God’s Revelation
By Heath Jarrett
Basic to Christianity is the belief that the Bible is God’s word.
God himself has spoken to humanity in the Scriptures, both the Old and the New Testaments. If we want to hear God speak, we need not look any further than the 66 books that make up the Bible.
God chose to communicate to us in a way we could understand using our own language. Hebrews tells us that God did this over a long period of time and in many different ways, using the prophets (authors of Bible books) as his spokesmen.
“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets” (Heb 1:1).
Some of the ways God spoke to man were through dreams and visions, by angelic messenger or, at times, audibly. The ten commandments were even written “with the finger of God” (Ex 31:18). However God communicated his message, all of those revelations were recorded perfectly in the books of the Bible for our instruction.
God’s revelation of himself and his unfolding plan of redemption came in stages over a period of many centuries. Malachi wrote a thousand years after Moses. Amazingly, all of these authors collectively pointed to and anticipated the climax of God’s revelation. God’s final, complete and supreme unveiling comes to us in Jesus Christ.
Whereas God spoke in many ways and times in the past, “in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Heb 1:2). God speaks to us particularly and ultimately by displaying Jesus.
“These last days” points to the completion of God’s revelation, his final publication of himself and his plans to which all other eras were building. Jesus Christ is the consummation and capstone of biblical revelation.
Therefore, Christians must look to all of the Bible as the foundation of their faith, especially as it teaches us of the person and work of Jesus Christ. And because Christ is the culmination of revelation, they need not look any further. There is no new revelation which can add to that which Christ perfectly revealed in Scripture. Because he himself is the “radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb 1:3), nothing else is needed.
66 books. No more, no less.