Revelation

God draws back the veil

The New Testament word apokalupsis (ἀποκάλυψις) means an uncovering, a veil drawn back. God is not one more object in the world, waiting to be found by a better telescope or a sharper argument; if we know him at all, it is because he has chosen to show himself. "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever" (Deuteronomy 29:29). Jesus said the same of knowing the Father.

No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.

Matthew 11:27

John Wesley explains why people wise in other things miss this: "none can know it by natural reason: none but those to whom he revealeth it" Wesley.

The church usually speaks of two kinds of revelation. General revelation reaches every person through creation, providence and conscience; it shows that God exists and is mighty and good, and it leaves us "without excuse" (Romans 1:20). Special revelation is God's acting and speaking in history, to Israel through the prophets and to the church through the apostles, and it alone makes known his purpose to save sinners. Its summit is Christ: "in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son" (Hebrews 1:2). As Augustine puts it, "The Father is revealed by the Son, that is, by His Word" Augustine.

Two neighbouring words help. If revelation is God making himself known, inspiration is the Spirit's work in the biblical writers by which that revelation was written down as God's own word, and illumination is his work in readers and hearers, opening their minds to receive it. "God has revealed it to us by the Spirit," Paul writes (1 Corinthians 2:10).

The church's confession

The Westminster Confession (1646) opens with revelation. The light of nature and the works of creation and providence leave people inexcusable, it says, but cannot give the knowledge of God needed for salvation; therefore

it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal himself, and to declare that his will unto his Church; and afterwards, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth … to commit the same wholly unto writing

Westminster Confession 1.1

Christians of every tradition confess that the revelation given in Christ is final. Jude calls it "the faith entrusted once for all to the saints" (Jude 3). The church does not wait for another gospel; it guards, hands on and grows in understanding the one it has received.

Where the traditions differ

The traditions differ over how that revelation reaches us now. The churches of the Reformation confess that the apostolic revelation comes to us in Scripture, which alone is the final rule of faith and life (see the sufficiency of Scripture). The Catholic Church teaches that the one deposit of revelation is handed on by Scripture and Sacred Tradition together, interpreted by the Magisterium as its servant, and that no new public revelation is to be expected before Christ returns in glory Dei Verbum; private revelations the church has recognised add nothing to it Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Orthodox churches receive revelation within Holy Tradition, the life of the Spirit in the church, with Scripture as its highest witness.

Among evangelicals the question is whether God still speaks through prophecy, dreams and the like. The Westminster Confession holds that the "former ways of God's revealing his will unto his people" are "now ceased" Westminster Confession 1.1, and many Reformed and other evangelicals believe that gifts of revelation ended with the apostles. Pentecostals, charismatics and many others hold that such gifts continue but must be weighed by Scripture: "Do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test all things" (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21). Neither side accepts a new revelation that adds to Scripture or stands beside it (see spiritual gifts). See also the lesson God makes himself known and How does God speak?