  (Scripture Reading Exercise.) IV. REVELATION.
SPECIAL TEXT: "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." Matt. xi:27. NOTES.1. Revelation By Divers Means: "Revelation is the name of that act by which God makes communication to men. Inspiration is the name of that influence, that divine influence which operates upon the minds of men under which they may be said to receive divine guidance." (Cambridge Bible Helps). The inspiration may be strong or it may be weak. It may be so over-powering in its character that the person for the time being loses largely his own individuality and becomes the mouthpiece of God, the organ through which the Divine speaks to the children of men. There exist all degrees of inspiration, from human intelligence and wisdom slightly influenced, up to that fulness of inspiration of which I have spoken. Revelations may be made from God to man in various ways. They may be made by God in his own proper person, speaking for himself. On such occasions I take it that the revelation would be most perfect. I know of no more beautiful or complete illustration of such a perfect revelation than that great revelation with which the dispensation of the fulness of times began, when God the Father and Jesus the Christ, stood revealed in the presence of Joseph Smith, when every veil was removed, and the glory of God extended throughout the forest in which the Prophet had prayed; when he heard the Father speak to him as one friend speaks to another, saying: "Joseph, this is My beloved Son; hear him." Then followed a conversation with this second Divine personage, to whom he was thus so perfectly introduced, and from whom he received the light and knowledge that laid the foundations of the great latter-day work—Mormonism. There was no imperfection whatsoever in that revelation; it was complete, overwhelming, and one of the most remarkable revelations that God has deigned to give to the children of men. Revelations may be made, and have been made, by the visitation of angels, such as when Moroni came and revealed the existence of the Nephite record, the American volume of scripture, the Book of Mormon; and who afterwards from time to time, met with the Prophet of the last dispensation and gave him knowledge and information as to the manner in which the Church should be organized, and how its affairs should be conducted. Then again, revelations may come through the operations of the Holy Spirit upon the mind of man, as when the Prophet Joseph took Urim and Thummim and with them and by their aid, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, translated the Book of Mormon into the English language. In a similar manner the Lord influences the minds of his servants when preaching the gospel, and thus delivers his word to the Church and to the world. Through all these various means God speaks, and it is our good fortune to be his witnesses, that he speaks in these various ways as well in modern days as in ancient times. 2. The Bible Revelation of God: "The knowledge of God with which the Bible provides us is of a progressive character. It was revealed 'in many parts and in many modes' as men were able to receive it. We therefore find a fuller knowledge in the New Testament than in the Old, and among the Prophets than among the Patriarchs. Throughout the Bible the existence of God is taken for granted; we are not supplied with arguments to prove it. In earlier days men sometimes had doubts as to whether God felt any interest or took any part in the affairs of men, but they never doubted that He exists. The Bible teaches that the knowledge of God is possible for us, not because he makes himself known unto us; i. e. we are taught that there is such a thing as Revelation, God has come forth, out of the "thick darkness" (I K 8:12) in which he dwells, and has declared himself to His servants in such a way that we may get a true knowledge of His character and of his purposes and of his purposes for the world." (Cambridge Teachers Bible Dictionary.) ("Seventy's Bible," pp. 64-65). 3. The Presence of God in the Bible: "The statements about God in Holy Scripture are uttered with an air of authority, dogmatically; not as the result of a long chain of reasoning: 'The Lord said' this—did that—or more emphatically, in the form of a message, 'Thus saith the Lord,' the teaching of the Bible is not the result of deductive or inductive reasoning. No direct arguments are adduced to prove the existence of God—that is assumed throughout. His attributes may be the subject of argument; His existence, never. His justice, His wisdom, His power may be momentarily obscured by the mystery of evil in the world—as in the book of Job. Incidentally we may get arguments dealing with the nature of the Deity, as e. g. the interesting a fortiori argument from creature to Creator in Ps. 94. 'He that made the eye, shall he not see?' etc., which logically carried out becomes in inference of personality in God from man's personality—there are arguments such as these either stated or suggested in Holy Scripture, but the existence of God never comes within their scope. It lies behind all else; it is the fundamental conception in the light of which all else is viewed. Not only in the Pentateuch and the Prophets and the Psalms, but in the historical narratives—in the brief and apparently barren records of the accession, regnal years, and death of the various kings, it is made clear that God's hand is at work throughout the course of events, and that He is the ever-present Judge by whom the actions of kind and subject alike are weighed. Even in the Book of Esther, in which the divine name never once occurs, no doubt is left upon the mind as to the providential over-rulings of events both great and small. Nay, in those books which are least formally theological—Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, the works of the 'wise man,' the humanists or philosophers of Israel—the thought of God is present from first to last. They do not grope and search after Him like the great pagan thinkers. They set out, not to discover, but to recognize Him; to learn from His dealings with nature and human nature more about that divine personality who is the primary presupposition of all their system, and with whom their heart holds sacred communion even while the intellect stands baffled before the insoluble problems involved in His permission of evil in the world He rules." "Belief in God." Dummelow's Commentary, R. C. 4. The Bible "A Picture of the World With God at Work In It:" The Bible, as we have said, does not offer arguments to prove the existence of the Deity, but it offers something which is far more valuable to most of us than any abstract proof. It gives us a concrete, experimental, descriptive theology. It shows us a picture of the world with God at work in it, which the devout, appreciative soul instinctively recognizes as truth. It offers us, largely in the concrete form of narrative and history, a theory of the universe which, rightly understood, is found to meet the demands of hearts and minds alike; revealing a God whose character is such and whose relation to man is such that in Him both our needs and our aspirations find satisfaction. At the same time it incidentally provides a theory of human nature (see especially Gen. 1-3) that affords the only satisfactory key to the raison d'etre of those needs and aspirations—the explanation of man's actual littleness and his potential greatness."—Ibid. D. C. 5. The Relations of the Testimony of Nature and Revelation: "In the first place, then, the indications of a Creator and of his attributes which we have been able to find in nature, though so much slighter and less conclusive even as to his existence than the pious mind would wish to consider them, and still more unsatisfactory in the formation they afford as to his attributes, are yet sufficient to give to the supposition of a revelation a standing point which it would not otherwise have had. The alleged Revelation is not obliged to build up its case from the foundation; it has not to prove the very existence of the being from whom it professes to come. It claims to be a message from a being whose existence, whose power, and to a certain extent whose wisdom and goodness, are, if not proved, at least indicated with more or less of probability by the phenomena of nature. The sender of the alleged message is not a sheer invention; there are grounds independent of the message itself in his reality; grounds which, though insufficient for proof, are sufficient to take away all antecedent improbability from the supposition that a message may really have been received from him. It is, moreover, much to the purpose to take notice, that the very imperfection of the evidences which Natural Theology can produce of the Divine attributes, removes some of the chief stumbling blocks to the belief of a revelation; since the objections grounded on imperfections in the revelation itself, however conclusive against it if it is considered as a record of the acts or an expression of the wisdom of a being of infinite power combined with infinite wisdom and goodness, are no reason whatever against its having come from a being such as the course of nature points to, whose wisdom is possibly, his power certainly, limited, and whose goodness, though real, is not likely to have been the only motive which actuated him in the work of Creation." "Theism" (Mill). From "Three Essays on Religion." (1874). The whole work can be studied with great profit as confirmation of many revealed truths of our day to be found in Mr. Mill's deductions; also upon the same line of thought may profitably be consulted, Book III of Shedd's "History of Christian Doctrine," the chapter on "Evidence of the Divine Existence." 6. The Revelation of God in the Pearl of Great Price: The Book of Moses and the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price[ The Book of Abraham with equal force assumes the existence of God, and its opening paragraphs deal with Abraham seeking his rights to the Priesthood of God, and announcing himself as one who was a "follower of righteousness," * * * "and desiring to receive instruction, and to keep the commandments of God;" and so following. The existence of God is a settled question; and the books here considered are chiefly of value because, like the revelations of the Bible, they unfold the nature of God, and his relationship to man, rather than argue for his existence. 7. The Book of Mormon on the Existence of God: The Book of Mormon, like the Bible, takes the existence of God as a thing granted; and only in one remembered instance is the question of God's existence argued. This is in the case of the controversy between Alma, the High Priest, and the desperate Anti-Christ, Korihor. The latter denied the existence of God; Alma affirmed it. Korihor demanded a sign in attestation of the Divine existence. Alma appealed to the consciousness of God in the soul of man as manifest in his own knowledge and the experience of others that were present; to the testimony of the prophets, to the scriptures, and to the creation, as being a witness to the existence of a Creator—"all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it; yea, and its motion; yea, and also the planets which move in their regular form, (order)—* * * * * witness that there is a supreme Creator." And from this basis of testimony he affirms the existence of God, and justifies the Priesthood of God, and the Church, in the course that is pursued in teaching faith in and obedience to God; (Alma XXX: 37-44) and the hope of salvation through the atonement of the Messiah. Footnotes |
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