As explained in an earlier article, God reveals himself to us—his revealing is a “revelation”.
Special revelation refers to knowledge about God, through supernatural means from God. Special revelation is “associated with human redemption and salvation”—through which God “progressively revealed his saving will, culminating in the coming of Jesus Christ into the world”.
As “special revelation from God is the bedrock foundation for Christianity”, Beeke and Smalley explain three doctrinal errors in chapters 15 and 16: how Roman Catholic Church exalts tradition, how Protestant liberalism looks to reasoning and emotion, and how liberalism includes other religions as sources of divine revelation. I will only summarize errors of the Roman Catholic Church and liberalism in article, because I do not quite understand the author’s explanation of Protestant liberalism.
Four modes of special revelation
God’s special revelation to us can be grouped into four modes:
- Verbal revelation through God’s spoken words
- Visual revelation through theopanies, dreams and visions
- Providential revelation through miracles
- Incarnational revelation through Jesus Christ
Firstly, verbal revelation is God’s spoken words to his messengers.
“Thus says the Lord” appear over 400 times in the Old Testament. “The words(s) of the Lord” appear more than 300 times. Prophetic message preceded by a statement that “the word of the Lord” came appear over 90 times.
The authors explain that “the word of God often appears in Scripture without any explanation of how it is communicated. At times, such as at Mount Sinai, God spoke with an audible voice. At other times, he sent angels … to speak to men as God’s messengers. It is possible that in other cases the words simply arose supernaturally within the prophets’ minds. This may be implied in Paul’s statement [in 1 Corinthians 14:29-30]”.
Secondly, visual revelation can include the theopanies, dreams and visions.
As the authors explain, “a theophany is a visible appearance or manifestation of the invisible Lord. The Lord ‘appeared’ to Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Samuel and Solomon. Often, we have no description of such an appearance, but God manifested himself to Abraham at least once in human form.” When we read about the ‘angel of the Lord’ in the Old Testament, the authors tell us that “it seems best to understand this … as a manifestation of the pre-incarnate Christ“.
“Dreams figure prominently in Genesis, which reports how God came to Abimelech, Jacob, Laban, Joseph, Pharaoh’s officials, and Pharaoh himself in dreams … God granted revelatory dreams to a Midianite man, Solomon, Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel in the Old Testament, and to Joseph, the [three wise men], and Pilate’s wife in the New Testament. They apparently continued among the new covenant prophets after Pentecost (Acts 2:17)”.
“Visions, in contrast to dreams, generally took place with ‘eyes open’ (Numbers 24:4, 16), so that the person saw supernatural realities not immediately present with him. God gave visions to Abraham, Jacob, Balaam, Samuel, and various prophets. In the New Testament, visions were seen by Zacharias, … Cornelius, Peter, Paul and John”.
Thirdly, providential revelation occur through God’s miracles. God “demonstrates his wondrous power through the prophets, Christ and the apostles in order to confirm, illustrate and fulfill his words”. Providential revelation could also take place through “ordinary, natural processes”, such as the “casting of lots by divinely appointed leaders”.
Fourthly, incarnational revelation was done through Jesus Christ. “All of Christ’s incarnate life is divine revelation … Christ’s every word is the word of God. He reveals God with every ordinary act of love and every extraordinary miracle. Though clothed in humility as he walks in Galilee and Jerusalem, Christ is the greatest theophany ever known … Christ’s transfiguration with Moses and Elijah … is considered a vision. His second coming will transcend all miracles and visions, and will show them to be mere sparkles of the supernatural glory that will dawn upon our fallen world”.
How does the Roman Catholic Church perceive special revelation?
Article 7 of the Belgic Confession states:
For since it is forbidden to add to the Word of God, or take anything away from it, it is plainly demonstrated that the teaching is perfect and complete in all respects.
Therefore we must not consider human writings—no matter how holy their authors may have been—equal to the divine writings; nor may we put custom, nor the majority, nor age, nor the passage of times or persons, nor councils, decrees, or official decisions above the truth of God, for truth is above everything else.This declaration was written in response to the Roman Catholic Church’s claim to interpret Scripture and to supplement it “with authoritative tradition, effectively making its own pronouncements a means of divine revelation”.
Four examples of such Roman Catholic’s belief is codified in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
- Divine revelation was passed down in two ways: orally as Sacred Tradition and in writing as Sacred Scripture, both of which flow “from the same divine well-spring” of supernatural revelation (II.80)
- The church “does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honoured with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence” (II.82)
- The church’s Magisterium has the authority to interpret the Word of God, and when it defines doctrine it does so “in a form of obliging the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of faith” (II.88)
- The pope, “as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful”, speaks with “infallibility” when “he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals” and his doctrine “must be adhered to with the obedience of faith” (CCC 891)
These traditions are in the form of “man-made system of human rituals that grotesquely imitates Old Testament ceremonial worship—a denial of the finished work of Christ—and an ascetic system that imposes unbiblical forms of afflicting the body in an effort to attain a man-made righteousness”.
With regard to the third and fourth points, the authors point to how the popes can contradict each other, when “three rival popes excommunicated one another, only to find themselves deposed by the Council of Constance, the decrees of which were then nullified by the very pope it appointed”.
“Just as the teachings of Moses and the prophets were corrupted by the Pharisees until their tradition contradicted God’s Word, so the New Testament warns that false teachers will invade the church, pervert the truth and draw people away. Therefore, there are many traditions claiming to be of God”.
In fact, Paul talks about how he was ‘exceedingly zealous was [he] for the traditions of [his] father’s’ (Galatians 1:14), and said that he preached a gospel that did not originate from men, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ (v. 12). Jesus warned that those “who exalt human tradition to the level of authoritative doctrine will inevitably reject ‘the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition’ (Mark 7:9)”.
In short, the authors acknowledge that the Bible can speak positively of tradition—that it is not inherently evil and can be a useful vehicle for the truth. However, there is no infallible tradition.
Does God’s special revelation occur through other religions?
Religious pluralism, from a theological perspective, is the belief that God works through all religions—with or without faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. While it is “at least theoretically affirmed in religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, it has a gained a foothold among professing Christians”.
“Religious pluralism is often illustrated by the parable of the elephant … in the in parable, six blind men approach an elephant. One meets its side and declares the elephant to be like a wall. A second, feeling its trunk, compares it to a snake. A third, touching its leg, thinks it much like a tree. And so on … this is the great thesis of pluralism: all religions are groping after the same divine reality that none of them can adequately describe”.
The authors go on to explain that “pluralism appeals to our appreciation for humility, compassion for all people, and the mystery of an incomprehensible God”. The authors refute by pointing to the posture of self-contradictory superiority over other religions—that it has a view of ultimate reality that is objectively true, but they believe that “all human knowledge of the Real is severely limited, indirect and flawed. If the pluralist were consistent, he would count himself as the seventh blind man—and shall the blind lead the blind?”
It also does not harmonize religions—it ironically affirms that all of them to be wrong.
In short, God’s special revelation does not occur through other religions. We must rely on the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This article is part of a series on systematic theology, based upon the first of four volumes of Reformed Systematic Theology by Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley.
