Doctrine of Revelation

The Doctrine of Revelation is one of the loci communes (doctrine of God, doctrine of Christ, doctrine of man, doctrine of salvation, etc), Latin for the common places or chief themes or topics of Christian theology.

The key to the study of Christian theology is the question of authority. Who has the authority to speak about matters of God and people’s relationship to him? Is it sacred Scripture, or is it the church? Authority ultimately lodges in God himself. Any other authority is a derivative authority that comes from God being, for example, the author of Scripture or his providential guidance over the church. Ultimate authority lodges in God himself. He is the one who has the ability to speak authoritatively about himself and his truth.

When talking authority, what does it mean? Authority is defined to mean the right to demand belief and obedience. People are all familiar with authorities in human affairs. For example, the state has a certain authority within a sphere of jurisdiction. Parents have authority in the family. Employers have a certain type of authority at the workplace. These authorities have a derivative power, and they also have a limited sphere in which that authority is exercised. By contrast, God’s authority is ultimate. There is no higher court of appeal from which God’s authority is derived. God is the final court of appeal. Moreover, God’s authority is unlimited. He has sovereignty over everything. Therefore, God speaks authoritatively on all matters.

The practical question then becomes: how does one discover God’s will and mind on these matters? How does one come to know what God thinks about these things and what he wants people to do? The answer is revelation. God has revealed his will and mind to us. So in talking about revelation, it is not the book of the Bible that has that title; rather, it is of God’s revealing his truth and himself to humans.

What does revelation mean? The word itself in the Greek has the notion of unveiling something that is hidden so that it may be seen and known for what it is. Revelation in this sense is the disclosure or the discovery (taking away the cover, taking away the thing that hides it) so that a matter can be seen for how it actually is.