The New Word: Gods Word for All People

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As powerful and universal as this is, however, it is inadequate or has certain limitations. It cannot tell us about the love and grace of God nor of His perfect holiness. To those who are inclined to hear, revelation comes with no regard for linguistic or geographical barriers. No one is excluded from this revelation of God. Wherever man peers at the universe, there is orderliness. At a distance of ninety-three million miles from the earth, the sun provides exactly the right temperature environment for man to function on earth.

Were the sun closer, it would be too hot to survive, and were it further away it would be too cold for man to function. Wherever man looks in the universe, there is harmony and order. Similarly, God has revealed Himself on earth v. The magnificence of the human body is perhaps the best evidence of general revelation on earth.

The entire human body—its cardiovascular system, the bone structure, the respiratory system, the muscles, the nervous system including its center in the brain—reveals an infinite God. It draws our attention to four vital characteristics of what the revelation of God in creation does.

In addition to creation, God has also revealed Himself to the human race through His providential goodness in the world and through the human conscience. It is through His providential goodness in supplying people with sunshine and rain that enables them to live and function Matt.

WHAT PARTNERS SAY ABOUT BIBLES FOR THE WORLD

He disciplined His disobedient people Israel Deut. Further, God has revealed Himself through conscience. While the Jews will be judged according to the written law, Gentiles, who do not have the written Law, will be judged according to an unwritten law, the law of conscience written on their hearts. Moreover, Paul says the conscience acts as a legal prosecutor v. While God has revealed Himself in His creation, which gives us general revelation about God, and in the person of Jesus Christ, which gives us revelation of God incarnate, our focus in bibliology is on the revelation of God in the Bible, the written Word of God.

Accordingly, the Bible may be regarded as completing the intended divine revelation of God partially revealed in nature, more fully revealed in Christ, and completely revealed in the written Word. This section will examine how God has revealed Himself in special revelation.

The nature of this mode of revelation is that it consists primarily of words. The author of Hebrews reminds us that God has made Himself known by speaking long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, and in these last days has spoken to us in His Son Heb. There are three elements to special revelation: After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will Heb.

Again we see the same elements: Special revelation involves a narrower focus than general revelation and is restricted to Jesus Christ and the Scriptures. Of course, all that is known of Christ is through the Scriptures; therefore, it can be said that special revelation is restricted to the Scriptures. Why does man need special revelation?

This necessitated the need for special revelation so God could reveal Himself and His plan of salvation that man in turn might be reconciled from his condition of alienation and restored to fellowship with God.

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In addition to the above, man needs special revelation for two more important reasons. First, so he correctly interpret the truths revealed in general revelation, and second, because these general truths are very limited. As is obvious from the many religions of the world, man consistently misinterprets what he can learn from creation or providence. Drawing on his knowledge of the Old Testament and the testimony of those who had personally heard the Lord Jesus, the author of Hebrews speaks of the various ways God has spoken to reveal Himself in history through the prophets and then through His Son who is the very outshining of God Heb.

Ryrie gives us an excellent summary of the various avenues God has used to reveal Himself. While today we would not highly regard the use of the lot, it did serve sometimes to communicate the mind of God to man Prov. The Urim and Thummim: The breastplate which the high priest wore in the Old Testament was a square piece of beautiful material which was folded in half and open at the top like a pouch.

It was adorned with twelve precious stones on which were engraved the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. God apparently used dreams to communicate many times during the Old Testament period, and He will do so again at the time of the second coming of Christ Gen. Nonbelievers as well as believers experienced God-given dreams Gen. Though a common experience, dreams were used by God in this special way to reveal truth. In a vision the emphasis seems to be on what is heard, while in a dream, on what is seen.

Also the human being involved seems to be more active in receiving a vision Isa. Before the Incarnation, theophanies were associated with the appearance of the Angel of the Lord who communicated the divine message to people Gen. God also uses created angels to carry His message to people Dan. They spoke with authority because they were communicating the Word of the Lord. Delivering the people of Israel from Egypt revealed the righteous acts of the Lord, according to Micah 6: Acts of judgment reveal who God is Ezek.

And, of course, the incarnation of Christ exegeted God John 1: It does not go without saying today that these events have to be historical and factual in order also to be communicative; for today some are putting existential faith before the historical.

In other words, they are attempting to create revelation apart from historical facts. Such existential historiography was never a part of the framework of the biblical writers. Not only must the events be historical, but they also need to be interpreted through divine inspiration if we are to understand accurately their meaning. For example, many people were crucified; how do we know that the crucifixion of one Jesus of Nazareth paid for the sins of the world?

The Word of special revelation clarifies and correctly interprets the obscurity of the meaning of events. Undebatably the incarnation of Jesus Christ was a major avenue of special revelation. He exegeted the Father John 1: Our Lord did all this by both His acts John 2: Actually the Bible serves as the most inclusive of all the avenues of special revelation, for it encompasses the record of many aspects of the other avenues.

Though God undoubtedly gave other visions, dreams, and prophetic messages that were not recorded in the Bible, we know no details of them. Too, all that we know about the life of Christ appears in the Bible, though, of course, not all that He did or said was recorded in the Scriptures John But the Bible is not simply the record of these other revelations from God; it also contains additional truth not revealed, for example, through the prophets or even during the earthly life of Christ.

So the Bible, then, is both the record of aspects of special revelation and revelation itself. The revelation in the Bible is not only inclusive yet partial, it is also accurate John Two approaches exist as to the credibility of the scriptural revelation. Fideists insist that the Scripture and the revelation it contains is self-authenticating, that is, autopistic.

The infallibility of the Bible must be presupposed and can be because the Scripture says it is inspired and the Spirit accredits it. Empiricists, on the other hand, stress the intrinsic credibility of the revelation of the Bible as being worthy of belief, that is, axiopistic. My feeling is that there is truth in both approaches so that both can and should be used.

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We were always looking for ways to get the Bible to remote places, and this was certainly what we had been hoping to find!

Before, we had supported my first cousin Patricia, a medical Christian missionary who worked in the remotest areas of New Guinea her whole life. After she retired due to illness, we continued to support an air mission who flew supplies to Christian missionaries in remote areas until it concluded. Each person is born with a longing to find God and Christian fellowship in this world. We feel so privileged that we found Ro and Mawii so many years ago.