벨직 신앙 고백서 강해 (2) 하나님을 알 수 있는 두 가지 방편 "아름다운 책과 글자, 그의 거룩한 말씀" 하늘이 하나님의 영광을 선포하고 창공이 그의 놀라운 솜씨를 나타내는구나

제 2 조 하나님께서 자기 자신을 우리에게 알리시는 방법 우리는 두 가지 방법을 통해 하나님을 압니다. 첫째는 우주의 창조와 보존(preservation)과 통치(government)에 의한 것인데, 이 우주는 우리 눈앞에 펼쳐진 가장 아름다운 책과 같고 그 안에 있는 크고 작은 모든 피조물들은 아주 많은 글자와 같아서 그것들을 통하여 사도바울이 말한 대로 (롬 1:20) 하나님의 영원하신 능력과 신성과 같이 하나님에 관한 보이지 않는 것들을 우리가 명상하도록 인도함을 받습니다. 이 모든 것이 사람들에게 확신을 주기에 충분하여 사람들이 핑계치 못할 것입니다. 둘째는 그분의 거룩하고 신적인 말씀을 통한 것으로, 하나님은 이 세상에서 우리에게 필요한 만큼의 그의 영광과 구원에 대하여 보다 더 분명하고도 충분하게(dearly and fully) 자기 자신을 알리십니다. Article 2: The Means by Which We Know God We know God by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God: God’s eternal power and divinity, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20. All these things are enough to convict humans and to leave them without excuse. Second, God makes himself known to us more clearly by his holy and divine Word, as much as we need in this life, for God’s glory and for our salvation. GOD MAKES HIMSELF KNOWN BY NATURE "We know Him ... first, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe." In Genesis 1 we read that God created: He made out of nothing. God spoke and it was there. All that God created is something we so easily take for granted. However, David was once overcome with awe by it all, and this moved him to say "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork" (Psalm 19:1). By creating, by what He did and by the way He did it, God revealed something of Who He is. Read what God tells us of Himself by means of His work of creation in Isaiah 40:12. The waters of the earth He measured in the hollow of His hand, He measured infinite distance, He calculated the dust of the earth, and He weighed the mountains and the hills in scales. By the creation of the world God tells us something of Himself, and we can see it even today. It all speaks, and continues to speak, of His glory. He only had to speak and it was all there. What a God! Not only did God create; He also preserves His creation. God lets all that He created continue to exist. God allows reproduction among living organisms. God is not remote from anything that occurs. He is actively in control of all that happens in His creation. It was God who let the plates below the earth shake in the earthquake that devastated Kobe in Japan last year. It is God who makes the easterlies blow night after night. Man cannot stir up the wind, nor can man stop it. But God preserves His world, and therein demonstrates something of Who He is. God governs the world He once made too so that nothing happens apart from Him. All circumstances of life, including crime, homelessness, poverty, famine, come with the involvement of God's power, and demonstrates something of His mercy, power and justice. See Romans 1:18-32. This is dealt with more extensively in Article 13. God reveals Himself in nature, but who is able to read this book of nature? Romans 1: 20 speaks of creation displaying God's eternal power and Godhead, so that any ignorance concerning God's existence is inexcusable. Every single person in the world is able to sense something of the created world and its preservation and government. Everyone can know about God because all live in this creation which speaks of His deity. But is everyone capable of concluding from it that there is a God? No, not everyone can, because although nature speaks so clearly of God, mankind is blinded to it by sin, and therefore cannot conclude from it that there is a God. To be able to understand what nature is really about, man needs to be regenerated, man needs faith. Calvin aptly stated, "man must put on the glasses of Scripture" to be able to read the book of nature. Article 2 speaks of we: "We know Him by two means". By using the word 'we', deBres did not mean to say that all people can know God by the two means mentioned in Art 2. Rather, deBres refers specifically to believers. I am privileged to be able to benefit from the book of nature, for God has opened my eyes and so enabled me to read it. Because of His regenerating work, I can read something of what God has written in creation. That is to say, I am made able to appreciate the things He created, including the smells and textures of the flowers, the speed and agility of the mouse, the mosquito with wings that carry it though they're so very thin, the way the birds find their food. By God's grace I am made able to see something of my Father's greatness and glory. Since my God reveals Himself to me "first" in creation, we do well, in the midst of the concerns of daily life, to pause and look at nature's display of God's glory. In Matthew 6:26 we read of God feeding the birds: "Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" God shows us what He is doing in 20200913주일오후