Why does God keep Himself hidden?

twin1954 said:

I didn't disagree that the passage you quoted says that the group called the body of Christ is the Temple I merely pointed out that there are other passages that just as clearly tell us that we as individuals are the Temple as well.

(1Co 6:15) Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.

(1Co 6:18) Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.

(1Co 6:19) What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

(1Co 6:20) For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

These verses are speaking of our individual bodies not the collective body.

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1.speaks to "members" plural
2.Not to temple
3. Body is a temple for the Spirit
4. Spirit is in Temple
5. Other passeges clarify confusion:

2 Corinthians 6:14-18 -fellowship

Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord,


Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? (Temple=group)

you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood,
(People = stones in the foundation.)

http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/A-Believers-Body-As-A-Temple

SkyWriting said:

I did not mean to suggest that God owes us.
I stated that a Father who already gave up his only one perfect Son
has no additional obligation as the poster suggested - "He should
also show His face now and then."

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OK, But what you wrote actually did suggest that God owed us redemption. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

SkyWriting said:

1.speaks to "members" plural
2.Not to temple
3. Body is a temple for the Spirit
4. Spirit is in Temple
5. Other passeges clarify confusion:

2 Corinthians 6:14-18 -fellowship

Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord,


Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? (Temple=group)

you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood,
(People = stones in the foundation.)

http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/A-Believers-Body-As-A-Temple

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We will just have to disagree on this as it is off topic. You are not going to convince me otherwise than what the Scriptures plainly say and I am not going to convince you to abandon your error.

MechPebbles said:

So what is to stop God from veiling His glory the way He did many times when He appeared to people?

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God is present in the creation, we have proved. That is the veiled presence of God. If you are in His presence, this is what it will be like:

Psalm, Chapter 97
5 The hills melted like wax at the presence of the LORD, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.

Micah, Chapter 1
4 And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place.

If you do not want God like this, it is likely you do not want to be in His presence. It is a lot more rare than you have indicated in your posts that someone was in God's presence, and it did not kill him.

If you want to have a burning bush encounter, or see His back parts like Moses, you need to be in the type of relationship with God that Moses had.

Would you like to have Him appear to like men with a couple of His angels the way He did with Abraham? Abraham was considered the father of the faithful, and every Jewish person in history is a descendant of his. Do you have that type of relationship with God?

Belshazzar the king of Babylon saw the fingers of God writing on the wall. Is that the type of veiled view of God you would prefer? That was the last hours of his life on this Earth, and it sobered him up!!!

SkyWriting said:

That last part is your own personal lie.
Or maybe somebody in a big dumb hat said so. Or a tight collar or a special color robe:

19 For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities,His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts.…

-83- Bible verses about Knowing God

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This is from God's holy word, O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and untraceable His ways! 34“Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?”

I don't know why you tried to turn to insults but whatever...

newlightseven said:

This is from God's holy word, O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and untraceable His ways! 34“Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?”

I don't know why you tried to turn to insults but whatever...

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The 83 verses easily over-rule such an idea.

Colossians 1:9
For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,

-83- Bible verses about Knowing God

twin1954 said:

We will just have to disagree on this as it is off topic. You are not going to convince me otherwise than what the Scriptures plainly say and I am not going to convince you to abandon your error.

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My intent is to provide information to those who are seeking.
God is in charge of the path you take.

4As you come to Him, the living stone, rejected by men, but chosen and precious in God’s sight, 5youalso, like living stones, are being built into a spiritualhouse to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritualsacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.6For it stands in Scripture: “See, I lay in Zion a stone, a chosen and precious cornerstone; and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame.”

MechPebbles said:

I am pretty sure at some point, someone will come and accuse me of being a fake Calvinist and betraying the Reformation cause by being seduced by a Roman Catholic!

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I don't know much about those groups mentioned.

I think God wants our love to be somewhat based on faith. If God revealed himself, it would take the factor of faith away. Faith is closely related to free-will. And free-will is related to love.

If he revealed himself, we wouldn't have much of a choice. We'd all worship him, we'd all fear him. That wouldn't be true love.

However, God has given us evidence (fulfillment of prophecies, testimonies, miracles, historical evidence, etc) . We have evidence, not proof. There's enough for evidence to trigger rational faith. And with that faith, we can love God. When we love God, we can build a relationship with him. It is then, he reveals himself.

MechPebbles said:

If God revealed Himself in some visible way to His people, wouldn't it be a great encouragement to us all, especially those of us going through suffering?

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According to scripture, this is not possible.
11 Bible verses about why God is Invisible
Also scripture states that this type of
evidence would have no good results.

27‘Then I beg you, father,’ he said, ‘send Lazarus to my father’s house, 28for I have five brothers. Let him warn them so they will not also end up in this place of torment.’

29But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let your brothers listen to them.’

30‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone is sent to them from the dead, they will repent.’

31Then Abraham said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”

MechPebbles said:

I started this thread because I wanted to discuss a fundamental philosophical question: Is there a reason for God's hidden-ess? Instead of getting myself into an invigorating discussion, I am treated with irrelevant responses that make no attempt to reply to the OP and with responses that openly judge my faith. With very few exceptions, posters took the opportunity to show how clever they are and how many irrelevant Scriptural quotations they can cite and to accuse me of plugging my ears, preferring to pique my curiosity rather than bowing to truth and demanding an Abraham-type relationship with God when I was no friend of His. It really reveals the type of people on this forum.

Some time ago, I made a study of this issue and, as expected, I found no Biblical answers as the Bible does not directly address this subject (this is one of at least three very fundamental questions about God that the Bible mysteriously skirts). Most of the write-ups on this subject were quite unsatisfactory but there was an article by a Roman Catholic that gave a simple yet promising answer. In that article, the writer wrote that God keeps himself hidden from us because He wants us to spend our entire lives seeking and pursuing Him. We live in a world surrounded by very visible worldly things but God wants us to pursue Him who remains unseen.

I was hoping, at a certain point in this thread, to bring this in for discussion because I thought it would be interesting to explore this. But seeing the kind of responses I have been getting, I know nothing good will come from this. I am pretty sure at some point, someone will come and accuse me of being a fake Calvinist and betraying the Reformation cause by being seduced by a Roman Catholic!

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If you had wanted to discuss it philosophically then you should have stated that you did. As it was I thought that you might be struggling with the question and desired to help you find an answer with Scripture.

I am sorry that you were disappointed in the way folks answered. I would much rather have fellowship with you in the Lord than to debate and argue philosophy.

SkyWriting said:

The 83 verses easily over-rule such an idea.

Colossians 1:9
For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,

-83- Bible verses about Knowing God

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You are trying to refute a verse in the bible by using another verse.. just let it go..smh

MechPebbles said:

If I had been really struggling, such a "gracious" treatment would have devastated me.

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Would it have been enough to turn you from error, had that been the case?

Simple: God does not hide Himself. He is seen by everyone, everywhere all the time. This is called general revelation. Those who claim "not to see God" are only suppressing this knowledge.

Romans 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,g in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,25because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

26For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

MechPebbles said:

If I had been really struggling, such a "gracious" treatment would have devastated me.

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It is very difficult to convey tone, emotion and body language( all of which are an integral part of communication)when writing on a faceless forum. Again I will point out that you are making assumptions. I recognize that in the case of this faceless forum assumptions are often necessary but I always seek to put the best face I can on others posts.

I am still working on conveying my heart in my posts so forgive me my shortcomings.

twin1954 said:

It is very difficult to convey tone, emotion and body language( all of which are an integral part of communication)when writing on a faceless forum. Again I will point out that you are making assumptions. I recognize that in the case of this faceless forum assumptions are often necessary but I always seek to put the best face I can on others posts.

I am still working on conveying my heart in my posts so forgive me my shortcomings.

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Exactly. I'm very sarcastic and respond tongue in cheek often, people find me endearing and humorous in person, but online I'm viewed as wretch. lol

JM said:

Exactly. I'm very sarcastic and respond tongue in cheek often, people find me endearing and humorous in person, but online I'm viewed as wretch. lol

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I find you endearing and humorous online. Except, of course, when you question me and my views.

lol