Gnostic Foolishness
From the early days of the church, they had to deal with Gnostic teachings infiltrating their congregations. The Gnostics taught that there was a hidden divine that people could discover only by finding secret meaning that nobody had yet discovered.
They were seeking a personal, special experience with a god who must be sought in hidden messages from unlikely sources. This, it was supposed, was a more “spiritual” faith because it depended upon a more mystical experience with their god.
Why did the church reject such understanding of God’s revelation? What if there was a better understanding out there and it’s just arrogance to think we have what we need already?
Not Far Off
Thankfully, our God is not so cruel as to leave us to try to puzzle out who he is and what he wants from us as the god of Gnosticism. We’re not left to stumble around in the dark seeking a god who intends to remain hidden.
Dealing with Israel, God laid out his will for them very specifically. Afterward, he said this:
“For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.
Deuteronomy 30:11-14
God didn’t leave them guessing what he wanted. It wasn’t their responsibility to try to discern the will of God by observing blessings and curses. They weren’t to reverse engineer their crops dying and guess at what behavior of theirs had upset God. They didn’t need a hero of myth to ascend to heaven to steal secrets or travel to the far ends of the world to discover it. Instead, God laid out his will explicitly, delivered it to Moses clearly, and even recording some of the commands in stone!
Furthermore, he wasn’t requesting that they do something impossible for man. He didn’t ask them to build a tower to the sun or swim to the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean. He wasn’t sending them on a fools errand. They had everything they needed to please him.
Jesus gave a similar promise about the ease of seeking his father.
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
Matthew 7:7-11
Does this sound like a God who hides knowledge? One who wishes us to toil and seek desperately for something we may never fully find? Or is this a God who reveals himself, making his character and will known to anyone who desires to know him?
Why the Confusion?
However, if God is so available, if he has revealed himself so obviously and made his ways known, why is it mankind has so much trouble knowing him? After all:
What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one;
Romans 3:9
Even the Jewish people, to whom the Father had so regularly revealed himself through prophecy, many judgements, and then sent even his own Son failed to follow the commands. The gentiles were no better off, having failed to live rightly just as much in their ignorance. Nobody is righteous! Why? The very next verse tells us.
no one understands;
Romans 3:11
no one seeks for God.
It’s not a lack of understanding that comes from having no opportunity but from a lack of desire. Man doesn’t understand God when we’re not seeking to. Earlier in Romans, Paul addresses this fact with these words:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
Romans 1:18 (emphasis added)
It is not that man would have great difficulty seeking out God should he desire to do so. It’s that man, by the nature passed down to us all the way from Adam, would rather not know.
What If I Am Seeking?
God doesn’t leave all of mankind in this sad state of indifference to him, however. Not only has God extended his hand to us, but he has even give some of us a new nature which does desire to take that hand.
The good news is, you don’t have to be the smartest, strongest, or most well connected person to find the God you desire to know!
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
1 Corinthians 1:26-29
He has revealed himself in scripture, preserved his message through many ages, and ensured that it is available for you in the same language in which you’re currently reading this blog. God requires only that you lay the desires of your flesh aside and accept that message without reservation.
Don’t be like Naaman (2 Kings 5) who, initially in his pride, would do just about anything to be healed of leprosy besides follow basic instructions. Humbly seek to know God in the way he has made himself known.
The only thing between you and God is you!
