Special Revelation and God’s “catholicity”

“If we finally briefly sum up with Scripture teaches about Revelation”, Bavinck says, “we first of all have to understand by revelation quite generally that deliberate and free act of God by which he makes himself known to human beings in order that they may come to stand in the right relation to him” (Bavinck, vol 1, pg 349).

General revelation teaches that there is a God, and that we are separated from him; but it is Special revelation that shows us the way back to God.

“Revelation” as given in Scripture holds that “the Messiah came forth only from Israel” and that “in Scripture the initiative in religion is not taken by human beings but by God”. That is, “in Scripture it is always God who seeks human beings. He creates them in his image and calls them after the fall. He saves Noah, chooses Abraham, gives his laws to Israel. He calls and equips the prophets. He sends his son and sets apart the Apostles. He will one day judge the living and the dead” (Bavinck, vol 1, pg 327).

General revelation provides “a calling from God that comes to human beings through nature and history and that, when they do not obey this calling, renders them inexcusable”:

Since this general revelation is insufficient [to convey the saving knowledge of the salvation that God has provided] … special revelation is a revelation of special grace and thus brings into existence the salvific religion known as Christianity.

Special revelation is salvific revelation and consequently casts the subject and the means, the content and the purpose of revelation, into another form… (Bavinck, vol 1, pg 342).

God’s “catholicity”:

Hence the object of revelation cannot only be to teach human beings, to illuminate their intellects (rationalism), or to prompt them to practice virtue (moralism), or to arouse religious sensations in them (mysticism).

God’s aim in special revelation is both much deeper and reaches much farther. [And here we see God’s “catholicity”.] It is none other than to redeem human beings in their totality of body and soul with all their capacities and powers; to redeem not only individual, isolated human beings but humanity as an organic whole. Finally, the goal is to redeem not just humanity apart from all other creatures but along with humanity to wrest heaven and earth, in a word, the whole world in its organic interconnectedness, from the power of sin and again to cause the glory of God to shine forth from every creature (Bavinck vol 1 pg 346).

This is God’s “catholicity”, and it shows the “catholicity” aimed for both by Roman Catholicism and also those who want to claim “reformed catholicity” to be cheap substitutes.

You want to say, “oh, but we still should try”? But God has his job, and we have ours.

Sin has spoiled and destroyed everything: the intellect and the will, the ethical and the physical world. Accordingly, it is the whole person and the whole cosmos at whose salvation and restoration God is aiming in his revelation. God’s revelation, therefore, is certainly soteriological, but the object of that salvation (σωτηρια) is the cosmos, and not only the ethical or the will to the exclusion of the intellect, and not only the psychological to the exclusion of the somatic and physical, but everything in conjunction. For God has consigned all human beings under sin that he might have mercy upon all (Rom 5:15f; 11:32; Gal 3:22).

When we keep this goal in mind, it will not be hard for us to draw the boundary to which special revelation is extended. Special revelation, according to Scripture has occurred in the form of a historical process, which culminates in the person and work of Christ. But when Christ has appeared and is taken up into heaven, special revelation does not immediately cease as a result. Still to come then, are the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the extraordinary operation of powers and gifts through and under the guidance of the apostolate.

Without doubt, Scripture still counts all this as belonging to the area of special revelation; and the continuation of this revelation in the apostolic age was necessary to give special revelation, which had culminated in Christ, permanence and stability in the midst of the world, a permanence and stability in the text of Scripture as well as in the life of the church.

Truth and life, prophecy and miracle, word and deed, inspiration and regeneration go hand in hand also at the completion of special revelation.

But when in Scripture and in the church the revelation of God that appeared in Christ has become a constituent of the cosmos, a new dispensation begins. Just as up until this time everything had been prepared with a view to Christ, now everything is traced back to him. Then Christ was made to be the head of the church; now the church is to be the body of Christ. Then Scripture was completed; now it is worked out. No new constitutive elements can any longer be added to special revelation now, because Christ has come, his work is finished, his Word completed…

Scripture clearly teaches that God’s full revelation has been given in Christ and that the Holy Spirit who was poured out in the church has come only to glorify Christ and take all things from Christ (John 16:14).

But to that end, accordingly, the activity of the Spirit is continually needed. For the special revelation in Christ is not meant to be restricted to himself but, proceeding from him, to be realized in the church, in humanity, in the world. The aim of revelation, after all, is to re-create humanity after the image of God, to establish the kingdom of God on earth, to redeem the world from the power of sin and, in and through all this, to glorify the name of the Lord in all his creatures (Bavinck, vol 1, pgs 346-347).

God has set the course for “catholicity” – just as “sin has spoiled and destroyed everything: the intellect and the will, the ethical and the physical world”, so too does God’s reach for his Word extend “accordingly”, to the “whole person and the whole cosmos at whose salvation and restoration God is aiming in his revelation” (Isaiah 55:10-11).

God’s word neither requires nor asks for help of “the succession”.

“He himself is our peace” and “through him we both (Jews and Gentiles) have access in one Spirit to the Father”:

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.

For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

John Murray on “traditions”: “We should not be dupes of Rome …”

Murray wrote on “tradition” – including Protestant traditions and Reformed traditions:
http://www.the-highway.com/tradition.html

There is truly a catholic tradition to which all due respect is to be paid and for which we should thank God. The Romish Church has attempted to monopolize the word ‘Catholic’ by trying to fix upon itself the denominational name, ‘the Catholic Church’. Protestants should not be the dupes of Rome in this respect and should resist every attempt on the part of Rome to appropriate that denomination. The Church of Rome is not the catholic church. It is presumption for her to claim to be. We should understand that all who profess the true religion belong to the catholic church and in the catholic tradition we glory. The catholic tradition is enshrined particularly in the ecumenical creeds, and is found also in the line of orthodox interpreters and theologians throughout the centuries.

There is also a Protestant tradition. It is the viewpoint of the Protestant church as over against the perversions and apostasies of the Romish communion. This tradition is enshrined in the great Protestant creeds and in the theology of the Protestant reformers. It is also embodied in the worship and practice that prevailed in the Protestant churches of the 16th and 17th centuries.

There is in like manner a reformed tradition. It is enshrined in the reformed creeds, theology, worship and practice. It is in this latter tradition that we specially glory. And we glory in it because we believe that it is the purest repristination and expression of apostolic Christianity. It is in this tradition that we move; it is the stream along which we are borne; it is the viewpoint we cherish, foster and promote. We cannot abstract ourselves from it; it gives direction and orientation to our thought and practice.

The entire article is here.

From The Presbyterian Guardian, 1947, May 10 and 25 and reprinted in Collected Writings of John Murray - Vol. 4 Studies in Theology (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1982) pp. 264-273. This was mentioned in a footnote in Allen, Michael; Swain, Scott R. (2015-01-13). Reformed Catholicity: The Promise of Retrieval for Theology and Biblical Interpretation (Kindle Locations 3133-3134). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

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With all of that having been said, I agree there is a “catholic tradition”, but I disagree that we should stumble all over ourselves to find it and claim it. Here’s what I wrote in some Facebook comments in response to reviews I’ve seen of the work “Reformed Catholicity”:

I think “catholicity” is over-rated as a goal or concept. The word “catholic” has come to mean “universal”, but the “universality” was derived from a Greek cultural project before it became identified with the early church. The word “catholic” is derived from the “Second Sophistic” movement, among Greek city-states, to retain their Greek culture in the face of their Roman masters (Allen Brent, “Ignatius of Antioch”). It certainly is not a New Testament word, and while it was a useful concept, helping to unite a geographically disparate group of churches, like the concept of “apostolic succession”, it has been and can continue to be abused. I don't think it is a strong enough or safe enough concept around which to rally in our time.

Reasons why: Here is another marginalized concept from Allen and Swain:

There is no other such gulf in the history of human thought as that which is cleft between the apostolic and the immediately succeeding ages. To pass from the latest apostolic writings to the earliest compositions of uninspired Christian pens is to fall through such a giddy height that it is no wonder if we rise dazed and almost unable to determine our whereabouts. Here is the great fault—as the geologists would say—in the history of Christian doctrine. There is every evidence of continuity—but, oh, at how much lower a level! The rich vein of evangelical religion has run well-nigh out; and, though there are masses of apostolic origin lying everywhere, they are but fragments, and are evidently only the talus which has fallen from the cliffs above and scattered itself over the lower surface.

Allen, Michael; Swain, Scott R. (2015-01-13). Reformed Catholicity: The Promise of Retrieval for Theology and Biblical Interpretation (p. 1). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Citing B.B. Warfield here, B. B. Warfield, “The Significance of the Westminster Standards as a Creed” (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1898), 4.

Warfield is correct about the “cleft between the apostolic and the immediately succeeding ages”. I’ve cited other writers, extensively – not marginalized kooks, but first-rate theologians of the 20th century, who have studied this period, including Cullmann, Torrance, and others, who note the absolute abyss into which the “Apostolic Fathers” fell.

“Traditions” (small “t”) as we come to know them are always going to be useful to us, in one way or another. Either they will be helpful to us in understanding what certain generations of Christians believed to be helpful, or as bad examples in seeing excesses that we are to avoid.

But to enshrine “traditions” as normative – this is not something we should be eager to do. Whether they are useful and helpful to us, as are the traditions of the Reformed Orthodox, or whether they are found to have been unhelpful and even harmful (as “apostolic succession” has been) – these are all things that we should be very keen to hold up to the light of Scripture, which is “the ground and pillar of our faith”.