Christian Theology (Volume 1) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE NATURE AND MODES OF REVELATION. Seeing Revelation to be the principal and supreme source of Christian theology and what this means in relation to other authority, we must seek a definite understanding of its nature and modes. 1. What is revelation, in the sense in which the term is applied to the Bible as that source ? The essential conception of it is that of a supernatural and historical disclosure by God of Himself and of truth needful for the moral and spiritual well-being and destiny of men. It covers the act or process of disclosing as well as the disclosure given by the act . The New Testament word for it is textit{atroicdvlrK, a laying open of what was covered (Rev. i. 1), and its import is found in such passages as Matt . xvL 17; 1 Cor. ii. 10; Gal. i. 12. In its basal significance it expresses the historical movement of God's eternal purpose to provide and make known the way of salvation from the state of sin into which humanity has fallen, and thereby again to enable it to realize the true life and goal to which its creation looked. In its central reality it is God's self-manifestation in the person and work of Christ, including all the special preparations leading up to that, and the succeeding apostolic teachings which have unfolded its redemptive and saving import. It consists, therefore, in that whole providential administration and multiform instruction in which God has made known Himself, His willand grace, and human duty, opportunity, and destiny, through which Christianity has been established in the world, and of which the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the permanent records. That we may see this revelation in its right light we must recall some of its distinct characteristics and relations. textit{First, it is a te...