Why Does God Hide Himself?

[dwight92070]

Isaiah 45:15 Truly You are God, who hide Yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior!

Have you ever wondered why God hides Himself? My first thought is that He wants us to have faith. "Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." Hebrews 11:6 So, if we can't see Him, I guess we need to trust that He is there, i.e. that He even exists, and that when we diligently cry out to Him, He will reward us.

Remember Thomas wanted to see the holes in Jesus' side and hands. "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." John 20:25 So it appears that Thomas was not convinced that Jesus rose from the dead, that He was alive, so it took physically seeing Him to believe it. But there is a greater blessing on all of us who believe He is alive, but have never seen Him. I guess it's about trusting in His word.

If God just openly revealed Himself 24-7, would more people believe? They wouldn't need to have faith that He exists, because they could see Him. Or would there still be just as many rebels?

God chooses to reveal Himself more to some people or generations than others. Obviously, those who saw Jesus had the clearest revelation of all.

We know that He also hides wisdom. Psalm 25:14 "The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him ..."

Dwight

[steve7150]

Have you ever wondered why God hides Himself? My first thought is that He wants us to have faith. "Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." Hebrews 11:6 So, if we can't see Him, I guess we need to trust that He is there, i.e. that He even exists, and that when we diligently cry out to Him, He will reward us.








Of course we need faith because God hides himself but as you said, why? God did give us dominion originally although IMO Satan wrested it away. So God gave us powerful tools like a brain and a moral understanding and emotions and compassion and greed and a need for power but why? Well obviously we need to use our tools wisely and God assigned to Jesus to inform us on how to live wisely, yet mostly we don't. Therefore we stumble through life making many mistakes and sinning a lot committing all kinds of evil yet also portraying love and compassion. Clearly if God intervened or even just appeared it would make a huge impact, even if it was just to instill the fear of God in us. Therefore it appears to me that the life experiences we learn by going through evil and obstacles and everything else in life must be much more valuable then we can comprehend. Hopefully these things we learn have eternal value.

[mattrose]

A few thoughts...

1. Since God is Spirit... perhaps it is not so much that God 'hides himself' as it is that God simply isn't visible. Maybe there's a bit of a difference between a physical being hiding and a Spirit simply not being visible.

2. So when the Bible talks about the hiddenness of God, I think it has less to do with complaining that God is Spirit and more to do with complaining about God's apparent inactivity at certain times.

3. Before suggesting some plausible answers to this new question (why does God sometimes seem inactive?), we should admit that there are many times when God seems quite active. We have good reason to believe many of the reports found inside and outside the Bible of God's activity. Most of all, we have the incarnation.

4. As to the times when God seems withdrawn, I remind myself that He is our heavenly Father. Parents withdraw themselves in certain situations so as to enable growth in their children. I have 3 children (5, 3, 3 months). My wife and I do pretty much everything for the 3 month old, but with the 5 and 3 year olds we practice relative amounts of 'hiddenness'. For example, my potty-trained 3 year old just started complaining that she needs me to help her get on the potty. She doesn't. We've been gradually withdrawing help in such areas. From her point of view, this might seem like hiddenness on our part. It might be frustrating, but it helps her grow into maturity. God's so called hiddeness helps us to mature, to step out, to partner with His Spirit.

5. God is also, I believe, a gentlemen. God will not force His love on us. If we push God away, God may well give us space to experience our wishes. This is, from my point of view, what we call the 'wrath' of God. It is the self-chosen experience of God's withdrawal (really God's granting of our withdrawal from God).

6. Another angle to answer the question would be to suggest that God is constantly active, but we haven't learned to appreciate that activity as belonging to Him. At every second of every day creation surrounds us, pointing to a Creator. Creation is held together, pointing to a caring Creator. In many ways God's apparent 'hiddenness' may, in the end, have more to do with our failure to have eyes to see.

In sum, God's hiddenness, it seems to me, may most readily speak to the fact that God is Spirit, that God gives us room to grow, that God respects our wishes of separation from Him, and that we sometimes fail to see reality for what it is due to our fallen condition.
'

[willowtree]

Imagine the fallout and chaos there would be if Jesus showed up visibly at your church one Sunday morning!

The congregation would immediately be divided between believers, skeptics, deniers and fence sitters. The likes of Peter would want to build a memorial, the Pentecostals would be listening to discover what language he was speaking. Some would be amending their tithe cheques. The rapture people would be mentally getting ready to leave with Jesus when he left. The evangelists would be thinking of all the people who should be there. I could go on.

Next Sunday there would not be room in the sanctuary to sit.

Jeremiah said they would seek him and find him when they sought him with all their hearts (Jer 29:13). That's likely the best way to avoid inevitable chaos.

[backwoodsman]

Isaiah 45:15 Truly You are God, who hide Yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior!

The Septuagint says, "For you are God, and we did not know..." The word translated 'know' means to know, or to perceive. I wonder if that's closer to the correct reading. Paul talks about knowledge that's hidden to unbelievers, but known and understood by believers.

[morbo3000]

Isaiah 45:15 Truly You are God, who hide Yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior!

Have you ever wondered why God hides Himself?

This was a specific instance of God hiding, not general. Isaiah was describing Yahweh's absence while they were under foreign rule. God was hiding, i.e. not revealing his mighty hand to save them.

What makes you think God is hidden?

[Paidion]

Have you ever wondered why God hides Himself? My first thought is that He wants us to have faith.

Well, actually we exercise faith almost every moment of our lives, and in things that we DO see. Faith is fond expectation.
When we enter our car and turn the key, we expect it to start or believe it will start of have faith that it will start. But it doesn't HAVE to start. Sometimes people have turned the key of their cars, expecting them to start, and they didn't.

When you sit in a chair, you exercise faith that it will support you in a sitting position. (You trust the chair to support you, or believe the chair will support you or expect the chair to support you). However, once I saw a man sit in a chair, and it immediately collapsed under him.

There are thousands of other examples that could be given. Thus virtually everything we do in life requires faith on our part. This is experiential faith. My car has always started in the past, and so I expect it to start now. The chair has always supported me in the past, and so I believe it will hold me up now.

But there is another kind of faith that one ought not to have—and that is "blind faith." Example: a boy was caught stealing from a store. But when his mother is informed, she is enraged. "I know my boy! He would never steal!" she exclaims. She has blind faith in her son, believes he does not steal, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. We should make certain that our faith in God is not of the blind variety.

[morbo3000]

Quick clarification, Paidon. That's dwight's quote. Not mine.

[dwight92070]

Thanks to all of you for your input. I find it all fascinating and want to meditate more on what was said. I guess what brought on this question was a verse that was touched on recently on another post. Jesus said that if the miracles that occurred in Capernaum had happened in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have repented. So why did God hide Himself, so to speak, from Sodom and Gomorrah, but not from Capernaum? Or maybe the better question would be, why did God reveal Himself to ANY city or people, when obviously He didn't have to? Notice, too, that God knows what it will take to get people to repent. So why doesn't He just do whatever is necessary, so that they will repent? I don't like to say this, but it almost seems unfair, but I know God is always just.

What makes me think that God is hiding Himself? I guess because we don't physically see Him. We see His creation but not Him.

Dwight

[Paidion]

I apologize, Jeff. Sometimes my 78-year-old mind gets things mixed up. (Good explanation, eh? Or is it an excuse?)