How Are God’s Attributes “Clearly Perceived” by Everyone?
00:00:00.000 | [Intro]
00:00:05.000 | Chris, a listener, emails in to ask this, "Pastor John, what does Paul mean in Romans 1
00:00:10.000 | when he writes that God's invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature,
00:00:16.000 | are plain and clearly perceived by everyone?
00:00:20.000 | I have heard this verse used to say that there is no such thing as an atheist,
00:00:24.000 | but there have been times when I have felt unsure whether God truly exists,
00:00:27.000 | even though I want to believe that He does.
00:00:30.000 | How can I reconcile my experience with Paul's words?"
00:00:34.000 | One of the great things about the Bible, one of the things that I love so much,
00:00:38.000 | is that it creates problems in itself and then solves them,
00:00:46.000 | problems which we think we created with no solution.
00:00:52.000 | Yeah, right.
00:00:53.000 | So, for example, the Bible says in Romans 1:21, this is what Chris is referring to,
00:01:01.000 | "They knew God," referring to every person who has ever failed to honor God and give thanks to Him.
00:01:11.000 | So verse 21 goes like this, "Although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him."
00:01:21.000 | So every person who fails to worship God knows God, Paul says.
00:01:29.000 | Then we meet someone, or maybe we are that one, who says, "Well, I totally do not know God,
00:01:39.000 | and I do not honor Him as God, and I do not give Him thanks because I don't even believe God exists."
00:01:44.000 | And suddenly we think, "Oh, we've created a problem for the Bible."
00:01:49.000 | Well, we haven't, because the Bible already created that problem five times over.
00:01:57.000 | It isn't our atheist friend or our atheist self that created this problem for the Bible.
00:02:04.000 | The Bible created the problem for the Bible, so that we would not be surprised when we create the problem for the Bible.
00:02:14.000 | Four times Paul says that people don't know God.
00:02:24.000 | 1 Corinthians 1:21, "Since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom,
00:02:32.000 | it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe."
00:02:36.000 | Or Galatians 4:8, "Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those who were by nature no gods."
00:02:46.000 | Or 1 Thessalonians 4:4, "Each of you should know how to control his own body in holiness and honor,
00:02:54.000 | not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God."
00:02:59.000 | Or 2 Thessalonians 1:8, "The Lord Jesus will come with flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God
00:03:11.000 | and those who disobey the gospel of the Lord Jesus."
00:03:14.000 | And outside of Paul, there's 1 John 4:8, which says, "Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love."
00:03:27.000 | So, if Paul himself over and over, and the Apostle John, too, say that there are many people who do not know God,
00:03:40.000 | then we have a clue that knowing God has different senses in the New Testament,
00:03:48.000 | and we need to look very closely at the context of Romans 1, which says everybody does know God,
00:03:55.000 | to see what he really means. So let's look at it carefully.
00:03:59.000 | Let's start with verse 18, which is really going to be the key.
00:04:02.000 | "The wrath of God," this is Romans 1, 18, "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men
00:04:12.000 | who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth."
00:04:18.000 | Now, that is probably the most important contextual clue to the solution.
00:04:26.000 | Ungodly people who know something, called the truth, suppress it.
00:04:34.000 | And what is their conscious experience of the truth while they are suppressing it?
00:04:41.000 | Nothing. That's what it means to suppress the truth.
00:04:46.000 | They deny that they have any knowledge of the truth that they are suppressing.
00:04:54.000 | And according to their own present consciousness, they're right. They don't know God.
00:04:59.000 | They've pushed that knowledge down. "Katakanton" is the Greek word. "Hold down" or "restrain."
00:05:08.000 | But there's another implication in this word. The knowledge is really there.
00:05:13.000 | It may be suppressed, held down, out of mind temporarily, but it's there.
00:05:19.000 | And so Paul goes on like this, verse 19, "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them."
00:05:32.000 | Verse 20, "For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived
00:05:40.000 | ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.
00:05:43.000 | So they are without excuse, for although they"—here it is, verse 21—"they knew God,
00:05:50.000 | they did not honor him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thinking,
00:05:59.000 | and their foolish hearts were darkened."
00:06:03.000 | That is, they pushed down the light of the truth about God and shut the door and chose to live in the dark.
00:06:15.000 | And in that dark room, with the light of God held down, they don't know God,
00:06:23.000 | even though they know God and have seen him.
00:06:27.000 | So the answer to Chris's question is that his experience and the experience of atheists is real.
00:06:36.000 | Darkness is real. Blindness is real. And the Bible is true.
00:06:46.000 | He knows God. All atheists know God.
00:06:52.000 | And the most wonderful thing is, God overcomes the suppressing darkness by his power in 2 Corinthians 4, 6.
00:07:03.000 | "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
00:07:11.000 | of the glory of God." The light of the knowledge, knowledge, knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
00:07:21.000 | So I would say to Chris and to every atheist, deep down under the suppressing work of your dark heart, you know God.
00:07:30.000 | Ask God for the miracle of this illumination so that you can see what you're suppressing and look to Christ.
00:07:41.000 | Yes, amen. Thank you, Pastor John. And thank you, Chris, for the question.
00:07:45.000 | And thanks for listening to the podcast.
00:07:47.000 | For our apps and for past episodes and to send us a question of your own, go online to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:07:56.000 | Well, tomorrow we hear from a dating couple. The boyfriend is a complementarian.
00:08:01.000 | The girlfriend is an egalitarian feminist. Should they pursue marriage?
00:08:06.000 | And if they do, what would be the consequences?
00:08:08.000 | It's a serious question, and Pastor John will tackle it tomorrow on the podcast.
00:08:13.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with John Piper.
00:08:17.000 | We'll see you tomorrow.
00:08:18.000 | [Pastor John's Office]
00:08:20.000 | [Pastor John's Office]
00:08:22.000 | [Pastor John's Office]
00:08:24.000 | [BLANK_AUDIO]