GOD REVEALED HIMSELF TO MAN
What would mankind know about God if
He had not revealed himself? Even before He began to appear to certain men,
human beings already worshiped gods of their own imagination. Sumerians, for
example, about 4.000 years BC, worshiped various gods within a religious system
that saw them as evil, depraved, and oppressive. Separated from God by original
sin and without divine revelation, mankind would have only the idealization of
countless deities, stemming from the desire it nurtures for its Creator. See
Joshua 24: 2 and 14.
But God, by his love for the human
being, decided to reveal himself and opened a way by which man would return to
his initial condition of holiness and communion with Him. That was about 2,000
BC when the Creator appeared to Abraham in Haran, in Mesopotamia, to whom he
promised: "... and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you"
(Genesis 12: 3). From the offspring of Abraham, Jesus Christ would born and
after he would die on behalf of mankind.
From Abraham came Israel, a people
whom the Creator separated to reveal himself. Five hundred years after
appearing to this Patriarch, God revealed himself to Moses, with whom he had a
deep relationship that inspired him to write the first five books of the Bible,
the Torah. After, along a millennium, He appeared to certain men of Israel, the
prophets, bringing some specific words to the nation and others to mankind.
However, from the middle of the fifth century BC to John the Baptist, the last
prophet, He remained silent. But He will fully reveal Himself by entering into
the world through the Son, Jesus Christ.
Today, mankind has Divine Revelation,
but it lives as in the time of the Sumerian, worshiping thousands of gods,
proclaimed in the countless religions that it created. This happens because
Revelation came into the world in a contrary logic to the human, so humanity
sees God but does not comprehend him. The revelation of God is madness for man,
for He has chosen insignificant and despicable things of this life to reveal
Himself in them to the world, as follows (1 Cor. 1: 18-31).
Therein lies the difficulty of sinful man in accepting the gospel message. However, not a few have received this message in their hearts and have experienced what Jesus called the "new birth" (John 3). These people, by the action of the Holy Spirit, have been spiritually transformed, what the Apostle Peter calls "begotten again" (1 Peter 1:3). A birth to God, to spiritual things. They constitute the Church of Christ, the people who will live with Him in "new heavens and a new earth" (Revelation 21).
Antônio Maia – M.Div.
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