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Psalm 19
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard” (vv. 1–3).
Because of the fundamental, qualitative difference between God and humanity, people cannot know or find their way to the Creator without divine assistance. In other words, the Lord must speak to us in a way that we can understand if we are to know and enjoy a blessed relationship with Him. One of the most basic tenets of the Christian faith is that God has indeed spoken to mankind, and He has done so through general revelation and special revelation.
General revelation, also referred to as natural revelation or the book of nature, consists of what God has revealed about Himself to all people in and through the things that He has created. Psalm 19:1–6 clearly teaches the concept of general revelation when it says that the heavens declare the glory of God in such a way that there is no language in which their voice is not heard (vv. 1–4a). All people know something about the Lord from the things that He has made, including that He is a God of all glory. Creation also tells us something about God’s providence or governance of the world, for David in verses 4b–6 describes God’s placement of the sun in the heavens and its circuit across the sky to give light and heat to the entire earth. Such things reveal the goodness of the Lord, since His ordering of nature and His gift of the sun are necessary to sustain life. Creation tells us that God is glorious and good, and it also reveals to us other “invisible attributes,” such as His eternal power, as Paul explains in Romans 1:20. We look at the world around us, see its beauty and order, and rightfully conclude that a powerful and wise Being must have designed it all. The seventeenth-century Reformed theologian Francis Turretin writes in his Institutes of Elenctic Theology that “not only do the heavens declare the glory of God, but every blade of grass and flower in the field, every pebble on the shore and every shell in the ocean proclaim not only his power and goodness, but also his manifold wisdom.”
In considering the book of nature, we should also make special mention of the human conscience. God made man in His own image, and part of that involved His granting to us a conscience that has a basic sense of right and wrong. The work of God’s moral law is written on the heart of every person (Gen. 1:27; Rom. 2:15). Thus, no one will be able to stand before our holy Creator and claim that he had no idea that He existed and that he did not know the difference between good and evil.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
As we will see in our next study, there are limits to general revelation (i.e., the book of nature) and what it can accomplish. Nevertheless, that God has spoken to all people through creation means that we can find a point of contact with all people that allows us to present them with the truth about the character of our Creator. Deep down, everyone knows that God exists, and everyone also knows something about His divine nature.
For further study
- Psalm 50:6
- Ecclesiastes 3:9–13
- Matthew 5:45
- Acts 17:22–28
The bible in a year
- Genesis 15–17
- Matthew 5