27679457

Theology 11: The Theology of Revelation
Author(s): Thomas Marsh

Source: The Furrow, Vol. 22, No. 12 (Dec., 1971), pp. 755-763
Published by: The Furrow
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Theology 11: The Theology of
Revelation
Thomas Marsh
Christianity presents itself as a revealed religion, as coming from

God and revealing of God. Every aspect of Christianity has a reve
lation character. One's concept of revelation is therefore funda
mental to one's understanding of Christianity and conditions one's
thinking on its every aspect. It is a fundamental theology.
In this century of radical, i.e., fundamental, theology, it is
scarcely then surprising that the concept of revelation has been one
of the major preoccupations of theologians. It is a prominent
theme in the writings of nearly all the great theological names of
our time. Bultmann, Barth, Tillich, Brunner, Niebuhr among
Protestants, Rahner, de Lubac, Schillebeeckx among Catholics,
all have contributed significantly to the discussion. With this kind
of theological concentration it was impossible that the older the
ology of revelation would survive intact. The very fact that reve
lation has attracted such attention shows a basic dissatisfaction
with the older theology. The new lines opened up by this modern
theology cannot yet be said to have reached a final conclusion. The
discussion on revelation is still showing signs of vitality and further
development may be expected. But nevertheless a certain pattern
has by now emerged which is of great interest for post Vatican II
Catholic theology. The Council brought revelation once again to
the forefront of Catholic thinking and the influence of the modern
discussion is plainly to be seen in the text of Dei Verbum. Further,
the other great themes of the Council and of modern Catholic
theology are all intimately connected with revelation and with one
another through the concept of revelation. Revelation here shows
its truly fundamental character and shows promise of providing
that theological synthesis that Catholic theology is seeking in these
post-conciliar years.
Thomas Marsh is Professor of Theology in St. John's College,

Waterford.
756 THE FURROW
OLD APPROACH
Before looking at the modern theology of revelation it would be
well to glance briefly at the older approach. It must be remem
bered that the development of any doctrine has a historical origin.
Something or other occasions thinking on this subject and the
thinking develops as a reaction to this something. Its historical
origin thus leaves its mark on the doctrinal development and may
even give it a onesidedness which it will be the task of some later
age to correct. The theology of revelation well illustrates this
principle. In the history of theology this doctrine has its main
origin in the reaction to the rejection of orthodoxy on some doc
trinal issue. It was the suspicion of heresy that called forth the
theology of revelation. Revelation becomes what the Church
appeals to in her defence against heresy. This appeal to revelation
to combat doctrinal errors gives the concept of revelation an intel
lectual and doctrinal bias. Revelation is seen as the truths about
God which he himself has made known through Christ and
entrusted to the Church. This classic argument of Catholic apolo
getics makes its appearance in the earliest Christian literature, e.g.,
in Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp. 'The apos
tles,' writes Clement, 'preached to us the gospel received from
Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ was God's ambassador. Christ, in
other words, comes with a message from God and the apostles
with a message from Christ' (1 Clem., 42). This is not, indeed, the
only approach to revelation in patristic theology. Other more
comprehensive and more spiritual concepts are to be found in the
great patristic writers. But the concept of revelation as true doc
trine about God and from God is the one which most strongly
survives and it maintains a steady progress. Every doctrinal dis
pute seems to give it a new filip because it occasions a new appeal
to this concept. It becomes a solidly traditional way of under
standing revelation.
The medieval scholastics further developed this concept and
gave it a systematic presentation. The Reformation controversies
and the Council of Trent occasioned further recourse to it. After
Trent this teaching on revelation becomes the cornerstone of Cath
olic theoolgy and the fundamental tract De Revelatione its classic
statement. In this system locutio Dei becomes the standard defi
nition of revelation. Revelation means the truths God has told us
about himself through Christ and entrusted to the Church through
and under the apostles. This body of truths thus entrusted to the
Church is meant to be preserved intact by the Church. It is a
THE THEOLOGY OF REVELATION 757
deposit of faith whose custodian the Church is. The Church has
special divine assistance promised her by Christ to integrally pre
serve and inerrantly interpret and explain this deposit. This
charism belongs to the authority of the Church who in their teach
ing capacity are the Church's magisterium and who as successors
of the apostles inherit their transmissible privileges.
Thus, in theology after Trent revelation was presented very
much in its doctrinal and authoritative aspect. Revelation was
seen as truths, doctrines, indeed doctrinal statements authorita
tively preserved and presented by the magisterium of the Church.
The reason for this emphasis and this way of seeing revelation lies
in the apologetic character of post-Trent theology which tended to
press the various traditional concepts of theology, whatever their
origin, into the service of its apologetic and to mould them accor
dingly. The result was a narrow, conceptual and apologetic
orientated concept of revelation which had pushed aside and
reduced to silence many other aspects of revelation which theology
in other periods had expressed.
Theology in this century is less apologetic minded. It tends to
approach theological concepts seeking simply their inherent mean
ing irrespective of what use this may be in apologetics. It comes to
revelation, therefore, asking simply: what is revelation? This is a
different starting-point for revelation theology from that of
doctrinal controversies and apologetics. Consequently it results
also in a different and more comprehensive concept of revelation.
REVELATION IN THE BIBLE
In starting anew to reassess the meaning of revelation the first
obvious source to consult is the Bible. The Bible is the source-book
of revelation. How, then, does the Bible conceive revelation? The
modern search for the meaning of revelation proceeds from the
Bible.
In thus returning to the Bible it is surprising and at first discon
certing to find that there is little explicit theology of revelation in
the Bible. There are really no technical terms for revelation in
scripture and the word-study method consequently yields little of
value. The concept of revelation is implicit in the Bible and can be
discerned only from the whole biblical outlook and theology.
There is no easy way or short-cut.
To ask what revelation means in the Bible is to ask two basic
questions : what is revealed and how is it revealed? As presented
in the Bible what is revealed and known in revelation is not prim
758 THE FURROW
arily truths about God but God himself. The Bible shows us God
approaching man as person to person and entering into personal
relationship with him. This, then, is what revelation means in the
Bible, the almighty God's personal approach to man calling him
into fellowship with himself which means sharing the divine life
with him.
To know a person is a very different thing to knowing truths
about a person. This distinction brings out the difference between
the modern understanding of revelation and the older. We recog
nize this distinction when we say of somebody that T do not know
him but I know of him.' To know a person is to have met him
and to have a personal relationship with him. To 'know of a
person is simply to possess items of information about him. It is
simply cold impersonal information. Personal relationship, on the
other hand, is based on personal encounter and communication.
The human person can encounter and communicate with another
only through the external signs of his humanity, through the action
and experience of the senses. God, therefore, if he wishes to draw
man into relationship with himself must encounter and communi
cate with man in a way which man can experience and recognize.
God must embody his communication in external signs perceptible
to man. This means that God's revelation and communication of
himself must be sacramental, i.e., in signs perceptible to man, and
historical, i.e., in a way which enters man's concrete experience,
that is part of his history. Only man's experience of God can in
point of fact reveal to us in what sacramental manner God
communicates himself and how he enters into man's historical
existence.
REVELATION IN CREATION AND HISTORY

Israel first meets and experiences God as the Lord of history, the
Lord who directs and controls the events of history, who called
Abraham, rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt and led her into
possession of the promised land. But subsequent reflection enables
Israel to recognize that this Lord of history is also Lord of creation.
Creation, too, is an act of Yahweh, a divine communication with
man, a sacrament. So the Bible prefaces its account of God's
communication of himself in the actions of history with an account
of his communication in the action of creation. In his creation God
approaches man and calls him. Creation and the world of creation
is a sacrament of God's revelation of himself to man.
The Bible thus presents God as revealing himself universally in
creation and in a further more particular manner in the history of
his dealings with Israel. The connection between this revelation in
creation and revelation in history is an interesting and important
one.
In and through creation God addressed man and called him. In
his deepest being man felt and sensed this call and groped his way
to a fitting response, expressing his religious aspirations in a
variety of ways as the history of religions indicates. This communi
cation and call of God was universal, made not to any particular
man or group of men but to all men alike and equally. This divine
call, however, was merely implicit in creation and consequently it
was very subject to the subjective factors in man and resulted in
varying interpretations as the history of religions reveals. The
revelation in creation did not unite men together into one com
munity worshipping God. Indeed, as time went on religion itself
fell a victim to the corrupting elements in the human order and
itself became a dividing and alienating force within mankind.
Nevertheless, the revelation in creation is a reality and it shows the
unity and universality of God's purpose for man.
Because of its inherent vagueness and weakness the revelation in
creation required further clarification if God's purpose for man
was to be fulfilled. This further clarification takes place in God's
communication of himself in history to the people of Israel. Here
God approaches man over and above creation through acts of
history. This historical revelation does not reveal a different God
from the God of creation. It is the same God who created and
now reveals himself in history. Historical revelation is a clearer
manifestation of the God whom creation at one and the same time
reveals and hides. The Bible itself bears witness to this in showing
us how the people of Israel progressed from their original concept
of Yahweh as Lord of history to seeing him as both Lord of
creation and history. Their experience of Yahweh within their own
history clarified the meaning of creation for them.
THE STRUCTURE OF REVELATION

Because historical revelation is God's most manifest communi
cation of himself it provides the clearest example of how God's
revelation operates. Upon examination historical revelation dis
plays a definite structure. Within the Old Testament this structure
is best illustrated in the covenant of Mount Sinai.
The covenant of Mount Sinai begins in an event whereby Yahweh
intervenes in history to accomplish the rescue of Israel from
760 THE FURROW
slavery in Egypt. Historical revelation thus begins in and is rooted
in not a doctrine or doctrinal statement but an event of history
which is an action of God. In this event God approaches man as
saviour: it is a saving event. The mere event, however, is not in
itself sufficient to reveal God. Faced with the event alone without
any explanation of it man would be simply mystified. If the event
is really to reveal God, God must not only act, he must also speak
explaining the meaning of the event and his presence in it. Together
with the revelatory event, therefore, one also finds an explanatory
word, a verbal message which explains the event. In this message
God proclaims that he is the author and meaning of the event and
invites man to respond to the saving mercy he has shown by
obeying the commands he gives. With the revelatory event there
goes the explanatory word which consists in a word of proclama
tion and a word of invitation.
Man's response to this revelation of God should be one of
acceptance and obedience, an obedient faith. If man so responds a
new relationship is brought about between God and man through
which man enters into fellowship with God sharing in God's life.
This God-man relationship is given a visible, permanent form
which expresses and continually vitalizes the original relationship.
The presence of God to man begun in the original revelatory event
thus continues in the visible sacramental manner which this form
gives it. God's covenant relationship with man is an abiding one.
It may be helpful to identify here this structure of historical
revelation in the biblical account of the covenant. The original
revelatory event is the exodus itself. The explanatory word is best
illustrated in God's words to Moses on Mount Sinai where he
proclaims his authorship of the event - T am Yahweh your God
who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
slavery' - and spells out the response he seeks in the Decalogue
(Exod. 20). The response of Israel is made to Moses in Exodus
24:3 - 'We will observe all the commands that Yahweh has
decreed.' The resulting intimate fellowship of God and Israel is
brought out in the communion sacrifice which follows and which
formally ratifies the covenant (Exod. 24:5-11). The symbolism of
the shared blood and the shared meal express the new kinship
which has here come into existence between God and Israel.
Israel here becomes the blood-relation of Yahweh and shares the
hospitality of his home. This covenant relationship continues in
the life of Israel and it is given visible expression above all in the
ark of the covenant which symbolizes Yahweh's abiding presence
among his people and round which Israel continually gathers to
worship their God.
JESUS CHRIST AS REVELATION

Israel's covenant relationship with God now becomes Israel's
history. That history and the revelation of God which it mediates
are directed by God towards a future fulfilment. Israel's history
stands under and is governed by the promise made to Abraham
which is the historical origin of Israel's relationship with God.
This promise continually leads Israel into the future. There it finds
a fulfilment still within history in Jesus Christ. But Christ too is
still promise until in him there comes the ultimate fulfilment which
is the close of history.
In Jesus Christ God enters history anew. But now he no longer
uses intermediaries like the prophets or institutions like the ark.
He now communicates with man through the sign of humanity
itself, through his own Son become man. In Jesus Christ God and
man come face to face and the personal relationship of God and
man can now have a basis in a physical meeting in the flesh. In the
words of Dei Verbum, Jesus is the fulfilment, the completion and
the fullness of revelation. There cannot and there will not be a
greater revelation than this within history. Jesus Christ is God's
final and definitive giving of himself to man in history.
As the fulfilment and completion of historical revelation Our
Lord also exemplifies the structure that historical revelation pre
sents. In terms of modern Catholic theology he is the sacrament of
God's encounter with man within history. Here the revelatory
event is God's saving power and mercy reaching out to man in the
human presence and life of Christ. Christ's life and actions reveal
God's condemnation of the forces of evil and his offer of salvation
to man. In biblical terms the event is the kingdom of God
approaching man in Christ. The preaching of Jesus is the word
which accompanies and explains this event. This is a word of
proclamation announcing the event of the kingdom and a word of
invitation describing the response which the kingdom's approach
requires of man. The Sermon on the Mount is the most complete
statement of this invitation in the gospels. Jesus himself is the
exemplar of this response and the model for man to imitate. His
response is a life dedicated in love to the Father, a dedication
which is complete only with his consummatum est on the cross.
Christ's 'obedience unto death' leads to his vindication by the
Father in the resurrection and his exaltation at God's right hand in
762 THE FURROW
heaven. Man makes his response to this revelation of God in
Christ through his conversion in repentance, his acceptance of
Christ in faith and his sharing of Christ's dedication in his life.
By thus uniting himself with Christ man comes to share in Christ's
fellowship with the Father as his son.
REVELATION THROUGH THE CHURCH

Jesus Christ is the fullness of God's revelation reaching out to
man, evoking man's response and sharing with man his own
fellowship with the Father. But if Christ is to fulfil this role for all
men then he must continue available to men throughout history.
How can Christ continue to be so available to men after his
ascenson?
The Church, the community of his followers, is the means
whereby Christ continues to remain present to men throughout
history, revealing God to man and uniting man to God. The
Church is the body of Christ, the community with whom, in his
own words, he is present all days. The Church is the sacrament of
Christ, the sign which expresses and actualizes Christ's continuing
presence to man revealing God and evoking man's response. This
presence of Christ in his Church is in itself mute and invisible but
in the actions of the Church it is given visibility and voice so that
men can experience it and be inspired by it. This activity of the
Church is of two kinds, symbolic action and word. Here we meet
again this combination of event and word which forms the struc
ture of historical revelation. The symbolic actions of the Church
express and make real Christ's present saving activity and the
word of the Church continues and gives actuality to Christ's word
of proclamation and invitation which explains his presence in the
event of the Church's action. Through the Church the revelation of
God in Christ remains a continuing, on-going process in history
reaching out to man.
CONCLUSION
Revelation is thus presented in modern theology in terms of the
personal relationship of God and man and the ways that relation
ship is brought about and maintained. Revelation means the pres
ence of God to man in creation and in acts of history culminating
in Jesus Christ. God's revealing presence is mediated to man in a
structure of event and word leading to response and fellowship.
The modern discussion has tended to centre around the respec
tive roles of event and word in revelation. Barth and Bultmann,
for example, present revelation in terms of word, Pannenberg in
terms of event. But both sides recognize the difficulty of explaining
revelation in terms of only one of these elements. The Catholic
contribution to the debate seeks to integrate both elements and to
present revelation in terms of both event and word. In so doing
Catholic theology does not have to discard anything that was theo
logically sound in the older theology of revelation. It simply sees it
as an inadequate concept of revelation and integrates it with the
new, more comprehensive concept as an aspect of the revelatory
word. With this approach to revelation Catholic theology can no
longer say that revelation ceases with the death of the last apostle
since revelation is now seen as a continuing process going on in
creation and in history through Christ in his Church. But this is
merely a change in terminology because the substance of the old
assertion still remains true, viz., the content of apostolic doctrine
which is the Church's deposit of faith and ever normative for her
preaching and teaching is complete with the death of the last
apostle and can receive no addition after that.
One of the main values of this revelation theology is the extent
to which it enables one to relate and synthesize many of the urgent
themes of contemporary theology. Thus, in the concept of creation
as revelation one can place the contemporary theology of the
secular, the positive values of the pagan religions, human values as
an evang?lica praeparatio, some aspects of salvation outside the
Church. Historical revelation enables us to relate theologically the
Church to the world, helps to bring out the meaning of salvation
history, to develop a theology of preaching and to integrate together
the different dogmas of the faith.
Theological interest in the concept of revelation cannot yet be
said to be exhausted. It is still showing signs of vitality. The early
enthusiasm which it engendered, however, seems to have passed
and there are signs of a critique developing in reaction. But it can
nevertheless be said that this revelation theology represents one of
the achievements of modern theology and whatever effect the
developing critique may have will only purify that achievement.
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27679457

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Theology 11: The Theology of Revelation

Author(s): Thomas Marsh

Christianity presents itself as a revealed religion, as coming from

Thomas Marsh is Professor of Theology in St. John's College,

REVELATION IN CREATION AND HISTORY

THE STRUCTURE OF REVELATION

JESUS CHRIST AS REVELATION

REVELATION THROUGH THE CHURCH

RETREAT FOR PRIESTS

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