Sunday School | God Is Hidden

Welcome back. Clock is ticking. And we wanna jump in. I'm curious. Has anybody lost any sleep this week wondering what we're gonna be talking about? I left you with a teaser last week. Elijah, what's up buddy? Glad you're here. Hey Mabel. Maximus, man, everybody's here.

Alright, so here's what we've been doing for the last couple months. We've started this series—we're gonna do this massive doctrinal sweep, gonna teach you basically everything there is in about two years. And we're beginning with the doctrine of God, the doctrine of the first person of God. We've been asking, what is he like? Right?

And generally the way that we approach this is we talk about what we call God's attributes—different facets of his nature. It's a little bit of an artificial overlay if we're being honest. He is what he is. He just is, right?

His name is I am.

But when we look at him we can isolate out different aspects of how he behaves and what his nature is. And we've looked at all these different things. We've talked about the fact that he is loving and he is merciful. We've talked about that he is just and he is holy. We've explored the fact that God is omnipotent and he is sovereign. And we've worked through what is a very typical framing of the nature of God—the aspects of his nature, what his attributes are.

And I told you last week when we stopped and we ran out of time that there was one thing that I wanted to hit. This one extra thing very likely might hit differently than all these other things that we've said. We've talked about him being loving, kind—these are things that we'll often hear said when we do our prayer time. We'll praise him for these different things. But there's something that is important, that is true about him, but you've probably never heard this taught in a class on the attributes of God. Maybe somebody has, but probably not.

And so I'm just curious—we're not gonna spend too much time on this because I don't have too much time—but what do you think we're gonna talk about now? Anybody have a guess here?

Chris: He's wrathful and jealous.

He's wrathful and jealous. I would say okay, no, but that's good. He is—these would be organized essentially under the justice of God. Right? That's what happens when his justice interacts with sin. One thing we experience is his mercy, but he is just in all these things. Justice is good.

Gary: My guess is that God is completely outside of time. Like, he sees all of time the way we could look at a book.

We know every page. Or he knows every page, every word on it. Yeah. We're stuck in a linear concept of time and he doesn't see it that way at all. Yeah, that's probably true. It's not what we're gonna talk about. It's a little bit hard to understand conceptually what it means to be outside of time—we can't get there. And I can't think of much scripture that would unpack that for us, but I do think it's probably true. But it's not what we're talking about.

Mike: No, I was gonna say he was jealous.

Jealous. Yeah, he is jealous. Yep.

Bob: Hate.

God is hate. No, God has hate. God does hate things. That's right. He hates evil. He hates sin. That is true and that's not what we're gonna talk about. It's true. Okay. One more guess.

Someone: Generous.

Generous. He is generous, but I feel like that's kind of wrapped up maybe in his love—because of his love, he does all these things.

Here it is. You guys ready?

God Is Hidden

God is hidden.

Okay. Now what we're about to do is explore this idea with you that God is hidden. I think the implications of it are huge. I think it's under taught. And I think that if we don't really understand that God is invisible, silent, formless, apparently absent—if we don't understand these things, then we're not gonna understand what an absolute massive, world-changing event the incarnation was.

But it begins with: God is hidden. And even though I think we could have played this game for like two hours and nobody would have said it, you all know it. And it drives you insane. The hiddenness of God is the most pervasive reality to your experience of God and it drives people out of their minds.

Now, what we're gonna do here is explore the hiddenness of God. I just wanna, for the sake of integrity, tell you that almost everything I'm gonna teach you, I learned from a very good friend of mine whose name is Nick Nowak. Nick is, I believe, the greatest Bible teacher alive in the world today. And I mean that without any—I'm not intending to be hyperbolic when I say that. Nick and I worked together when I was on staff with Christian Union. I ran the campus ministry across all eight of the Ivies and Nick was our teaching fellow.

What do we call him Kelly? Teaching fellow, is that right? Teaching fellow at Harvard University. Nick is brilliant. This is not a class on the attributes of Nick, but I will just tell you, Nick is the greatest Bible teacher I've ever encountered. And he happens to be a friend of mine. C.S. Lewis is really in the number one position, but he's dead and I've never met him. Nick is—I've never met anybody like Nick Nowak, I've never heard anybody like Nick Nowak. If you want to learn, if you ever want to listen to Nick's stuff, he pastors a church, a tiny little church in New York City that should have 5,000,000 people at it. Neighborhood Church of Greenwich. You can look it up on Spotify. You'd be enriched to do so.

God Is Hidden

So with full acknowledgement to Nick, consider this: God is invisible, silent, formless. We cannot see him. You've very likely never heard him. And I'm certain you've never touched him. This Nick would argue, and I think he's probably right, this is probably the biggest problem in the world. In fact, this is the problem beneath all of your other problems. If you've ever said, "Where are you? What is happening? Explain this to me. I don't understand the way you run your universe"—has anybody ever had that cross their mind? This is the problem behind that problem.

Okay, we're going to unpack some implications. I've got twenty-five minutes left, which is not very much time. So we're going to unpack some implications, but first let's just make the case. Job. Job is one man who we have a very articulate expression of his struggle with the hiddenness of God. We would say that Job is about suffering, and it is. But it's about suffering that seems senseless.

He says in Job thirteen twenty-four:

Why do you hide your face? — Job 13:24

This is chiefly his central lament. Psalm 10 verse one:

Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? — Psalm 10:1

Psalm 13:

How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? — Psalm 13:1

Psalm 44:

Awake, Lord, why do you sleep? Rouse yourself. Do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression? — Psalm 44:23

Or how about this? Isaiah 45, he states it very pointedly:

Truly you are a God who hides himself, O God and Savior of Israel. — Isaiah 45:15

Now, did you notice I said to you that God is hidden? But it's actually a little bit more pointed than that, isn't it? What do all those passages affirm? Not merely that he is hidden, but he hides. He does it on purpose. He hides on purpose. Do you feel this? "Surely you are a God who hides himself." This—I don't know if it's ever had any—I'm curious. There's a lot more to say, but is this ringing a bell? Have you ever noticed this in the scriptures? I'm certain that you've noticed it in your life. "Where are you? Why don't you speak? I can't see you. You're basically incomprehensible to me. And if you would just show up and explain to me, maybe just maybe I'd be able to get through this. But you never do. Not quite never. Seems like never."

So if we walk through this, listen to this. I want to suggest to you, this is not incidental. It's a couple things. Number one, it's not a fundamental attribute of God. God is fundamentally loving and he always will be. God is fundamentally holy and he always will be. God is fundamentally omnipotent and he always will be. This is not that. But it is central to the way that he relates to us. Do you feel the difference here? This is not an inherent function of him, it is simply the way that he interacts with us. So listen to this. Listen to how often this shows up.

But God said, "You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live." — Exodus 33:20

No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and who is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known. — John 1:18

No one's ever seen him.

The Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice and you've never seen his form. — John 5:37

This is Jesus. John 6, same thing:

No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God, and only he has seen the Father. — John 6:46

You feel this? I'm not making this up. He is fundamentally unseen. He is fundamentally unheard. Jesus himself affirms it. Moses affirms it. Jesus affirms it. Can you think of where Paul affirms it? Yes. Where? First Timothy 6. Bingo. He says:

God dwells in unapproachable light whom no one has seen or can see. — 1 Timothy 6:16

It's exactly right. Now, not only is it in First Timothy 6, but it's actually also in First Timothy 1. Paul bookends his letter to Timothy with his double affirmation. First Timothy 1 says:

Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. — 1 Timothy 1:17

And then he ends the book with the same affirmation in 1 Timothy 6.

Speaking of God who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light whom no one has seen or can see, to him be glory and might forever.

You guys, it's pervasive. It's Moses, it's Jesus, it's Paul, it's the prophets. And frankly, it is the experience of everyone who has ever lived. Some of whom struggle deeply with this.

This would be essentially the argument of every articulate atheist. Do you guys know famous atheists? Do you read their stuff? Christopher Hitchens. Richard Dawkins. You go back a generation, it's gonna be Bertrand Russell, Nietzsche, right? If you go back and read the prevailing voices of atheists through every century, this is what they're gonna say.

There's a famous quote where Richard Dawkins was once asked: what if, long odds, you're wrong, and in the world to come you meet God? What would you say at that moment? What would you ask him?

Richard Dawkins answered by quoting Bertrand Russell, who a hundred years earlier was asked the same question. His answer was: "Why did you take such pains to hide yourself?"

Whether you come to this as an atheist or this drives you into your atheism, I promise you this has marked your life. And in fact, what would you say is the most prevailing sin? The answer is not pride—we'll often go to pride, but that's the answer to a different question. What is the sin behind all sin? What is the nature of all sin?

Wanting to be our God. Wanting to be our own God. This is a particularization of something else.

Anything else other than God. Yes. And what do we call that? Idolatry.

If I were to ask you what's this pen made out of? Plastic. What's plastic made out of? Carbon. What's carbon made out of? Eventually we're gonna reduce this down to molecules or atoms or quarks. It doesn't matter how far you wanna reduce it—it all comes down to the same thing. Your sin is made out of idolatry. All sin is idolatry.

What's the first commandment?

You shall have no other gods. — Exodus 20:3

What's the second commandment?

You shall not make idols. — Exodus 20:4

Those are both the same exact thing. Don't worship anything else. Don't make anything else to worship. These first two commandments are about not committing idolatry. And the reason the Ten Commandments are rooted in idolatry is because you are rooted in idolatry.

Do you know why you make idols, why you are idolaters? Because you can't stand the fact that God is invisible, silent, and formless. Your entire life is a testimony to the fact that you know God is invisible. You hate it. And you are trying to solve it by creating some kind of God that'll say something, some kind of God that you can see, some kind of God that you can touch.

The hiddenness of God is enormously difficult for us. And life is basically a cope for the reality that this is hard. I'm coming on strong on purpose. I'll give you a chance to push back, to engage before I continue with my case. The hiddenness of God undergirds everything.

What about when it says in Jeremiah, "You will seek me and find me"? Yes, with all your heart. Yes. That's not an isolated verse—you didn't cherry pick one random thing. We are called to search for him. So how do we hold that together with the truth that God is hidden?

By faith and faith alone. — Hebrews 11:1

So that's our parameter. We can't see him and we look for evidence. By faith, we are going on a search. But how does that search work?

I want you guys to chew on this before we resolve it. I just want to add a verse to that. Acts 17:

From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit all the earth. — Acts 17:26

He determined the time set for them in the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he's not far from each one of us. — Acts 17

It's just another verse like Ellen's that God wants to be found. He wants us to seek. He will be found. Seek me. You will find me.

The Problem and the Invitation

So here's what we got. First of all, I'm telling you the biggest problem in your world is that God is hidden. Ellen and Kelly are suggesting yes, but doesn't he invite us to find him? Right? And of course he does.

In fact, just for the moment, as a little to keep you on the hook here—has anybody ever played hide and go seek? Why did you hide? So that others would seek.

Now remember when I said that God is and always will be holy? That God is and always will be omnipotent? That God is and always will be just? Right? I said that the hiddenness of God is not like that. It is not fundamental to his nature. I could add to that: it is not a permanent condition. It is a present reality and it's troublesome, but it's not a permanent condition.

If we go back to the passage that Gary read to us—1 Timothy 6—watch the verb tenses:

God alone is immortal, he lives in unapproachable light, he is the one whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. — 1 Timothy 6

What we are describing is a past reality. It is a present reality. We've not yet talked about the future. So stay on the hook.

Kelly, may I add another verse?

When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror. Then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. — 1 Corinthians 13

Now we're gonna get to more future in a minute. But right now, today, all of history—he is hidden. But just stay with me here. It will not always be so.

The Father Revealed Through Jesus

Herrick, then I'll come back to DFP. You wanna process on this at all?

Yeah, I was just gonna bring up John 14 where to get to the father, you have to go through Jesus. And then Philip's asking, can I see the father? And Jesus is like, if you've seen me, you've seen the father.

No one comes to the father except through me. I am the way and the truth and the life. — John 14

If you've seen me, you've seen the father. — John 14

And Jesus is a little bit put out by it. Well, yeah, no kidding. But you've seen me, and if you've seen me you have seen the father. The problem with opening the floor up is you guys start stealing all my thunder. So we'll unpack that in time. You guys are so squirmy.

The Gap Between Now and Then

Adam, I have sought him and found him even though I haven't touched him. I haven't seen him.

You have found him. But Adam, to be sure, there is a profound gap between your current experience of him and what lies yet ahead. Unmistakably, inarguably, what lies ahead.

The reason, Adam, the reason that you were made is to see God. And you've never seen him. The day is coming. You guys are too eager to get there, right? The day is coming, but what has happened is not yet what's going to happen. And it may be that you've gotten enough to keep you on the line, to keep you believing and expecting and hoping that more will be revealed. And that would be a really good thing. But so far, you haven't seen him. And I'd be shocked if you'd even heard him. And I know you haven't touched him.

God's Attributes Revealed in Creation

DFP?

For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in all the things that have been made. — Romans 1

Paul's basically saying, yes, using this argument to avoid judgment doesn't cut it. Because look, God is all around us. God is visible in his attributes.

Yeah, I would say what Paul is saying in Romans 1 is very much the same as what David wrote in Psalm 19:

The heavens declare the glory of God. — Psalm 19

The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day, they pour forth speech. Night after night they display knowledge. There's no speech or language where the voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into the ends of the earth.

This is absolutely the case. We go outside and we're like, come on man, just look at a leaf. Study the optic nerve. Pay attention to the world. The created world does declare something about him. And that's exactly the same argument that Paul is making in Romans one.

At the end of the day, I do think that there is no such thing as honest atheism. Atheism sees what is ambiguous data, but genuine evidence, and declines to accept it. There's enough space to do it. He has hidden himself in it such that when we combine the evidence with faith, we can know that he's real. John uses lots of language of knowledge—that we can know that we have eternal life. He can do all sorts of things. But there nevertheless remains sufficient ambiguity that it is orders of magnitude different from what it will be.

We are not without excuse because there is evidence of his existence everywhere. But in the same way, I could leave footprints in your house and evidence that I have been in your house, but that would not be the same as you having seen me in your house. This is what we have: we have evidence of him all around, and yet he remains—and often remains in the areas where we would most like to see him—silent and empty.

The Hiddenness of God in Grief

Have you read C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed? Lewis' wife Joy died, and he kept a journal. He didn't mean to publish it. When he decided to publish it, he was going to publish it under a pseudonym because it was too charged. It was too heretical for C.S. Lewis. But it was his raw, honest observations of the grief of his wife's death. He wrote this:

When you're happy, so happy you have no sense of needing him. So happy that you are tempted to feel his claims upon you as an interruption. If you remember yourself and turn to him with gratitude and praise, you will be welcomed with open arms. But go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain. What do you find? A door slammed in your face and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. And after that, silence.

He's speaking out of pain, but he's speaking out of a genuine experience of the hiddenness of God. This was relatively late in the game for Lewis. Brilliant. He had written so many things that are astonishing to us. But when it all came down in that moment, God was simply too hidden. And it was grievous to him.

Why God Hides Himself

Gil asked about the point where I said why does God hide himself? When Jesus is doing one of his parables, he says, "I speak in parables so that those who have been allowed to understand will understand." Would that be the same as God hiding himself so that those who are allowed to find him will find him, as opposed to everyone finding him?

It's interesting. When Jesus talks about speaking in parables, he's quoting Isaiah 6. In Isaiah 6, God is actually saying the opposite. He's not saying that he's going to make these things clear. He taught in parables in order literally to hide the message. Now as we said, people hide so that it will be sought. He wants the message to be found. He wants the message to ultimately be uncovered. But in order to make people work for it, he wants you to earn it. He wants you to go after it. And so he hides it so that we'll find him, but only the ones that seek have any hope of finding it. Others will just walk right by it and miss it.

Paul in Romans 11 actually writes a doxology:

Oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable his judgments and his ways beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? — Romans 11

Unsearchable. Beyond. This is from a guy who spent his life seeking to find this. He's like, there's simply more that we cannot see. But as Kelly pointed out in 1 Corinthians 13, we will see.

Now let's jump to this. Remember the verb tenses.

No one has seen him, no one can see him. — 1 Timothy 6

But think of the texts you might be able to rattle off about what the future holds.

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. — Matthew 5

For now we only see a reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully even as I'm fully known. — 1 Corinthians 13

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life as clear as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. And on each side of the river stood the tree of life. The river of life bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. That is the curse when we were kicked out of the garden, banned from his presence. The throne of God and of the lamb will be in the city and his servants will serve him. They will see his face. — Revelation 22

The day is coming. When I say that the day is coming, that we will be fully known and we will fully know, we will see his face, we will see God, all that is coming—it's already begun. But you're experiencing it in a limited fashion.

When Jesus shows up, this is our segue. Next week we don't have class because of Thanksgiving break. When we come back, we're gonna move on from the first person of the Godhead to the second person. We're gonna begin our Christology study in two weeks. And when we do, we're gonna start right here.

He is the image of the invisible God. — Colossians 1

The Hiddenness of God and the Incarnation

I think it's a little bit of a shame that we don't talk more about the hiddenness of God, because if you haven't felt the pain of his silence, then you would not feel the joy of his voice.

In the past, God has spoken through this and through that. It's all these removes. In these days, he has spoken to us by his son, who is the radiance of God's glory, the exact representation of his being. — Hebrews 1

In Colossians one, he is the image of the invisible God. This one who has been silent, this one who has been absent, this one who has been invisible has showed up. The word has appeared to us. He has incarnated himself as flesh so he actually becomes physically corporally present. And we can see him. He's the image of the invisible God.

So what we have in the incarnation is the solution to the biggest problem that has plagued the world. But he left and he's gone again. And what we long for, even as we enter into Advent, is the day that he will come back so that we can see him and touch him. That we can hear him.

John makes a huge scene about this in First John. He's incredibly sensory about this.

That which we've seen with our eyes, we've touched with our hands. — 1 John 1

He came, right? But he left. And he's coming back.

If you would give yourself permission to grieve the hiddenness of God, to acknowledge the reality of how much this has marked your life, then I think that it would give you the opportunity to celebrate more that he has appeared and that you will see him.

I'm out of time, which is a terrible, terrible shame. But we gotta be done. He's hidden, he's silent, he's absent, he's coming.

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Rachel, final word. Would love to make a plug for the women's retreat.

If any women would like to come, it is gonna be an amazing time. The women's retreat is going to be in January. One of my very best friends is coming, her name is Abby McClellan. She lived in Roanoke for a while. She's now women's ministry director at Mercy Church in Charlotte. She'll be speaking. It's gonna be a great time. It'll be in Stanton. That was my first women's retreat I went to eleven years ago. It was amazing.

So if you would like to come, you can text TRUST to the CHS number. I hope to see you there. That's all. Go to church.