Why does God hold us all accountable to seek Him?
6-May-09
For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. – Rom 1.20
This passage tips us off to part of the answer – God so powerfully & miraculously made everything which physically exists, that His existence should be abundantly obvious to us all. The context of the chapter is that those who do not seek Him will inevitably find themselves on a wicked path. We'll save questions about morality apart from God for another day.
Amidst going on & on about the marvels of creation, the writer of Psalm 104 declares in v.24, “How many are your works, O LORD! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.” When Job was experiencing numerous & inexplicable hardships while enduring the “help” of his “friends”, it was God who for 4 chapters (Job 38-41) answered him with questions about His mighty creation (Job 38.4). Only after recognizing God’s majesty in this confrontation, Job says “My ears have heard of you but now my eyes have seen you” (Job 42.5) & he saw God through the power of His creation.
Indeed, who can deny God’s handywork in all that we can observe with the naked eye, let alone that which we discover through the microscope or telescope. Consider these: The over-looked miracle of our senses (www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v3/n3/seeing-eye); The intriguing notion of irreducible complexity in biochemistry (www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v17/i2/admissions.asp); The special & habitable location of Earth in the universe (www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/TJv16n2_CENTRE.pdf).
The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. – Acts 17.24-27
God graciously & lovingly reveals things about Himself through creation to cause us to seek Him. And in seeking Him, He expects us to seek out His truth. If people, i.e. Christians, are making a fuss about having God’s Word, then people owe it to themselves to earnestly check it out. We can know about God by His revealed creation, but we can only know God by His revealed truth in Scripture (2 Tim 3.15, Jn 17.3, Rom 10.17). God holds His Holy Scriptures higher than His creation that He revels in (Ps 138.2). Creation has been corrupted, but God’s Word is eternal (Mk 13.31, Rom 8.20-22).
Psalm 19
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; |
This Psalm reveals a pattern of: |
God delights in His initial creation which testifies about Him, but He delights further still in His spiritual creation in Christians everywhere (2 Cor 5.17). Similarly, all Christians are to be a testimony of God’s miraculous saving power to the rest of the world (Mt 5.16, Acts 1.8, 1 Cor 1.18).
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Come and see what God has done, how awesome His works in man’s behalf! - Ps 66.5