Revelation, 3-4 in the Bible Encyclopedia - ISBE
III. The Modes of Revelation.
1. Modes of Revelation:
Theophany may be taken as the typical form of "external
manifestation"; but by its side may be ranged all of those
mighty works by which God makes Himself known, including
express miracles, no doubt, but along with them every
supernatural intervention in the affairs of men, by means of
which a better understanding is communicated of what God is
or what are His purposes of grace to a sinful race. Under
"internal suggestion" may be subsumed all the characteristic
phenomena of what is most properly spoken of as "prophecy":
visions and dreams, which, according to a fundamental
passage (Nu 12:6), constitute the typical forms of prophecy,
and with them the whole "prophetic word," which shares its
essential characteristic with visions and dreams, since it
comes not by the will of man but from God. By "concursive
operation" may be meant that form of revelation illustrated
in an inspired psalm or epistle or history, in which no
human activity--not even the control of the will--is
superseded, but the Holy Spirit works in, with and through
them all in such a manner as to communicate to the product
qualities distinctly superhuman. There is no age in the
history of the religion of the Bible, from that of Moses to
that of Christ and His apostles, in which all these modes of
revelation do not find place. One or another may seem
particularly characteristic of this age or of that; but they
all occur in every age. And they occur side by side, broadly
speaking, on the same level. No discrimination is drawn
between them in point of worthiness as modes of revelation,
and much less in point of purity in the revelations
communicated through them. The circumstance that God spoke
to Moses, not by dream or vision but mouth to mouth, is,
indeed, adverted to (Nu 12:8) as a proof of the peculiar
favor shown to Moses and even of the superior dignity of
Moses above other organs of revelation: God admitted him to
an intimacy of intercourse which He did not accord to
others. But though Moses was thus distinguished above all
others in the dealings of God with him, no distinction is
drawn between the revelations given through him and those
given through other organs of revelation in point either of
Divinity or of authority. And beyond this we have no
Scriptural warrant to go on in contrasting one mode of
revelation with another. Dreams may seem to us little fitted
to serve as vehicles of divine communications. But there is
no suggestion in Scripture that revelations through dreams
stand on a lower plane than any others; and we should not
fail to remember that the essential characteristics of
revelations through dreams are shared by all forms of
revelation in which (whether we should call them visions or
not) the images or ideas which fill, or pass in procession
through, the consciousness are determined by some other
power than the recipient's own will. It may seem natural to
suppose that revelations rise in rank in proportion to the
fullness of the engagement of the mental activity of the
recipient in their reception. But we should bear in mind
that the intellectual or spiritual quality of a revelation
is not derived from the recipient but from its Divine Giver.
The fundamental fact in all revelation is that it is from
God. This is what gives unity to the whole process of
revelation, given though it may be in divers portions and in
divers manners and distributed though it may be through the
ages in accordance with the mere will of God, or as it may
have suited His developing purpose--this and its unitary
end, which is ever the building up of the kingdom of God. In
whatever diversity of forms, by means of whatever variety of
modes, in whatever distinguishable stages it is given, it is
ever the revelation of the One God, and it is ever the one
consistently developing redemptive revelation of God...
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