The Hiddenness of God

UV 1363/10,000 The Hiddenness of God
Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour.
Isaiah 45 v 15

When the first human prototype Adam and his newly derived better half disobeyed God, their guilt caused them to hide from God. Now came the turn of God to hide Himself from mankind for the rest of human history. He has succeeded largely and emerged only to reveal Himself from time to time in different generations through certain men and women of God in the nation of Israel, prophets and in the fullest revelation of His hidden image in His Son Jesus. Apart from these revelations, He has hidden His existence, His nature, His wisdom, His power, His will, His truths, His grace and His mercy. Why was it necessary for God to hide Himself? If He had just once shown Himself to all mankind would not every human being believe ? God knows that the calloused sinful hearts of men are so hardened that even if He showed Himself to all, they would not leave their sinful, disobedient ways. Hence, He uses His hiddenness to see which of us would wholeheartedly seek Him out. He has left no physical evidence of His existence except the evidence we see in all of creation. Our deductive logic should enable even the most dull headed among us to see that our bodies and minds are fearfully and wonderfully made by design and purpose by a infinitely greater Being, not fearfully and wonderfully evolved by accident and nature. That should cause us to seek Him out as He would show us our salvation, how best to live and for what purpose to live and how to escape sin and death and live forever. He has given the promise that “ if you seek me with all your heart, you will find Me.” But God knows that He is so big and the intellects of the best of us or even collectively is so statistically insignificant that we cannot perceive, believe or fathom out His ways just by our intelligence. The hiddenness of God leads to different human responses: many people continue to hide from Him like Adam and Eve to avoid His searching glance, some speculate, some imagine, some philosophise and some seek Him diligently as a prospector searches for gold in every possible place.

It is not as if God likes to play a game of ‘ hide and seek’ with us but that He needs to know which of us desires to relate to Him not just as a impersonal infinitely intelligent Creator but to relate to Him as a loving personal friend, parent, guide, provider, deliverer, protector and Saviour. His hiddenness is necessary to prove our faith. He revealed Himself, the various names that speak volumes of His loving, caring and intimate nature through His interventions in the history of Israel, a nation, the only one that can be traced to the loins of one man, Abraham. Abraham believed God even though He had hidden Himself. He knew His unseen hand was guiding, shaping and preparing him for an eternal destiny. He trusted God to the extent of offering as a sacrifice an only son that was conceived and born out of a miracle. Later, God did not hide His love for mankind but made it known by offering His only Son Jesus as a sacrifice to complete the plan of salvation for every human being. God also does selective hiding. He hides His power, reveals His love. He hides His anger, reveals His mercy. He hides His judgements and reveals His promises and grace. He also operates on the principle that treasures are not kept in the open and public spaces but hidden away from view, to be brought out when needed. Jesus told His disciples, “ You believe Me because you see Me. But more blessed are those who believe without seeing.” To believe without seeing is the way to greater blessedness. God’s hiddenness is necessary for our blessedness.
To illustrate with a modern pre-natal parable, twins in a womb were having a conversation. One of them said, “ The world is dark. There is no life outside this womb.” The other twin said, “ No, there is a person called mother out there.” The first one retorted, “ if there is one, we would see her.” “ We cannot see her as she surrounds us and she is much bigger. But we can feel her loving presence. All of our nourishment and protection comes to us from her through this pipe”, he said, pointing to the umbilical cord. God provides for us through the umbilical cord of faith. There is no other connecting link to His presence. A baby is formed in the womb hidden from even the parents’ eyes. It will be revealed at the right time. Similarly, many secrets and mysteries are hidden from us till it is ripe for us to see, experience, know and understand it. Even when we are in a love relationship with the hidden God, He hides His face from us when He is annoyed with us as we wilfully disobey Him even after knowing Him. He also hides His face to test our faith. He hides His truth in the Word and we need to be like miners of ore to extract the valuable truths from His Word. But in all His hiding ways, we discover that we can hide ourselves in Him in the course of our lives, in His name and in His Word and in the blood of the Lamb in different times, seasons and for different reasons. We can also hide His Word in our hearts to give us shelter in our storms, to strengthen us to face life’s great challenges. When we hide His Word in our hearts, He will reveal Himself and His presence will become palpable, practical and real.
Prateep V Philip