General and Special Revelation
Chapter 1: Of the Holy Scriptures
1. Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men unexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in diverse 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 the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing: which maketh the Holy Scriptures to be most necessary; those former ways of God's revealing His will unto His people being now ceased.
Imagine seeing a stranger walking down the street. What could you tell me about them based solely on observation? It is likely that you would only be able to come up with a general idea: maybe they're a student, or they like coffee (if they're carrying a cup), but could you tell me specific details about them? And specific details that are more than guesses? No, for that you would have to talk to them directly: listen to their life story, their likes and dislikes, etc. Now, lets ask the same question about God: what can you tell me about Him merely through observation, and what is going to require you to learn about God directly from Himself? The Bible tells us that there are two sources of knowledge concerning God. We call them both forms of "revelation," because both reveal God to us--or perhaps it is better to say that both are active ways in which God communicates Himself to the world--yet they function differently. These two forms of Revelation are called "general revelation," and "special revelation."
First, there is general revelation. General revelation refers to God's act of communicating Himself through the world He has created. This is what Paul says in Romans 1:18-32:
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
The very existence of the world--the laws that govern reality, the forces that causes atoms to bond into matter; physics, light, life, the heavens, the earth: all of these things which God has made are an expression of the person of God. As Paul says, His eternal power and divine nature are on display through them. And not only are they seen, but they are clearly perceived, and have been from the beginning, and so clearly seen, that when people refuse to acknowledge His existence, they have no excuse to do so. Perhaps you are wondering, then, why are there so many different religions in the world if this one creator God is clearly communicated in it? That is an excellent question. Paul will go on to say in Romans that mankind in His rejection of God (which started with Adam in the garden), mankind suppresses the truth, and exchanges the One true God, for something else--something they made up themselves and which they prefer over the Holy, Sovereign, and Righteous Creator. So because of humanity's sinful rejection and rebellion of God, "general revelation" shows humanity's guilt. Or to put it another way, there is no knowledge that leads to salvation in general revelation.
Now, the Westminster Assembly understood something very important about the other way God communicates Himself to humanity. They recognized that it is an astounding expression of God's generous grace that He would stoop down the infinite gulf and communicate directly with those creatures who spurned Him and rejected Him. Therefore it says in the Confession of Faith that "It pleased the Lord..." It doesn't say it was necessary for God to do this: He could have very easily just left mankind to His inexcusable guilt--that would be just and right and fair. Yet it pleased God to make Himself more known. "At sundry times" and "diverse manners" is an older way of saying "at various points in history," and in many different ways. That is, throughout history God spoke to people through visions, dreams, angelic messengers, direct verbal communication, and even by guiding the hands of those who would pen the writings we call the Scriptures--God's Holy Word. All of these forms of communication all declare something very distinct from what general revelation declared: the will of God. Now, what is significant about this? His will refers to His desire and His commandments to His people which are an integral expression of His character: we see what God values in the law, we see what God expects of humanity through His commandments in the Scriptures. Yet it is more than this. God's will also refers to His purposes, which, again, is an expression of--not just what He is doing--but who He is.
From beginning to end--that is, from Genesis to Revelation--we see God's purpose for creation, humanity, and history. And not only does the Bible disclose that purpose, but it records that purpose being carried out: God establishes His promise with Eve--the promise to undo what Adam had done through her offspring that would crush the head of the serpent to tempted them, and the history of the scriptures is the history of God further telling His people what He would do, and then, in the Gospels we see God's plan of salvation being carried out. The writings of the Apostles, who were witnesses to Jesus' teachings and resurrection, unfold the significance of the cross of Christ in our lives, and the final book of Revelation calls the church to faithfulness as we look forward to the next great (and last) big events of history: Jesus' return.
The Assembly was also very intentional in the wording of who God spoke to. And this is important, because various religious groups have claimed that God has spoken to them, and indeed there is a modern sentiment which says that "all religions equally lead to God." But the assembly, recognizes that God hasn't spoken to humanity as a whole--as if sometimes He is speaking to someone in Israel, and then the next day He spoke to someone in Australia. No, the Bible shows God speaking to one people: His church. And by church, the confession doesn't mean the building down the street where Christians meet on Sundays. No, by church is meant those whom God has called out of the world (the Greek word for church, ecclesia literally means "the called out") and established as a people set apart who bear His name and have been given His promises. In the Old Testament, the church was the nation of Israel. Now, that Christ has come, the church is all those who call upon the name of Christ who are spread throughout the world. The church building is a local and visible collection of those who call on the name of Christ.
In this way, God willed that His special self revelation would be a unified work that would span generations, and be preserved by a single community that would be devoted to the task of handing His word down from one generation to the next. In this way God made sure that His word--His self revelation from beginning to end--would be available to believers of all ages, and not just those whom He originally talked to. This is what the Confession means when it says "...and afterwards [that is, after He spoke to His church], 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 the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing."
There are several purposes which are given for the writing down of God's self revelation. The first is clear enough to understand: the preserving and spreading of the truth. God's messages were given in order to share them with others, whether it was His words to a prophet, or a promise He made--these things were meant to be shared with others, and passed on to the next generation. Along with this, the preserved Word of God strengthens and comforts God's people against the greatest dangers they face in life: temptation, worldly influence, and lies. Being written in stone, the Christian has access to God's word any time they need it, and when one hears a teaching or statement, they can now ask, "Is that in keeping with what God has said?" instead of asking "does that sound good to me?" Because, frankly, "Sound good to me," is not a measurement of universal truth as much as a measurement of what I like to hear. The Christian is surrounded by many voices which want to be heard: the temptations that come from our own desires and the world around us, the lies of the evil one, the influence of the world, personal fears and anxieties--all of these want your attention. But into this cacophony trumpets the Word of God, the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, with a clear and unchanging declaration of the truth. It is necessary for us to hear from God if we would be strengthened against these things and established in the truth, therefore God has given us the record of His self-revelation in the form of His Word, the Bible.
Finally, note the last phrase of this paragraph. The written form of God's self-revelation is necessary, because "...those former ways of God's revealing His will unto His people being now ceased." That is, God's direct acts of self revelation are complete. At one time He spoke to people through dreams, visions, direct verbal communication, angels, etc...but now that is ended. It is true that there are many people who won't agree with this view, yet consider what the author of Hebrews says in the very first chapter of his book:
"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."-Hebrews 1:1,2
"These last days" refers to the current, and final era of human history. For all of history, the people of God waited for His promised Savior to arrive, and then He did, and made the invisible God visible (Colossians 1:15), not just through His teachings, but through His deeds--through His entire life. But not everyone in the world could witness Jesus with their own eyes, therefore He prepared a group of men to be His witnesses to the world (Acts 1:8), He promised to equip them for this ministry through which many many people would come to faith in Christ (John 14:25,26). When Jesus died and was resurrected, He commanded them to go into the world and make disciples of all nations ( ), and they begun this work: they preached the gospel, they called people to repent and believe in He who died for their sins, who was raised from the dead, and who is one day coming back at the end of history.
You see? In these last days, Jesus has been the revelation of God, the fulfillment of the promises of God, and, as He Himself said, the One whom all the law and the prophets point forward to. This being the case, what more is there for God to say to His people? We have all we need to truly know God, and we know all we need in order to find salvation in the Son that He sent. This is why the Westminster Assembly recognizes that the "former ways of God's revealing His will unto His people" have now ceased. God does not change, His purpose of Salvation does not change, Jesus Christ the Son of God does not change--the church has all that it needs to know as we await His return.
The goal of Christ's people is not now to seek new messages from Him, but to listen to what He has given us already. A careful study of the entire Bible will show that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament alone are God's Word to His people--nothing new, nothing else. No person, no pope, no ideas or feelings, or philosophy of this world is to take the place of God's Word as the voice that speaks into our lives concerning life and godliness. This truth was something that the early church recognized, for when people started claiming to receive new messages from God, or tried to offer forward a book or letter that claimed to be written by a Biblical figure, or one of the apostles, they were generally rejected. This is what Athanasius of Alexandria wrote in his 39th Festal Letter in 367 A.D. about those later books:
"But they are an invention of heretics, who write them when they choose, bestowing upon them their approbation, and assigning to them a date, that so, using them as ancient writings, they may find occasion to lead astray the simple."
First, there is general revelation. General revelation refers to God's act of communicating Himself through the world He has created. This is what Paul says in Romans 1:18-32:
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
The very existence of the world--the laws that govern reality, the forces that causes atoms to bond into matter; physics, light, life, the heavens, the earth: all of these things which God has made are an expression of the person of God. As Paul says, His eternal power and divine nature are on display through them. And not only are they seen, but they are clearly perceived, and have been from the beginning, and so clearly seen, that when people refuse to acknowledge His existence, they have no excuse to do so. Perhaps you are wondering, then, why are there so many different religions in the world if this one creator God is clearly communicated in it? That is an excellent question. Paul will go on to say in Romans that mankind in His rejection of God (which started with Adam in the garden), mankind suppresses the truth, and exchanges the One true God, for something else--something they made up themselves and which they prefer over the Holy, Sovereign, and Righteous Creator. So because of humanity's sinful rejection and rebellion of God, "general revelation" shows humanity's guilt. Or to put it another way, there is no knowledge that leads to salvation in general revelation.
Now, the Westminster Assembly understood something very important about the other way God communicates Himself to humanity. They recognized that it is an astounding expression of God's generous grace that He would stoop down the infinite gulf and communicate directly with those creatures who spurned Him and rejected Him. Therefore it says in the Confession of Faith that "It pleased the Lord..." It doesn't say it was necessary for God to do this: He could have very easily just left mankind to His inexcusable guilt--that would be just and right and fair. Yet it pleased God to make Himself more known. "At sundry times" and "diverse manners" is an older way of saying "at various points in history," and in many different ways. That is, throughout history God spoke to people through visions, dreams, angelic messengers, direct verbal communication, and even by guiding the hands of those who would pen the writings we call the Scriptures--God's Holy Word. All of these forms of communication all declare something very distinct from what general revelation declared: the will of God. Now, what is significant about this? His will refers to His desire and His commandments to His people which are an integral expression of His character: we see what God values in the law, we see what God expects of humanity through His commandments in the Scriptures. Yet it is more than this. God's will also refers to His purposes, which, again, is an expression of--not just what He is doing--but who He is.
From beginning to end--that is, from Genesis to Revelation--we see God's purpose for creation, humanity, and history. And not only does the Bible disclose that purpose, but it records that purpose being carried out: God establishes His promise with Eve--the promise to undo what Adam had done through her offspring that would crush the head of the serpent to tempted them, and the history of the scriptures is the history of God further telling His people what He would do, and then, in the Gospels we see God's plan of salvation being carried out. The writings of the Apostles, who were witnesses to Jesus' teachings and resurrection, unfold the significance of the cross of Christ in our lives, and the final book of Revelation calls the church to faithfulness as we look forward to the next great (and last) big events of history: Jesus' return.
The Assembly was also very intentional in the wording of who God spoke to. And this is important, because various religious groups have claimed that God has spoken to them, and indeed there is a modern sentiment which says that "all religions equally lead to God." But the assembly, recognizes that God hasn't spoken to humanity as a whole--as if sometimes He is speaking to someone in Israel, and then the next day He spoke to someone in Australia. No, the Bible shows God speaking to one people: His church. And by church, the confession doesn't mean the building down the street where Christians meet on Sundays. No, by church is meant those whom God has called out of the world (the Greek word for church, ecclesia literally means "the called out") and established as a people set apart who bear His name and have been given His promises. In the Old Testament, the church was the nation of Israel. Now, that Christ has come, the church is all those who call upon the name of Christ who are spread throughout the world. The church building is a local and visible collection of those who call on the name of Christ.
In this way, God willed that His special self revelation would be a unified work that would span generations, and be preserved by a single community that would be devoted to the task of handing His word down from one generation to the next. In this way God made sure that His word--His self revelation from beginning to end--would be available to believers of all ages, and not just those whom He originally talked to. This is what the Confession means when it says "...and afterwards [that is, after He spoke to His church], 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 the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing."
There are several purposes which are given for the writing down of God's self revelation. The first is clear enough to understand: the preserving and spreading of the truth. God's messages were given in order to share them with others, whether it was His words to a prophet, or a promise He made--these things were meant to be shared with others, and passed on to the next generation. Along with this, the preserved Word of God strengthens and comforts God's people against the greatest dangers they face in life: temptation, worldly influence, and lies. Being written in stone, the Christian has access to God's word any time they need it, and when one hears a teaching or statement, they can now ask, "Is that in keeping with what God has said?" instead of asking "does that sound good to me?" Because, frankly, "Sound good to me," is not a measurement of universal truth as much as a measurement of what I like to hear. The Christian is surrounded by many voices which want to be heard: the temptations that come from our own desires and the world around us, the lies of the evil one, the influence of the world, personal fears and anxieties--all of these want your attention. But into this cacophony trumpets the Word of God, the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, with a clear and unchanging declaration of the truth. It is necessary for us to hear from God if we would be strengthened against these things and established in the truth, therefore God has given us the record of His self-revelation in the form of His Word, the Bible.
Finally, note the last phrase of this paragraph. The written form of God's self-revelation is necessary, because "...those former ways of God's revealing His will unto His people being now ceased." That is, God's direct acts of self revelation are complete. At one time He spoke to people through dreams, visions, direct verbal communication, angels, etc...but now that is ended. It is true that there are many people who won't agree with this view, yet consider what the author of Hebrews says in the very first chapter of his book:
"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."-Hebrews 1:1,2
"These last days" refers to the current, and final era of human history. For all of history, the people of God waited for His promised Savior to arrive, and then He did, and made the invisible God visible (Colossians 1:15), not just through His teachings, but through His deeds--through His entire life. But not everyone in the world could witness Jesus with their own eyes, therefore He prepared a group of men to be His witnesses to the world (Acts 1:8), He promised to equip them for this ministry through which many many people would come to faith in Christ (John 14:25,26). When Jesus died and was resurrected, He commanded them to go into the world and make disciples of all nations ( ), and they begun this work: they preached the gospel, they called people to repent and believe in He who died for their sins, who was raised from the dead, and who is one day coming back at the end of history.
You see? In these last days, Jesus has been the revelation of God, the fulfillment of the promises of God, and, as He Himself said, the One whom all the law and the prophets point forward to. This being the case, what more is there for God to say to His people? We have all we need to truly know God, and we know all we need in order to find salvation in the Son that He sent. This is why the Westminster Assembly recognizes that the "former ways of God's revealing His will unto His people" have now ceased. God does not change, His purpose of Salvation does not change, Jesus Christ the Son of God does not change--the church has all that it needs to know as we await His return.
The goal of Christ's people is not now to seek new messages from Him, but to listen to what He has given us already. A careful study of the entire Bible will show that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament alone are God's Word to His people--nothing new, nothing else. No person, no pope, no ideas or feelings, or philosophy of this world is to take the place of God's Word as the voice that speaks into our lives concerning life and godliness. This truth was something that the early church recognized, for when people started claiming to receive new messages from God, or tried to offer forward a book or letter that claimed to be written by a Biblical figure, or one of the apostles, they were generally rejected. This is what Athanasius of Alexandria wrote in his 39th Festal Letter in 367 A.D. about those later books:
"But they are an invention of heretics, who write them when they choose, bestowing upon them their approbation, and assigning to them a date, that so, using them as ancient writings, they may find occasion to lead astray the simple."