Now I have Seen You

My ears had heard of you
    but now my eyes have seen you.
6 Therefore I despise myself
    and repent in dust and ashes.

~Job 42:5-6

Meditations

Personal Reflections on Isaiah 40 and Psalm 145:

One of the things that struck me as I meditated on the Scripture this week was God’s tenderness towards his people. In Isaiah 40, he uses the pronoun ‘my,' calling the people his own, and he says to speak comfort to them. This tenderness of the almighty God toward his finite creation surprises me and is even more shocking when one considers that they have sinned greatly against him. The other thing that really stood out to me was God’s power and might. The promises for Israel are delivered because God has decreed it. He is so great that he simply opens his mouth and speaks and things happen. Psalm 145:3 reminds us, “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.” I am challenged to remember God’s tenderness for me, his child, and his goodness and mercy to all people. I am also challenged to remember and reflect on how mighty God is. These truths help me to remember that I am cared for and loved by the God of the universe, and to be bolder in sharing the Gospel with friends since I know that He is mighty to save.

Isaiah’s admonition to go to a high mountain and to say, “Behold your God!” also encourages me to share my faith. We should never be ashamed of our God, who is mighty, and above all faithful, whose very word brings things to come to pass. I am encouraged to behold him-- to gaze upon his mercy, his riches, his might. And, I am encouraged to tell others to behold him. He is, as Isaiah says, without parallel. Who indeed has given him counsel or taught him understanding? There is nothing that we can bring to him. Similarly, Psalm 145 teaches that the saints shall make known God’s deeds and the splendor of his kingdom. I feel a sense of conviction when I reflect and realize that praise for God is often far from my lips and heart. I am sad to say that I often take God for granted, and that moreover, I am hesitant to speak of his riches to others. These passages call me to gaze upon the splendor of God and to boldly speak of his beauty and magnificence to those around me. As I write this, I realize that I need to study God’s attributes displayed in His word so that I may see them more clearly in my day-to-day.

Finally, these passages call me to think on the idols that men fashion, and the idols that I have fashioned in my own heart. I overlay them with gold and seek to find my comfort in these false things rather than reveling in the one true God. Isaiah seems to ask the questions with frustration: Do you not know?!? Have you not heard?!? We see God revealed in creation and his affirmation of his character-- his goodness and provision-- has been passed down through the generations. I do know and I have heard; God is on his throne. Hallelujah! I pray that I will wait on him and trust in him alone for my joy and my salvation. I pray that the false idols in my heart would be revealed and destroyed.

Meditations

Personal reflections on Isaiah 40 and Psalm 145:

This week I meditated upon Isaiah 40 and Psalm 145. One of the aspects of God displayed in these passages is His goodness. Psalm 145 says that the Lord is gracious and merciful, and that he is good to all. In Isaiah 40, He is compared to a shepherd. It pictures Him gathering the lambs in his arms and carrying them in his bosom. This passage made me immediately think of Jesus as the good shepherd, and it also brought a feeling of tenderness to my breast as I reflected on how gentle and loving God is, not only to his people, but to everyone on the earth.

The verses also call to mind the passages that we reflected on last week. Isaiah says that the heavens are stretched out like a curtain, spread like a tent. God brings out the stars, calling each by name. These verses reminded me of Psalm 19. Everything in God’s creation points to His glory. Psalm 145 says that all of God’s works give thanks to Him, and all speak of the glory of His kingdom and of His power. Psalm 145:20 reminded me of the man who delights in the law of the Lord-- it is he who will be preserved, in contrast to the wicked man who will not stand in the day judgment and will be destroyed.

These verses proclaim how great God is. I am struck by the passion of the Psalmist who is praising God with his heart. He tells Him that he will praise his name forever and ever, and that every day he will bless God. Similarly, Isaiah reminds us that God sits in the heavens and that this earth and everything on it is of no account to him, so great is He. Nothing on earth compares to Him, and He alone is the source of our strength and our support.

As I look at my own life, I realize that I need to look on His creation and see Him in it. How amazing it is to think that not one star is missing from the sky solely because He holds it there. And yet, in my own day to day, I forget that God is in control, that he upholds everything and that he is might and powerful. I am inspired and challenged by the Psalmist to look upon the works of God and to praise Him daily for it. I realize that my heart needs to change, and that I need to be thankful to God for all that he does and has done for me.

These verses also challenge me to rest in His goodness. This image of his tenderness towards his people haunts me. I forget that he cares for me, that he carries me. What a beautiful picture is painted when Isaiah writes that those who wait on the Lord shall mount up with wings like eagles. I am challenged to reflect on God’s goodness and to trust that he is the good and loving Lord who is the father of creation and is my salvation.

The Infallibility of the Church

Rome believes that the church is infallible as well as Scripture. The infallibility of the church extends not only to the question of canon formation but also to the question of biblical interpretation. To summarize, we can say that according to Rome we have an infallible Bible whose extent is decreed infallibly by the church and whose content is interpreted infallibly by the church. However, the individual Christian is still left in his own fallibility as he seeks to understand the infallible Bible as interpreted by the infallible church. No one is extending infallibility to the individual believer.

~The Establishment of Scripture by R.C. Sproul in Sola Scriptura, 1995

Theopneustos

[B.B.] Warfield summarized:

From all points of approach alike we appear to be conducted to the conclusion that θεόπνευστος is primarily expressive of the origination of Scripture, not of its nature and much less of its effects. What is theopneustos is "God-breathed," produced by the creative breath of the Almighty. And Scripture is called theopneustos in order to designate it as "God-breathed," the product of Divine spiration, the creation of that Spirit who is in all spheres of the Divine activity the executive of the Godhead. The traditional translation of the word by the Latin inspiratus a Deo is no doubt also discredited, if we are to take it at the foot of the letter. It does not express a breathing into the Scriptures of God.... What it affirms is that the Scriptures owe their origin to an activity of God the Holy Ghost and are in the highest and truest sense His creation. It is on this foundation of Divine origin that all the high attributes of Scripture are built. [The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, 1948, p 296]

   It's  hard to overemphasize the importance of understanding this: What Scripture is here teaching about itself, the term Paul uses, its consistency with the rest of biblical revelation, and comprehension of Warfield's explanation (above) may well be the most important exercise in developing a strong foundation in biblical sufficiency that gives rise to sound theology and apologetics. Warfield rightly concluded that the term translated "God-breathed" is speaking of the origin of Scriptures; they are not, first and foremost, in a primary sense, human in their origination, and we will see this truth repeated in different ways in other passages... 

~James R. White, Scripture Alone (2004)