This week we've been thinking about divine revelation.

The word the New Testament uses is Apocalypse, the word that gives us the alternative

title for the last book of the Bible, the Apocalypse of John. It means unveiling, disclosing

something to us that otherwise would be hidden from us. And yesterday I was commenting on the fact

that God reveals himself in everything that he has made, as Paul says in Romans 119, his invisible attributes become visible to us in the created order.

Isaac Watts wrote a hymn about this.

I sing the almighty power of God.

And its last verse captures this.

There's not a plant or flower below, but makes your glory is known, and clouds arise and tempest

blow by order from your throne."

I often think in this connection of some words of the great Dutch theologian Hermann

Bavink.

He writes in his reform dogmatics, according to Scripture, the whole universe is a creation,

and hence also a revelation of God.

In an absolute sense, nothing is atheistic.

There is no atheistic world, and there are no atheistic people, nor are there atheistic

persons.

I know that sounds a staggering claim, but actually it's just a paraphrase of what Paul says

in Romans 1, 19 through 21, isn't it?

If everything there is, apart from God, has been made by God,

well then the words of Psalm 139 are true in this particular sense, even if you take the wings

of the morning and travel at the speed of light to the furthest part of the earth to flee from God.

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