The God Who Makes Himself Known
Exploring Divine Revelation
We worship a God who is kind and gracious to reveal Himself. The Creator of the Universe is wholly transcendent and other worldly.
In one sense, God’s act of creation was the first instance of grace. He made this world and its inhabitants (when He did not have to). By creating us, He allowed us to exist in relation to Him.
Not only that, He has made Himself known—the second instance of grace. That’s what I’d like to focus on today. The God that reveals—the term we call, “Divine Revelation.”
What is Divine Revelation?
Maybe dreams?
… Visions?
… A special moment of clarity in a quiet time?
… You drive by a billboard, and that’s God’s way of telling you that you need Dunkin’ Donuts that day? (Just me? ... Okay)
How can we be sure the revelation we perceive is actually from God?
I want to give a simple framework for understanding revelation by unpacking how God has progressively revealed Himself from the beginning until now.
But, first, a working definition.
Revelation is God’s self-disclosure. In other words, revelation occurs when God makes Himself known.
Apart from God’s revealing of Himself, He is otherwise unknowable (Matthew 11:27). So then, How has God revealed Himself?
I want to propose four movements or categories of Divine Revelation.
1. Divine Activity
First, God reveals by divine activity—by stepping into this world.
From God’s desire to initiate a relationship with humanity (His prized creation), He entered into the created world.
God walked in the garden with Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:8). God audibly spoke to His people.. God showed himself through various supernatural phenomena.
He guided the Israelites with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. He triumphed over Baal at the altar showdown with Elijah. He spoke to Joseph in dreams of foretelling. He spoke through Daniel in response to Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams of warning.
The most significant instance of God revealing Himself by stepping into this world was, of course, the incarnation—in which He, once again, walked among us.
Jesus inhabited our space, all of our humanity, so that we might see God (John 1:14 – the Word became flesh).
Hebrews 1:1-3. Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, . . .
Yet, while God revealed Himself within history, those moments in which He showed Himself were seen with blurry eyes.
In our fallenness, humans naturally misinterpret God’s actions. Therefore, God’s actions require clarity from God’s words.
We see this most clearly with Jesus himself.
The disciples had walked and talked with Jesus through the entirety of his ministry and had observed the key events (e.g. the cross, the empty tomb, etc.), yet they still needed help putting the pieces together.
So, just before he ascends, in Luke 24, he “opens their minds to understand the Scriptures”—to connect the dots between what he had done and what those things meant.
“The Scriptures,” for Jesus, are what you and I call the Old Testament. This brings us to our second movement of revelation.
2. Holy Writings
Second, God revealed with holy writings.
Thankfully, God gave us a written record of what he did. But it’s more than that. We don’t scour over Scripture like security camera footage, looking for the details of the events described to piece together the truth. The richness is in the details of the text, the director’s cut documentary God has crafted for us.
In other words, the books of the Bible exist as the authorized interpretation of those events delivered by supernaturally inspired authors.
This brings us to a theology question. How did God inspire these authors? We don’t have time to dive into this, but I’ll leave you with a term – verbal plenary inspiration.
God did not put Paul in a trance and download words into his head (That’s called “Dictation Theory”).
God did not see what Paul wrote and give it a thumbs up after a back-and-forth editorial process (That’s “Dynamic Theory”).
Instead, God inspired by sovereignly and supernaturally prompting Paul’s life, circumstances, desires, concerns, gifts, and writing sessions to say precisely what God wanted him to say on His behalf.
In this way, the Scriptures are “God-breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16)—His very words perfectly delivered through the biblical authors.
But there’s a second implication from that verse (“All Scripture”), and this brings us to the third movement.
3. The Biblical Canon
With the biblical canon, God revealed by assembling a symphony of holy writings.
Yes, God teaches in spurts in each of the books of the Bible—as individual units—but He teaches in tidal waves when we see the unified message of the Bible.
While every book of the Bible was written and occasioned for particular reasons by a host of writers spanning centuries, God—the ultimate Author—was curating a unified corpus from the beginning.
God doesn’t intend us to treat the Bible like an a la carte menu where we pick and choose what we want.
It works more like a beautiful mosaic tapestry—where every thread, fiber, and stitch builds to create smaller images that fit together to show one grand portrait.
So, God gives us this intricately orchestrated book written thousands of years ago in now-extinct languages. Now what?
Even Peter, in 2 Peter 3, says the Bible is hard to understand, but also that God is gracious to help us understand it as we grow in Christ.
4. Illumination
Here, we’ve arrived at the fourth and final movement, Illumination. God reveals by empowering Christians to read
First, we must understand that only believers can really read the Bible.
Faith is the instrument by which we receive God’s revelation in Scripture (Hebrews 11:1-6, 1 Corinthians 2:10-16).
Non-Christians can read the Bible, but until the gospel transforms their hearts, they are blinded from truly seeing God (Read more about this spiritual deadness in Ephesians 2).
Second, all believers can really read the Bible.
In His kindness, God empowers all Christians to understand the Bible piece by piece—sometimes, this takes a lifetime, and often, it requires the help of the church (past and present). Still, no part of the Bible is intellectually off-limits to any Christian. God is faithful to show himself to anyone who commits to a steady diet of the Word.
Third, all believers should trust the finality of the Bible.
Jesus said he was coming back but not to give us more information. When he returns, it’s to usher in the kingdom.
Everything we need is right here. It’s all right there in the black, white, and red.
So then, how can we synthesize all that into something more distilled? How do we experience revelation?
Remember this simple framework:
Jesus is the ultimate means by which God reveals himself. (Hebrews 1:1-3)
The Holy Spirit, sent by Jesus, is the immediate or immanent means by which God reveals himself.
The Bible is the normative means by which God reveals himself today.
So, pick up and read.
The Bible is your regular “divine revelation” experience made possible by the Spirit, who is bringing clarity and continually pointing us to Jesus. Expect nothing less than an encounter with the Most High when you open the pages of the Scriptures.