The Idea of Revelation
The Idea of Revelation
A central theme of Christian theology down the ages has been that God self-discloses. This theme is found throughout the Bible, and takes a number of forms. Three are of particular importance.
All three of these motifs are found in the New Testament but are supplemented by a distinctively Christian theme – namely, that God's self-revelation is focused, channeled, and embodied in the person of Jesus Christ. Christ is described as the “image [Greek: eikon] of the invisible God” (Colossians 1: 15).
The idea of divine self-revelation implies that unaided human attempts to fully discern the nature and purposes of God are ultimately unsuccessful. Although most Christian theologians hold that a natural knowledge of God is possible (pp. 141–8), any such natural knowledge is generally understood to be limited in scope, in coherence, and in depth. The idea of revelation expresses the basic Christian belief that we need to be “told what God is like” (Eberhard Jüngel).
In everyday use, the term “revelation” could be understood as “making something known in all its fullness” or “the total disclosure of what has hitherto been obscure or unclear.” Yet to speak of a “revelation of God” in a theological context does not imply that the self-revelation of God is total. For example, many writers within the Greek Orthodox tradition stress that the revelation of God does not abolish the mystery of God. John Henry Newman's (1801–90) doctrine of “reserve” emphasizes the same point. There is always more to God than what we can fully grasp. Martin Luther (1483–1546) suggested that, while God's self-revelation is only partial, this partial revelation is nevertheless reliable and adequate. He developed the idea of a “hidden revelation of God” – one of the most important aspects of his “theology of the cross” – to make this point.
Another meaning of revelation in everyday life is “making facts known.” For example, a newspaper headline might speak of a government “revealing” its new policies. The theological idea of revelation certainly includes this idea; however, it also implies more than just disclosing knowledge of God. A central theme here is the self-disclosure of God. In speaking about other people, we might draw a distinction between “knowing about someone” and “knowing someone.” The former implies cerebral knowledge, or an accumulation of data about an individual (such as height, occupation, and so on). The latter implies a personal relationship. In a Christian context, “revelation” implies both informational and relational knowledge of God. In its developed sense, “revelation” does not mean merely the transmission of a body of knowledge but the personal self-disclosure of God within history. We shall explore this question further later in this work, when we consider what it means to speak of a “personal God” (pp. 177–80).
First, we need to explore the models of revelation that are used in Christian theology. We shall focus on four models in the following section.