophy. Out of the absolute quietness of the outer space, God spoke loudly to them in speechless manner, and they opened the Bible and read loudly in turn, the Genesis 1:1-10. The profundity of the first phrase “In the Beginning God Created (Bereshith bara Elohim)” is deeper than one first thought for on these three Hebrew words everything hang. These few words form the foundation of God’s revelation.
The ultimate purpose of natural revelation is to lead people to Christ. In Acts 10:1-36 there was a devout and God-fearing religious man by the name Cornelius, who nevertheless did not really know who God was. But God through many human agents revealed to him and led him and his entire household to Christ. The Bible says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks find; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened (Matthew 7:7-8).
You may be tempted to think, God revealed to Cornelius was because he was a good man. But what about Apostle Paul? Before his conversion, his name was Saul and he was a terrorist destined to destroy Christianity. But out of God’s mercy and love, he not only became a Christian but a mightily used servant of God. It was he who penned one third of the New Testament. Our merit, when is held up against God’s holiness, means absolutely nothing. Jesus does not come to make bad people good but dead people live and we are all dead in sin and in need of God’s power of regeneration. This is the essence of the gospel.
Examples of God’s revealing to all people abound. During the first Christmas night, He revealed Himself to the shepherds (common people), then to the wise men (philosophers and thinkers), and to the Herod the Great (political leaders). After Jesus’ resurrection, the risen Lord revealed Himself first to women (common people), then to Thomas (Skeptics and rationalists), and to Paul (religious leaders). God wants all of us, no matter who you are, to know Jesus.
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power (causing the universe into being) and divine nature (transform men into new creation)—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made (through nature), so that people are without excuse (Romans 1:20).” Unbelief is not an intellectual problem but a moral problem. I do not argue with atheists. I simply say, “You know very well that God exists. Your problem isn’t that you don’t know that God exists; your problem is that you can’t stand Him.”
George MacDonald was right when he said, “To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation.” Richard Weaver, former professor of English at the University of Chicago, reinforced the idea, “How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong. Reason alone fails to justify itself….If the disposition is wrong, reason increases maleficence—if it is right, reason orders and furthers the good.” To our unresponsiveness of God’s ever-present revelations, God places on human race the most solemn indictment as recorded in Romans 1:21, “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.”
Let not our heart be darkened but be illuminated by the revelation of the gospel. What is your New Year Resolution for 2016? I believe the most spiritual rewarding one is this—To know Jesus in a personal way—it is not only a meaningful one but a sustainable one.
Happy New Year!
