“The question of revelation in Christian theology is finally no less than the question of theology’s own ultimate source and norm… ” This statement serves as an excellent beginning point for our discussion of the Christian doctrine of revelation and its relation to the practice of theology. As these few words suggest, there is an intrinsically interwoven nature to the two ideas, more specifically, the dependency of Christian theology on revelation and, likewise, the comprehension of that revelation through the act of theologizing. With this understanding in mind, it will be the purpose of this essay to explore the Christian doctrine of revelation, examining the way in which it acts as the basis for the Church’s affirmations and the believers claim to have knowledge of God . To achieve this, we will briefly survey the underpinnings of the conception of revelation, and the way in which that revelation is and has been understood as occurring, with special reference to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Finally we will look to how these understandings relate to the study of theology and why they are important to it.
Before beginning any discussion of the Christian doctrine of revelation, it is important to first address one of the core assumptions that underpin the concept, the belief that God is unknowable outside of revelation. This idea is at the very heart of the meaning of revelation and speaks to the otherness of God, arguing that such a being is so far from the conception of human imagining and thought that a self-disclosure must occur . This is an understanding of revelation that is deeply rooted in both the Christian and Judaist traditions. Within the Hebrew Scriptures we see numerous occasions...
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Revelations of Divine Love is a 14th century masterpiece written by Julian of Norwich. This book is an account of St. Julian’s sixteen different mystical revelations in which she had encountered at a time of great suffering and illness. St. Julian focussed on the many “mysteries of Christianity.” Through her many revelations she encountered God’s vast love, the existence of evil, God’s heart for creation, the father and mother-heart of God, and the need to obey her Father in Heaven. Amongst these revelations the most powerful was the revelation of God’s love and character. Revelations of Divine Love is a wonderful source of revelation to connect a reader to the Father.
Theologian Vern S. Poythress wrote, “Theological systems, whether dispensationalist, covenantal, Calvinist, Arminian, or even modernist, have a profound influence on the way we approach a given [biblical] text.” There is no portion of scripture that is more influenced by the theological system of dispensationalist than that of biblical prophecy, particularly in the area of God’s redemptive plan from for humanity. The purpose of this essay is to establish that an appropriate understanding of biblical eschatology can best be achieved through a dispensational theological perspective.
Revelation is the process by which God makes himself known to us. Being that humans are finite and God is infinite, God must take the step to make himself known if humans are to truly understand God in all His majesty (Vandenburg, 2010). There are two ways God makes himself known to us, general revelation and special revelation. Theologians have generally thought, through our contact with nature, we are given the ability to know and interact with God. Nature, as created by God, is an element of general revelation.
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Revelation identifies itself as “both an “apocalypse”…and as prophecy”, making it distinctly different from the rest of the New Testament. “Jewish apocalyptic literature flourished in the centuries following the completion of the OT canon”, and it is scattered throughout the Old Testaments in books such as Daniel, Ezekiel, and Isaiah. Apocalyptic literature is full of “visions that dramatize the prophet’s admission to God’s heavenly council”, and convey their meaning primarily through symbolism. John brings a “balanced message of comfort, warning, and rebuke” in Revelation, testifying to the end of the world and the second coming of Jesus Christ. Apart from the OT literature, Revelation shows a distinct optimism toward the end of days, for “Christ’s death has already won the decisive victory over evil”, with the Kingdom of God already among believers. This book was written in “approximately A.D. 95 on the island of Patmos”, which is still standing to this day. It was written under the emperor Domitian, with Roman authorities exiling John “to the island of Patmos (off the coast of Asia)”. The events in Revelation are also “ordered
The first two parts of the book discuss the kind of theological-historical perspective and ecclesial situation that determines the form-content configuration of Revelation. The first section attempts to assess the theological commonality to and differences from Jewish apocalypticism. Fiorenza focuses of the problem that although Revelation claims to be a genuinely Christian book and has found its way into the Christian canon, it is often judged to be more Jewish than Christian and not to have achieved the “heights” of genuinely early Christian theology. In the second part of the book, Fiorenza seeks to assess whether and how much Revelation shares in the theological structure of the Fourth Gospel. Fiorenza proposes that a careful analysis of Revelation would suggest that Pauline, Johannine, and Christian apocalyptic-prophetic traditions and circles interacted with each other at the end of the first century C.E in Asia Minor. She charts in the book the structural-theological similarities and differences between the response of Paul and that of Revelation to the “realized eschatology”. She argues that the author of Revelation attempts to correct the “realized eschatology” implications of the early Christian tradition with an emphasis on a futuristic apocalyptic understanding of salvation. Fiorenza draws the conclusion that Revelation and its author belong neither to the Johannine nor to the Pauline school, but point to prophetic-apocalyptic traditions in Asia Minor.
LaSor, W., Hubbard, D., Bush, F., & Allen, L. (1996). Old Testament survey: The message, form, and background of the Old Testament (2nd ed.). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans
The book of Revelation literary genre are apocalyptic, prophetic and epistle. The author of this book is John of Patmos. Its was written circa A.D. 95-96 (Hindson & Towns, 2013). There are many key themes in Revelation. The most important themes are the message to seven ecclesians, three and a half years of tribulation ruled by the beast, Jesus’ second coming, the final battle between Jesus and Satan, the millennium, and beyond the millennium. The purpose of the book of Revelation was to inform people about the events before and after Second coming of Jesus Christ. Revelations denotes the past, present and future of what is yet to come during Earth’s end of days. Major events that Revelations denotes will occur when Jesus returns include: National
Revelation, the last book of The New Testament, is believed to have been written by the Apostle John circa 95-96 AD. The writings in Revelation revolve around the idea of the end of time, the second coming of Jesus, and the time of judgment. Revelation is believed to have more symbolism than most of the other books in The New Testament. Revelation 18:1-17 can be interpreted in a number of ways, but the most likely, when viewing this in a historical context, is that it is referencing the corruption of Babylon throughout time. This means that the author was not simply talking about what was occurring within Babylon at that time of the writing, but also what has previously occurred. By looking at what was occurring in the city during the time in which it was likely to have been written and other references to Babylon within the New Testament, it is obvious that the author’s discussion of corruption within the city was referencing more than what was happening at the time. Although some readers may interpret the text to be symbolic in meaning, Revelation should be read with a critical min...
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Corley, Lemke and Lovejoy (2002) agree with the importance of the two contexts defining theological hermeneutics as, the process of thinking about God, thinking after the event of revelation in the...