Revelation

Revelation is a familiar theological expression, commonly applied to the knowledge of Himself which God has given to man in Holy Scripture. In itself, however, the word is properly used not merely of the divine knowledge communicated to us in Scripture, but of all divine knowledge communicated through whatever source. Conscience and reason are in themselves modes of revelation, in so far as they witness to us of the divine laws which bind our moral life, and in harmony with which the health and happiness of that life can alone be found. History is also a species of revelation, unfolding, as it does, the same divine laws collectively in the race. Then nature reveals the divine power, wisdom, and goodness; and science, the interpreter of nature, in so far as it makes known the great laws governing the material universe, truly makes known the divine will to us. But it is with the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament that the idea of revelation has come to be especially associated. The Holy Scriptures are by all Christians regarded as in a special sense the medium of divine revelation to the human race; God having therein made known more fully and clearly than elsewhere His will and character. But at the same time we must not confound revelation, in its fact and essence, with the books of Scripture. These books are only the highest or most distinguished form or medium of revelation, which, in itself, and essentially, must always imply communication from one mind to another, and, in a religious sense, from the divine to the human mind. Scripture is, in its several books, regarded as the pre-eminent medium of this contact or interchange of the divine and human, as the record of special communications which God made in time past to holy men, 'who spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.' It contains, in short, a revelation for us; but the revelation is not the record, but the knowledge which the record conveys to our minds. See BIBLE, INSPIRATION.