A First Primer on the Doctrine of Divine Revelation-Part 1

By Fred Zaspel

Most fundamentally, what distinguishes Christianity from all other religions is that Christianity is a revealed religion. That is, it is not in any sense the result of our making our way to God. It is in its entirety the result of God making himself known to us. Christianity therefore is marked by its message, a message from God to us in which he has made himself known.

1. The Knowability of God

Is God knowable? Both the question and the answer need qualifying. On one level only a glance at the Bible will reveal that God is indeed knowable. This is the very purpose of the Bible and of all divine revelation. But on another level, Scripture reminds us often that God is incomprehensible. “Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? It is higher than heaven — what can you do? Deeper than Sheol — what can you know? Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea” (Job. 11:7-9). Later Job says, “How great is God — beyond our understanding!” (Job 36:26; cf. Job 37:5; Ps.139:6; 145:3; Is. 40:18; Rom.11:33-34). All this emphasizes that God is transcendent — beyond us and unreachable. By reason of the limitations of both our creaturehood and our fallenness, God is beyond us. We simply have no access to one so exalted, holy, majestic, and “other” than us.

So we may know him only as he has revealed himself. Because he has revealed himself we may know him truly and accurately. But we will never have the capacity to know him fully. Understanding this ought to make us worship. It forces us to recognize his transcendent majesty on the one hand and our own limitations as creatures on the other. Understanding this ought also to keep us from trying to imagine what God is like. He is beyond the reach of our imagination. We are to worship him as he has revealed himself to us.

This understanding should also make us understand that any knowledge of God must come from his side. We cannot “by searching” find out God. The study of “theology” is the one study in which the subject comes to us! And so he has! Although God is beyond us, the knowledge of him is not something forced from him unwillingly. Our knowledge of God is his gift to us. Graciously he has come to us and made himself known.

2. The Knowledge of God

This knowledge of God, in turn, is our highest privilege and most satisfying pursuit, the only thing that is truly worthy of our boast (Jer. 9:23-24). The crowing promise of the New Covenant is that “they will all know me” (Jer. 31:31-34).

We read in the Bible that at the beginning of history God talked with the newly created pair, Adam and Eve, our first parents. Of course this fellowship was disrupted by sin, but God did not withdraw himself from humanity altogether or leave us to ourselves. Immediately and throughout human history God took steps to restore fallen humanity to fellowship with himself and thus bring us to the joy of knowing our Creator. He made himself known to Abraham and promised that by him the entire world would be blessed (Gen.12:1-3). Having chosen a people for himself, Israel, God made himself known to them in a way no other people were so blessed (Ps. 76:1; 147:19-20; cf. Eph.2:12). And God promised that through his people Israel he would bring the knowledge of himself to the world.

God’s revelation of himself to us, then, is a redemptive act. Our knowledge of God has been lost in the fall (into sin), and we have forfeited this joy for which we were created. Created in God’s image we were given the capacity to know him, but in sin we have refused him and even “suppressed” the truth about him that is revealed to us in the created order (Rom. 1:18ff). But God has not left us to ourselves. In grace he has taken steps to restore us to fellowship with himself. And so it is not surprising in Scripture to find salvation described as knowing God (Mt.11:27; Jn. 17:2-3; 2Cor. 4:6; Gal.4:8-9; 1Jn. 5:20).

The process of divine revelation, then, is a gracious one and a redemptive one. God takes the initiative to restore us to the great joy for which we were created.

3. God Makes Himself Known Everywhere.

There is a sense in which God has revealed himself to all people, everywhere. By his very maintenance of the created order — the seasons, the rain, the food supply — God never left the world without a witness to his kindness and providential care (Acts 14:17). The very creation itself declares his mighty power (Ps.19) and even his just requirements over us (Rom.1:18ff). We often call this “general” revelation because it is given to all people everywhere, indiscriminately, and its message is not marked by specificity and detail. Created in God’s image we have the capacity to know God, and even though in sin we have suppressed this knowledge (Rom. 1:18) we cannot rid ourselves of it altogether.

In Matthew 12:12 Jesus exclaims, “How much more valuable is a man than a sheep.” Now, on one level that is not profound at all. We all instinctively recognize that a human being is more valuable than an animal. But why? What is it that makes a man more valuable than a sheep? Is it simply that we are more intelligent? That we have self-consciousness? Reason? All this is part of the answer. But at bottom what makes a human being more valuable than an animal is that we all have within us an irresistible sense of dependence upon God and an unavoidable sense of obligation to him. The sheep is no less dependent or obliged — that is just the nature of the Creator-creature relationship. But the sheep is not aware of it. What makes us more valuable than the animals is our constant and unmistakable awareness of our dependence on and obligation to God.

We are dependent, and we know it. We are obliged — responsible — and we know it. And so we are unavoidably religious and moral beings. The animals are not religious. They do not gather on Sundays and pray. And they are not moral beings, teaching their children right from wrong. But intuitively we are aware of this relationship to God, and in our heart of hearts we are inescapably religious beings. It is the fool that says in his heart, “There is no God” (Ps. 14:1). Honestly — intuitively — we know better. In the human consciousness, just as in the Bible, God is a given. The knowledge of God in humanity is “suppressed,” but it can never be altogether eradicated.

To recap, we were created to know God. This knowledge of God was forfeited in sin. God continues to display his glory in the created order and in our own consciousness. But in our sin we seek to rid ourselves of this knowledge of him. And so our condition calls for something still more. We need more revelation from God if we are to know him. And so God has taken further steps, graciously and redemptively, to make himself known.

4. God Speaks.

In addition to and building on this “general” revelation of himself God has taken steps to make himself known more fully. We call this “special” revelation, and this subject will take up the rest of this study. The first consideration here we should note is simply that God speaks. He is a talking God. In Psalm 94:9 the psalmist reasons that if we have ears and eyes then surely our Creator also both hears and sees. Certainly we may say the same in regard to our mouth — our Creator can speak. Indeed, often in Scripture this is part of what distinguishes God from the false gods — he speaks (cf. Ps.115:5-7; 135:16; Hab.2:18-20; 1K.18:24-35). And so we read many times in the Biblical narrative that God spoke to men such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Job, Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Isaiah, Jonah, all the prophets, Peter, and so on. It is not enough to say that God speaks in the created order or that he speaks “in history.” God has revealed himself as a talking God, able to communicate to us in words that we can understand.

To be continued…

Fred Zaspel holds a Ph.D. in historical theology from the Free University of Amsterdam. He is currently a pastor at the Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia, PA. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Systematic Theology at Calvary Baptist Seminary in Lansdale, PA. He is also the author of The Continuing Relevance of Divine Law (1991); The Theology of Fulfillment (1994); Jews, Gentiles, & the Goal of Redemptive History (1996); New Covenant Theology with Tom Wells (New Covenant Media); The Theology of B.B. Warfield: A Systematic Summary (Crossway, 2010). Fred is married to Kimberly and they have two grown children, Gina and Jim.