The Hidden God
“Yet these things you have concealed in Your heart; I know that this is within You.” Job 10:13
Concealed – Job’s complaint is our complaint. In the time of his crisis, he cries out to God. “I loathe my life. You made me, Lord. You know everything about me. You understand me right to the core. And You can do with me as You wish, for You are my creator. But, Lord, why? Why do you churn me like butter? Why do you pour me out like spilt milk? I know that You are loving and kind and full of grace. I know this! But yet, these things seem hidden from me.”
The Hebrew word tsafan is used for concealing something, like hiding the baby Moses from Pharaoh. It has both positive (God treasures His people) and negative (the wicked lie in wait) applications. Perhaps most intriguing are the occasions when this word is used to describe God’s hidden and secret actions and habitation (see Ezekiel 7:22). The consonants Tsadik-Pey-Nun paint the picture, “a desire or need to open or speak life.” God conceals what must be revealed if we are to have life. Does that mean He is an ogre, maliciously withholding something essential for living? May it never be! What it means is that God understands the mystery of existence and we recognize that He alone plumbs the depth of this mystery. What it means is that everything is not reducible to a known set of universal laws. Behind it all is mystery. To stand in the presence of God is to face the unknowable, not just the unknown. The result should be awe.
But we live in a world dominated by the paradigm of the supremacy of reason. We think everything can be explained, including God. That’s why we expend centuries of effort writing systematic theologies. We attempt to reduce the experience of the mystery to a set of explainable categories. We have a well-thought-out God; not a God of unique and hidden splendor. In our culture, truth is timeless and detached. It consists of uniform laws that govern all repeatable events. Truth is discovered by uncovering these eternal, comprehensive rules of operation. And whatever cannot be explained according to the timeless laws of the cosmos is really not real at all.
The biblical view is radically different. “Here truth is not timeless and detached from the world but a way of living and involved in all the acts of God and man. The word of God is not an object of contemplation. The word of God must become history” (emphasis added).[1] Contemplate this insight. Biblical revelation, God’s disclosure of His point of view about us, is tied directly to unrepeatable, unique historical events. It comes from outside the schemata of general laws. It has no precedent and no subsequent parallel. If we are to understand, we must realize that God’s word is, in itself, an incarnation. It is God becoming history – our history. The hidden mystery of God splits our chronos, repeatable experience and leaves us with a slice of the divine, exploded in an event in life here and now. The hidden quality of God is discovered in His desire to open a window into heaven. It could not be more momentous.
Is that what you realize when you read His word? Do you find yourself captured by a mystery? Are you consumed by the event of His disclosure, stunned by His presence? Do you read the words trembling that God allows you to peek behind the curtain, even if only for a split second? Are you in awe?
Or do you read in order to categorize, systematize and universalize?
Topical Index: hidden, tsafan, Job 10:13, disclose
[1] Abraham Heschel, God In Search Of Man, pp. 196-197
Man! That blows me away! I think that I tend to read to analyze instead of just being in awe of the fact that I’m looking into the heart of God… That puts a new spin on studying God’s Word. I had to add a link and quote on my blog – I hope you don’t mind! Thanks!
“I tend to read to analyze instead of just being in awe”
Hi Amanda,
I think you raise a very important point.
While I agree that “just being in awe of the fact that you are looking into the heart of God…” is important, I think it is also critical for all of us to “analyze” what we are reading.
Just reading Today’s Word requires me to do a fair amount of analysis and typically some research.
Some folks refer to this expediture of energy as work 🙂
Hello!!
This is great!! One step at a time we are moving toward the value of the subjective: our own experience. We are talking about Job experience with God. This is subjective and when we talk about mysteries we are talking about experiences and by consequence subjective. We must strive to reach the balance and harmony between the two extremes poles: objective and subjective. Each one has its own value, and one define the other. And, besides, when we are talking about experiences we are talking about diversity. This is wonderful Dr. Moen!!!
Oh goody! I found a copy of Heschel’s book, God In Search Of Man, in our library!
Thanks again, Skip.
Skip, does it really matter when we take time to set aside to remember what God has done to redeam us and worship him for it?
I am giving your article to my minister to see his reaction!
susan
From a traditional perspective, Christmas is so much a part of the Christian culture that it probably will never be changed. So, on that scale, it doesn’t matter. But from the perspective of the way the birth of the Messiah fits into the yearly celebrations established in Israel by God, it matters a lot. We as Christians deprive ourselves of the greater picture, the way things all fit together, when we strip His birth out of the sequence of festivals in the Bible.
Now, as far as the heart devotion of people who hold to the traditional Christmas, it probably makes no difference. But for those who want to see who carefully God crafted the entire year to be a constant reminder of His plan, it matters.
Hay skip I am not receiving todays word. Is there a problem? I sure do enjoy them.
According to my database records, you were dropped because you reported an email abuse from At God’s Table. The system automatically drops someone who reports an abuse. You probably did this accidentally, but, as a result, I cannot add you back since you appear to have taken yourself off the list. If you want to join again, you will have to sign up again. Just go to the donate page and sign up for $1.00 and I will refund it if you wish.
Skip
“The hidden quality of God is discovered in His desire to open a window into heaven.”
Two points.
On the one hand this Today’s Word was one of my favorites and on the other, when it was first published, I googled “The Hidden God” and found the following link to a book about the “great masters” of European Film:
http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-God-Kent-Jones/dp/0870703498
I have not watched these films for many years, but they had a profound impact on me at the time and they did seem to “open a window into heaven.”
I must admit that I didn’t see the “Hidden God” in them, but I ‘m going to get this book now and find out what I missed.
Thaought I would share it you all in case you who might be interested in film.
Here is a snippet from the advertisement on Amazon:
“The sense of God has often been touched on in the movies. European directors like Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson, Luis Buñuel, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Roberto Rossellini and many others have dealt directly with the theme throughout their
careers, …. The Hidden God, which accompanies a film series of the same name organized by The Museum of Modern Art and screening in October and November of 2003, explores the ways in which a sense of God may appear in films, whether or not it is understood as such or is visible to the eye.