The revelation of God lies outside the realm of the natural man, for without the divine nature man is incapable of apprehending what God has revealed. When on earth the Son of God said, “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” (Matt. 11:25). The very words that reveal God and His mind are before all men in the Scriptures, yet the natural man cannot grasp their meaning. Words that bring the deepest joy to the one who is born of God, are unintelligible even to the greatest natural intellect where there has been no work of God within the soul. The divine nature through the new birth gives the capacity for receiving divine things, the indwelling Spirit is the power for their reception, and a state of heart produced in communion with God gives the condition in which God’s revelations are made good in the soul.
Revelation of the Creation
Men have formed many theories as to how the worlds were made, many of which they have themselves discarded, and yet they vainly imagine they may yet be able by searching the universe to discover the origin of all. While they continue in darkness and in their speculations, the divine secret is known by the veriest babe in Christ who reads the opening chapters of Genesis, for the Scripture says, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (Heb. 11:3). God has been pleased to give a simple yet profound account of the origin of all things around us, and how we ourselves received being. The natural man rejects God’s revelation, but the believer in Christ accepts it as given by God.
Even apart from the revelation that God has given in His word, the creation bears witness to God’s “eternal power and divinity” (Rom. 1:20), which leaves man without excuse. Although men are amazed at the wonders of creation, without faith in God, they are unable to apprehend what the creation displays of Him. One who is born of God, viewing the workmanship of God in creation, can exclaim with the Psalmist, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). This is indeed divine revelation but it is what any one can see for himself if he has right thoughts of God.
Divine Revelation and the Patriarchs
To Adam God revealed Himself as a beneficent creator, and as a merciful and gracious God to Adam as a fallen creature. Abel, through faith in God, approached Him as a sinner should, on the ground of sacrifice, whereas Cain, in wilful ignorance of God sought His acceptance on the ground of his own labours. Enoch walked with God in the light of the knowledge he had acquired of Him, and Noah, receiving from God the revelation of the coming judgment, at God’s instruction, and by faith, prepared an ark for the saving of His house. After the flood had subsided, God made known His mind to Noah and his sons as found in Genesis 8 and 9.
God frequently appeared to Abraham, giving him different revelations of His mind and will, making marvellous promises in grace towards him and his promised seed, and revealing Himself, saying, “I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect” (Gen. 17:1). Isaac and Jacob walked in the light of the revelations that God had made to Abraham, the promises being renewed to them. The patriarchs were separate from other men, and this because they had the knowledge of God according to the revelation that He had been pleased to give of Himself to Abraham.
Divine Revelation to and through Moses
The five books of Moses manifest how wonderful were the revelations made to God’s faithful servant. There may have been much that Moses received that had been handed down from the fathers, but what he wrote was given by inspiration of God, the Holy Spirit controlling the pen of the servant of the Lord. Whatever the fathers may have known of the creation, and the forming of the earth for man’s habitation, it must be evident that only God could have made known to any one what He did in the beginning, and before man was formed out of the dust of the earth. The same can be said about the flood. What Moses wrote has the divine stamp on every detail, and is given with an assurance and accuracy that marks it as divine.
When God first appeared to Moses, the Lord not only disclosed what was in His mind for the deliverance of His people Israel, but He also revealed Himself to him, saying, “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob…I AM THAT I AM” (Ex. 3:6–14). To Abraham, God had revealed Himself as the ALMIGHTY, to Israel He was Jehovah the God of their fathers (verse 15).
On the mount with God, Moses received the pattern of the tabernacle, the two tables of stone with the ten commandments, the sacrificial system, the priestly garments and the priestly service, and the knowledge of the ways of God. In all that was revealed to Moses there was much that could not be understood at that time, for these things were but the pattern of the coming good things that God had reserved for a future generation, yea, they were but a shadow of what has been brought to light in connection with the heavenly Christ.
Divine Revelation through the Prophets
The prophets had a two-fold ministry, first, they made known the mind of God to His people in regard to what was present, secondly, they made known what God revealed concerning the future. Moses, as a prophet, spoke of the coming of the Lord Jesus in Deuteronomy 18, saying, “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thy brethren, like unto me; unto Him shall ye hearken” (verse 15); and in chapters 29 and 30 clearly foretold what would happen to God’s people Israel.
The major and the minor prophets, and the many prophetic psalms, clearly reveal God’s mind for His people, and foretell the captivity and restoration of Israel. Israel’s blessing in the future would be based on the new covenant, and this because of the Person and work of Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. The rise and fall of the great empires is clearly foretold in Daniel, as is also the judgment of the nations in Zechariah and other prophecies.
The Revelation of God in the Son
In the Person of Jesus in this world there was the full and perfect revelation of God, even as it is written, “No man has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18). God in His nature of love, and in His disposition of compassion and grace for men, was fully made known in all that Jesus was in His Person, in His words, and in His works in Manhood. When Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us. Jesus says unto him… he that has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:8-9). There was nothing more to be seen of the Father than was seen in the Person of the Son.
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that “God…has in these last days spoken unto us in His Son” (1:1-2). Then he shows who the Son is, “the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His substance.” All that God is shines out in Jesus, whether as seen on earth, or where He now sits in heaven above. The Apostle John presents Jesus to us as “The Word” that was eternally with God (John 1:1–3), as come in flesh (John 1:14), and as the One in whom there is the expression of the eternal life, for He is “the true God, and eternal life” (1 John 1:1-2; 5:20).
When Israel had rejected Jesus as their Messiah, the cities in which His mighty works had been done refusing Him, the Lord Jesus said, “No man knows the Son, but the Father; neither knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him” (Matt. 11:27). Only by a divine revelation could the Father be known, and that by the Son; and even the knowledge of the Son as Christ, the Son of the living God, required a revelation from the Father (Matt. 16:16-17).
The Revelation of God’s Purpose
After the Son of God had made God known in all the love of His heart in His death upon the cross, He ascended to heaven, and the Holy Spirit came to witness to the risen and glorified Son of Man seated at God’s right hand. Then Jesus called Saul of Tarsus, and made him a special vessel for the declaration of the Gospel among the nations, and to be minister of the church. It was to Paul that the Lord gave a special revelation of Himself, and of the truth of the mystery. In revealing the mystery, the word of God was completed (Col. 1:25-26); for this great truth presented Christ as the Man of God’s purpose, the Head over all things; and showed the place of the church in relation to Christ.
The Lord Jesus, in His prayer to the Father, spoke of the glory that He had given to His own, and of the place they would have with Him in the Father’s house (John 17:22–24); but He said to His disciples, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide you into all truth” (John 15:12-13). In Paul’s epistles the Lord has given to us these fresh revelations, what the Spirit has brought concerning Jesus, the Man of God’s eternal purpose in whom all His will shall be fulfilled. Regarding all these great revelations from God, the Apostle Paul could write of himself and his fellow servants as “stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. 4:1). All that the church is now for God, and what it shall be in the coming ages, belongs to these wonderful secret revelations that have been ministered by Paul to enlighten us with the thoughts and will of God.
Prophetic Revelations of the New Testament
Although the truth of the mystery completed the word of God as bringing to light what had been hidden in God from eternity, there were still revelations to be made in line with the prophecies of the Old Testament. The mystery was something entirely new, but the prophecies of the New Testament but completed the prophecies of the Old Testament, and what the Lord spoke of the future while He was on earth. Paul, Peter, John and Jude are all used by the Spirit of God to tell us of what would come out in these last days, and of what would follow in the judgment of God.
While on earth, the Lord Jesus, in Matthew 13 showed the development of evil in that which would profess His Name, and what the remnant of Israel would pass through before He came to deliver them (Matt. 24). The Apostle John had special revelations of the future, showing in the addresses to the seven churches the prophetic history of the church in Revelation 2 and 3, then showing the things that would take place afterwards, when the church had been rapt to heaven.
The Book of the Revelation also brings to light the secrets of heaven, of the judgment of the false church and of the those who follow the beast and the false prophet, revealing the judgment of the great white throne, the reign of Christ, the millennial glory of the church, and the church in the eternal state as the new Jerusalem, where all things are new, fresh from the hand of God.
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