Why We Believe

Two warnings from Scripture

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!”(Isaiah 5:20, 21)

“That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.” (Ephesians 4:14, 15)

We need to know precisely what God expects from us and what we can expect from God. We need to know, first of all, that He has spoken or revealed Himself to us, and then, the content of His message. God’s disclosure of himself to man imparts knowledge beyond our own ability to discover.¹

General Revelation

General Revelation is a limited self-disclosure through creation. It is necessarily limited because of the nature of the knowledge obtained. The primary text’s discussion of the topic of general revelation is found in Psalms 19:1-6 and Romans 1:17-32.² Both these passages speak of a knowledge of God obtained by observing creation. God has left a witness of Himself to Mankind, but this witness is incomplete and therefore it was necessary for God to reveal Himself first in Scripture and finally in Christ.

Special Revelation

We need to go back to our definition of revelation: “God’s disclosure of himself to man which imparts knowledge beyond our own ability to discover.” In dealing with this definition and its relation to special revelation (God’s revelation of Himself in Scripture and Christ), as a matter of convenience we will look at it in two parts: Disclosure and Knowledge.

Disclosure

There are two main Greek words in the New Testament pertaining to revelation. The first is phanerõ from which comes the English word “phantom.” It means “uncover, reveal, disclose, bring to light.” The action is basically God’s in choosing to make Himself known to men. (Romans 16:25; 1 Peter 1:12). This word is used by Paul in Romans 1.

The second word is apokaliptõ “reveal, make known, show, manifest” and the action is again God’s but with an emphasis for the view of the phenomena from Man’s side.³ In Colossians 1:26 we see that revelation takes place through proclamation (cf. Romans 16:26). God’s revelation “appears” to us in the proclamation (Colossians 1:28). This echoes God’s act of creation. God proclaims: “Let there be…” and there was. Both words are used synonymously in both John and Paul.⁴

Knowledge

There is an importance placed on proclamation in both the Old and New Testaments. That is, words are spoken for the disclosure of knowledge. All this leads to the final revelation in Jesus who is the Word (logos) made flesh (1 John 1:1-4 and note the use of phanerõ, cf. John 1:1-14 and Hebrews 1:1, 2). To receive the revelation of God in Christ, we must know Christ personally: Philippians 3:8-10; John 8:31, 32 (cf. John 14:6).

Though the final revelation of God is found in the person of Christ, access to Him is through Scripture (cf. 2 Peter 3:14-18). This is why it is so important to understand the role of scripture in understanding how God reveals Himself. The ultimate revelation, the culmination of salvation history, that which all previous revelation leads to (John 5:39) is Jesus.