The Pursuit of God

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The Pursuit of God

persist across the years. God breathed on clay and it became a man; he breathes on men and they become clay. “Return to dust, you mortals” was the word spoken at the fall by which God decreed the death of every person, and no added word has he needed to speak (Ps 90:3, NIV; Gen 3:19). The sad procession of humankind across the face of the earth from birth to the grave is proof that his original word was enough. We have not given sufficient attention to that deep utterance in the book of John, “That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world” (John 1:9). Shift the punctuation around as we will and the truth is still there: the word of God affects the hearts of everyone as light in the soul. In the hearts of everyone the light shines, the word sounds, and there is no escaping them. Something like this would of necessity be so if God is alive and in his world. And John says that it is so. Even those persons who have never heard of the Bible have still been preached to with sufficient clarity to remove every excuse from their hearts forever. “Who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them” (Rom 2:15). “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (Rom 1:20, NIV). This universal voice of God was by the ancient Hebrews often called wisdom, and was said to be everywhere sounding and searching throughout the earth, seeking some response from people. The eighth chapter of the book of Proverbs begins, “Does not wisdom cry out, and