The Bible is full of signs given by God to point to his creative power, redeeming love, and providential care. We think of Noah’s bow in the cloud and Cana’s water turned to wine. And, of course, the sign given Bethlehem’s shepherd, a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. The Westminster Confession reminds us that the created order itself is a sign of “the goodness, wisdom, and power of God.” Summer sunsets and crashing waves on a rocky coast.
Our world is still filled with God-given signs, but as signs they only point to a reality. The rainbow and the sunset do not deserve our worship, the God who gave them does.
Echoing Hebrews 1, the Confession reminds us that “at sundry times and in diverse manners” God revealed himself to us. He sometimes gave us signs to reveal his will and his way. Our “signs and wonders” Pentecostal friends notwithstanding, the Confession tells us that these former ways of revelation have now ceased and that we have now been given the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the “whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life.” (WCF 1)
By conviction and confession, then, I am what theologians call a cessationist. It’s not that I am not reminded of God’s love when I see a rainbow in the sky or his love of beauty when I see a summer sunset, it’s just that such things point to a reality greater than themselves. They remind me of stories told and truth revealed in the whole counsel of God.
I was thinking of signs – reminders – earlier this week, Tuesday morning to be exact. I began the day with the morning Psalm, 121, and its assurance that “the sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.” Psalm 121, with its lifting up our eyes to the hills, is one my favorites. It promises that the one who keeps us will neither slumber nor sleep and that not the sun of the day nor the moon of the night will strike us.
After my devotions, I headed out for a morning run. It was early enough that the setting moon was still visible in the western sky and by the time I had finished the run, the sun was rising in the eastern sky. The morning was a reminder of the deeper truth of the Psalm. It was a good reminder. I even took some photos to help me remember the reminder.
Later Tuesday morning I was heading into town on an errand and came across the big barn across the county road from our development. I snapped another photo of the bright yellow sunflowers against the fading red paint of the barn, each flower following the summer sun as it moves through the sky. A sign, a reminder perhaps, that we are to walk in the light as he is in the light (1 John 1:7).
A friend is facing an important decision. He is praying about it. He is seeking wise counsel before he makes it. And, he says, he is looking for a sign from God as to which way to go. Yes, friend, look for a sign, but be listening, looking, for the whole counsel of God to which the sign points.