Theories of Revelation

In the state of the case which has just been pointed out, it is a matter of course that recent theories of revelation should very frequently leave no or but little place for the highest form of revelation, that by the direct word of God. The lowest class of theories represent revelation as taking place only through the purely natural activities of the human mind, and deny the reality of any special action of the Divine Spirit directly on the mind in the communication of revealed truth. Those who share this general position may differ very greatly in their presuppositions. They may, from a fundamentally deistic standpoint, jealously guard the processes of human thought from all intrusion on the part of God; or they may, from a fundamentally pantheistic standpoint, look upon all human thought as only the unfolding of the divine thought. They may differ also very greatly as to the nature and source of the objective data on which the mind is supposed to work in obtaining its knowledge of God. But they are at one in conceiving that which from the divine side is spoken of as revelation, as on the human side, simply the natural development of the moral and religious consciousness. The extreme deistic theory allows the possibility of no knowledge of God except what is obtained by the human mind working upon the data supplied by creation to the exclusion of providential government. Modern speculative theists correct the deistic conception by postulating an immanent divine activity, both in external providence and in mental action. The data on which the mind works are supplied, according to them, not only by creation, but also by God’s moral government; and the theory grades upward in proportion as something like a special providence is admitted in the peculiar function ascribed to Israel in developing the idea of God, and the significance of Jesus Christ as the embodiment of the perfect relation between God and man is recognized. (Biedermann, “Christl. Dogmatik,” i., 264; Lipsius, “Dogmatik,” 41; Pfleiderer, “Religionsphilosophie,” iv., 46.) The school of Ritschl, though they speak of a “positive revelation” in Jesus Christ, make no real advance upon this. Denying not only all mystical connection of the soul with God, but also all rational knowledge of divine things, they confine the data of revelation to the historical manifestation of Christ, which makes an impression on the minds of men such as justifies us in speaking of him as revealing God to us. (Herrmann, “Der Begriff der Offenbarung,” and “Der Verkehr des Christen mit Gott”; Kaftan, “Das Wesen,” etc.)

We are on higher ground, however, although still moving in essentially the same circle of conceptions as to the nature of revelation, when we rise to the theory which identifies revelation strictly with the series of redemptive acts (Koehler, “Stud. und Kritiken,” 1852, p. 875). From this point of view, as truly as from that of the deist or speculative theist, revelation is confined to the purely external manifestation of God in a series of acts. It is differentiated from the conceptions of the deist and speculative theist only in the nature of the works of God, which are supposed to supply the data which are observed and worked into knowledge by the unaided activities of the human mind. In emphasizing here those acts of a special providence which constitute the redemptive activity of God, this theory for the first time lays the foundation for a distinction between general and special revelation; and it grades upward in proportion as the truly miraculous character of God’s redemptive work is recognized, and acts of a truly miraculous nature are included in it. And it rises above itself in proportion as, along with the supernatural character of the series of objective acts with which it formally identifies revelation, it recognizes an immediate action of God’s Spirit on the mind of man, preparing, fitting, and enabling him to apprehend and interpret aright the revelation made objectively in the redemptive acts. J. Chr. K. Hofmann in his earlier work, “Prophecy and Fulfillment,” announces this theory in a lower form, but corrects it in his later “Schriftbeweis.” Richard Rothe (“Zur Dogmatik,” p. 54) is an outstanding example of one of its higher forms. To him revelation consists fundamentally in the “manifestation” of God in the series of redemptive acts, by which God enters into natural history by means of an unambiguously supernatural and peculiarly divine history, and which man is enabled to understand and rightly to interpret by virtue of an inward work of the Divine Spirit that Rothe calls “inspiration.” But this internal action of the Spirit does not communicate new truth; it only enables the subject to combine the elements of knowledge naturally received into a new combination, from which springs an essentially new thought which he is clearly conscious that he did not produce. The theory propounded by Prof. A. B. Bruce in his well-known lectures on “The Chief End of Revelation” stands possibly one stage higher than Rothe’s, to which it bears a very express relation. Dr. Bruce speaks with great circumspection. He represents revelation as consisting in the “self-manifestation of God in human history as the God of a gracious purpose - the manifestation being made not merely or chiefly by words, but very specially by deeds” (p. 155); while he looks upon “inspiration” as “not enabling the prophets to originate a new idea of God,” but “rather as assisting them to read aright the divine name and nature.” Dr. Bruce transcends the position of the class of theorists here under consideration in proportion as he magnifies the office of inner “inspiration,” and, above all, in proportion to the extent of meaning which he attaches to the saving clause that revelation is not merely by word, but also by deed. The theory commended by the great name of Bishop B. F. Westcott (“The Gospel of Life”) is quite similar to Dr. Bruce’s.

By these transitional theories we are already carried well into a second class of theories, which recognize that revelation is fundamentally the work of the Spirit of God in direct communication with the human mind. At its lowest level this conception need not rise above the pantheistic postulate of the unfolding of the life and thought of God within the world. The Divine Spirit stirs men’s hearts, and feelings and ideas spring up, which are no less revelations of God than movements of the human soul. A higher level is attained when the action of God is conceived as working in the heart of man an inward certainty of divine life - as, for example, by Schultz (“Old Testament Theology”); revelation being confined as much as possible to the inner life of man apparently to avoid the recognition of objective miracle. A still higher level is reached where the action of the Spirit is thought of - after the fashion of Rothe, for example - as a necessary aid granted to certain men to enable them to apprehend and interpret aright the objective manifestation of God. The theory rises in character in proportion as the necessity of this action of the Spirit, its relative importance, and the nature of the effect produced by it are magnified. So long, however, as it conceives of this work of the Spirit as secondary, and ordinarily if not invariably successive to the series of redemptive acts of God, which are thought to constitute the real core of the revelation, it falls short of the biblical idea. According to the biblical representations, the fundamental element in revelation is not the objective process of redemptive acts, but the revealing operations of the Spirit of God, which run through the whole series of modes of communication proper to Spirit, culminating in communications by the objective word. The characteristic element in the Bible idea of revelation in its highest sense is that the organs of revelation are not creatively concerned in the revelations made through them, but occupy a receptive attitude. The contents of their messages are not something thought out, inferred, hoped, or feared by them, but something conveyed to them, often forced upon them by the irresistible might of the revealing Spirit. No conception can do justice to the Bible idea of revelation which neglects these facts. Nor is justice done even to the rational idea of revelation when they are neglected. Here, too, we must interpret by the highest category in our reach. “Can man commune with man,” it has been eloquently asked, “through the high gift of language, and is the Infinite mind not to express itself, or is it to do so but faintly or uncertainly, through dumb material symbols, never by blessed speech?” (W. Morrison, “Footprints of the Revealer,” p. 52.)

The Doctrine of Revelation The doctrine of revelation which has been wrought out by Christian thinkers in their effort to do justice to all the biblical facts, includes the following features. God has never left himself without a witness. In the act of creation he has impressed himself on the work of his hands. In his work of providence he manifests himself as the righteous ruler of the world. Through this natural revelation men in the normal use of reason rise to a knowledge of God - a notitia Dei acquisita, based on the notitia Dei insita - which is trustworthy and valuable, but is insufficient for their necessities as sinners, and by its very insufficiency awakens a longing for a fuller knowledge of God and his purposes. To this purely natural revelation God has added a revelation of himself as the God of grace, in a connected series of redemptive acts, which constitute as a whole the mighty process of the new creation. To even the natural mind contemplating this series of supernatural acts which culminate in the coming of Christ, a higher knowledge of God should be conveyed than what is attainable from mere nature, though it would be limited to the capacity of the natural mind to apprehend divine things. In the process of the new creation God, however, works also inwardly by his regenerating grace, creating new hearts in men and illuminating their minds for apprehending divine things: thus, over against the new manifestation of himself in the series of redemptive acts, he creates a new subject to apprehend and profit by them. But neither by the presentation of supernatural facts to the mind nor by the breaking of the power of sin within, by which the eyes of the mind were holden that they should not see, is the human mind enabled to rise above itself, that it may know as God knows, unravel the manifestation of his gracious purposes from the incompleted pattern which he is weaving into the fabric of history, or even interpret aright an unexplained series of marvelous facts involving mysteries which “angels desire to look into.” It may be doubted whether even the supreme revelation of God in Jesus Christ could have been known as such in the absence of preparatory, accompanying and succeeding explanatory revelations in words: “the kingdom of God cometh not with observation.” God has therefore, in his infinite mercy, added a revelation of himself, strictly so called, communicating by his Spirit directly to men knowledge concerning himself, his works, will, and purposes. The modes of communication may be various - by dreams or visions, in ecstasy or theophany, by inward guidance, or by the simple objective word; but in all cases the object and result are the direct supernatural communication of special knowledge.

Of this special revelation it is to be said: (1) It was not given all at once, but progressively, “by divers portions and in divers manners,” in the form of a regular historical development. (2) Its progressive unfolding stands in a very express relation to the progress of God’s redemptive work. If it is not to be conceived, on the one hand, however, as an isolated act, wholly out of relation to God’s redemptive work, neither is it to be simply identified with the series of his redemptive acts. The phrase, “revelation is for redemption and not for instruction,” presents a false antithesis. Revelation as such is certainly just “to make wise,” though it is to make wise only “unto salvation.” It is not an alternative name for the redemptive process, but a specific part of the redemptive process. Nor does it merely grow out of the redemptive acts as their accompanying or following explanation; it is rather itself one of the redemptive acts, and takes its place along with the other redemptive acts, co-operative with them to the one great end. (3) Its relation to miracles has often been very unnecessarily confused by one-sided statements. Miracles are not merely credentials of revelation, but vehicles of revelation as well; but they are primarily credentials; and some of them are so barely “signs” as to serve no other purpose. As works of God, however, they are inevitably revelatory of God. Because the nature of the acts performed necessarily reveals the character of the actor is no proof, nevertheless, that their primary purpose was self-revelation; but this fact gives them a place in revelation itself; and as revelation as a whole is a substantial part of the redemptive work of God, also in the redemptive work of God. (4) Its relation to predictive prophecy is in some respects different. As a rule, at all events, predictive prophecy is primarily a part of revelation, and becomes a credential of it only secondarily, on account of the nature of the particular revelation which it conveys. When a revelation is, in its very contents, such as could come only from God, it obviously becomes a credential of itself as a revelation, and carries with it an evidence of the divine character of the whole body of revelation with which it stands in organic connection. (5) Its relation to the Scriptures is already apparent from what has been said. As revelation does not exist solely for the increase of knowledge, but by increasing knowledge to build up the kingdom of God, so neither did it come into being for no other purpose than the production of the Scriptures. The Scriptures also are a means to the one end, and exist only as a part of God’s redemptive work. But if, thus, the Scriptures can not be exalted as the sole end of revelation, neither can they be degraded into the mere human record of revelation. They are themselves a substantial part of God’s revelation; one form which his revealing activity chose for itself; and that its final and complete form, adopted as such for the very purpose of making God’s revealed will the permanent and universal possession of man. Among the manifold methods of God’s revelation, revelation through “inspiration” thus takes its natural place; and the Scriptures, as the product of this “inspiration,” become thus a work of God; not only a substantial part of revelation, but, along with the rest of revelation, a substantial part of his redemptive work: Along with the other acts of God which make up the connected series of his redemptive acts, the giving of the Scriptures ranks as an element of the building up of the kingdom of God. That within the limits of Scripture there appears the record of revelations in a narrower and stricter sense of the term, in nowise voids its claim to be itself revelation. Scripture records the sequence of God’s great redeeming acts. But it is much more than merely “the record, the interpretation, and the literary reflection of God’s grace in history.” Scripture records the direct revelations which God gave to men in days past, so far as those revelations were intended for permanent and universal use. But it is much more than a record of past revelations. It is itself the final revelation of God, completing the whole disclosure of his unfathomable love to lost sinners, the whole proclamation of his purposes of grace, and the whole exhibition of his gracious provisions for their salvation.