The Nature of Revelation

by Benjamin Dean

Contents Outline

1. WHAT REVELATION IS

How We Gain Knowledge of God and of Ourselves
God’s Personal Communication
Word and Deed and Presence
Authoritative Commentary on God’s Action
Consolation and Challenge

2. BIBLICAL TERMS FOR REVELATION

Most Significant Words
Messages about Mysteries

3. WHY REVELATION IS NECESSARY

God is Known Only Through God
God is Not Immediately Accessible
People Are Not Neutral
Knowledge of God is of Universal Significance

4. TWO TYPES OF REVELATION

Different Kinds of Knowledge
All True Knowledge of God Has the Same Source
God’s General, Everyday, Universal Communication
God’s Exclusive, Particular, Special Communication

5. THE IMPACT OF REVELATION

Reconciliation
Command and Summons
Knowing God, we also know ourselves

‘There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries.’¹

1. WHAT REVELATION IS

How We Gain Knowledge of God and of Ourselves

The Bible makes colossal claims to knowledge. Its teaching about revelation treats the reasons for these claims and addresses various questions regarding them. Is God known to humanity, and if so, how? What is the origin and nature of our knowledge of God? How do we know about God, and how do we know that we know? Revelation is the biblical notion which responds to these and other issues concerning the origin and basis of affirmations about God, ourselves, and all other creatures in relation to God.²

In the Bible, revelation is the properly basic condition of knowledge. The concept of revelation is central to biblical faith, and biblical teaching proceeds by appeal to it at all points. Whilst numerous passages of the Bible relate the processes of revelation in terms that can be examined in a quite analytical and investigative manner, its overall approach to God’s revelation is, like its presentation of God’s existence, to take it as given, to express it, and to embody it. That is, God’s self-revelation acts to produce and restore personal relationships, reconciled sinners who now call upon him in Christ as ‘Our Father.’

The basic meaning of revelation is disclosure by God, the voluntary manifestation and making known to humanity by God of what was otherwise unknown. In summary, God can be known, and God is known because God wants to be known and, because God wills to be known, God has acted and continues to act to make himself known; and, crucially, God may be known in no other way than by revelation. We shall proceed here in a manner appropriate to the Bible’s inherent theological realism – on the assumption that God is known and that he has made himself known – by way of description, expounding a concept of revelation defined by and derived from the concrete realities of revelation itself. After all, ‘If no revelation ever took place, all reflection on the concept is futile. If, however, revelation is a fact, it – and it alone – must furnish us the concept and indicate to us the criterion we have to apply in our study of religions and revelations.’³

God’s Personal Communication

The term ‘revelation’ itself is a broad category, having a variety of forms, covering a wide range of phenomena. In the Bible, God tells us things which make him known through a number of means – audible speech, written words, miracles, mighty acts, visible manifestations, dreams, visions, prophecy, the role of the natural world, the life and work of Christ, the proclamation of the Gospel, apostolic teaching, responsible interpretation of that teaching, and the eventual manifestation of Christ at the climax of history. The connecting link between this group of phenomena is the free initiative of God himself, acting personally to communicate with his human creatures in order to make known his identity and will. So, we may talk about the revelation of God in a comprehensive way, as God’s self-disclosure and self-manifestation of truth and reality to humanity.

Word and Deed and Presence

But Divine revelation may be defined a little more precisely as God’s self-communication through word and deed. God reveals himself to particular people through specific events by speaking and action. God’s mighty acts include God’s mighty words. In fact, the things God says, and the things God does, are interlocked, dovetailed, in a continuous sequence such that the concrete events of God’s self-revelation are not separate from – and may never properly be detached from – God’s articulate explanation of them. After all, speech is a very significant form of action. Further, God’s speech to us is not information from a distance, nor is it impersonal, say like a book on mathematics might be. As the incarnation of his beloved Son shows, God is himself present to us by his Word, and by the words of revelation addressed to us in Holy Scripture and faithful preaching.⁴ In that way, revelation addresses the whole human person including affections, yet it is inherently informational, cognitive, and intellectual. That is to say, revelation is essentially – though not exclusively – to do with the generation and transformation of understanding. Personal encounter between God and humanity entails true, accurate, rational experience. Revelation changes understanding and does so by addressing created intelligence in verbal form.

Authoritative Commentary on God’s Action

Without accompanying words – propositional content, divine utterances – God’s revelatory acts would be ambiguous. For example, the cross of Christ is at one level an ordinary event until its significance, God’s particular intention and action in and through it, is further revealed, explained, unpacked, interpreted. Christ’s resurrection is intrinsically extraordinary, yet its earth-shattering magnitude still requires authoritative, reliable, explanation; its intelligibility and understandability rests upon the apostolic teaching that interprets Christ’s resurrection as a definitive revelation of God’s power and purpose. Left to our own devices, determining the meaning of these colossal events would be little more than guesswork. We shall return to this. For now, though, the matter is beautifully summarised:

‘The power and authenticity of the Bible lies in the fact that it is the record of actions of God together with his own authoritative commentary on those actions. The Bible is not a record of the acts of God with a commentary from some other source. God is his own commentator. This gives to the Bible an enduring relevance.’⁵

Consolation and Challenge

It is of capital importance to recognize that God’s revelation is not what might be naturally expected. Whilst revelation essentially takes the form of address, and whilst its content conveys reliable information from God that is intended to be comforting, consoling, encouraging, liberating, and hopeful, even so the revelation of God is invariably challenging, disturbing, strange, shocking, and surprising. Almost always, God’s revelation is unanticipated, unforeseen, unpredictable. For God to reveal himself, communicating truth about his character and purpose, is hardly routine. It is totally radical. It is absolutely dramatic. Moses is commanded to confront Pharoah, and lead Israel out of slavery, into God’s presence. King David’s shocking crimes are exposed and made public, whilst Isaiah’s call to speak for God shakes and undoes him. Christ’s appearance to Saul overthrows his violence and antagonism first, and then commissions him to be an apostle. God’s message through Peter’s vision sets aside ethnic prejudice and includes all peoples in the Divine purpose (Exo 3; 2 Sam 12; Isa 6; Acts 9-10).

True communication from God is both gift and challenge. Disruptive and invasive, revelation intrudes, accosts, arrests, unsettles, dismays, physically terrifies, and, at least on one occasion, temporarily blinds (Acts 9:8; cf. Gen 15:12; Deut 9:19; Dan 8:27; 10:8-9; Matt 17:6). When God speaks in revelation, it is the ultimate wake-up call. Yet blending genuine fear with appropriate personal offense, the revelation of God is also awesome, gracious, generous, enabling, energizing, illuminating, life-giving, life-changing, and wonderful, bringing with it all resources to provide the response it seeks.

2. BIBLICAL TERMS FOR REVELATION

Most Significant Words

The Bible contains a rich vocabulary of terms integral to its teaching about the revelation of God.⁶ It cannot really be overstated that reliance upon and reference to the direct and objective revelation of God is ubiquitous in both the Old and New Testament Scriptures. God’s revelation is presented using terms for human communication. Among the most significant terminology are:

ra’ah – to appear, see (Gen 18:1; 29:32; Exo 3:2, 7; Jud 6:12; 2 Chr 7:12)
khazah – to see, i.e. of prophecy, vision (1 Sam 3:1, 19-21; cf. Gen 15:1; 2 Ki 17:13; Isa 29:10; Amos 7:12-14)
amar – to say⁷
diber – to speak⁸
galah – to open, uncover, show (Gen 35:7; 1 Sam 2:27; Isa 22:14; Dan 10:1)
yad’a – to show, make known (Psa 25:4, 14)
lamad – to teach (Psa 25:4-5, 8-9)
yorah – to guide, instruct (also Psa 25:4-5, 8-9)
laleō – to speak (Matt 10:20; John 14:25; 15:11; 16:1, 23, 33; Heb 1:1-2)⁹
lego – to say (Rev 21:5)¹⁰
apokaluptō – to appear, come, manifest, reveal, uncover, unveil (Matt 10:26; Luke 2:34-35; Rom 16:25; cf. Luke 12:2, 17:28-30; Rom 1:17-18; 2:5; 1 Cor 1:7, 14:6 [cf. 14:26, 30]; Eph 1:17, 3:3; Phil 3:15; 2 Thess 1:6-7; 1 Pet 1:13)
phaneroō – to appear, declare, disclose, exhibit, make visible, open to sight, manifest, reveal (Mark 4:22; Luke 8:17; Rom 16:26; 2 Cor 2:14; 3:3; 4:10-11; Col 1:25-26; cf. John 17:6; 2 Cor 5:10; Col 3:3-4, 4:3-4; Tit 1:3; 1 John 3:5, 8, 4:9)
gnōrizō – to certify, know, make known, perceive, tell, understand (John 15:15; 17:26; Rom 9:22-24; 16:26; Eph 1:9-10; Phil 1:22; 4:6; Col 1:27)

Messages About Mysteries

The combined overall meaning of biblical terminology revolves ‘around three major foci: first, the idea of a verbal message from God in a form that human beings can receive, understand, and repeat; second, the idea of a gracious revelation of hidden divine truth that man cannot discover on his own; third, the idea of an intrusion of eternal glory into our ordinary, mundane existence.’¹¹ In the final words of Romans, we find these three central New Testament terms for expressing ‘revelation by God’ running together in a single statement:

‘Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed and through the prophetic writings is made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith — to the only wise God be glory for evermore through Jesus Christ! Amen’ (Rom 16:25-27).

Thompson remarks: ‘Here it is the eternal purpose of God, focused in the gospel of Jesus Christ which lies at the heart of revelation and therefore it is at the heart of the apostle’s preaching.’¹²

3. WHY REVELATION IS NECESSARY

God is Known Only Through God

Human beings of course routinely reveal themselves to one another, making themselves known to each other using words and actions. Actually, people really know one another only to the extent that they reveal themselves to one another in the context of some kind of relationship. Without conversation, talking to one another, and without standing in some sort of relationship to one another, people could not effectively communicate or interact and would remain essentially unknown to each other and as unknown in fact sub-human. Our character and identity as persons, not least our psychological and emotional health, is bound up in our relationships with other persons, and these relationships develop through willed interaction – at its best, freely chosen interaction – based on the use of speech and language with accompanying patterns of behavior. God’s revelation too involves making known his identity and character through speech and action, as well as God choosing, being willing, and deciding voluntarily to do this. According to Scripture, we have knowledge of God from a genuinely Divine origin, because, and only because, God graciously allows and gives himself to us as the object of our knowledge. God is known only through God, through God’s initiative, through God’s free and willing movement in making himself known. Otherwise, truth about God, facts concerning his nature and intentions would remain unknown and actually unknowable. As personal communication between people brings personal knowledge from one to another, personal knowledge is what the revelation of God achieves. Without God’s personal communication we would be without personal knowledge of him.

Due to the character of God there are, however, three critical distinctions between the human and Divine realms of personal knowledge:

(1) Whilst the God of the Bible is absolutely personal, he is not immediately accessible or available to human beings in the way in which people usually are to one another. God is holy – fundamentally different, other, transcendent. God is above us in a manner that is unavailable to normal avenues of investigation, unless, of course, he chooses to make himself available, immanent, and present to us and for us. Yet God is not merely beyond us because he is more than us. Because God is uncreated, of an absolutely different order of reality to created humanity, he cannot be found or observed or reached directly, as it were, through independent inquiry, intuition, or reflection. God is also Spirit – infinitely personal and powerful, yet unbodily, immaterial, non-physical – and so may not be observed, researched, tested, or experimented upon through regular patterns of enquiry. True knowledge of God does not come from us; it does not emerge by thinking about it a lot and thereby eventually coming up with its content. True knowledge of God comes to us; it appears from the outside.¹³ As creatures, we are in every way dependent upon God our Creator, and particularly upon God taking the initiative to introduce himself, to tell us that he exists and what his nature is. People need to be told by God that he is, who he is, what is given, and what is required. For God to be known by us he must intend and will to be known, and he must make himself known entirely on his own terms, as he sees best.

Otherwise, God remains ‘unknown’ (Acts 17:23). Clearly in the Bible there is a considerable tension between God’s remoteness and God’s nearness, between God’s transcendence and God’s immanence, between God’s incomprehensibility and God’s accommodation to us.¹⁴ More of which later. But for now, the point is a relatively simple one: that ‘God has full knowledge of Himself’, that he ‘is the fitting witness concerning himself’, and that he is One ‘whom we can know only through His utterances’.¹⁵

(2) With the knowledge of God, people are not neutral. For God to be holy and spiritual does not necessarily entail his being unseeable or untouchable. God is currently invisible to us and he is at the moment hidden from us, but on moral and relational grounds. He has absented himself and withdrawn from us in our fallenness. Furthermore, in crucial respects God is against us. For our part, we are sinful, alienated from and at enmity with God, at odds, hostile to him. Although we may think that we want to know God, although we may genuinely believe that we seek him and ask for him, Scripture presents the reality being much otherwise. Actually, it maintains the reverse (Isa 65:1-3). To engage with us, not only must God condescend. He must reveal himself despite our resistance. Indeed, in making himself known, God must overcome our disinterest, setting aside our resentment, obstinacy, and rebellion. For God to unveil himself is an act of mercy, borne of sheer kindness. Disclosure by God is gratuitous, unnecessary, certainly undeserved, and – being rooted in the character of God – prompted by holy love. Indeed, God’s holy love is arguably the fundamental truth that God’s revelation conveys.

(3) In disclosing himself, the knowledge God brings is of universal significance. When God communicates in self-revelation, he communicates matters of untold weight with implications for all and ramifications for everyone, without exception. Later we shall discuss two distinct types of disclosure by God, universal revelation and particular revelation. The specific point here is that however, wherever, and whenever God does declare himself, the importance of what he reveals is unparalleled. The significance of God making himself known is totally unmatched and unsurpassed. Knowing God is of unrivalled consequence, a matter of incomparable magnitude. The substance of God’s revelation has all-round impact. Its content is global. There is, quite simply, no-one for whom God’s self-revelation is superfluous. Across the board, when the LORD declares his thoughts (Amos 4:13), all people are implicated. And the implications of disclosure by God are not brief and temporary, but permanent and eternal.

4. TWO TYPES OF REVELATION

Different Kinds of Knowledge

Psalm 19 describes God’s communication as taking two quite different forms. (1) ‘the heavens … the skies’ (v.1), and (2) ‘the law … testimony … precepts … commandment … fear … [and] rules of the LORD’ (vv.7-9).

In the first, messages from God are continually carried through nature, the natural world, by the created order. The created order by its harmony and sustenance of human existence points beyond itself towards its Creator. In that way, it witnesses to and declares ‘the glory of God’ (Psa 19:1-6). God’s ‘invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made’ (Rom 1:20). But we need to note that the Bible speaks of this knowledge of God revealed in the created order in terms of our willful, sinful blindness to it (Rom 2:18-23). We suppress the truth, and have become fools, who have ‘exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things’ (Rom 2:23). Psalm 19, with its positive affirmation of how creation speaks of the Creator, was not written by a pagan philosopher, but a believer whose eyes have been opened by the second form of God’s communication. It is common to call this first, everyday Divine communication ‘general’ or ‘natural’ revelation.¹⁶

In the second, God discloses himself through means of language, in speech, words, and writing – by the prophets, the authors of the books of the Old and New Testaments, the apostles, and above all, by God’s Word himself, incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ. It this revelation, and this alone which overcomes our foolish, self-willed, sinful blindness. It is this revelation which opens our minds and eyes to see God as he really is. The second form is usually called ‘special’ or ‘supernatural’ revelation. So Calvin:

‘First in order came that kind of knowledge by which one is permitted to grasp who that God is who founded and governs the universe. Then that other inner knowledge was added, which alone quickens dead souls, whereby God is known not only as the Founder of the universe and the sole Author and Ruler of all that is made, but also in the person of the Mediator as the Redeemer.’¹⁷

Two foundational aspects of this revelation need to be noted.

First, it is Christological. God’s redemptive self-revelation witnessed to in the Old and New Testaments is centred on Christ (Luke 24:25-27; John 5:39, 46; cf. Deuteronomy 18:15), who is the Word of God himself, become flesh. In both Testaments, Jesus Christ is the Lord over and in this revelation. Although revelation is a triune event, from the Father and in and through the Spirit, we have to say that Jesus Christ is the revelation of God. If we ask, ‘what or who is supremely revealed?’, the answer comes back: Jesus Christ (Luke 17:28-30; 1 Cor 1:7, 2; Thess 1:6-7; 1 Peter 1:13). Jesus Christ is both the revealer of God and the revelation of God – he who has seen him has seen the Father (John 14:9; Matt 11:27; cf. Titus 2:11-14). He is both instrument and content. He is indeed the Logos.

Second, it is eschatological. Mark 4:22 speaks of God’s revealing work in the present in eschatological terms. ‘For there is nothing hid, except to be made manifest (phanerōthē); nor is anything secret, except to come to light’ (Mark 4:22 // Luke 8:17). As well as a present objectivity, revelation also has a final, an eschatological objectivity. Revelation is dynamic and effective. Revelation means not only that we have a written deposit (2 Tim 1:13-14) but the biblical presentation of revelation expects God’s speech to produce a result, the hardening or softening of hearts (Heb 4:12; 2 Cor 2:14-17; Isa 55:11). On the Last Day all the earth will acknowledge that God is God, and Jesus is Lord (cf. Pharaoh!). That is, the dynamic and effective nature of revelation is also eschatological. As Paul puts it, for Christian believers, ‘now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known’ (1 Cor 13:12).

It is this second form of revelation which saves, which dynamically brings about God’s redemptive purpose, to usher in the new creation. It is this form alone which removes our blindness and allows us to grow in true knowledge of God as we listen to his voice in Scripture and faithful preaching.

Since the Christological, eschatological, and effective nature of this form of revelation alone brings redemption, it is in sharp contrast to ‘general revelation’. It may then be best to replace the traditional terms. Since ‘special revelation’ claims priority in the order of our knowledge of God, in moving from the old chaos of the present state of creation to the reconciliation and restoration of the new creation, it may be best to simply call it ‘revelation,’ that is, ‘actual knowledge of God in Jesus Christ’. And, consequently, to drop the term ‘general revelation’ and use the term ‘natural knowledge of God in human existence.’

All True Knowledge of God Has the Same Source

However it is gathered, and whatever terminology we use, all true knowledge of God has the same source, God’s self-revelation. According to Psalm 19, God’s ‘glory’ – the combined manifestation of his greatness – is declared, proclaimed, spoken, voiced, in two complementary yet distinct ways. Article 2 of The Belgic Confession offers this summary:

‘first, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe;which is before our eyes as a most elegant book, wherein all creatures, great and small,are as so many characters leading us to contemplate the invisible things of God, namely, his eternal power and Godhead, as the Apostle Paul saith (Rom 1:20). All which things are sufficient to convince men, and leave them without excuse. Secondly, he makes himself more clearly and fully known to us by his holy and divine Word; that is to say, as far as is necessary for us to know in this life, to his glory and our salvation.¹⁸

So there is: (1) God’s general, everyday, universal communication, of his existence and his attributes, particularly of goodness, power, and wisdom. Its goal is the knowledge of God as first and final cause, i.e., as Creator.That there is in the world a rational order and intelligibility that points to Him and his goodness, and that redeemed human beings can and do grasp it, and benefit from it, is purely credited to God’s custom design and structuring of the world and its constituent elements, and his redemptive removal of our blindness. Here God is understood to speak indirectly, through secondary or ‘natural’ processes. This is Augustine:

‘even leaving aside the voice of the prophets, the world itself, by the perfect order of its changes and motions, and by the great beauty of all things visible, proclaims by a kind of silent testimony of its own both that it has been created, and also that it could not have been made other than by a God ineffable and invisible in greatness, and ineffable and invisible in beauty.’¹⁹

And here is Edwards:

‘Beauty is particular to natural things, it surpassing the art of man. … [T]he things of the world are ordered [and] designed to shadow forth spiritual things … The waves and billows of the sea in a storm and the dire cataracts there are of rivers have a representation of the terrible wrath of God … The silkworm is a remarkable type of Christ, which, when it dies, yields us that of which we make such glorious clothing.’²⁰

Then there is: (2) God’s exclusive, particular, special communication through historical speech, acts, events, people, prophets, and writings, plus the accurate reception and understanding of them. Here, God speaks directly, articulately, extensively, using language, set out in limited collection of written texts, providing clear information – as expressed earlier, authorized commentary – explained in very fine detail. Here, history is told from a special point of view, emerging in two distinct phases, BC and AD, developing largely through the story of an otherwise unimportant, insignificant group of people, yet a family that becomes a nation through whom God chose to gradually make known a plan for the salvation of the world. ‘Special revelation’ has an essentially redemptive purpose. It is knowledge of God as Saviour that special revelation brings. This special revelation culminates with the incarnation of the eternal Word and Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is God speaking and acting in Person, and as such is an utterly unique and incomparable category of God’s communication. As well as ideas and words, God’s ultimate special revelation, is to unite his very being – Deity – with our very being – humanity – in one Person, speaking to us and revealing himself, as it were, from the inside. In that way, we come to give him the glory that is his due, as we address him as ‘Our Father’ (Matt 6:9-13).

5. THE IMPACT OF REVELATION

Reconciliation

However it is assembled, however it reaches us, knowledge of God is never merely discovered or found. Because people are (1) finite and (2) fallen, all true knowledge of God is totally reliant on Divine self-revelation. Until God unveils himself, tells us about himself, we cannot know him. Because we are creatures, and so by definition finite, humanity cannot find God independently, as it were, behind his back or without his allowance. He must find us, or at least decide to be found by us. ‘We do not know God against his will … but in accordance with the way in which he has elected to disclose himself and communicate his truth.’²¹ In terms of motivation and means, then, revelation is grounded in God’s very nature. Because we are sinful, fallen creatures, when God discloses himself, he acts in mercy, graciously, lovingly. Bound into God finding us by revelation, bound into God’s communication initiative, is God’s work of reconciliation. Revelation is communication of the Divine will and, as such, revelation is part and parcel of God’s reconciling and redemptive purpose. Another way of putting the matter is to say that when God makes himself known, offering himself to human knowledge, the kind of knowledge of himself and of his will that he reveals is saving knowledge, knowledge that delivers from evil and its effects. Now, the greatest of evils is fundamental hostility to God, and so to deliver us from such hostility and its consequences, God’s revelation is a saving revelation, a revelation which effects reconciliation. That is how revelation designs to affect us and that’s its permanent focus and supreme goal.²² In the Bible, when God provides reliable information about himself, the effect is to grant us knowledge of him as our Creator, as our Lord, and, most importantly, to give knowledge of him as our Saviour. In saving and reconciling, the revelation of God puts one on the path to ultimate perfection.

Command and Summons

Having said this, as much as God’s revelation being his gracious invitation, address, offer, and enabling for endless and exciting new possibilities, it is also effectively God’s call, command, and corrective. Revelation is not a negotiation. We are at his mercy. The framing and sequencing of God’s speech, however conveyed, takes the form of summons. Divine revelation to human beings directs them to faith and repentance, causes trust and obedience, and so summons them into a God-human relationship, for salvation and to service. Whilst God’s enemies deny and repel God’s call and claim, their eventual overthrow will, regardless, result in obeisance. Revelation effects either repentance (positive reception) or judgment (negative non-reception). The preaching of the gospel brings either ‘to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life’ (2 Cor 2:14-17). Against this background, it is the worship of God that is revelation’s intended effect. Yet the summons to bend the knee in worship of God achieves our highest good – union and communion with God himself.

Knowing God, We Also Know Ourselves

Moreover, when God speaks, when God acts, making himself known, revealing himself, who he is, what he is like, what he has done, at the same time, God reveals who we are and what we are like, what we must do. When God tells us of himself, he by definition tells us of ourselves, about our nature, our status, our powers, our identity, our purpose, and our destiny in relation to him. This is what Divine Revelation does. In generating knowledge of God, God generates knowledge of ourselves. The point is that knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves is reciprocal. In gaining knowledge of him, we gain knowledge of us. In causing us to know him, God causes us to know ourselves and each other. In coming to a true knowledge of God, a person comes to genuine knowledge of his or herself. As God leads us ‘by the hand to find him,’²³ we are led to know ourselves; and that is certainly no small thing.

—

1
Dan 2:28.
2
Very many thanks to my valued friend and colleague Robert C. Doyle for reading, commenting, and improving an earlier draft of this material.
3
Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:299, also 283-4; cf. Letham, Systematic Theology, 41-2; T.F. Torrance, Theological Science, passim.
4
John Webster refers to the revelation of God’s Word as ‘the communicative presence of the risen and ascended Son of God who governs all things’ (The Domain of the Word, T&T Clark, 2012, 3; italics supplied). Amongst the Scriptures that reveal and explain the truth that God is present by his Word, see especially John 1:1-18, 14:18 & 23 and also 14:26, 15:26, 16:7, and Acts 2.
5
Paul Helm, Just Words? (Evangelical Press, 2019), unpublished manuscript, 5.
6
Here condensing two more detailed surveys of the relevant biblical terminology: Joel R. Beeke, Reformed Systematic Theology. Volume 1. Revelation and God (Crossway, 2019), 178-181; Mark D. Thompson, ‘The Knowledge of God as Revelation,’ Moore College Doctrine II: Knowledge of God – Lecture 2, unpublished manuscript.
7
This verb is used over 5000 times in the, more than 400 of which come in the form ‘this is what the LORD says’.
8
This verb is used more than 1100 times, and its cognate noun debar on over 1400 occasions.
9
This verb is used over 300 times.
10
In Rev 21:5 this verb is used alongside its noun logos, and more than 2300 other times in total.
11
Beeke, Reformed Systematic Theology, 1:181.
12
Thompson, ‘The Knowledge of God as Revelation,’ 7.
13
‘God’s speech and action takes place in, with, and under created media and historical processes [yet remains] alien, other, coming to the world from the outside’ (Armin Wenz, cited in Webster, The Domain of the Word, 13).
14
‘The prophets and the apostles believe more deeply in God’s transcendence of and independence from the world than the most ardent deists and more deeply in God’s immanence than the most ardent pantheists. No religion faces, welcomes, and proclaims this paradox as does the Christian faith. No religion is more convinced simultaneously of God’s radical difference from creatures and God’s radical identification with them’ (Michael Horton, Pilgrim Theology, 30).
15
Hilary of Poitiers, The Trinity, 1.18, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers 2:9, 45.
16
Thanks are due to Robert Doyle for much help developing the material in these paragraphs.
17
Calvin, Institutes, 1.6.2; 70-71.
18
The Belgic Confession, Article 2. The Creeds of Christendom. Volume 3. The Evangelical Protestant Creeds, ed. Philip Schaff (repr. Baker Book House, 1985), 384.
19
Augustine, The City of God, 11.4; trans. Dyson, 453.
20
‘Beauty of the World’ (1725) and ‘Images of Divine Things’ (1728), in A Jonathan Edwards Reader, ed. Harry Stout et al (Yale University Press, 1995), 14-17.
21
Thomas F. Torrance, Divine Meaning, 5.
22
‘God has revealed something of himself; but he has not done so to satisfy our curiosity, he has not revealed the whole of his will, and he most certainly has not revealed himself as he knows himself—this is not revealed and is not revealable’ (Helm, Calvin at the Centre, 11).
23
John Calvin, Institutes, 1.1.1; Battles, 37. For Calvin, the particular kind of self-knowledge that leads to God is knowledge of our fallenness and, therefore, awareness of profound and pressing need (see Paul Helm, Calvin: A Guide for the Perplexed, 24-25). Calvin likely drew and developed his notion of knowledge of God and ourselves from Augustine, Confessions 10.3.3 and Soliloquies 1 (see Paul Helm, Calvin at the Centre, 6).

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