SCRIPTURE WITHOUT PRESENCE

 

SCRIPTURE WITHOUT PRESENCE: THE TRAGEDY OF KNOWING THE TEXT BUT MISSING THE GOD

By Jonas T. Suizo

The kind of world that would exist if God only spoke in sundry times and diverse manners, without law, without an incarnate Christ, and without a true teaching servant—is not merely hypothetical. History has already answered it. That world would be religious yet unstable, morally active yet spiritually uncertain, filled with devotion but lacking clarity. What is even more sobering, however, is that both Judaism and segments of Christianity reveal another danger just as severe: a world where people possess the Scriptures, yet still fail to grasp the living effect of the true God, the true Law, and the true Teaching Servant. This proves that spiritual collapse does not only occur when revelation is absent—it can also happen when revelation is possessed but misunderstood, resisted, or reduced to form.

Judaism stands as the first and most painful example of this reality. The Jewish people were entrusted with the Law, the prophets, the temple system, and the promises of God. They did not lack information; they had the richest scriptural heritage on earth. Yet when the very God who authored that Law appeared in flesh, many could not recognize Him. Jesus Himself exposed this tragedy when He said, “Ye search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.” The issue was never the absence of Scripture—it was the absence of spiritual recognition. The Law, meant to be a mirror leading to Christ, became a scoreboard of righteousness. It became a weapon instead of a guide, a badge of superiority instead of a tutor to humility. God was not denied, but He was confined to a system. So when God stepped outside the system—touching lepers, eating with sinners, forgiving without temple permission—He was rejected by those who believed they knew Him best. This is the terrifying possibility of religion: you can know the letter of God’s word and still miss the living voice of God.

Christianity, shockingly, can fall into the very same trap. Though Christ has already come, though the cross has already happened, and though the Holy Spirit has already been poured out, many expressions of Christianity mirror the same spiritual blindness that once marked first-century Judaism. People today can quote Scripture fluently, defend doctrine fiercely, and attend church faithfully—yet walk without mercy, live without transformation, and remain untouched in conscience. It is possible to preach Christ, debate Christ, and sing about Christ while never actually being submitted to Christ. When this happens, Christianity becomes what Judaism became at its worst: structure without life, knowledge without power, and belief without obedience. The tragedy is not unbelief alone—it is belief without surrender.

This breakdown becomes inevitable when the true Teaching Servant is no longer recognized. When God’s sent voice is replaced by inherited tradition, revelation hardens into routine. People begin to say, “This is how we’ve always done it,” instead of trembling at, “Thus saith the Lord.” Power shifts from conscience to institutions, from inner conviction to external control. When this happens, religious abuse grows, fear replaces spiritual discernment, and control disguises itself as discipleship. Outward behavior may be regulated, but inward character remains untouched. Jesus called this condition being “whitewashed tombs”—clean outside, dead inside. It is not demonic; it is simply lifeless religion dressed in sacred garments.

This brings the hypothetical question _ what if God will speak to people in sundry times and diverse manners to the world and there is no law, no true God like Jesus who walks and eats and lives with them, and there is no teaching servant, into sharp reverse focus before we imagined a world with no Law, no incarnate Christ, and no teaching servant—resulting in religious chaos and spiritual uncertainty. But Judaism shows what happens when a people possess the Law, the Scriptures, and a teaching system, yet reject the incarnate God: the result is religion without creation and redemption. Christianity today sometimes shows what happens when Christ is held in doctrine, Scripture is held in hand, and churches exist everywhere, yet there is no living submission to Christ: the result is faith in name, but no power in life. In both cases, the form is preserved while the fire is lost. The text is guarded, but the Truth standing in front of the people is missed.

The final warning is unavoidable and uncomfortable. The greatest danger to faith is not atheism. Atheism is honest in its rejection. The greater danger is familiarity without obedience—knowing about God without yielding to God, defending Scripture without being transformed by it, and honoring the Law while resisting the Lawgiver. A God who only speaks from a distance creates religion. A God who walks among men creates and redeems. But even when redemption has been revealed, it can still be resisted by those who would rather master the system than surrender to the Savior.