God’s communication to people concerning Himself, His moral standards, and His plan of salvation.
God is a personal Spirit distinct from the world; He is absolutely holy and is invisible to the view of physical, finite, sinful minds. Although people, on their own, can never create truth about God, God has graciously unveiled and manifested Himself to mankind. Other religions and philosophies result from the endless human quest for God; Christianity results from God’s quest for lost mankind.
God has made Himself known to all people everywhere in the marvels of nature and in the human conscience, which is able to distinguish right from wrong. Because this knowledge is universal and continuous, by it God has displayed His glory to everyone (Ps. 19:1–6).
Some Christians think that only believers can see God’s revelation in nature, but the apostle Paul said that unbelievers know truth about God: The unrighteous must have the truth to “suppress” it (Rom. 1:18); they “clearly see” it (Rom. 1:20); knowing God, they fail to worship Him as God (Rom. 1:21); they alter the truth (Rom. 1:25); they do not retain God in their knowledge (Rom. 1:28); and knowing the righteous judgment (moral law) of God, they disobey it (Rom. 1:32). The reason the ungodly are “inexcusable” (Rom. 2:1) before God’s righteous judgment is that they possessed but rejected the truth God gave them.
What can be known of God from nature? God’s universal revelation makes it clear that God exists (Rom. 1:20), and that God, the Creator of the mountains, oceans, vegetation, animals, and mankind, is wise (Ps. 104:24) and powerful (Psalm 29; 93; Rom. 1:20). People aware of their own moral responsibility, who know the difference between right and wrong conduct and who have a sense of guilt when they do wrong, reflect the requirements of God’s moral law (the Ten Commandments) that is written on their hearts (Rom. 2:14–15).
What is the result of divine revelation in nature? If people lived up to that knowledge by loving and obeying God every day of their lives, they would be right with God and would not need salvation. However, people do not love God with all that is in them. Nor do they love their neighbors as themselves. People worship and serve things in creation rather than the Creator (Rom. 1:25). The problem does not lie with the revelation, which like the Law is holy, just, and good (Rom. 7:12); the problem is with the sinfulness of human lives (Rom. 8:3). The best human being (other than Jesus Christ) comes short of the uprightness God requires.
Because of God’s universal revelation in nature, the philosopher Immanuel Kant could say, “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe . . . the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”
When Christians defend justice, honesty, and decency in schools, homes, neighborhoods, businesses, and governments, they do not impose their special beliefs upon others. They merely point to universal principles that all sinners know but suppress in their unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18).
As valuable as general revelation is for justice, honesty, and decency in the world today, it is not enough. It must be completed by the good news of God’s mercy and His gracious gift of perfect righteousness. Nature does not show God’s plan for saving those who do wrong: that Jesus was the Son of God, that He died for our sins, and that He rose again from among the dead. The message of salvation was seen dimly through Old Testament sacrifices and ceremonies. It was seen more clearly as God redeemed the Israelites from enslavement in Egypt and as God disclosed to prophets the redemptive significance of His mighty acts of deliverance.
The full and final revelation of God has occurred in Jesus Christ. “God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds” (Heb. 1:1–2). Christ has “declared” God to us personally (John 1:18). To see Christ is to see the Father (John 14:9). Christ gave us the words the Father gave Him (John 17:8). At the cross Jesus revealed supremely God’s self-giving love. There He died, “the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18). And the good news is not complete until we hear that He rose again triumphantly over sin, Satan, and the grave, and is alive forevermore.
Christ chose apostles and trained them to teach the meaning of His death and resurrection, to build the church, and to write the New Testament Scriptures. We are to remember the words of these eyewitnesses to Christ’s resurrection. The content of God’s special revelation concerning salvation, given to specially gifted spokesmen and supremely revealed in Christ, is found in “the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of . . . the apostles of the Lord and Savior” (2 Pet. 3:2). “The Holy Scriptures . . . are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15).
