The Heavens Declare

Today's Readings
2 Chronicles 17-18 | Romans 9:22-10:13 | Psalm 19 | Proverbs 20:2-3
Tomorrow's Readings

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
(Psalm 19:1)

I used to love this psalm because it has a tidy little theology lesson built into it, which is often overlooked because our english translations lose some of the force of it. In simplest terms, it makes us aware of the categories of general and special revelation. The first six verses begin with "the heavens declare" and move on to describe how God's glory is manifest in his creation; the second five verses then go on to praise the revealed words of God. The lesson is simple: the creation reveals the power and glory of God in general terms; but to understand anything of his will for our lives, and to walk in obedience to his righteous requirements, we require the specific commandments of his self-revelation in his word. The Hebrew is even more poignant in making this point by its use of the divine name. Whereas the creation can tell us about God (and the Hebrew here is just the general word for god), nevertheless the Lord must reveal himself if we are to know anything truly about his character and his will for our lives (here the Hebrew uses the revealed name God gave himself for Moses: YHWH, which for some reason most english versions - except the New Jerusalem, that I know of - translate as THE LORD).

Thus psalm 19 has a neat little epistemological lesson for those who will listen. And it is important - in the modern age, infatuation with scientific proofs and technological progress encouraged a materialistic worldview in which only that which could be mathematically hypothesized, physically demonstrated, and technologically realized were deemed true and worthy of interest. Our own generation has moved beyond this vacuum to re-embrace the reality and experience of the spiritual realm, but should we be encouraged? In the modern age, there was still a belief in absolute and objective, albeit non-spiritual, truth; in our age, this truth encompasses the spirit but has become relative to experience, and its worthiness is determined by its pragmatic value for producing happiness and comfort. Psalm 19, then, does not merely point out two categories of knowledge for our intellectual consumption: it tells us how God may be known, or, more bluntly, it tells us how we are permitted to know God.

The general knowledge creation can give us is significant; but if anything, it really only tells us how much we don't know, how dependent we are upon God's self-revelation - his special revelation - to secure a sure knowledge with firm confidence in his favor. But this psalm is only marginally concerned with categories of revelation. Consider this: by forcing the words of the first six verses into a lesson about general revelation, useful though that might be, we actually miss the point. Notice that the whole of this first stanza is not about the creation in general, but about the heavens and the sun in particular. The reason for this must be that ancient people beheld the magnificence of the sun and reverenced it as an object of worship; and why not? It was the greatest by far of the heavenly lights; in its presence were found warmth, light and sustenance. But as the psalm points out, the sun is constrained: it is contained within the heavens as in a tent, and it 'follows' a prescribed path every day of its existence. It is hemmed in, subservient to the needs and welfare of the inhabitants of the planet. By comparison, a cloud has more freedom and should be more worthy of worship than the sun.

This question of freedom should direct the reader to seek one who is truly free, the creator of all that we see, hear and smell, both in the heavens and on the earth. But this is a fearful thing, for how will you know when you've found it? As Paul said, God has directed our times and places "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 17:27). But it is not enough to seek, "for who can discern his errors"? We depend absolutely upon the mercy of God to reveal himself to us, to make himself known to us, and even to open our hearts and minds to receive this knowledge.

It is in fear, then, that we understand that we are dust, of and like the earth from which we spring. When we hear the word of God, we commit ourselves to it, for his word alone is able to revive our souls, make us wise, lift our hearts, enlighten our sight. We find from his word that we fall woefully short of his righteous requirements; so short, in fact, that we cannot even perceive the vastness of the chasm separating us from him, except to know that he is good and we are not. But he knows; yet we pray not for this knowledge, which would destroy us, but for his mercy; we pray for deliverance. We cry out, and he hears us. And because he hears us, we shall be innocent of great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
(Psalm 19:14)