Special Revelation
This is technically part 3 of a series on the doctrine of revelation. I tried to make it stand alone, but reading those first to posts (here and here)will help as an introduction.
Also, I’m changing my “Sunday Systematics” series to “Substack Systematics.” I’ll still do weekly posts, but Sundays weren’t a great schedule for them.
Let’s let Herman Bavinck define Special Revelation for us:
Special revelation, according to Scripture, has occurred in the form of a historical process, which culminates in the person and work of Christ. But when Christ has appeared and is again taken up into heaven, special revelation does not immediately cease as a result. Still to come, then, are the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the extraordinary operation of powers and gifts through and under the guidance of the apostolate. Without doubt, Scripture still counts all this as belonging to the area of special revelation; and the continuation of this revelation in the apostolic age was necessary to give to special revelation, which had culminated in Christ, permanence and stability in the midst of the world, a permanence and stability in the text of Scripture as well as in the existence and life of the church.[1]
And so when we talk about Special Revelation, we’re talking primarily about the Bible. And in weeks to come, I’ll make some posts on the Bible itself. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself; today is just big picture, the act of special revelation. Things you should know about Special Revelation before I post specifically about the product of special revelation.
The Word of God
I haven’t done the math on this for myself, so you can fact-check me with a highlighter and calculator later if you want, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find an action attributed to God in scripture more than God speaking. [2]
In fact, one of the common ways that the True, Living God is distinguished from false idols is that God speaks. He’s not dumb as they are (take that in whatever sense you want), but He speaks. (see 1 Kings 18:24-46, Psalm 115:5-8, 135:15-18, Habakkuk 2:18-20, 1 Corinthians 12:2).[3]
But more than that, He speaks in human, intelligible languages. He speaks with words that we can understand. He speaks through people, writings, sometimes even donkeys… The fact that God speaks in human language is something I’ve just taken for granted, but it’s actually a divine mercy.
I had a buddy who would never speak to babies in cutesy ga-ga-goo-goos. He treated them as adults, having regular conversations. He’d be holding a baby, “Some weather we’re having, right?” “You catch the game last night?” He’d ask the kid about politics or current events. And the baby is you know, laying there oblivious. It was kind of a funny schtick. Because everyone knows, when you’re talking to a baby, you go all cutesy-wootsy. To not condescend in your language is a failure to communicate. And God, in His lofty Glory, condescends to use human language to talk to us.
He speaks in baby-talk, creature-talk we can understand.
Revelation assumes accommodation, that God stoop to our level to communicate with us – that’s the only way the finite can understand the infinite. From the very beginning of studying theology, we’re talking already about the grace and mercy of God. [4]
And more than just speaking, in mercy and grace He tells us what we need to know, when we need to know it.
Canon of Scripture
So I’m starting to talk about the Canon of Scripture here. Which is basically the collection of divine revelation that God wants us to have. I mean, technically speaking “The canon of Scripture is the list of all the books that belong in the Bible.”[5] That’s Wayne Grudem’s definition.
But I want to focus more on its formation.
Let’s start at the beginning – having a canon is a grace and a mercy from Him. Because it’s easy to give more information than is needed – I’ve learned this with young kids. It causes confusion and distress, it’s overwhelming and muddies the point you’re trying to make.
And it’s also easy to give less information than is helpful.
And so, God didn’t give Adam and Eve a Bible. They didn’t need the letter to the Romans, there was no Rome, no Jew and Gentile divisions in that church, no yet-to-be-born-Paul trying to get to the yet-to-be-formed-Spain. They didn’t need Ezekiel’s Prophecies either. Or even Genesis.
What He gave them was fellowship with Himself in the garden and a handful of directives – Be fruitful, fill the earth, Keep and Subdue it, eat whatever you want except for the one tree.
And as mankind needed more information, He gave it to them. And this information, these promises, this revelation was meant to be compounded and passed on from one generation to another.
Initially this was through passing down spoken words, oral traditions, not a book.[6] I believe Genesis wasn’t written until Moses had some free time – 40 years of it – in the wilderness to write. He used those oral traditions and recorded it in the book.
Instead of giving a book to Noah, you have a rainbow so that all generations would know of God’s covenant to him.
[12] And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: [13] I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. [14] When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, [15] I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. [16] When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” [17] God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
(Genesis 9:12–17)
In fact, it’s not until Exodus 17:14 that we have commands to write down God’s word.[7] And then, a few chapters later, Moses goes up on the mountain and receives more written words, the 10 commandments. Those really mark the beginning of having a biblical canon.[8] And this cannon gets added to as people need to hear more and more from God.[9]
This history tends to bother some people, “Are you saying we didn’t always have a Bible?” But it’s not like the written words are more inspired, more divine than the spoken words. People didn’t worship Moses’ tablets of stone, but the content of the 10 words on them. [10] And whereas the 10 commandments were written from heaven – when God’s word is mediated through a person, a prophet, they have just the same force.[11]
[18] I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. [19] And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. (Deuteronomy 18:18–19)
When Isaiah speaks, or Jeremiah or Jonah or John the Baptist, whose words are they? They’re God’s word, and they’re His words. These human words have the force of God. Peter explains that:
For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:21)
Even Paul and the apostles talked this way. Paul didn’t see a difference between the conversations that he was having in the church foyer, the sermons he preached, and the bible he wrote. They were equally authoritative.
[15] So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. (2 Thessalonians 2:15)
But, in God’s wise kindness and generosity, some of those words were preserved for us in the Biblical Canon – this book. And some weren’t. Because there are some words we need, and some words the Thessalonians needed, but we don’t.
And so God gives us this book, with exactly what we need contained in it, so that we might know Him and worship Him rightly. He doesn’t give us more than we need (like extra commands) and thus limit our freedom. And He doesn’t give us less than we need to know and glorify Him. He gives us special revelation so that we would know Him. And it’s everything that we need for life and for godliness To be saved and sanctified and to come home to glory.
Because ultimately, Revelation comes so we might know Him.
Since we started with Bavinck, we’ll end with him too.
Finally, the purpose and goal of special revelation is God's own Trinitarian glory, his delight in Himself. The aim of revelation is to re-create humanity after the image of God, to establish the Kingdom of God on Earth, to redeem the world from the power of sin, and thus to glorify the name of the Lord in all His creatures.[12]
[1] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics Volume 1: Prolegomena, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, vol. 1, Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2003), 346–47.
[2] John M. Frame, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 2013), 519.
[3] Frame, 522.
[4] Mark Thompson, The Doctrine of Scripture: An Introduction, Short Studies in Systematic Theology (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2022), 71.
[5] Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England : Grand Rapids, Mich: Inter-Varsity Press ; Zondervan Pub. House, 1994), 54.
[6] Bray, God Is Love, 43.
[7] Thompson, The Doctrine of Scripture, 89.
[8] Grudem, Systematic Theology, 55.
[9] For a helpful discussion on this, see Grudem, 55ff. There are commands given to Moses (Deut 31:24-26), Joshua (Josh 24:26, cf Deut 4:2), Samuel (1 Sam 10:25), David (1 Chron 29:29), Jehoshaphat (2 Chron 20:34), Uzziah (2 Chron 26:22), Hezekiah (2 Chron 32:32), and Jeremiah (Jer 30:2), for examples.
[10] Bray, God Is Love, 46.
[11] Frame, Systematic Theology, 546.
[12] Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics Volume 1: Prolegomena, 1:324.