Page 37 - Doctrine and History of the Preservation of the Bible Student Textbook

Study Section 5: The Bible, God’s Revelation to Man

5.1 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…..

5.2 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.

5.3 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.

Probably the best definition of revelation is this: revelation is the act of God whereby He discloses
Himself and His plan for eternity to His creation that would otherwise be unknown.

There are two principal types of revelation from God: 1) General Revelation and 2) Special Revelation.

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