Introduction
My family and I like to do corn mazes during the fall. It’s a great way to put the screens away, get outside in the crispness of fall, enjoy the gift known as your family, or create an opportunity for the Lord to refine you and your family. If you enjoy this near-year-end tradition, too, or you’ve tried your navigation skills in a corn maze, it won’t be hard for you to imagine walking into a massive corn maze. The tall, twisting stalks block your view, and every path looks the same. Without a map, you wander aimlessly. You take turn after turn, hoping to find the way out, but instead, you hit dead end after dead end or in the same spot repeatedly. You might even feel frustrated, lost, and unsure if you’ll ever escape.
If you are entirely bought into this fanciful maze experience, you’re contemplating redefining what is considered family fun for the future. Now, just before you gather up your tired and bored children, make your way out through one of the many fire escapes, and try to pass off a successful escape, you run into a worker who offers you a maze map. You take the map, and the employee graciously shows you where you and your family are on the map. Suddenly, everything changes. With the map in hand, you can see the entire layout of the maze. You know where you are, where you need to go, and the exact pathway to the exit and triumph over the field’s labyrinth. Instead of wandering in confusion, you walk purposefully, confident that you’ll find your way out, and you do!
Life without special revelation is like wandering through a corn maze without a map. General revelation tells us there’s a Creator, but it doesn’t show us who this Creator is. General Revelation leaves us without an excuse for not knowing that God exists but leaves us searching hopelessly for answers to discover God’s identity, plans, and thoughts. We would remain lost in sin and confusion, trying and failing to find our way to know the powerful God who brought our physical universe into existence.
What is Special Revelation?
God uses special revelation to reveal Himself in greater detail. Unlike general revelation that has been available to all people, of all times and places, special revelation is limited to an uncovering about God by God to specific people, during a specific time, and at a specific place.
The physical universe, human conscience (or moral compass), and humanity’s built-in necessity to worship are all ways that God has made all people throughout history aware of His existence. Yet, if these were the only means by which God made Himself known to people, we would remain condemned for our sins and far from Him. But God, in His love, has given us special revelation: His Word and His Son. The writer of Hebrews places both aspects of special revelation side by side.
Hebrews 1:1-2a
Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. 2 And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son.
The Word of God
The author of Hebrews began by reminding his scattered Jewish audience that long ago, before the arrival of the Messiah, God spoke. How did God talk to them? God spoke to His covenant people through His prophets multiple times and in various ways. Though I appreciate the simplicity of the NLT’s translation, I want to connect to the Greek language here in verse one as it displays the wit of the book’s author.
God revealed Himself to His people through His prophets in many portions (polymerōs, rendered by NLT as many times) and in many ways (polytropōs). Using this Greek wordplay, Hebrews’ author reminded his audience that God had revealed Himself through many portions (as of books) and in many ways. These books are the Jewish Scriptures, our Old Testament today. And with 39 books in our Old Testament, I’d agree that God has revealed Himself to those with His Word in hand through many books. Yet, these books contain the ways God has made Himself known.
The Variety of God’s Special Revelation in Scripture
Throughout redemptive history, God has made Himself known through direct acts. He spoke directly to Adam in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:16–17; 3:9, 11) and audibly addressed the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai (Deuteronomy 5:4). God also spoke personally to Moses, affirming His message with miraculous signs and wonders (Deuteronomy 34:10–12). At key moments in redemptive history, God performed miracles to confirm His messengers (Exodus 3–14), including the Father’s audible affirmation of the Son on three occasions (Matthew 3:17; 17:5; John 12:28).
In addition, God has revealed Himself through dreams and visions. Isaiah was granted a vision of the Son of God in His full pre-incarnate glory (Isaiah 6:1–4). Daniel experienced multiple revelatory visions, including one in response to his prayer for Israel (Daniel 9:20–21). In each of these instances, God disclosed Himself to human prophets, providing them with special revelation for the benefit of His people.
God also revealed Himself in many ways through differing literary genres. Throughout the Scripture, He makes Himself known through historical narrative, law, symbolism, parables, doctrine, poetry, song, and prophecy.
The Son of God
As necessary and beautiful as God’s revealing of Himself long ago, the author teaches us in verse two that Yahweh’s progressing revelation of Himself pointed to His supreme and most clear unveiling of Himself, God the Son, as a human. The Old Testament gave clues about Who the Messiah would be, His person, and His work. Jesus is God’s complete and final revelation of Himself. Yet, no prophet was given every detail about the One who would fully reveal God to humanity. Peter tells us that the prophets proclaimed and wrote about the coming salvation of God through Jesus, though unable to fully understand them (1 Peter 1:10-11).
To best reveal Himself to us, for us to understand who God is, what He is like, know His heart, and know Him, the Creator took on the limitations of human flesh and lived among His creation (John 1:1–5, 14). Although He was not widely recognized for who He was (John 1:10–11), Jesus fully revealed the nature and character of God to humanity (John 14:9–10). Scripture describes Him as the “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15) and “the exact representation of His nature” (Hebrews 1:3). In every way, Jesus provided a perfect revelation of God—demonstrating precisely who God is and what He is like, in a way we humans can understand. This is why Jesus could say the following about Himself in John 14 when Phillip asked Jesus to show him and the other disciples the Father.
John 14:9-10
Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me.
What God teaches us through Special Revelation
Special Revelation teaches us Who God is and what He thinks about us.
Through the Bible and the Son, the Word written and the Word incarnate, we learn the identity of the Sovereign Creator, whose existence is made known through general revelation. The Scriptures show us who God is and what He is like. They reveal God’s heart for people (Genesis 1-2; Ezekiel 18:23; John 3:16; 2 Peter 3:9; Revelation 21:1-4). Jesus provides a concrete visual of what God is like in a way that we can understand and God’s heart for people by the way He served, cared for, spoke to, and instructed people when living on this earth.
Special Revelation teaches us about our sin problem.
Special revelation also reveals humanity’s problem, sin. Though God loves us and desires to be in a relationship with us, our rebellion against Him and His ways has severed our relationship with Him. God is holy; this attribute of God is clearly stated in the pages of Scripture, but it is also manifested in the life and person of Jesus. Because of these two truths concerning our sinful rebellion and God’s perfect sinlessness, we fall short of God’s glorious standard (Romans 3:23). God’s standard is sinless perfection or 100% obedience to all His commands with a proper attitude for 100% of our lives. What does this kind of obedience look like, humanly speaking? Refer to Jesus as exhibit A (1 John 1:8; 3:5).
We sin when we do not obey God perfectly with the proper attitude and purest intentions. The Bible teaches us in both testaments that God must punish sin, for He is a holy, righteous, and just God. Romans 6:23a tells us that we have earned death because of our sins. Physical death is a result of sin entering the world through Adam (Romans 5), but spiritual death is also a byproduct of his sin and ours too. As rightful payment for our sins, we deserve death, in this sense, to remain spiritually dead apart from Jesus and spend an eternity away from Him in the lake of fire.
Special Revelation teaches us that God has a remedy for our sin problem.
This fiery eternity is what we deserve for our red-hot rebellion against an eternal God. Still, the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23b). The Bible states this plainly, but the Son of God provides a vivid picture of God’s righteous wrath that we deserve for our sin and the love of God for rebellious sinners on the cross. On the cross, Jesus experienced the physical torture the Roman cross was meant to cause but also the weight of our sin as He experienced being forsaken by the Father. We feel the Son’s unimaginable pain as He cries, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
Special revelation tells us that the God of Creation knows us, cares for us, and loves us so much that He made a way for us to be forgiven of our sins and restored to a right relationship beginning at the moment of belief demonstrated by repentance (Romans 4:5; 5:8; 10:9-10). The Way to the Father is Jesus (John 14:6), and the way was paved for us through His sacrifice in our place (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Concluding Thoughts
Yet Paul tells us that no one can call on the name of the Lord and be saved unless they believe in him. People cannot believe in him; Paul continues, if they have never heard about him through someone telling them (Romans 10:14). The Bible is the “map” that reveals the truth about who God is, who we are, and how we can find salvation. Jesus is the guide who walks with us, leading us out of the maze of sin and into eternal life (John 8:12) as He reveals Himself to us. Without this divine map and guide, we’d remain hopelessly lost, but with them, we can know the Lord and confidently walk the path of life He has laid out for us.
Special revelation is how we have come to know Him, and it is with the Word of God that we point others to the Son of God, allowing the Holy Spirit to use our humble obedience to our Lord’s command to make disciples to save others as they call on the name of the Lord (Romans 10:14-15; 2 Corinthians 5:20).
Related Resources
The following video may be a help in teaching children about Special Revelation in your family or ministry setting.
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