Page 37 - Doctrine and History of the Preservation of the Bible revised

Chapter 5: Is the Bible the Only and Final Authority?

Connect…

Several years ago, I journeyed into the bush country of Zambia in a very remote location. I met some
people there who had never heard of Adam and Eve and did not know who Jesus was. They had never
seen a Bible. I asked these people if they knew there was a Creator of all things. They answered, “Of
course!” They believed in evil spirits and spent much of their time trying to appease them so they would
not destroy their crops or burn their houses down. I asked these same people if they had ever
disobeyed or offended the Creator and they responded, “Oh yes! Many, many times.” How did these
people know that there was a Creator and that they had sinned against Him? Today we are going to
study how these people could possibly know this truth. Let’s learn how…

Objectives…

1. The student should be able to state the definition of both general revelation and specific revelation
and discover the differences between the two terms.

2. The student should be able to explain how God put into man a conscience as a part of his general
revelation to man.

3. The student should be able to explain why, without special revelation, general revelation is
incomplete.

4. The student should be able to discuss how important the illumination of the Holy Spirit is in
understanding God’s Word.

The Lesson ...

Revelation

The term revelation comes from the Greek word apokalupsis, which means “a disclosure” or “an
unveiling.” It is used in the New Testament of the disclosure of truth in general (Luke 2:32; Rom.
16:25; Eph. 1:17), of the disclosure of a specific area of truth (2 Cor. 12:1; Gal. 1:12; 2:2; Eph. 3:3), of the
second coming of Christ (1 Cor. 1:7; 1 Pet. 1:7, 13; 4:13), and of the book of Revelation (Rev. 1:1).
Theologically, Bible students use this word to signify God’s work of revealing Himself to mankind
through the various sources of revelation as in creation (Rom. 1:18-21; Ps. 19), in providential acts (Acts
14:17; Rom. 8:28), in miracles (John 20:30-31), through direct acts of communication (Ex. 3:1-9; Acts
22:17-21), through the person of Christ (John 1:14, 18), and through the Bible.

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