God dwelling in darkness: Then said Solomon, “the LORD hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness.” II Chronicles 6:1. There is something here that runs against what we might expect. When Solomon speaks of the Lord taking up His dwelling, he does not describe it in terms of light, but in terms of “thick darkness.” This is not the absence of God, but the manner of His presence. I Timothy 6:16. It’s not because God is dark, but because man is not able to approach Him as He is. The darkness is not in God, but in the limitation of those who would behold Him. Romans 11:33. But this is not how we are inclined to think. There is a kind of expectation in us that if God makes Himself known, it must be in a way that makes everything plain. But Scripture does not speak that way. He is there, truly present, and yet not in a way that can be fully known or traced out, not because He has withheld Himself, but because He has not made Himself subject to man’s understanding. Job 36:26.
What He reveals is true, clear, and certain, but not complete in the sense that nothing remains beyond us. Divine things are not laid before us as something to be mastered, as though they could be gathered in and comprehended in full. There is always more than we can see, more than we can contain. What is given exceeds us, even while it is made known to us. And this touches nearly everything. In the things of God we are given a portion of light, enough to show what is true, enough to set it before us, but not in a way that leaves nothing beyond us. Deuteronomy 29:29. And this is why the things of God are always known in this way. What is revealed does not remove what is hidden, nor does it bring all things into view at once. A portion of light is given, and in that light we walk. Not because everything is made plain, but because what has been made known is sure. And so the path is not one of things being made plain, but of continuing in what has been declared, even while much remains beyond us. II Corinthians 4:18.
There is another thought that seems worth considering alongside this. When we read the Scriptures, especially the Old Testament, there can be a tendency to imagine that those who lived in those times walked in a kind of clarity that we do not, as though the Lord’s dealings with them were so open and plainly set before them that faith was scarcely needed. But the Scriptures do not speak that way. We are told that “by faith” they lived, acted, endured, and obtained a good report, &c. Hebrews 11. Whatever was seen outwardly, whatever miracles were granted at times, these did not remove the necessity of faith, nor did they bring the things of God within the full light of natural understanding. They walked the same path as all the Lord’s people, a path marked not by things being made plain, but by trust in what God hath spoken. II Corinthians 5:7.
And when we look more closely, this becomes even clearer. Elijah, who stood before kings, who saw the fire fall from heaven, who heard the Lord speak, this same man, not long after, sat under a juniper tree and requested that he might die. I Kings 19:4. If everything had been as clear as we often suppose, with such an overwhelming sense of God’s presence before him, such a moment would be difficult to understand. But it was not so. The Lord was no less present, yet His presence was not always attended with outward manifestation. And when He did speak again, it was not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in a “still small voice.” I Kings 19:12.
And what of John the Baptist? Who can forget his question: “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?” Matthew 11:3. Many have taken this as something spoken only for the sake of his disciples, as though John himself stood above any such uncertainty. That may be so, and yet when we consider what is actually before us, another thought arises. This is the same John who had seen the Spirit descending, who had heard the voice from heaven, who had borne witness that this is the Son of God. And yet here he is, sending to ask the very thing he had once declared. Not because the testimony he had received was questionable, nor because the Lord had changed, but because the path he now walked did not answer to what might have been expected. Habakkuk 1:5.
Let us place ourselves, for a moment, where John was. Shut up in prison, the voice that had cried in the desert now confined to a cell, the man who had stood before multitudes now sitting alone. And from that place, the outward course of things appears so different from what may have been expected. The One whom he had proclaimed, the One whose kingdom he had set forth, now goes on in a way that does not outwardly answer to what might have been looked for. Isaiah 55:8-9. And under those circumstances the same question arises in various forms. Not because the gospel is uncertain, but because the Lord’s ways are not ordered according to our way of doing things. And so, like John, we are brought again to this place, not to discover something new, but to have confirmed what had already been declared, and to be established in it. II Peter 1:12.
Christ Himself, speaking of John, asks, “what went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?” Matthew 11:7. The answer, of course, is no, John was not a reed, not a man governed by every passing uncertainty, and yet that does not mean he was untouched by what lay beyond his understanding. The question itself does not deny the truth he had once declared but shows that what had been revealed must still be held by faith, even when the present circumstances seem to stand contrary to it.
In this manner God has ever made Himself known: to our first parents in the garden, to Moses in the bush and in the cloud of Sinai, to Elijah in the stillness of that voice. In each case God was present, and yet not brought within the reach of man’s understanding, revealed, though unseen. I Timothy 1:17. Nor was it otherwise in the Incarnation. “The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” John 1:5. “There standeth one among you, whom ye know not.” John 1:26. And so it is still. The Lord is known, and yet not in a way that answers to what we would expect. His people, then as now, walk not by sight, but by faith. MPJ