Theology vs. Revelation
Is it possible to know about a person without truly knowing them? To truly know them demands that we have a face-to-face, personal, ongoing relationship with them. Theology is the study about God and often reaches only to the level of knowing about Him. It seldom leads us to the blessing of truly knowing God. Revelation is God manifested to our spirit, where truth becomes real and relationship deepens, allowing us to know God in a divinely unique way.
These diverging ways to live are revealed at the beginning of God’s word to us. In Genesis 2:9, God gave the first humans a choice: “And out of the ground Yahweh God caused to grow every tree that is desirable in appearance and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
It was a simple choice but it had profound meaning about God’s creation of the human race. One choice would lead to life — -God’s life growing in us. The other choice provided the first humans with their own knowledge apart from God. They could experience the knowledge of good and evil without consulting with Him. One choice would lead to complete dependence upon the life of God, and the other would open the way for dependence upon one’s personal knowledge. Well, we know how that turned out. This account shows us the two choices all humans come to — God’s way of divine life, or man’s way of created knowledge. Our ancestral parents chose to ignore God’s life so they could live by human knowledge as their guide in life. We must not make that mistake.
Today, we face the same challenge in our journey toward being faithful followers of Jesus Christ. Tragically, much of traditional Christianity walks this journey depending on human knowledge instead of God’s revelation to us of His life. Leaders of churches are often chosen based on their educational prowess and the degrees listed after their names. Their ability to preach a sermon or manage the affairs of a large congregation and draw in new members must be clear on the resume they offer. Knowing Christ deeply has somehow been relegated to a secondary concern.
Paul declared this to the church in Corinth:
And when I came to you, brothers, I did not come with superiority of word or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the witness of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my word and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. (1 Cor 2:1–5)
I’m sorry to say Paul would probably not be successful in seeking a leadership position in many of today’s traditional churches. His emphasis would be on the person of Jesus Christ, the demonstration of the Spirit and the power of God, and his desire to avoid the wisdom of men in favor of demonstrating the life of God. He would care less about marketing and church growth principles than deeply knowing God.
In encouraging them to seek God, he said, “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Cor 8:1). Reliance on human knowledge without revelation often produces arrogance because, like Adam and Eve, we elevate our knowledge over the life of God.
Paul prayed for the church in Ephesus with this amazing request:
. . . that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the full knowledge of Him, so that you — the eyes of your heart having been enlightened — will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe according to the working of the might of His strength (Eph 1:17–19).
Paul was praying for his Christian brothers and sisters in Ephesus that they would receive “a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him.” The key to that prayer is the last six words, “in the full knowledge of Him.” He wanted them to receive into their spirit wisdom and revelation that encouraged them to know Christ more deeply. The human spirit was given to us to connect with God so we can get to know Him fully. This is why Jesus started His last prayer with the words, “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent” (John17:3).
Jesus repeated seven times in the letters to the seven churches, “… he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev 2:7f). God speaks to us through His Spirit, communicating with our spirit, if we listen and hear. This is revelation.
Some pastors have a problem with this because they fear it opens the door to people teaching extra-biblical doctrines. The canon has been completed, but God has not ceased speaking to the hearts of His children. They also teach that the gifts of the Spirit have ceased because they wrongly interpret them as avenues for introducing new doctrine.
I will use the gift of prophecy as an example. The word prophecy means to speak forth. The Holy Spirit speaks something to our spirit and we share it with others. Paul explains that the purposes of prophecy in the church era are “for edification and exhortation and encouragement” (1 Cor 14:3). This is not continuing revelation but God speaking to someone to help them grow and be strengthened in Christ. The Bible canon is complete, so the Holy Spirit is now establishing and growing the church by aiding the saints to minister to one another through the written word of God (Acts 2:42; Eph 4:12–16).
I do not doubt that the spiritual gifts have been abused to introduce continuing revelation. Anything that the Holy Spirit gives us is susceptible to abuse. Perhaps the most abused gift in today’s churches is the gift of pastor. Because we have a worldly view of the way the church is to function, we have reinvented the role of pastors. We have made them out to be CEO’s of large companies instead of the humble, mature shepherds of the family of God (Acts 20:17, 28; 1 Peter 5:1–4). When one person assumes control of a church, the gift is being abused because God’s family was meant to be led by mature men setting examples for the saints to follow (1 Peter 5:3; 1 Tim 3:1–7). The only example in scripture of one person taking control of the church is Diotrephes, who was utterly reprimanded for doing so (3 John 9, 10).
The gifts of the Holy Spirit and revelation are likewise misunderstood because of the way we have come to express church life. We have abandoned the simple, pure way of gathering family-style with open sharing and no one up front controlling the meeting. Because we have forsaken family life gatherings in favor of large American-style meetings, and our devotion to numbers, we have allowed the church to function by human knowledge and ingenuity rather than being led by the Spirit.
Many teachers who believe that the gifts of the Spirit and revelation have been rescinded use 1 Cor 13:8–12 as their evidence. The passage reads as follows:
Love never fails, but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. When I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.
In using this passage, they have proven themselves wrong because the passage teaches that the spiritual gifts will be present for the entire church age. They searched the scriptures looking for evidence that the gifts will be withdrawn and this is what they found. The only problem is that the passage teaches that these revelatory gifts would be operating in the church until “the perfect comes.” They took “the perfect” to be the completion of the canon of the Bible. Once we had the full, recognized Bible, so they thought, we would no longer need the gifts and revelation since we could simply read the Bible. We abandoned revelation for theology.
However, the passage describes “the perfect” as the time when we will no longer see in a mirror dimly but will see “face to face,” and we will no longer have partial knowledge but will “know fully just as I also have been fully known.” This passage is obviously saying that the “perfect” is when we see Jesus in person at His second coming. At that time, everything will be perfect (complete in the Greek). At the completion of the church age, when we see Christ in person, we certainly will no longer need revelatory gifts.
So when this failed, those who believe the gifts have been rescinded turned to practical arguments. They noted that the apostles and prophets were used by God to lay the foundation of the church, so they presume that when the original apostles died, the gifts died with them. Yes, the apostles laid the foundation for the church but the building continues. You don’t lay a foundation and then walk away. Rather, you continue the construction of the building with other gifted builders. Paul told the Corinthians that we are the continuing builders and we need to be careful how we build (1:10–16). The apostles and prophets are still with us but their roles have changed because of the completion of the Bible canon.
The difference is that since the canon of scripture is complete, the apostles assume the different role of church planters and the prophets help the saints to edify, exhort and encourage one another, helping the saints to do the work of the ministry (Eph 4:11, 12; 1 Cor 14:3, 30, 31) to the building up of the church (Eph 2:19–22). There is no continuing revelation of new doctrines but certainly there is continuing revelation to the hearts of believers.
In Peter’s Acts 2 sermon he quotes Joel’s prophecy saying ‘‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams” (Acts 2:17, 18). Are these not still the last days? We still need our sons and daughters to prophesy, have visions or dream dreams because we still live in the last days before the completion of the church age. On the other hand, we must keep in mind that the Holy Spirit does not give forth revelation that transcends the finished canon of scripture.
Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit, who would “teach us all things” (John 14:26). Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying. Theology, rightly used to help us know God more deeply, is a valuable asset to the body of Christ. But let us not fall into the trap of rejecting His revelation to us to edify, exhort and encourage one another to the building up of the body of Christ.
