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Isaiah 6:1:
1 In the year that king Uzziah died I also saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
"This is eternal life that they might know thee, the only true God;" but then it must also be a knowledge of God not merely with the intellect but with every means at man's disposal by which knowledge may be obtained.
It must be a knowledge which is the result of every observation and apperception.
With this the question at once comes to the fore as to whether our imagination or, taken more broadly, our power of representation also plays a part in this.
Superficially one would be inclined to answer this question with a decided no.
For God is a Spirit; and if the expression "spirit" here means, that we must exclude all corporeality or materiality, it is not seen how with the Lord our God there can be any mention whatever of an appearance. And if all appearance is inconceivable, how then would one be able to make a representation of God? Truly one can, as the heathen did in many ways, make a form, a figure of an idol, but then this remains purely a contrivance; and naturally with that knowledge of God which shall be to us eternal life, a cunning device does not interest us; we want reality.
According to this, one would have to say that there can be no representation of God, nor can any bodily manifestation show itself, because, by reason of the absolute spirituality of the Eternal Being, every idea of matter, form or dimension with regard to Him is altogether excluded.
And yet, however convincing this may seem, this does not end it.
What is there to say of what Isaiah tells us in his narrative of his vision (6:1)? Even mentioning the year in which it took place, he says: "I also saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple."
Let the question here rest as to whether Isaiah saw something that was outside of himself, or something that thus presented itself only within the field of his inward vision. It is enough here, that Isaiah had a vision of God, and that he was able, in his prophecy, to give some representation of it. It was a vision, which so forcibly took hold of him, in which so much happened, and which resulted in so important a prophecy, that it wholly dominated all of Isaiah's later life.
For us, who honor the work of the Holy Ghost in Isaiah's unction, inspiration and Divine utterance, it is impossible to take this call-vision merely as the product of an unhealthy imagination. There was reality in it, and an act on God's part. And so we come to the conclusion that, among several means by which to make Himself known to man, God also has made use of perceptible manifestation, even though this was transient.
There is more.
In the New Testament as well as in the Old Testament we read repeatedly of angel-appearances and of appearances of the Messiah previous to His Incarnation.
Are not the angels spirits, even as God Himself, incorporeal and immaterial? And yet you read again and again that there are angels who appear, who speak, who do something. The angel that smote the armies of Sennacherib stands on a par with the angel that led Peter forth from prison.
Moreover, previous to the Incarnation, Christ existed purely spiritually; and yet, the appearance, the manifestation was so apparent with the Messiah in old days, that the Patriarch receives Him in his tent and makes Him enjoy food at his table.
And now it is well known that in our days all this is scoffed at and is said to be innocent fiction; but less superficial psychology is not satisfied with this, and attaches to such a narrative a far higher intrinsic worth.
If, now, you observe how Christ Himself, when on earth, literally accepted Old Covenant records in which such appearances are mentioned, and confirmed their direct significance, who, then, can reach any other conclusion than that a certain appearance and thus also a certain manifestation of a being that by itself is purely spirit is not inconceivable, even though it be of God.
This play in Scripture of making images and representations of spiritual subjects, has this peculiarity, that the traits of them are always borrowed from man. With the Cherubim we read of animal forms, of a lion and suchlike, which serve to represent great power and glory; but in every meeting with man the appearance of an angel, of the Messiah, and also, as in Isaiah (ch. 6) of the Eternal Being Himself takes place in human form, in human dress, and with the use of human language.
Even of wings (which are borrowed from the animal world) there is no mention in any record of the appearance of an angel; though you read of wings in connection with the Seraphim above that hover about the throne of God.
This fixed use of the human form here is significant.
For this appearance in human form is immediately related with the creation of man after God's Image.
Christ Himself is called the Image of the Invisible God, and also the "express Image of his substance." And after this Image, as we learn, man is created, in such a way that there originated a certain likeness between man and this Image.
What then was more natural than that the Eternal Being, in order to reveal Himself to man, either directly by Himself, or through His angels, passed over from Himself to His Image, and from His Image to man?
The very thought that there is an Image of God implies that he is mistaken who thinks that in a spirit there can be no distinction and no expression. It shows that by Himself God does not exist as an even Sameness, but with an infinite fullness of distinguished and yet undivided life, and that this, as it is ever present in the Divine consciousness, is to God the Image of his Divine Being.
In any event, this is certain, that when God created man after His Image, this Image must have existed before He could create man after it. And also, that in this Image always lay the vehicle of transition by which to reveal Himself to man in human form.
This was only consummated in the event at Bethlehem, but it had been foreshadowed in the preceding manifestations; and on this ground it can not be denied, that with a view to a better knowledge of God, which is eternal life, the representation-making and image-forming life of our spirit can be taken into account.
The key to this secret is that spirit and matter, God and the world, stand over against one another, so that the distinction between the two must never be lost sight of, because then, willingly or otherwise, we are irresistibly drawn into Pantheism; while, on the other hand, it can never be denied that God Himself has created the world, so that whatever is in the world can not do other than express what in God was the Thought, the Word from eternity.
And so as to what in ourselves concerns soul and body, it must inexorably be maintained that soul and body are two, in this sense, that after death the disembodied soul continues its life until the resurrection; while, on the other hand, it may not be forgotten that soul and body in every respect are counterparts of each other, and that the soul can only reveal its power in full through the body.
This gives rise to a threefold realm of activity. One of purely spiritual activity; one of activity through and with the help of the body; and a third, which may be called a mixed realm, in which the spirit operates purely spiritually, but with data from the world of sense.
With this, the use of figures in our spoken language can not be included. For then we know very well that we mean something metaphorical, something outside of reality.
When the righteous is said to be courageous as a lion, everyone knows that there is no mention here of a real beast of prey. But it is altogether different in our dreams. Then we see visions, but we ourselves co-operate. We carry on conversations. We feel when others touch us. And everything seems so real that we find it difficult to believe that the burglar who threatened our life does not actually stand by our bed when we wake with fright.
This selfsame thing, this being real to our senses of an imagined something, is far stronger and more acute in a vision. Such visions are, one can almost say, dreams which one dreams, not in sleep upon one's bed, but by day, while one is fully awake. And although this vision-life is far stronger in the East than with us, yet he who deems that it does not exist among us is mistaken.
Meanwhile both dream and vision are far excelled in clearness and reality by an appearance; and that we feel ourselves so little at home in this sphere, is only owing to the fact, that science as yet knows nothing of these spiritual operations. She lacks sufficient data for her observation, and therefore is not able thus far to enter this mysterious realm. There is here a world of real operations in the face of which science stands impotent. This brings unbelieving science, in its exalted self-esteem, curtly to deny the reality of all this, while believing science, confessing its inability to explain the phenomenon, thankfully accepts what Scripture teaches concerning it.
We therefore carefully refrain from saying that the image-forming and representation-making life has nothing to affirm with respect to our knowledge of God. The man of intellect who asserts this, contradicts Scripture all too boldly.
Only this much is certain, that the second commandment binds us; that is to say, that we ourselves must not make a concrete image of God, not even in our imagination.
In behalf of the knowledge of God, the image-forming life may only operate when God Himself quickens it within us; as in the call-vision of Isaiah, or in the appearances to Abraham. This image-forming factor in the knowledge of God has in the end found its completion in the "human nature" of the Christ; and the Christ in His human nature, after having entered into glory, has appeared to John on Patmos, and the image of this appearance has been described for us in the inspired record.
This is the only appearance that has been given to the Church of Christ, and this alone may and must govern our imaginative life.
To this is added, in the second place, that also in the child of God is seen something of his Father.
The higher God's children stand, the more this is visible.
The more barren they are, the less this is seen.
When the life of a child of God is deeply spiritual, then some other child of God of like spirituality may see in him something of the Image of the Eternal Being.
From which it follows, that you also, if you are a child of God, have the high calling, not now by the play of your imagination, but by the image-forming appearance of your whole personality to cause something of the Father to be seen by those who are of the family of God.
* * * * * * *This devotional classic offers 110 meditations on a single thought from Psalm 73: "As for me, it is good to be near to God." The author states, "The fellowship of being near unto God must become reality ... it must permeate and give color to our feeling, our perceptions, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking. It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence."
The meditations reflect the blending of spiritual vigor with doctrinal loyalty so consistently expressed in the life of Abraham Kuyper. These are devotions with true substance, avoiding the extremes about which Kuyper adds a word of caution: "Stress in creedal confession, without drinking from the Living Fountain, runs dry in barren orthodoxy, just as truly as spiritual emotion, without clearness in confessional standards, makes one sink in the bog of sickly mysticism."
Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch political leader and Calvinist theologian. Elected to parliament in 1874, he became Prime Minister in 1901 and served in that capacity until 1905. As a theologian, he revived a systematic, orthodox Calvinism. He founded the Free Reformed Church and the Free University of Amsterdam. His other works include Principles of Sacred Theology, Lectures on Calvinism, and The Work of the Holy Spirit
Further information about Abraham Kuyper's life can be seen in the translator's "Biographical Note"; further information about To Be Near Unto God can be found in Abraham Kuyper's "Preface" to that book.
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