Book I, Chapter i, Section 3
07.10.09
Now here’s a key point: We don’t just recognize this inferiority by thinking about it ourselves. If we look at Scripture, we see the exact same thing happening there! Time and time again the holy people in Scripture are overwhelmed when they encounter the true presence of God. And these are solid men and women of iron-clad faith! And yet when they encounter God, they’re shaking with fear, because they recognize at once how imperfect and inferior they are when they’re overwhelmed by the brilliance and glory of God.
Looking for examples? Look at the book of Judges, or read through some of the writings of the prophets. These terrifying encounters with God’s brilliance and glory are so common that you find these holy leaders all saying the same thing: “We have seen the Lord, and we should die!” Think too about how much of the Biblical language and imagery about God’s wisdom and virtue comes from the book of Job, in which His wisdom and virtue stands in stark contrast to the feeble inferiority of so-called wise people. So too with Abraham – the closer he got to God, the more he talks about himself as “dust and ashes.” And the prophet Elijah couldn’t help but cover his face when God came near to him and God’s brilliant light seared his vision. What can we, who are so inferior and imperfect, possibly do if even the angels themselves are forced to cover their face at the sight of God’s perfect goodness? This is undoubtedly what the prophet Isaiah was referring to when he wrote, “The moon will be humiliated and the sun will be disgraced when the God of the universe reigns.” In other words, even the brightest and most brilliant lights we know will be ashamed of how dim they are next to the incomparable brilliance of God’s goodness.
So to conclude what we’ve been talking about, we’ll say again that there’s a lot of common ground between what we know about God and what we know about ourselves. As we start to think and talk more about these two things, let’s start by talking more about what we know about God, and then we’ll continue on to talk about how this relates to what we know, and can know, about ourselves.