What Is Revelation?
Revelation means the lifting of a veil: God's disclosing of what could not otherwise be known about himself. According to the Bible God makes himself known in two ways: through what he has made — 'the heavens declare the glory of God' — and in history by word and act: appearing to the ancestors, speaking with Moses, entrusting his word to the prophets. The letter to the Hebrews sums up the line: 'God, having in the past spoken to the fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, has at the end of these days spoken to us by his Son.' In Christian faith the summit of revelation is Jesus: 'He who has seen me has seen the Father.' The Scriptures are the trustworthy witness of this disclosure; Paul writes that 'Every Scripture is God-breathed', the word 'inspiration' naming this same reality. The Bible's final book is also called Revelation: the disclosure of Jesus Christ given to John. The concept says that faith rests not on speculation but on God's own self-disclosure.