In Systematic Theology, the Doctrine of Revelation frequently comes before the doctrine of God Himself. Why? Because we need to know how and why we know anything about God. This answers the epistemological question: “How do we know what we know?”

The answer is God. More completely, we only know what we know about God because God has been pleased to reveal Himself to we who are created in His image. If God did not reveal Himself, we would never know Him. The revelation of Himself that God has given is enough, though it is not complete. In other words, we know enough about God to know Him, while we do not know everything about Him.

It has been said that God cannot be discovered by human beings, so to make Himself known to us, He has “discovered Himself” to us. That self-disclosure is called revelation. (And for the sake of clarity, we are considering the Doctrine of Revelation, not the Book of the Revelation.)

God’s revelation of Himself has been progressive.

1. God’s initial revelation of Himself is three-fold. (1) In Creation. God has revealed Himself through creation. In Creation God reveals something of His power, creativity, majesty, wisdom, and authority. (Romans1:20, Ps.19:1-6). (2) In Man. Man reveals God as God’s image bearer. Man does not merely have or carry the image of God; man is the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27, Ps.8). (3) In His Word (Ps. 33:6). God created all by the power of His Word (Genesis 1:3-25).

God is revealed in man, His image bearer. Before the Fall, the image of God in man, though not complete[1], was untainted by sin. After the Fall, the image of God in man was marred by sin. In this fallen state, man suppresses the knowledge of God[2] (Romans 1:18). Immediately upon being confronted with his sin, Adam was given another revelation of God through the first evangel, or first proclamation of God’s plan of redemption through Christ (Genesis 3:15).

There were four attributes of God’s revelation to Adam: (1) It was clear, understandable. (2) It was authoritative. Only God has the authority to give this revelation. (3) It was necessary. Without revelation, God is undiscoverable. (4) It was sufficient. The revelation God was pleased to give included all that Adam needed to know. It did not include everything there is to know, or even what God has been pleased to reveal since, but it did include everything that man needed to know at that time.

Next Time: More about God’s progressive revelation of Himself.

Notes:
[1] The image of God in man is not complete because God is infinite and man is not.
[2] Why? Because rebellious mankind does not want to submit to God and so he erroneously believes that if he can get rid of God, he will not have to submit to Him.