God and the Box

The Christian cannot know God…. and only the Christian can know God.

Did you read that right?

The Christian can not know God and only the Christian can know God.

At first it sounds like I made a mistake, perhaps I misspoke?

Let me assure you that I did not err in my declaration. It is something, however, that one must have an understanding into its meaning to “get it”.

This insight is the contrast between General Revelation and Special Revelation. 

To understand this in a clearer light I want to invite you into a story. Imagine this.

I want to show you something I made. It’s a box. Right now it’s flat with no box like qualities, at least not yet.

I form the box into the shape I made it for. I set its boundaries, the walls of the box so to speak.

Inside the box it is empty. I am going to fill it with countless celestial bodies.

One particular planet receives my special attention. I will create life on this dirt mass. I create vegetation life and lower life forms.

Everything is good. But I want to make something unique. My plan is to create a living soul, made from the substance of the box, who has my image upon it and bears my likeness. I create man out of the dust. I put my breath into him, and he lives as a living soul. I immediately make covenant with him. I say to him, “Obey and you will have everlasting life and union with Me, disobey and you will have everlasting death and separation from Me.”

What must man do? Don’t eat the fruit from a particular tree, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the rest of the garden I made is not prohibited. All consequences and rewards hinge on this one command.

My creature, my living soul knowingly disobyed. He ate the fruit of the forbidden. He now sees himself from the perspective of a different view. You need to understand, up until now I was his only source of knowledge and information. I, the creator of all things, am no longer mankind’s point of reference. Mankind is now separated from me by disobedience. He has introduced death into the box. Mankind is now united with the box, receiving his knowledge of good and evil from sources inside the box.

I am outside the box. I am not the box and the box is not me. I am far greater than anything inside the box and vastly far above the box. In context of all that is the box and inside the box, I am all things other than. I am unexplainable, incomparable, unseen and unknown. I am all things other than. Humanity does not think outside the box, they cannot. He knew me but he cannot know me now because his knowledge of me has been distorted by a different view from a different source of information. Mankind, separated from me, grows evil and like an uprooted flower withers and dies and loses its former glory, so too does humanity. They forget what little they once knew by having their knowledge of me suppressed and distorted. Yet when they look at creation there is an inherited knowing that something beyond them has happened.

Mankind begins to ask outside the box questions. Where did this all come from?  Who am I?  Why am I here? They know there is something other than.

This knowing and inherited outside the box questioning is General Revelation.  It is common to all cultures, to all races, to all generations. It tells us there is something greater and that there is an answer to who we are, why we are, where we come from, and where we are going. General Revelation screams inside us all that there is something other than, yet the answer is being suppressed and blurred by separation and from the different perspective.

Read what Louis Berkhof said in his Summary of Christian Doctrines on the subject of General Revelation.

Man begins to look to nature to answer his questions. He creates deities (gods) from the box in the place of Me. Deities created to explain that which people do not understand about the box and to appease his inner need for something other than.  He does not understand thunder so a thunder-god is needed and must be appeased when angry. He does not understand why some years grow abundant crops and other years are devastated with draught and little to no crops and so a fertility god is needed and must be appeased when angry. Wars and evil need a god of war and a god of evil. And the list grows longer as time goes by.

Man begins to understand the box by the box. He uses the power of his mind to inform him as it continues to become the source of his knowledge and his final authority. He observes certain laws within nature. He systematically sets out to understand and explain the box. We call it Science.

Science grows mankind away from created gods and superstition. But eventually it becomes a new deity to some. Science can explain how the box works but science cannot think outside the box. Science erroneously declares, “I cannot think or observe outside the box then there is no outside the box.” Inside the box thinking tells us that the box created the box by chance. If there is nothing outside the box that our new final authority can see then it doesn’t exist.

Berkhof continues in his Summary of Christian Doctrine about General Revelation.

It is by General Revelation that people, including the Christian, cannot KNOW God, it is an obscured and suppressed knowledge, it is incapable of bringing forth life and union and thus leaves us in the condition of death and separation. General Revelation limits as it can only think inside the box by a perspective that is distorted by separation or by deities of its own making.

God is all things other than. We cannot know or understand God through the box or by inside the box thinking. We can only know that there is something other than the box or deny it exist all together.

It is only by Special Revelation that humanity can know God. This Special Revelation from God is found only in His Word, His Scriptures, His Bible. For in His Special Revelation there is one authority, God Himself. But God must work with a created being separated from him. A creature who cannot think or understand outside the box. He must tell a factual and truthful story to mankind in a way that they can understand. It is the story of His interaction with civilization as it happened factually, not a fictional story. It is His Redemptive Story. It is the telling of His working and interaction with separated mankind.

In His Redemptive Story God speaks to people in terms and concepts they can understand inside the box. He brings them through human history by speaking in things such as; a chosen people, a law, a prophet, a priest, a king, a coming messiah, a blood sacrifice, a lamb, and covenants. He is speaking to them in terms they can understand inside the box and moving them forward to the climax of His story. He is moving them towards the peak or the very point of the story.

Think of this story as a mountain. You could call it The Redemptive Mountain of God.

In the Old Testament we find ourselves on one side of this mountain looking up. We begin to climb moving us forward to the peak of the mountain. In the New Testament it points us back towards the moment when we reached the top as it relates to human history. Each Testament points us to the climax, the peak, the point of the Redemptive Story. It is an outside the box moment in human history.

My story of the box is a limited example of how His Special Revelation works. I took you on this journey through my story. He takes us on THE journey through His Redemptive Story.

Through Special Revelation humanity can only know that which He reveals and nothing more. Even with the Special Revelation from God mankind cannot know God in His fullness. We are incapable of grasping who He is because of the limiting effects from our union with inside the box thinking and His unlimited qualities.

You can check what Berkhof says about Special Revelation in his Summary of Christian Doctrine.

We do not know God fully because we cannot, but we know what God has revealed specially to us. General Revelation concludes that we cannot KNOW God, Special Revelation concludes only the Christian can KNOW God by what He revealed.

The difference between General and Special Revelation is key to understanding God. And understanding what God specially revealed to us is key to understanding everything. Knowing the source of revelation helps one accept or reject what one is offered. If you can identify the source of one’s ultimate authority, the Box or God, then you are one step closer to accepting only truth.

By our General Revelation the Christian cannot know God in His fullness, by His Special Revelation only the Christian can know God.

What is your ultimate authority?