What is special revelation?

Question 1010

Special revelation is the particular, saving self-disclosure of God given through his mighty acts, his spoken word, the written Scriptures, and supremely through his Son Jesus, by which we come to know not only that God is but who he is and how a sinner may be reconciled to him. Where the witness of creation reaches everyone and tells us something of God’s power, special revelation reaches those to whom God speaks and tells us his name, his heart, and his plan of salvation.

The two channels belong together. The broad public testimony of nature and conscience leaves the human race accountable, yet it can carry no news of the cross. For that we need a word from God himself, and special revelation is the giving of that word.

What special revelation means

To call this revelation special is to mark it out by both its audience and its content. In audience it is particular rather than universal, coming to Abraham at Haran, to Moses at the bush, to Israel at Sinai, to the prophets, the apostles, and now to all who hear the gospel proclaimed. In content it is saving rather than simply informative about God’s existence, for it announces the way of redemption that no sunrise could ever reveal. The patriarch who heard the promise, the prophet who received the word of the LORD, and the reader who opens the Scriptures today are all standing in the stream of special revelation.

This rests on the truth that God is a speaking God. He has not left us to guess at his character from the silent grandeur of the heavens. He has used words, the most precise instrument for communicating a mind and a will, so that we are not reduced to inference but are given testimony. The God who shows his power in creation has opened his mouth and told us his name.

How special revelation has come

Scripture itself describes the manner of this disclosure in the opening of Hebrews. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” The passage, at Hebrews 1:1-2, gathers the whole history of special revelation into a single sweep and shows its climb towards a summit. God spoke through dreams and visions, through the audible voice at Sinai, through the symbolic acts of the prophets, through the giving of the law and the writing of the Scriptures, each a true word from God suited to its moment.

All of this was moving towards a person. The prophets spoke the word of God; the Son is the Word of God. In him the disclosure that had come in fragments and shadows arrived in fullness, for he is the exact imprint of the divine nature. When we want to know what God is like, special revelation does not finally point us to a doctrine but to a face, the face of Jesus, of whom John writes that no one has ever seen God, but the only God, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known. That declaration stands at John 1:18.

The unfolding of special revelation

One feature of special revelation that repays attention is that it did not arrive all at once. God disclosed himself in stages, suiting each measure of light to the moment in his unfolding plan. The patriarchs knew him as God Almighty; Israel came to know him by his covenant name at Sinai; the prophets added their growing testimony to the coming Redeemer; and only in the fullness of time did the Son appear and the apostles interpret his work. This gradual giving, in which the later word fills out and clarifies the earlier, is what we mean by progressive revelation, a pattern we examine in our study on how progressive revelation relates to dispensationalism. Special revelation has a history, and that history moves towards Jesus.

This unfolding reached its completion in the apostolic age. With the finished work of the Son proclaimed and explained, and the New Testament written, the content of special revelation was brought to a close. We are not waiting for a fresh installment, nor should we expect one, for the word that was given long ago at many times and in many ways has now spoken its final and fullest word in the Son. What remains is for that completed revelation to be carried, understood, and obeyed in every generation, which is a labour of teaching and mission rather than of further disclosure.

Special revelation and the Scriptures

Although the high point of special revelation is the Son himself, our access to him now is through the written word. The events of redemptive history happened once, and the living voice of the prophets and apostles has fallen silent, yet God in his goodness saw to it that the meaning of his acts and the content of his speech were recorded by inspiration, so that special revelation might be preserved and carried to every generation. The Scriptures are not a substitute for the God who speaks but the abiding form of his speech, the place where the disclosure given to Israel and the apostles becomes available to us.

This is why we say that special revelation is now closed and complete in Scripture, even though God still illuminates that word to the hearts of readers by his Spirit. The difference between fresh revelation and the Spirit’s illumination of the given word is one we explore in our article on illumination and new revelation. The Spirit opens blind eyes to see what is already written; he does not add new chapters to the canon. The dual character of the Bible as both fully human and fully divine, which we treat in a separate study, is part of how special revelation reaches us in trustworthy form.

Why special revelation is necessary

The necessity of special revelation follows directly from the limits of the witness in creation. We have argued elsewhere that the testimony of the natural order, what we call general revelation, is enough to make God’s power and nature plain and to leave every person without excuse. What it cannot do is tell a guilty sinner how to be forgiven. The stars proclaim a Maker; they say nothing of a Mediator. The conscience accuses; it cannot absolve. Without a further word from God, humanity would know enough to be condemned and not enough to be saved.

Special revelation supplies exactly what is missing. It announces that God so loved the world that he gave his Son, that Jesus bore our sins in his body on the tree, that whoever believes in him shall not perish. This is news, not deduction. It could never be read off the face of nature, for it springs from the free purpose of God’s love and was enacted in history at a particular place and time. The relationship between the wider and the narrower witness, and the way one prepares for the other, is set out more fully in our piece on the difference between general and special revelation.

Because saving knowledge comes only this way, the carrying of the word becomes a matter of great weight. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word about Jesus. The whole missionary impulse of the church rests on the conviction that people cannot believe in one of whom they have never heard, and that special revelation, once given, is meant to travel to the ends of the earth on the lips of those who preach it.

So, now what?

If God has spoken, then the right posture before special revelation is reverent attention rather than casual opinion. We do not sit in judgement over the word; we sit under it. To hold a Bible is to hold the recorded speech of the God who made the heavens, and to read it prayerfully is to listen to him. That should shape how we open the Scriptures on an ordinary morning, with the expectation that the living God means to address us there.

It should also shape our confidence in evangelism and our compassion for those who have never heard. We carry the only message that can save, and we carry it to people who already stand under the witness of creation and conscience. Special revelation is the lamp that the dawn could never light, and the privilege of holding it out to others is part of what it means to belong to the God who speaks. The word that has come to us was never given to be hoarded but to be heard and handed on faithfully, generation after generation. Let us treasure his word, and let us pass it on.

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 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