God Breathed
General & Special Revelation
Who is God? What is He like? What does He want? What does He expect from us? Can we know God? Is there a God at all?
Every thoughtful person ever has wrestled with these kinds of questions at some point in their lives. The good news for us is that God has Breathed. Huh? That’s right, God breathed! Understanding this concept from a couple perspectives can guide us into a deeper understanding of God, the universe, and ourselves.
Natural/General Revelation
“By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.” Psalm 33:6
God reveals Himself in the universe. He breathed out the heavens! How epic is that? God is The Mighty Star Breather; He spoke and it was. Because God has breathed out all of creation and revealed Himself to us in the universe, we can study His universe, His cosmos, and learn about Him.
Romans 1 says that God’s divine nature and eternal power have been clearly perceived in creation since it’s foundation. God has revealed Himself, generally, through His works. We see His fingerprints all over creation—even on our very selves. This we call ‘general revelation’.
Psalm 19:1-3 says, “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 worlds, whose voice is not heard.” The testimony of God’s goodness, creativity, divine power, and eternal nature can be seen all around us in the things He’s created by His words.
The Imago Dei - Mankind in the Image of God
“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower that the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet” Psalm 8:3-6.
Man is God’s greatest creation! That’s a pretty bold statement, I know, but the more we understand about ourselves, the more we see just how complex and amazing we truly are. Though the rest of creation is glorious and spectacular, it was mankind that was formed from the dust of the ground to have dominion over the whole created order. God shaped man of the clay and knit him together, but man only took on life once God “breathed into his nostrils” (Genesis 2:7).
God made us in His image, to represent Him here on earth (Genesis 1:26,27). Because God formed mankind to be His image bearers and breathed into man to give us life, we can have immediate knowledge of the God who’s image we bear. We’ve been given the ability to reason and think. We’ve been equipped with the ability to relate to one another and God through personal communication and relationships. We’ve been born with a conscience that serves to guide us into proper moral belief and action, though we’ve marred it and constantly ignore it (see Romans chapter 2). And we’ve been given the tremendous task of caring for the rest of creation in a manner that brings glory and honor to our mutual Creator. Though we don’t image God perfectly or completely, we can still know Him through some of our mutual characteristics, like an image in a reflection.
The Divine Word
“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by word of his power.” Hebrews 1:1-3a
Not only did God breathe out the Stars and establish creation by the Word of His mouth, not only did God breathe into man’s nostrils to give life and breath to the human race, but God also entered His own creation in the person of Jesus Christ and breathed into human lungs of his own at the virgin birth.
The Divine Son, the second person of the Trinity, took on human flesh and lived as one of us into his early thirties. The God-man is described by the Apostle John as the “Logos” or “Word”. He was with God in the beginning and is himself God. This Word is the creator of everything and he’s holding all things together. The Divine Word, dwelt among us and revealed the perfect will of God. Because Christ came to earth, breathed in as a human, and breathed out divine truths of God, we can have a deeper understanding of the nature of God and the progression of human history, as well as peace between God and man through the blood of his cross.
Special Revelation
“All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” 2 Timothy 3:16
One of the most important Christian doctrines is the doctrine of Scripture. The Bible speaks of itself as “breathed out by God”. The Apostle Peter tells us that “no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). Scripture is so important for us because by it we can rightly understand the rest of the ways God has revealed Himself, or “breathed”. The Bible is the Christian’s ultimate authority, by it we can properly view the rest of creation. Through the lens of the Bible we can interpret our purpose here on earth. Because God has breathed out His Holy Scripture through the biblical authors, we can rightly, deeply, and intimately know our God who is our Creator and Savior. This we call “special revelation”.
Thank God that He decided to breathe!
Im approaching theology with a delicate psyche as far as this world goes. This is exactly the kind of baby step that invites me to take a deeper look.