What Makes Special Revelation Special, Part 1 | The Authority of Revelation

Selected Scriptures

Tonight we want to start with the limitations of general revelation. As great as general revelation is in creation and conscience and all the things, we see of God’s eternal power and divine nature, we need to understand that God has designed general revelation with inherent limitations. It’s not to diminish general revelation at all, it’s just to say it does what it’s designed to do, and it’s not designed to do absolutely everything.

It helps us to see and appreciate, when we understand limitations, helps us to see and appreciate the need for revelation of God that moves beyond mere disclosure and what we can perceive passively so to speakand then it helps us to see that God created us, because he created us in his own image, by design we are created and designed to need God’s words, we need his mind, we need his thinking, we need his reasoning, and his words communicated to us.

So, that’s the first, the burden of this first part is to just show you why it is we need God’s words, and we can’t just be, stick with what we see revealed in, in nature. Perhaps you’ve heard that saying, all truth is God’s truth. Usually, all truth is God’s truth, is meant to dissuade anybody from arguing against the fact that we can dip into disciplines in the world and draw out truth from psychology or psychotherapy or phrenology, feeling the bumps and stuff on our heads, or whatever it is. We can dip into those sciences because, all truth is God’s truth. If we find truth there, we can extract it.

So, that’s the saying, all truth is God’s truth, and usually you hear it in the context when you challenge, hey should you be really reading all those psychology books to try to help this person with their problems? They say, well, all truth is God’s truth. I find truth here. I chew up the meat, spit out the bones, and I use it to apply to people’s lives. And so, all truth is God’s truth is meant to keep you from challenging that.

The saying, all truth is God’s truth is, it’s a tautology. It is true on its face. It’s true without having to prove anything. But it really does cry out for qualification. Especially in a modern, secularized age with a prideful confidence in unaided human reason. All truth is God’s truth, yes, but we don’t have equal access to what general revelation discloses about God.

All truth is God’s truth, but our analysis of what we find in the world is not equally reliable. I’m going to trust a brain surgeon over someone in IT to tell me about brain stuff. Does that make sense? We don’t all have equal capability to analyze what we find in the world. Our reason also, secondly, is fallen. And so, therefore, our fallen reason is not wholly reliable. In fact, our fallen reason is often more prone to lead us astray and lead us into error with what we find out there in the rocks and in the psyche and all that other stuff.

All truth is God’s truth, but all truth disclosed in general revelation, all of it is subject to interpretation. It’s subject to interpretation and, particularly, this is where we as Christians want to say we need the interpretive grid of what God revealed to us in his words, to look through his words that were given by the Holy Spirit, we need to look through that grid through this book that he’s authored and given to us, back to sola scriptura, we need to look through that grid in order to interpret anything around us. Psalm 36:9, “In your light, we see light.”

So, if we’re going to discover the truth that is out there that, all truth is God’s truth and we, we want to find truth in creation, we can find it in the cosmos and in the dirt and in the rocks, and in the cells, we can find truth there. But we need, we need the grid of special revelation to help us to see what is truth, what’s truly meat and what the bones are. You’re not going to find that in the unaided use of your reason just going into any textbook. You’ll be led astray very quickly.

So, be careful when you hear, all truth is God’s truth. It’s tautology, it’s a true statement, but it needs qualification and especially understanding the limitations of general revelation. So, let’s consider just some of the inherent limitations of general revelation. First, to say that general revelation is limited by design. It’s limited by God’s design. General revelation is limited in its witness by God’s design. It’s meant to disclose truths but not to speak words of truth. So, look back at Psalm 19 for a moment. And I’ll, I’ll just read there. “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.” And then verse 3. “There is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard.” And then in quote, air quotes ‘their voice is heard throughout all the earth, their words go out to the ends of the world.” So, what is missing from general revelation? In verse 3, it says, “There’s no speech, there are no words.”

General revelation in all of its forms, external witnesses and internal witnesses, it lacks articulate speech. There’s just a sense, a Sensus Divinitatis a sense of God. There’s a sense of right and wrong, a, a sense of ought and ought not, a should and should not that goes on to my heart when I’m about to commit sin, should not do that. The conscience does not speak with words, it’s just a sense.

But the first, notice the first thing that God did when he created Adam and placed him in the garden was what? Go feel your way through your job responsibilities? Test the different trees and see which one will kill you? No! God spoke to him. God told him what to do, what he created him for. What he put him there for. He gave him commands. He told him “Thou shalt not.” God never intended his creation to be the solitary witness of his glory. He drew near to speak to us and interpret to us the things he had made. Genesis 2:5 to 23, you can read that and see that God intends to convey inwards truths to Adam to help him to interpret the world he’s been dropped into.

General revelation provides the context for God speaking to us for his special revelation. General revelation is, is the setting that you could say special revelation is the center piece. General revelation is like the backdrop on the stage, but special revelation might be the main actors on the stage. They’re the ones that are doing the dialogue, everything else is backdrop and setting to give it fullness, to give it beauty, to give it glory.

So, God is the sole interpreter of the world that he made and his Word is the means by which he explains his world to all mankind. God created us for relationship with him. He didn’t, not as a means of his self-fulfillment, after all God’s independent, he has no needs, he’s self-existent. So, he has no needs to fulfill but he created us for relationship for our sake that we might give him glory, so that we can know him and proclaim his glory and that comes by words.

The general revelation can never fulfill all of God’s design to glorify himself because it wasn’t meant to. General revelation provides the context and the setting in which man learns about his creator, from his creator, and learning to interpret creation with words taught by his creator in special revelation.

So, first limitation of general revelation is that it’s limited by design. And the second limitation of general revelation is it’s limited by the fall. So, as we enter into the world and God interprets the world to Adam and Eve and, but then the fall happens and immediately we’re into another part of what God decreed. Limited by the fall.

So, the Bible tells us, and this is where you want to go back to Romans chapter 1:18 to 25. The Bible tells us that general revelation, in a sense was compromised in fulfilling God’s purpose by the fall because of its effects on us. Paul writes, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”

So, God put truth in general revelation and there’s no problem before the fall. It’s all there, there’s no suppressing going on. But then after the fall, after sin enters into the world, now there’s this holding down of the truth. That works contrary to the design of general revelation that God intended. I want you to see everything that glorifies me, that brings glory to my name. My eternal power, my divine nature. And man by his sin says, Nope! Not going to pay attention. It’s not there if I don’t see it. If I close my eyes, I can’t see it. I can’t intuit it. I don’t know you’re there.

So, by the fall, “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. For although they knew God,” and here’s what the fall did, “they didn’t honor him as God or give thanks to him, but because they didn’t honor God or give thanks, they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, animals, creeping things. Therefore, God gave them up.” It says in verse 24, “into the lust of their hearts, to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because” verse 25, “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie.” That happened in Genesis 3. God gave them truth; they preferred a lie instead. “And they worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator who’s blessed forever. Amen.”

So, the fall changed things. It changed what we could perceive. It’s not the fault of what God did because everything out there’s clearly perceived. What changed is us. We hid our eyes; we darkened our own souls. We became futile in our thinking because we preferred a lie to the truth. So when you start with a lie, it’s not going to get any better from there. It’s not going to get any clearer.

So, we’ve talked about this text so much because it’s such a foundational text. But just by way of review, just want to hit it again, just a couple of points. General revelation is completely, wholly sufficient to do what it is designed by God to do; to disclose the truth about God to us, but because of the fall, unaided, fallen human reason distorts what is clearly disclosed in general revelation. It turns what God designed for good into an opportunity for evil and an opportunity for idolatry.

So, sinners suppress the truth it says in verses 18 to 20. Sinners refuse to honor the creator with praise and gratitude in verse 21. Sinners elevate themselves over their creator verse 22 and they worship the creation verse 23 and verse 25. No fallen sinner is a neutral objective interpreter of the world. No scientist sits in the lab in neutrality. They don’t enter into a lab into this enclosed space and throw all subjectivity and all biases and all presuppositions, they don’t leave them at the door as they enter into the lab. They bring them with them because it’s inside of them. They don’t enter in and immediately go into divine objectivity mode. They can’t do it.

So, by unaided human reason, which is what Romans 1 says, we are biased against the truth. We have an instinct, a proclivity, a desire even, by our fallen nature to suppress the truth, to hold it at bay, to hold it down, to ignore it, and refuse to submit to it. That’s a condition that all unbelievers are in. And that’s why the saying, all truth is God’s truth is really misleading, because it gives the impression that we can have at it; just dive into the world as a neutral objective observer of the world. I mean we’re just scientists; we’re just looking at rocks. Oh, but your interpretation of what those rocks mean and what they’re telling you, that’s informed by worldview, that’s informed by your anti-Christian, anti-supernatural, anti-God bias.

So, you can’t dive into the world of general revelation without examining and exposing the presuppositions that we have inherited from the fall, those that bias our, and distort our perspective. There’s no such thing as neutrality when it comes to truth as Ephesians 4:17 and 18 also says, the mind is a battle ground and our battle is fought with ideas. 2 Corinthians 10:3 to 5, so, we can’t allow ourselves to be taken captive, we can’t allow our conversation to be hijacked, our thinking to be hijacked by the philosophy and empty deceit of an unbelieving worldview. We have to be consistent and reason from scripture, even to reason from scripture about our reasoning. We have to think from scripture about our thoughts. It’s called epistemology.

So, we have to have a biblical epistemology. We have to understand what we’re up against when it comes to looking at the world around us, looking at general revelation whether it’s creation, providence, conscience, the law of God written on the heart, whatever it is, we have to realize that we’re coming into it not as neutral creatures, we’re coming in with biases and presuppositions, we’ve in, we’ve inherited from the fall itself.

So, if general revelation has become so severely compromised because of the fall, and because its effects on our thinking, what use does general revelation have in a post-fall world? Thanks for asking. Here’s the purpose. God’s original purpose for general revelation, even in light of the fall, it has not changed. His purpose in revealing things in creation and conscience and providence that continues. His purpose hasn’t failed. General revelation keeps on doing Psalm 19, “The heavens declare the glory of God. Day after day they pour forth speech. Night after night they display knowledge.” That is happening all the time.

So, general revelation is doing what it’s designed to do regardless of whether or not anyone can receive it. You’ve heard that metaphysical question, if a tree falls in the woods and no one’s there to hear it, does it still make a sound? Silly question, yes, it does. George Berkeley’s metaphysical question, he’s arguing for immaterialism. He sees reacting against materialism and he’s saying, all that exists in the world are ideas in perceiving minds. There’s no matter at all. But that’s stupid because God made matter.

We know that material things and immaterial things exist because Psalm 19:1 says. Genesis 1:1 and then Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” There’s stuff that shows his glory. General revelation continues to display the glory and power of God regardless of the condition of those who perceive it. Immaterial realities and material realities alike declare the glory of God.

But in a post-fall world, general revelation takes on a new role, one it didn’t have in its original design. It takes on a new role and instead of only being the context and setting for special revelation, general revelation now takes on the role of providing accountability for the sinful mind. For sinful mankind, it becomes the basis of God’s condemnation for our sins. So back to Romans 1:20, “that since the creation of the world his invisible attributes his eternal power, his divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made and so,” What? “they are without excuse.” What they know to be true but deny. What they see, but suppress. What they understand, but won’t admit, won’t confess. God sees it and he holds them accountable to what they know, and they’re without any excuse at all. There is no one who will be able to stand before God and say, I didn’t realize you were there. They can’t claim ignorance.

So, because of general revelation, in light of the fall, general revelation has taken on a new role of holding sinners accountable to God for what they know to be true about God. What they know they ought to do because of general revelation, namely verse 21, “To honor God as God and give him thanks.”

So, because of general revelation sinners can’t plead ignorance. They know and because they know they are accountable, and they are left without any excuse at all for not bowing and worshipping and honoring God and giving thanks. So, just a, a couple of comments about the role of general revelation in a post-fall world.

First, realize that what God teaches in general revelation, or I should say discloses in general revelation, whether it’s in its pre-fall or its post-fall roles, what God discloses in general revelation does not save sinners. It cannot save sinners; it was never intended for the purpose of saving sinners. General revelation is for the purpose of humankind rejoicing in God and seeing the manifold glory of God and responding in worship and praise. But it, it was not ever intended and designed to save sinners. What’s needed for the salvation of sinners? Words. Words. Understanding.

So second, now that we live in a post-fall world and until we enter the new heavens and the new earth, general revelation will serve its original purpose for all the redeemed, but it’ll serve different purposes for sinners. For unregenerate, unbelieving, reprobate sinners, general revelation is the witness against the rebellion, it provides daily evidence of the justice of God’s condemnation against them and again, doesn’t represent any flaw in God’s original design for general revelation, his purposes to disclose his glory through creation and conscience continue unabated, but it does reveal the fatal flaw in the fallen creature, it reveals sin. It reveals the fact that something is inherently wrong and needs to be fixed.

Mind distorted by sin, reason not leading him to God as it ought to. Instead, the sinner takes what’s holy, righteous, and good and he worships creation instead of God. And if the rocks and the trees had a voice they would cry out in protest, point them to the God they ought to worship.

So, as wonderful as general revelation is and obviously it is glorious. We live in Colorado and every time we come out of here and we see the sunset, it is absolutely beautiful. God puts on the canvas of the sky, every single night a different design for us to enjoy and appreciate and love. And if any of us takes a drive up into the mountains or even drives east, goes into the plains and goes to the Pawnee Grasslands, or wherever we go, we see evidence of this magnificent glory of God’s creations and, and then we reason from that up to the creator and say, who is like you? What can I say but you are holy, holy, holy?

So, as wonderful as general revelation is, and it is, it is not meant to be a solitary, solo, lone witness to the glory of God. General revelation has an essential partner. We call it a Bible, special revelation, words of God. General revelation, as I said, is the setting and the stage for the main character and the main character is the conveying of God’s mind and God’s thought to us cause we’re created in his own image.

So, put those two together, general and special revelation, together they reveal the full knowledge of God that he wanted to reveal to us and that which he’s disclosed to us as creatures. Does the Bible contain everything, every fact about God that can be known? God is infinite right. This is a finite book, but it leads us in, infinite portals to discover the mind of God and as we enter into our eternal state, we’re going to be unhindered in any way from learning all about God. That is what I look forward to most is that continual learning and discovering and rejoicing in the God that I know and the God that saved me.

So, together full knowledge of God which he has disclosed to us as creatures. Let me read to you a couple of paragraphs from Berkhof, Louis Berkhof in Systematic Theology. “First of all, Kuyper calls attention to the fact that theology as the knowledge of God differs in an important point from all other knowledge. In the study of all other sciences man places himself above the object of his investigation and actively elicits from it his knowledge by whatever method may seem most appropriate, but in theology he does not stand above but rather under the object of his knowledge. In other words, man can know God only in so far as the latter actively makes Himself known. God is first of all the subject communicating knowledge to man, and can only become an object of study for man in so far as the latter appropriates and reflects on the knowledge conveyed to him by revelation.

“Without revelation man would never have been able to acquire any knowledge of God. And even after God has revealed Himself objectively, it is not human reason that discovers God, but it is God who discloses Himself to the eye of faith. However, by the application of sanctified human reason to the study of God’s Word man can, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, gain an ever-increasing knowledge of God.”

Skipping ahead, he says, “the position must be maintained, however, that theology would be utterly impossible without a self-revelation of God. And when we speak of revelation, we use the term in the strict sense of the word. It is not something which God is passive, a mere “becoming manifest,” but something in which He is actively making Himself known. It is not, as many moderns would have it, a deepened spiritual insight which leads to an ever-increasing discovery of God on the part of man;” Again, putting God underneath the microscope of man. “But a supernatural act of self-communication, a purposeful act on the part of the Living God.”

That’s a distinction then between general and special revelation. With general revelation we are over the subject. We are looking at general revelation as the object and we examine it by whatever methods we deem most appropriate. With special revelation the reverse is true. God, the subject, is the one who reveals, and then as the object we are still in subjection and in submission to him. And so, it is not unaided human reason but aided human reason and a submissive human reason, submissive to his will and his words.