The Return to Divine Revelation, Part 2 | The Authority of Revelation

Selected Scriptures

We’re going to talk about divine revelation. Starting with what we call, general revelation. Go to Romans 1 in your bibles, Paul starts out in Romans 1:18 like a prosecuting attorney. He’s making his opening statement and when he makes his opening statement, he’s not making it to a courtroom, he’s not making it to the jury, he’s not making it to the judge, he’s making it to the defendants. Sitting in the defendant’s seat are all the unbelieving. They’re all on the defendant’s stand and Paul’s opening statement, Romans 1:18, begins the warning because he’s already read the judge’s condemning verdict. He’s got a bible.

Romans 1:18, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” For why did you, why did you say that, Paul? Why did you say that suppress or hold down the truth? The truth that’s all around them and that keeps on coming up to the surface, why do you say they are holding it down? How can you say that? You don’t know every man?

Well, it’s because God says, “What can be known about God” verse 19, “is plain to them, because God is shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived. Ever sense the creation of the world and the things that have been made. So, they’re without excuse.” They’re condemned; they’re without excuse. The world that they’ve been placed into where they think they’re the captain of their fate and the master of their soul and all that stuff, it’s a moral world. It has moral requirements. The world around us demands that we bow and repent and turn our face to God and worship him and honor him and give him thanks.

So, God holds all humanity accountable for what they do with his revelation. In this case, with this general revelation. And that leads us to a, a need for a definition. What is general revelation? What do we mean by general? How to we distinguish general revelation from special revelation? I like Bruce Demerest’s definition. He says, “General revelation is the divine disclosure to all persons at all times and in all places by which humans come to know that God is and what he’s like.”

So, that term that he uses disclosure. Notice disclosure is not necessarily speaking. Disclosure, especially in general revelation, it’s not a matter of words, it’s a matter of what can be perceived. General revelation refers to what God has revealed about himself externally through the created world and then internally in each person, in the heart, by the conscience. It’s called revelation because it’s revealing something about God and God is doing it. God is in charge of it, he is revealing him, something about himself. It’s called general because it gives a general knowledge of God in a general way.

It’s general in the sense that it’s universal, it’s available. As the definition states, “to all persons, at all times, and in all places.” By contrast, the bible’s not like that it is? You see what I mean when we describe the nature of general revelation, but the bible is not available to all people, at all times, and in all places. We know places on earth right now, they don’t have the bible in their own language. That’s why we send missionaries to do translation work and so that we can put a spoken language into a written language and then teach them their own written language and then work through the bible and translate the bible from the original languages into a written language so they can have it. So, we know that the bible isn’t available to all people, at all times, in all places. General revelation is.

So, let me talk about the nature of general revelation in three points. Talk about how it’s general by virtue of its reach, its location, and its substance. Starting with its reach. General revelation in its reach is universal. For this I’d like to take you to Psalm 19:1 to 6.

A Psalm of David, it says, “The heavens declare the glory of God. And the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech. Night to night reveals knowledge. There’s no speech nor are there words whose voice is not heard, but then their voice goes out through all the earth. Their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent with a sun which comes out like a bridegroom leaving its chamber. And like a strong man runs its course with joy. Its rising is from one end of the heavens and its circuit to the end of them. There is nothing hidden from its heat.”

So, there are four aspects there of the universal reach of God’s general revelation. Illustrated there in the created world. In verse 1, “The heavens declare the glory of God. The sky above proclaims his handiwork.” That shows that these truths are universal. The heavens, who among us is not under the heavens. The expanse of the heavens, everything below them. There’s facts there, they’re observations, evidences. There’s mathematics that govern it, laws that govern it. We see all that. So, the heavens declare, the sky above proclaims. They don’t proclaim with words, they don’t declare with sentences and phrases, they declare just by being there and the fact that we’re all underneath them, those truths that they proclaim are universal. We’re all underneath them.

Verse 2, notice that it’s universal, the universal reach is universal in the sense of time. “Day to day pours out speech. Night to night reveals knowledge.” There’s never a time that any human being born on the face of the earth is transported like in Star Trek to a parallel universe where there is no such thing as God’s creation. We’re all here and day after day it’s pouring forth speech. In the sense of information is being downloaded every day, all the time, 24/7, every minute, every second, day after day, night after night. Whether it’s day or night, there’s something coming forth. Continuous, non-stop display of God’s glory, God’s power throughout all time.

Also, universal reach of general revelation is universal in its accessibility. Verse 3, “There is no speech nor there are words, their voice is not heard.” That is to say, you don’t have to speak the language in order to get the information. It doesn’t matter where you are on earth, what culture you grow up in, whether you are able to speak or you’re not able to speak, whether you’re deaf, whether you speak in whatever language, it does not matter. It’s accessible to everybody on the, on the face of the planet. Everyone has access to creation and to conscience and then in verses 4 to 6 you can see the location is universal. It’s the whole word. You see that imagery of the sun’s circuit. That means that wherever you are in the world, wherever the sun strikes, general revelation discloses the glory and the power of God.

So, again, contrast that with special revelation, the Bible. Special revelation also discloses God but it’s specific and it’s direct and it comes in written form where it can be read. But it’s not available as we said, it’s not available to all persons, at all times, in all places. God has chosen to give his word to certain people, at certain times, in certain places. Special revelation is not universal in its scope. General revelation is.

Now let’s consider the, the location of general revelation. General revelation is located most basically, it’s located externally or external to us and internally, internal to us. So, outside of us and inside of us. First, externally, we just saw that in Psalm 19:1 to 6 but we’re talking about creation and providence. We saw in the previous point what we can observe in creation. Providence, that’s how God governs his creation. We can also observe that. Providence is God’s superintending activity. Whereby he governs and cares for both the created order and our own individual lives all according to his will, to reach his ultimate ends and purposes.

So, creation is not a static thing that God wound up and walked away like the deists say. It’s dynamic and God is always involved in its activity in the world very clearly every day. In fact, just to see a little bit of that, go to Psalm 104, he says in verses 10 to 11, Psalm 104, “You make springs gush forth in the valleys, they flow between the hills, they give drink to every beast of the field, the wild donkeys quench their thirst.” So, there are beasts in places, animals in places that we don’t even see, we’ll never see throughout our entire life, no one will ever see them. God takes care of them.

Verses 14 to 15, it’s not just the animals he’s concerned about, “You cause the grass to grow.” But then he’s concerned about the animals because he gives it to the livestock. “Plants for man to cultivate that he may bring forth food from the earth. Wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, bread to strengthen man’s heart.”

Look at verses 20 to 22. “You make darkness and it’s night, when all the beasts of the forest creep about. The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. When the sun rises, they steal away and lie down in their dens.”

Verses 27 to 30, “These all,” creation basically, “look to you to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they’re filled with good things. When you hide your face, they’re dismayed; when you take away their breath they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your spirit, they’re created, and you renew the face of the ground.”

That’s God’s providence in caring for the earth. Caring for its beasts, its animals, its birds. Makingthe waters gush forth and water the valleys flowing between the hills. God does all of that all the time and that’s a testimony to his general revelation. How he reveals himself to all people, at all times, in all places. That’s externally.

 Internally, what’s the location of general revelation within ourselves? Here we’re talking about several things. The Imago Dei, the image of God in us. We’re talking about what Calvin calls the Sensus Divinitatis. We’re talking about the law of God and the conscience; that’s the law of God written on our heart and the conscience that convicts us or excuses us on the basis of what the law of God says.

First, we’ll talk about the Imago Dei. Genesis 1:26 God said, “Let us make man in our image according to our likeness.” So, since God created us for relationship with him, since he created us to have the honor of exercising his dominion over the earth and being created in his image means that we, who are composite beings made out of body and soul, having a material and an immaterial part, we make the invisible God, visible. Adam sinned and so, the Imago Dei in him was irreparably damaged. Handed down to us it’s distorted in us. There are vestiges of God’s image in us, even in the unbelieving. They still have a body; they still have a soul that animates that body. Internally, they still possess mind, will, emotions. Mankind is rational, volitional, emotional creature.

But apart from the life of God, the Imago Dei, is distorted by spiritual death. That was the judgement for transgressing his law in the garden. So, it’s in Christ, who is the very image of God, that the Imago Dei is perfect. The Imago Dei is restored, such that Paul tells us “Christ is,” Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God.” Christ fulfilled what we, in Adam, failed to do. He made that invisible God, visible. So, only he could accomplish that. “No one has ever seen God the only God who is at the father’s side, he has made him known.” And we, being in him were restored back to that initial purpose.

Internally God’s disclosed himself to all in the image of God being in us. Also, number two in the Sensus Divinitatis. John Calvin called it that. It’s, it’s referring to the sense of God that everyone has. It points to Romans 1:21, “For even though they knew God” That’s the sense of God right there, Sensus Divinitatis. “Even though they knew God, they didn’t honor him as God, give thanks. They became futile in their speculations; their foolish heart was darkened.” Again, this Sensus Divinitatis is universal. Every single one of us born into this worlddiscloses truth about God to all people, at all times, in all places. We all have this sense.

Third, there is general revelation in the moral law and the conscience. Romans 2:14 to 15. Paul writes about the moral law. The moral law that is, then the conscience uses as the standard by which it accuses or excuses. So, he says this when Gentiles who do not have the law, he’s talking about, don’t have a written law like the Mosaic law code. “But when they do instinctively the things of the law, these not having a written law code, are a law to themselves in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts. Their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.”

So, again, this is God’s universal disclosure of himself in every heart, that we all have this sense of God, and we have an understanding of his law innately. God hardwired his moral law in each man, each woman, each boy, each girl. He stamped it indelibly on their heart. He coded it into the mind so they can never live without it and then he placed a conscience within each one of us to hold us accountable to that moral law stamped on our hearts.

Again, it’s not there in words, it doesn’t come into our minds in formal expressions and language, it’s a sense we have. Moral law is that standard it’s written on the heart and the conscience is like the nerve of our soul. The nerve of our immaterial self, a nerve ending.

So, the conscience, it senses when we’re about to violate the moral law and it alerts us, bothers us. Sometimes the conscience never leaves us alone and so, some people try to quell and overcome the conscience by drinking or by taking drugs or by getting involved in ambitions and all the rest. They have all kinds of ways of trying to silence the conscience. Every individual man, every woman, every boy, every girl, in every culture, in every place in the world, at all times senses this law and senses this conscience.

We all understand justice to some degree. We’ve a sense of right and wrong, good and bad. Maybe warped and perverted because the conscience has been so seared that it just ignores certain things. But it forms a different standard so that it can adjust to it. We have standards none-the-less. Where did those standards come from? God. Our conscience bothers us when we violate the standard.

So, general revelation is general in nature because of its universal reach, its external, internal witness. So, what’s the substance of it? What’s the content of general revelation? The substance is about the glory of God. His nature. This invisible attributes, his eternal power of divine nature. All that’s made know and what God has created. It says in Romans 1:19 to 20, “What can be known about God is,” plain to all, “plain to them because God has shown it to them.” So, that shows, that, that reveals God is given, had an active role in general revelation. He’s showing it to them. “For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever sense the creation of the world and the things that have been made.” We think about eternal power, we think about omnipotence, we can think about the word eternal means eternality. His divine nature, he’s invisible. He is spirit. He is simple spirit, non-composite. God is all of his attributes. He’s immutable, unchanging. He’s infinite.

We organize all that by saying general revelation manifests something about the person of God and the power of God. The person of God, God is transcendent, he exists, he’s self-existent means he’s completely independent, he had no needs, he has no unfulfilled desires, no want, no lack. He’s complete and perfect, in and of himself. God is invisible, pure spirit. He’s infinite, eternal. He’s living spirit. God is sovereign. He’s in complete and total control of the universe that he made.

He’s also imminent, he’s near. He draws near to his creation by his good and wise providence. Like we read in Psalm 104, that whole chapter is like that. Inherent goodness manifest in his abundant thoughtful provision for every single creature, everything he has made. He’s conscience of it, he’s aware, he cares. And not only by what he made do we see his nature, but how he made it. The order and the wisdom that go into what he made in Genesis 1 is just incredible. How he governs it ever since. God is good, he’s intelligent, he’s all-wise, from the smallest bits of matter are sub-atomic particles, to the largest galaxy in the universe there’s such complexity in what God creates and sustains. Such order, such design, such purpose. Created, sustains it, takes care of all of it.

So, we learn about the person of God by general revelation. That’s part of the content of it and also, about the power of God. God’s power is sufficient to produce the sum total of all he’s made and all the individual parts of everything he’s made. So, whether you look at the universe as this huge complex thing or you look at an individual part and see what makes it up, everything he’s made his power is evident and resident there. Talk about even spitting an atom, causing quite an explosion, making a big mess, there’s power in the smallest things and power in the most giant things as well and God is the cause of it all.

He has power to control the oceans, the tides, the stars, the sun, gravity. He’s also able to hold mutually destructive forces from undoing one another. He keeps power in equilibrium, he controls it, so that it’s productive, it’s useful to mankind. All this he does for, and I marvel at this, all this he does for disobedient, rebellious creatures. Who don’t honor him as God or give thanks. He does this all the time. He’s doing it now. I’m breathing air because he’s gracious to me.

So, in the parts, God possesses power to be the necessary cause of each and every individual part in all creation. We are a complex of parts. Compounded with material and immaterial. They’re individual attributes that make us, us. They’re cells, atoms, we have emotions, thoughts, ideas. We have tangible parts, intangible parts. God is the only sufficient cause and explanation for all of those parts.

So, in the whole and in the parts, God is God and that’s what all this creation reveals. There’s obviously so much more we could say, but that is just a summary of the reach, location, substance of general revelation. General revelation is sufficient for what God designed it to do to disclose his glory. It’s sufficient to hold men accountable. Reveal himself but also hold them accountable. General revelation is, is authoritative.

 We’re seeing this now, aren’t we, with the, the whole transgender challenge. This transgender revolution where they’re saying, you can choose to be a different thing than what you were born. They talk about the sex that you were assigned at birth as if a doctor and your mom and dad just kind of got together and said, I know, let’s call it a boy. Or I know, let’s call it a girl. As if that’s arbitrary and they can go either direction. The one who assigns sex at birth, is the one who assigned it at conception, who assigned it from before the foundation of the world. It’s his world and so there is an authority to the sex assigned at birth and to violate that is to sin against creation and conscience. It’s a sin against general revelation. It’s a sin for which men and woman will be held accountable.

So, general revelation fulfills its purpose, it’s sufficient for what God designed it to do, disclose his glory, his eternal power and divine nature. It’s also sufficient, on that basis, to hold man accountable. General revelation is not sufficient to save and sanctify sinners. And that’s why David moves from general revelation and, go back to Psalm 19, he moves from general revelation in Psalm 19:1 to 6 and he moves to special revelation in verses 7 and following.

“The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.” There reviving is probably not, that, that kind of gives the idea that the soul was alive before and it just need to be revived. Probably the better term there would be converting the soul. “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” Causing the soul to be born again and to a new life.

“The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous all together. More to be desired are they then gold, even much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned. In keeping them there is great reward.”

Things that he finds in general revelation like gold, much fine gold, honey, sweet honey from the drippings of the honeycomb cannot compare to what he gets from words. Written words, law, testimony, precepts, commandments. All summarized in the fear of the Lord, rules of the Lord, statutes. These things in written language, language he can read and understand that go into the mind and instruct him and teach him. Cause him to go from simple to wise. That is what we need and that is those, it’s those written words, it’s special revelation that gives us the grid through which we can see the world around us, interpret it rightly and come to truly glorify God and benefit for ourselves.Description for this block. Use this space for describing your block. Any text will do. Description for this block. You can use this space for describing your block.