Centerpoint School of Theology

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-3God Breathes Out the Scriptures: THE DOCTRINE OF SPECIAL REVELATION

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 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. HEBREWS 1:1-2

Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal Himself, and to declare that His will unto His Church; and afterwards for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which makes the Holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of Gods revealing His will unto His people being now ceased. WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH I:1

For as the aged, or those whose sight is defective, when any book, however fair, is set before them, though they perceive that there is something written, are scarcely able to make out two consecutive words, but, when aided by glasses, begin to read distinctly, so Scripture, gathering together the impressions of Deity, which, till then, lay confused in our minds, dissipates the darkness, and shows us the true God clearly. JOHN CALVIN, INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
Trans. Henry Beveridge (Peabody Mass.: Hendricksen Publishers, Inc., 2009), 26 (I.vi.1)

GENERAL AND SPECIAL REVELATION General and Special Revelation do not reveal a different God, but ONE and the SAME God. We do not see TRINITY in creation (though we do see triads such as ice, water, vapor) but the God who is revealed in General Revelation is Triune. There is NOTHING in General Revelation that is not in Special Revelation; but Special Revelation reveals MORE than General Revelation. Special Revelation is NOT more cogent (convincing, powerful) than General Revelation. Special Revelation, too, can fall on deaf ears. Its persuasiveness comes from the Holy Spirit using it as his own sword to convince. Special Revelation casts a new light on General Revelation (on the things that are made, Romans 1:20). Calvin deployed the metaphor of spectacles or glasses (see quote on page 1).
o Heavn above is softer blue / Earth around is sweeter green! / Something lives in every hue / Christless eyes have never seen / Birds with gladder songs oerflow / flowrs with deeper beauties shine / Since I know, as now I know / I am His, and He is mine. (George Robinsons hymn, Loved with Everlasting Love.)

General Revelation provides the point of contact with Special Revelation (Anknpfungspunkt). Note how the Bible begins in Genesis 1:1. No pre-apologetic is necessary. It assumes the implanted knowledge of God. The Special Revelation of Scripture connects with the sensus divinitatis.

WHATS SO SPECIAL ABOUT SPECIAL REVELATION? SPECIAL CONTENT What cannot be known by our faculties (sight, sound, perception, reason) alone. A special word from God is needed for this information. This was true before the Fall: that a certain tree was off-limits was self-evident. SPECIAL AGENTS Special Revelation of Gods redemptive mercy does not come through the stars. Special messengers are raised up: patriarchs, prophets, apostles JESUS. We have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16).

SPECIAL RECIPIENTS Only those within reach of the special messengers receive Special Revelation. Foreign nations in Moses day did not hear Torah. The missionary directive is categorical. Jesus was in ONE place (incarnation means Jesus as a human being was not ubiquitous). Today, Special Revelation goes as far as the Bible goes. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? (Romans 10:14). SPECIAL DELIVERY o WORD & DEED Speech-Act Theory Revelation as drama: playplayersaudience. God reveals himself by word and by revelatory acts. All acts of God are revelatory (creation) but some are of special revelatory significance: Creation, Exodus, Exile, Bethlehem, Calvary, Pentecost. The cross without an interpretative word is foolishness (1 Cor. 1:18). There is a need for an authoritative/objective interpretation from God himself. o THEOPHANIES An appearance/epiphany of Theos God. These are NOT incarnations (an eternal enfleshment of the Son of God). These are a temporary assumption of God in a human form. The Angel of the Lord ( malak Yhwh ) is used 214 times, half of which concern heavenly messengers. Example: In Genesis 16, the angel of the LORD finds Hagar and speaks to her. Then in verse 13 Hagar called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, El Roi, which means, You are a God of seeing. (cf. Genesis 22:15 (Abraham); Exodus 3:2 (Moses); Numbers 22:22 (Balaam)). o VISIONS External or internal? 1 Samuel 9:9 tells us that a prophet used to be called a seer. Early prophets saw things. Classical prophets too (Isaiah 6; Visions of Ezekiel, Daniel and Zechariah). Also in New Testament: Acts 10 (Peter and the sheet of clean and unclean animals). John in Revelation, After this I saw o DREAMS Joseph narrative; Daniel as an interpreter of dreams.

o PROPHECY ( navi), spokesperson Geerhardus Vos: a prophet is an authorized spokesperson for the Deity in whose word a divinely-communicated power resides. Biblical Theology, (Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1948, 1975), p. 193. Forth-telling v foretelling: more of the former than the latter. Prophets were first of all preachers. Moses was a prophet (Deuteronomy 18:15, 18). He was not a foreteller. They spoke what God told them to speak. Prophets (and apostles) belong to the FOUNDATIONS not the superstructure: built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20). o INCARNATION A UNIQUE event. The advent in Bethlehem was a supreme revelatory moment. He comes in the last times (Hebrews 1:1-2), inaugurating the kingdom of God. His coming is revelation. Not only his acts and words; he is himself a revelation Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9); For God, who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6). o APOSTOLIC TRADITION An important part of the teaching of the New Testament. The apostles were given revelation directly from God. For I received (parelabon) from the Lord what I also delivered (paredwka) to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread (1 Corinthians 11:23). Verbs receive and deliver display that Paul added nothing nor took away anything from the material he was given. Paul wasnt there at the Last Supper. He received this information from the Lord himself.

John writes letters to churches in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) addressed from Jesus. Dictation! Jesus dictates letters to John who acts as a secretary.

If no historical truth can be demonstrated, then nothing can be demonstrated by means of historical truths. That is: accidental truths of history can never become the proof of necessary truths of reason That, then, is the ugly broad ditch which I cannot get across, however often and however earnestly I have tried to make the leap. G. E. Lessing Uber den Bewais des Geistes und der Kraft, in GESAMMELTE WERKE, ed. Paul Rilla (Berlin: Aufbau-verlag, 1956), 8:12, 14.

All doctrine is limited to the finality of Scripture (the last ones to receive revelation from God are the apostles of the New Testament. Major difference between Protestant and Roman Catholic position here. True, tradition came before Scripture, but it was apostolic tradition.

o SCRIPTURE From one point of view, the Scriptures are a record of revelation (think of a library, or a hard drive) that God has given to prophets and apostles, the faithful testimony of the godly to the God they loved, served, and worshipped. From another point of view, the Scripture are themselves revelation through a unique exercise of divine composition and overruling, they are Gods own testimony and teaching in human form. Hence, we call the Bible The Word of God because its author (ultimately) is God himself.

SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS o REDEMPTIVE Special Revelation is not only a revelation of redemption; it is itself a redemptive act. Special Revelation is Jesus speaking to us.

It is a part of his mediatorial role as a Prophet: As KING he reigns, conquering his and our enemies As PRIEST he dies for us and intercedes in heaven for us As PROPHET, he makes God known to us The redemptive acts are not left to explain themselves. o PERSONAL AND PROPOSITIONAL See separate page on Models of Revelation [The shadow of Kant: the noumena cannot be known.] CHARLES HAROLD DODD (1884 1973)

Welsh. Radical Liberal. Denied the concept of wrath in God entirely and therefore the need for a substitutionary atonement. Typical of Dodds approach is to deny that God speaks directly and propositionally. The words of commission that Jeremiah heard, therefore are viewed by Dodd as actual hallucinations (The Authority of the Bible, [London, 1960], 83). WILLIAM TEMPLE (1881 1944)

Archbishop of Canterbury during WWII (early 1940s). God showed himself in historical acts and enlightened men discerned the special significance of these events and recorded them in Scripture. Scripture is a record of what God has done (but note the absence of inspired WORDS).

JOHN BAILLIE (1860 1960) Scottish Professor at New College, Edinburgh; Moderator of the Church of Scotland in 1943. All revelation is given, not in the form of directly communicated knowledge, but through events occurring in the historical experience of mankind, events which are apprehended by faith as the mighty acts of God, and which therefore engender in the mind of man such reflective knowledge of God as it is given him to possess. J. Baillie, THE IDEA OF REVELATION IN MODERN THOUGHT (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956), 62 i.e. what is revealed is a person

KARL BARTH [1886 - 1968]

For Karl Barth, revelation is not directly propositional but personal. Barth did have a high view of Scripture as the vehicle through which God speaks. Barth had a high view of tradition, and the Bible is the most traditional thing the church has. But in the end, the Bible is a witness to Revelation, rather than being revelation itself. Revelation is not about creeds but of God himself. One is not called to confess the faith of the Church but called to believe and confess God Himself. Revelation is not an objective something out there. It is something that happens. Only in the Incarnation does one encounter the Word of God as the Revelation of God himself. The knowledge of God is grounded in God himself, not in nature, history, or human words. i.e. what we need is Jesus, not the Bible i.e. what we need is to love one another and stop arguing i.e. church is about community, not truth

[Rejoinder: A marriage wont last just because two people feel in love; you must say the words, I love you. Marriage is both personal and propositional.]

RUDOLF BULTMANN (1884-1976)

German Lutheran, existentialist New Testament Professor at Marburg, Germany. The Bible needs to be demythologized. All that is supernatural and miraculous needs to be taken out of the Bible. We know (!) that God doesnt disrupt the physical order of the universe. Bible writers wrote myth, embellishing their writings with myths. Revelation has no cognitive content, but when it is received, we are changed by it. This encounter or decision is what really matters. God shakes the soul somehow and we need to respond to it. All these men have a priori assumptions: God does not reveal propositions, words (Temple, Baillie) God doesnt disrupt the physical order (Bultmann) The Bible is important and to be esteemed, but fallible because it is (in the end) a human document (Barth)

Such views: Make Bible study and preaching an exercise in ignorance. It is one persons view against anothers. The Westminster Directory defines preaching as making points from the text of Scripture that the hearers may discern how God teaches it from thence. These views limit preaching to what the church teaches or what I like to think it means. Redefines faith. Faith in the NT means subjecting the mind and conscience to the Word of God (Romans 10:17; 1 Corinthians 2:1-5; 1 Thessalonians 2:13), but in the absence of certainty as to what the Word of God is, superstition is all that is left.

Removes teaching from the life of the church. Ministers and Bible teachers are not sure what to teach. Doctrine is dismissed or even despised.

Model Revelation as Verbal Proposition (words, doctrine)

Adherents Patristic Fathers Medieval Church Luther, Calvin, Westminster Divines B. B. Warfield J. I. Packer Sinclair B. Ferguson International Council on Biblical Inerrancy

Definition of Revelation Revelation is divinely authoritative and is conveyed objectively and verbally (propositionally) through words of Scripture. [Traditional Roman Catholics add the official teaching of the church to the Scriptures here.]

Purpose of Revelation To provide the church with a certain guide, an infallible/inerrant Bible as Gods Word in written in form and as inerrant as God himself.

Revelation as Disclosure in History

William Temple G. Ernest Wright Oscar Cullman Wolfhart Pannenberg

Revelation is God showing himself to be a Savior on the stage of human history (sacred history) through mighty acts of one sort or another. [This view requires a confidence in historiography, something which postmodernity has eviscerated]

To instill hope that what God did in the past has relevance to where we find ourselves in the present and future. How this hope works is unclear.

Revelation as Experience (how I feel)

Friedrich Schleiermacher C. H. Dodd Karl Rahner (Progressive RC)

God reveals himself us in the depths of our psyche. We feel God ( hl) Schleiermacher.

To impart a sense of union with God

Revelation as Dialectical Presence

Karl Barth Emil Brunner John Baillie

Revelation comes by divine encounter with the Word not to be equated with Scripture, but to be discovered in it (and preaching and dialogue) Revelation is ones arrival at a new level of consciousness as one participates in the divine creativity

To generate faith. [Subjectivity abounds here]

Revelation as New Awareness

Teilhard de Chardin Paul Tillich

To reconstruct perception and selftransformation

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o PROGRESSIVE Cumulative. God doesnt give us all at once.

Thus New Testament, or Old Testament writers before them, can build on earlier Old Testament texts that they interpret and develop creatively, though the creativity is to be seen in understanding such texts in the light of the further developments of a redemptive-historical epoch in the Old Testament, or developments in the light of the later events of Christ s coming and work. In this respect, part of the creative development lies merely in the fact that fulfillment always fleshes out prior prophecy in a way that, to some degree, would have been unforeseen by earlier Old Testament prophets. Another way to say this is that progressive revelation always reveals things not as clearly seen earlier. Geerhardus Voss metaphor for this creative development between the Testaments is that Old Testament prophecies and texts are like seeds and later Old Testament and New Testament understandings of the same texts are like plants growing from the seeds and flowering; from one angle the full-bloomed plant may not look like the seed (as in botanical comparisons), but careful exegesis of both Old and New contexts can show, at least, some of the organic connections.

Greg Beale, WE BECOME WHAT WE WORSHIP: A BIBLICAL THEOLOGY OF IDOLATRY (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), 39 We move through successive redemptive eras: Patriarchal, Mosaic, Prophetic, Incarnational.

Tolerance of low morality in earlier periods of revelation. Polygamy in the OT period, for example. Lack of clarity on certain issues: Resurrection. Sadducees only had Torah and therefore did not believe in the resurrection. Pharisees had Torah and Prophets and did believe in the resurrection. Trinity. Careful not to read too much into Gen 1:26! Let us make man, and say Ah! There is plurality in God even in Genesis 1. No godly Jew ever concluded that. They saw it as the plurality of majesty rather than number.

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Some important issues get left behind or superseded Temple and holy places

Progression within the New Testament itself The common sharing of Acts 2 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need (Acts 2:44-45). Evangelism of house of Israel in Gospels (two by two [Mark 6:7; Luke 10:1]) but in Acts they are going to the Gentiles House churches become something more structured, with deacons and elders in the pastoral epistles Spiritual gifts tongues and prophecy? Why no reference to these at all in the later epistles which define the nature of spiritual maturity? Answer: they were signs of the apostle (2 Corinthians 12:12) and died along with the apostles. They gave way to Scripture. Case for Continuation (sometimes known as restorationist) of apostolic sign-gifts: a. Miracles, tongue-speaking, prophecies occur today. This is fact. b. NT does not say they will cease. c. NT era does not advocate a two-stage course of history (before and after cessation of gifts) d. Perfection comes at the eschaton the end of time: but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away (1 Corinthians 13:10). e. Wayne Grudem: 2 levels of prophecy (based on the (supposed) inaccurate prophecy of Agabus relating to Pauls arrest (Acts 21:1011 and 28:17).

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Case for Cessationism of apostolic sign-gifts: a. The problem of the absence of these gifts for almost 2,000 years b. The limitation of these gifts in the Bible to a few brief periods of redemptive history Exodus, Elijah and Elisha, Exile. c. The signs and wonders of the New Testament period were viewed by the apostles as confirmation of their unique role: The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works (2 Corinthians. 12:12). d. 1 Corinthians 13:10 when the perfect comes can be understood to mean, When the canon of Scripture is complete. See, Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Holy Spirit (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1996), 226-229. e. Glossolalia (tongues) in Acts and Corinth are most naturally viewed as foreign languages (like Welsh!) rather than private prayer language (J. I. Packer).

What should we make of claims of continuing gifts? o See Appendix: Sinclair B. Ferguson

Classical v Full Cessationists: o Classical cessationists assert that the sign gifts such as prophecy, healing and speaking in tongues ceased with the apostles and the finishing of the canon of Scripture. They only served as launching pads for the spreading of the Gospel; as affirmations of Gods revelation. However, these cessationists do believe that God still occasionally does miracles today, such as healings or divine guidance, so long as these miracles do not accredit new doctrine or add to the New Testament canon. Richard Gaffin, John F. MacArthur and Daniel B. Wallace are perhaps the best-known classical cessationists.

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o Full Cessationists argue that along with no miraculous gifts, there are also no miracles performed by God today. This argument, of course, turns on ones understanding of the term, miracle. B. B. Warfield, J. Gresham Machen, Francis Nigel Lee best represent this view. For Further Reading
o o o o Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Holy Spirit O. Palmer Robertson, The Final Word Richard B. Gaffin, Perspectives on Pentecost Wayne Grudem (ed.), Are Miraculous Gifts for Today: Four Views

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The Holy Spirit Sinclair B. Ferguson

An explanation?
How, then, can we explain the phenomena to which so many testify? The question is legitimate, if by no means an easy one; it poses certain difficulties for both continuationists and cessationists. The difficulty for the continuationist view is to account for the difference between the twentieth century and all previous ages of church history. On the other hand, how can we explain the experience of three hundred and fifty million people, most of whom claim to speak in tongues, many of whom claim to prophesy, while others claim to heal? Unlike other theological differences (e.g. over the relationship between the body of Christ and the bread of the Lords Supper), these are observable and measurable phenomena. The facts seem to speak for themselves. Yet this is precisely the heart of the problem: the phenomenon is indeed an experienced reality, but it is not a self-interpreting reality. This applies equally to tongues and prophecy, words of wisdom and knowledge, and to the working of miracles and healing by human hands. An important, but largely unrecognized, element of interpretation is involved in continuationism. We have noted this above with respect to tongues. In the case of prophecy, it would be more consistent with its revelatory nature (and therefore its existentially canonical function) for continuationists to recognize that their insights into Gods word and their sense of Gods purpose are not actually prophecy at all, but illumination, fallible insight and contemporary application of biblical truth. Moreover, what of the recurrence of the New Testament gift of healing? This, surely, is a brute fact. Here it is necessary to tread with great care. God continues to answer the prayers of his people for healing (Jas. 5:14-15). The conviction that certain gifts exercised by individuals in the New Testament were not meant to continue in the church permanently should not be taken to imply that God no longer works in glorious supernatural ways on behalf of his people. Even if one were to grant what is sometimes too readily assumed - that healing is much more frequent among continuationists than among cessationists - the reason may not lie in the interpretive grid adopted but in the faith which seeks (and may even anticipate) the intervention of God. The only help we are given in the New Testament to exegete gifts of healing (1 Cor. 12:9, 30) portrays this gift in terms to which contemporary claims bear little resemblance. Massive numbers of healings are effected; congenital defects are healed; those crippled from birth are immediately able to walk; there is no record of failure, either partial or total, no suggestion of relapse and, presumably, we are to imagine none. This is a different order of reality from the contemporary. God is still Yahweh who heals (Gn. 15:26); but he has no new revelation to give which is attested by gifts of healing given to individuals. The only new revelation we are to anticipate will come at the final apocalypse of Christ. Then, unprecedented and final healing will take place on the grandest of all scales. The same principle holds good more broadly with respect to the experience of baptism with the Holy Spirit, which has often been closely linked to continuationism. Denial of divine experience is not necessary; only the interpretation of it. What has been mistaken for a post conversion baptism with the Spirit may well be a new filling of the Spirit, a new fullness of assurance and Ch. 10, Gifts for Ministry pp. 235-237

The Holy Spirit Sinclair B. Ferguson joy, a new boldness in giving expression to faith in Christ. These are not tasted experientially once and for all in the first filling of the Spirit which takes place in regeneration, conversion and Spirit baptism. If this is so, misinterpretation on a large scale seems to have taken place in the twentieth century. In so far as that is true, a reinterpretation which anchors experience in more biblical categories will not only produce a broader theological harmony on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit; it will also marry experience to truth in such a way that greater stability and richer fruit of the Spirit will be created in the life and character of the church of Jesus Christ. This, after all, is the goal which all the gifts of the Spirit are given to serve (cf. Eph. 4:7-16).

Ch. 10, Gifts for Ministry pp. 235-237