How the Bible Answers the Question

Once upon a time a group of non-Jewish slaves tried to find out about the God of the Jewish nation. But it seemed hopeless. "Truly," they cried, "thou art a God who hidest thyself" ( Isa. 45: 15). God is a hidden God! For many people this has been the end of the matter. And yet there is a further meaning to the cry. For while the slaves realize that God does indeed hide himself, they now know where he is to be found. He is to be found in Israel. If you want to know where this hidden God is revealed, they are saying, look at the events of the life and history of the Jewish nation, for it is there that God has made himself known. To the Israelites they say: "Only in thee is God -- and not elsewhere, no Godhead at all! Truly with thee God hideth Himself. Israel's God is a Savior" ( Isa. 45: 14, 15, translated by G. A. Smith).

To say this is to say, in effect, "If you want to know how God makes himself known, then look at the events of the history of the Jewish people, and you will find him at work there, you will find him making himself known there, showing those people who he is, what he is like, what he demands of them, what he promises them." And so the Bible gives us the history of that nation Israel, and finally (in the New Testament) the story of the one in whom God is most fully made known.

Now this is extremely surprising. It is even shocking. For this Jewish nation was not a "great" nation as nations go. It was a tiny nation, always being overrun by the great nations, getting into trouble, carried off into captivity, having its cities, villages, and peoples uprooted and destroyed time and time again. On the stage of world history it was the doormat on which the great empires scuffed their boots-hardly a fit place to expect to find God at work! If we had been planning things we would certainly have chosen a different way to do it. But we were not planning things, and so we must listen to the Biblical claim that this is the way God planned it, and see why he did it his way rather than ours. What, then, is the Biblical answer to the question, "How does God make himself known?"