“Is Divine revelation something that is still happening today?”
November 2024 – Grace & Truth Magazine
QUESTION: Is divine revelation something that is still happening today?
ANSWER: Divine revelation in the sense that Peter wrote of it in 2 Peter 1:19-21 has ceased. In these verses ( NKJV ) he spoke of the “prophetic word,” which he also called the “prophecy of Scripture.” This, he said, “never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” At the time Peter wrote, divine revelation was still ongoing, for to the best of our knowledge the apostle John’s five books, and perhaps some of Paul’s epistles, had not yet been written. And, obviously, Peter was still writing this second epistle.
The first verses of Hebrews 1 tell us, “God who … spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son,” or “in Son.” God speaking “in Son” is greater than God speaking through prophets. The writers of the Gospels and the Acts were used to tell us things the Lord Jesus did and spoke. At the end of his gospel, John wrote that there are “many other things that Jesus did” (21:25).
The book of Revelation is a vision given to John when he was exiled on the island of Patmos. In Revelation 1, John was given the specific task to write letters to seven assemblies in the province of Asia, and near the end of the book the Lord warned everyone through him against adding to what was written. This final warning is against adding to “these things” (22:18), which can certainly be applied to all that the Holy Spirit has given us through the holy men of God to whom Peter had made reference.
Our Bible is the complete revelation that God in His great grace has given to us. Men and women have attempted to add to it, but they have only brought God’s judgment upon themselves and their deluded followers.
False prophets are nothing new; the heathen have them by the hundreds. Think of Ahab and Jezebel and their many prophets of Baal. When hundreds of these were slain on Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18, there were 400 more by chapter 22, all prophesying what King Ahab wanted to hear. In Jeremiah 27–29 we find the names of several false prophets who prophesied against the messages God was giving by His prophet Jeremiah. They came under God’s judgment.
Paul mentioned several men in his epistles to Timothy who were teaching what was contrary to the truth of God. He warned the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:30 that men from among them would “rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.” Peter went from writing about holy men of God to writing about such men also: “But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction” (2 Pet. 2:1).
When men assert to have added truth or revelations, their claim should always be checked against the Word of God. God is absolutely holy and will never lie or contradict His Word. The Holy Spirit, whom the Lord Jesus said would lead us into all truth, is God. As we have seen, He is the One who inspired the holy men of God to write the Bible. Thus, anyone who claims that God has revealed something new to him or her that is contrary to the plain teaching of Scripture is either most ignorant or a deceiver. We should not in any way believe their false assertions or give heed to them.
It is an altogether different thing for individuals to say that God has revealed something to them when they simply mean that God has helped them to understand something in His Word that they had not understood before. God encourages us that if we lack wisdom we should ask it of Him, telling us that He gives it “liberally and without reproach” (Jas. 1:5). Also, we should “ask in faith, with no doubting” (v.6). He wants us to understand what He has given us, and often it may take a while before we understand. We should be thankful when He causes us to understand, regardless of how He gives us this understanding.
One who is preaching or teaching in public should be careful of how he expresses himself. He should not give or try to give the impression God has given him something new and so special that no one else knows or understands it. Something may be new to him, but others may have already long known and enjoyed the same thought.
Answered by Eugene P. Vedder, Jr.