The Hiddenness of God

Robert Jenson's Systematic Theology is one of the most beneficial and influential (and most difficult to grasp) reads of my life. On occasion I will reread a segment of a chapter so as to stretch my mind and challenge my thinking. Today, as part of my Lenten discipline, I reread his chapter titled, "Our Place in God." The section on "The Hiddenness of God" really ministered to me. See below.

"No one has seen so deeply here as Martin Luther. Faith is "the conviction of things not seen." (Heb. 11:1) Therefore, said Luther, that which is to be believed, God and his goodness, must be hidden. "And it cannot be more deeply hidden than under a contrary object... Thus when God makes alive he does it by killing, when he justifies he does it by making guilty, when he takes into heaven he does it by sending to hell..." God is thus hidden in the whole course of his history with us, but he is doubly--and so salvifically--so hidden precisely as "Jesus crucified, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, but hidden..." It is just so that the "conviction" of things not seen must also be "the assurance" of what can only be "hoped for." (Heb. 11:1)