About three weeks ago, I introduced a concept known as progressive revelation. I developed it even more the following week. For the purpose of review, progressive revelation is the idea that God revealed things about himself gradually over time and that his fullest revelation is found only in Jesus Christ. That means that those who lived prior to Jesus did not have a complete picture of God because they had only a portion of the truth.
If you’re like me and have been a Christian for quite awhile, you probably don’t think of God in the same way you did when you were young. As you’ve grown in maturity and wisdom, your understanding of God has likely changed along with you. That too may be a result of progressive revelation.
As I thought about it more, I began to see parallels between progressive revelation in the Bible and progressive revelation in my own life. It’s uncanny how closely they resemble each other. Perhaps you’ve had a similar experience in your lifetime. Follow along on my personal journey and see what you think.
The first thing that jumps out at me is the similarity between how early humanity thought of God and how I did as a child. When I was young, I thought God was a lot like Santa Claus. And like Santa, I believed that “He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake.” Psalm 139 seems to agree. As David sensed about God, “You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways (Psalm 139:2-3).”
However, that’s where the comparison ends. In the famous Christmas song, the next line states, “He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.” The obvious implication is that if you’re not a good boy or girl, if you don’t obey your parents, eat all the food on your plate, do your chores and homework, and treat your siblings nicely, you won’t get gifts. In fact, punishment is what awaits you.
That is exactly what I thought of God. I thought, as did early humanity, that if you don’t obey God’s commandments, I wouldn’t get blessed. I was certain that lightning bolts would descend from heaven upon my head for all the stupid and sinful things I did. It was bad enough getting punished by my parents. It was even worse thinking that God was ready to get me too.
When you think about it, that line of thinking comes right out of the old covenant – the Mosaic Law to be exact. Specifically, it comes straight from Deuteronomy 28, among other places. Deuteronomy 28 spells out in some detail all the ways Israel would be blessed for obedience and all the curses they’d incur for disobedience. It sounds very much like how a parent would relate with his/her little child.
This resembles in some ways a relationship built on fear. That was the dominant theme for me early on. To me, God was someone to be feared and respected. I mean, who wants to get thumped for not doing the right thing.
As I grew up into my teenage and early adult years, my view of God as Santa Claus changed somewhat. That doesn’t mean that I no longer feared or respected God. It just means that other things I perceived about God came into the picture. For example, years of religious instruction taught me that God not only wants my obedience but he wants my worship as well. That’s why it was critical to be at church every Sunday. In fact, missing a Sunday was another way of disobeying and disappointing God, and that was something to be afraid of.
And simply being at church was not good enough. Worship wasn’t just about being there. It was about what I did, said, and thought while I was there. My attention was to be on God and only him during that time. If my mind wandered off to the football game I wanted to watch on tv afterwards, that was a big no-no. Or if I started thinking about what I wanted for lunch, I clearly was not worshipping. Or if I did not dress right, or sing out loud, or take communion properly, I was not being reverent enough. Or even worse, if I started thinking how I couldn’t wait for church to be over with, I was probably doomed for trouble.
That reminds me of how the Israelites had very specific rules and regulations for their “worship.” There were particular sacrifices they had to make, certain ways that they had to handle holy items, such as the Ark of the Covenant, and certain things the priests had to wear and do before they could enter the Most Holy Place of the temple. If things weren’t done right, there was going to be a price to pay.
I imagine the Israelites never dreamt that one day the curtain in the temple that separated the Most Holy Place from everything else would be torn from top to bottom. I imagine the priests of Jesus’ time couldn’t have dreamt it either. And yet it happened (Matthew 27:51). I imagine that they couldn’t have guessed that there wouldn’t be a temple someday, or that there wouldn’t be a high priest, or that sacrifices weren’t required to come near to God. And yet all that happened too. It’s amazing how our understanding changes as we grow and mature.
As I grew into my middle-adult years, the emphasis began to shift a bit again. I became convinced that what God wanted from me more than anything was my time, talent, and treasure. I’m sure you’ve heard that expression before. If I wasn’t putting in my time to pray and read the Bible, God would be disappointed with me. If I wasn’t tithing to the church every week, God was going to be upset with me. If I wasn’t using my talents and gifts to bring him glory, he was going to be angry with me.
As you can see, the fear factor was still present in how I understood God to be. The fear of making God angry, that he might punish me in some way, was still there. It’s not that it controlled me or made me cower in a corner expecting him to strike me down at any moment, but still the thought persisted. I was still relating to him in some degree through fear of disappointment or punishment. Yes, there was by this time a knowledge that he loved me, but it was as if in my mind God was holding a scale. If I did good things that pleased him, he would love me. If I did bad things that upset him, he might punish me somehow. The goal then was to do more good than bad.
This view of God began to change in me about ten years ago. It’s a change that has completely altered the way I view God and the way that I relate to him. And it’s definitely a change that continues to grow and permeate my thoughts and being. What is this change? Well, I’m sorry to do this to you, but you’ll have to come back next week. (Hint: I know this will shock you, but it has something to do with a revelation of God’s grace.) So join me again on my very own personal journey of progressive revelation.
Essential Grace 
Good thoughts, Steve. I believe fear of the Lord (is the beginning of wisdom) does need to be present all through our walk with God. We need to fear, revere, and respect Him. Another way children think of Santa Claus is as the giver of good gifts. God is also that. Not always the gifts we think we want, but what we need at times. Getting back to the idea of fearing God, I think that’s what’s missing from most of the modern day Christian’s walk. Fear is gone. God is merely Santa Claus, giver of good gifts. He won’t judge you. Or will He? Anyway, God is so much I think as we get older we realize how little we really can understand of all of His grace, power, loveliness, holiness, etc. we are actually learning to know Him better at the same time. Thank you for listening to such random thoughts!
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