QUOTES - REVELATION
First and foremost in our study of the Scriptural doctrine of inspiration we must vigorously assert the fact that Scripture regards itself as God-breathed (E. J. Young, Thy Word is Truth).
Revelation, in the biblical sense of the term, is the communication of information (E. J. Young, Thy Word is Truth).
Inspiration is more of the nature of superintendence; revelation is more of the nature of instruction and information (William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology).
Revelation in the restricted sense, we have seen, denotes the communication of truth or facts hitherto unknown to man, and incapable of being deduced from the structure of the human intellect, or derived through the ordinary channels of human information (William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology).
Our knowledge of God is totally dependent on revelation (I Cor. 2:11) (Robert Reymond, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith).
Christians should be overwhelmed by the magnitude of this simple truth that they take so much for granted—that the eternal God has deigned to share with us some of the truths that are on his mind. He condescends to elevate us poor undeserving sinners by actually sharing with us a portion of what he knows (Robert Reymond, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith).
Accordingly, just because God is rational, self-consistent, and always and necessarily truthful, we should assume that his inscripturated propositional revelation to us—the Holy Scripture—is of necessity also rational, self-consistent, and true (Robert Reymond, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith).
Revelation must needs consist in this, that God speaks concerning Himself and imparts His knowledge in a form the creature can receive, in a creaturely measure (Herman Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics).
God is not some vague, impersonal power, nor a being without self-consciousness, but a personal Essence. He is absolute personality. This truth is implied in the very idea of revelation. For revelation means that God speaks concerning Himself to the creature; and this speech concerning Himself to us presupposes that He speaks eternally to Himself through His infinite Word (Herman Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics).
In Christian theology the doctrine of revelation is the doctrine of God's making Himself, and relevant truths about Himself, known to man (J. O. Buswell, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion).
In closing this chapter on revelation and the inspiration of the Bible, I should like to add my personal testimony and state that in my entire educational life, in the universities and graduate schools, as well as in my teaching ministry over a period of thirty-five years, endeavoring to keep as well informed as possible in biblical scholarship, I have never encountered any facts which do not fall in line with the evidence for the complete truthfulness of what the Bible has to say in any field (J. O. Buswell, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion).
To assert that ultimate truth cannot be communicated to man in propositional statements is to talk utter nonsense (Edward J Young, Genesis 3).
To say that porpositional staements are merely inferences of the truth and not expressions of the truth itself is contrary to Scripture (Edward J Young, Genesis 3).
By revelation, we mean the knowledge which God conveys by direct supernatural instruction, pre-eminently that given in the book known as the Bible (James P. Boyce, Abstract of Theology).
By faith one either accepts God’s revelation in Scripture as the inspired infallible rule of doctrine and conduct, or he rejects it as such; he may believe either the Scriptures or the presuppositions and postulates of human reason (J. A. Schep, The Nature of the Resurrection Body).
The God of revelation is the God who can only be known through revelation (Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God).
Revelation is that act of God whereby he discloses himself or communicates truth to the mind, whereby he makes manifest to his creatures that which could not be known in any other way (Henry C. Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology).
The true church has believed all through its history that the Bible is the embodiment of a divine revelation and that the records which contain that revelation are genuine, credible, canonical, and supernaturally inspired (Henry C. Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology).
Revelation has to do with the communication of truth that cannot be otherwise discovered; inspiration has to do with the recording of revealed truth (Henry C. Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology).
By revelation is meant not primarily the imparting of information but rather the disclosure, appearance, self-giving, self-evidencing of God (Thomas C. Oden, Systematic Theology).
Revelation is, it is true, never the mere communication of knowledge, but it is a life-giving and a life-renewing communion By revelation is meant not primarily the imparting of information but rather the disclosure, appearance, self-giving, self-evidencing of God (Thomas C. Oden, Systematic Theology).
What is directly revealed to us, we feel, is not truths or doctrines about God, but God himself. Our doctrines about God are always secondary to our direct finding of God in the realities of our experience . . . God does not communicate with us: He does something far better—He communes with us. Not the communication of propositions but the communion of spirits is the last word about divine revelation (J. Baillie, The Place of Jesus Christ in Modern Christianity).
Revelation is to be counted, not as the answer to a problem, but as the unfolding of a mystery (E. P. Dickie, God is Light).
God's revelation is a unity: every obedience brings clearer insight into His will (E. P. Dickie, God is Light).
God speak to reason to say that which is above reason; and reason must be ready to be called upward (E. P. Dickie, God is Light).
Revelation produces conviction and the conviction so produced may be characterized by the sense that all is of God; that it is the divine truth itself which comes to the human heart to exercise a sway that cannot be challenged or gainsaid (E. P. Dickie, God is Light).
It is impossible for us by observation or by any thinking of our own to reach what God is and what He wills. We are thrown back on His own revelation (E. P. Dickie, God is Light).
Thus the gulf between the Creator and the finite creature has been bridged by revelation, and the absolute mystery of that transcendent source from which we come has been illumined to our spirits and made partially intelligible to our minds. To Christians, therefore, the transcendence of God implies and requires the revelatory acts of God. And for this reason, Christian theology rightly feels that all that it can validly say about the transcendent God must be based upon and guided by God's revelation of Himself (Langdon Gilkey, Maker of Heaven and Earth).
It is, therefore, at the very heart of biblical revelation to say that God has condescended to our capacity for language when he conveys to us the things of God verbally, in language (A. J. Conyers, A Basic Christian Theology).
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