INTRODUCTION TO

THE OLD TESTAMENT 1

RELIGIOUS STUDIES 100

Senior High School – Grade 11

NATURE OF REVELATION
I – Knowing & Loving God
MEANING OF REVELATION
Two General Forms of
Revelation
??????
 MEANING of REVELATION

Etymology:
Latin – “revelatio”
Means – an “uncovering”
 MEANING of REVELATION

REVELATION
- may be defined as
the communication of
some truth by God to
a rational creature
through means which
are beyond
the ordinary course of
nature.
THE ANNUNCIATION
 MEANING of REVELATION

Revelation
- refers to the disclosure by God of
himself and his will to the human race.
The disclosure comes to human beings by
way of communication, which implies:
GOD INTERMEDIA HUMAN
Communicato
RY S
r (Transmitter) Receiver
 MEANING of REVELATION

STORY, INTERMEDIA COMMUN

SUPER-
EVENT / RY / ICATOR &
Chapter & MESSAGE NATURAL TRANSMITTE RECEIVE
ELEMENT R R
Verse

● “You are to ● Mary ● Angel Communica

conceive and bear a will Gabriel tor: GOD
ANNUN son, and you must conceive Receiver:
- name him Jesus. He through Mary
CIATIO will be great and will the
be called Son of the power of
N Most High…” the Holy
(Luke 1:26- Spirit
38)
 MEANING of REVELATION

REVELATION
- The truths revealed may be inaccessible to
the human mind -- mysteries, which even
when revealed, the intellect of man is
incapable of fully penetrating.
- God may see fit to employ
supernatural means to affirm truths, the
discovery of which is not per se beyond the
powers of reason.
 MEANING of REVELATION

TWO GENERAL FORMS OF REVELATION:

1) Natural Revelation
2) Supernatural Revelation

* depending on the INTERMEDIARY

 MEANING of REVELATION

TWO GENERAL FORMS OF REVELATION:

1) Natural Revelation
- If the intermediary is the world of
space and time, the revelation is said to
be natural.
- the natural world of creation is the
medium through which God
communicates himself to humankind.
 MEANING of REVELATION

TWO GENERAL FORMS OF REVELATION:

1) Natural Revelation
 MEANING of REVELATION

TWO GENERAL FORMS OF REVELATION:

1) Natural Revelation
 MEANING of REVELATION

TWO GENERAL FORMS OF REVELATION:

1) Natural Revelation
Humanity's natural use of reason is the means by
which it attains the knowledge that God wishes to
communicate.
 MEANING of REVELATION
TWO GENERAL FORMS OF REVELATION:
1) Natural Revelation
- And St. Paul affirmed: "Ever since
God created the world, his
everlasting power and deity…
have been there for the mind to
see in the things he has made"
- (Romans 1:20)
 MEANING of REVELATION

TWO GENERAL FORMS OF REVELATION:

2) Supernatural Revelation
- It is in the character of a grace from
God who has decided to communicate
himself in a manner that far exceeds
his manifestation through nature.
 MEANING of REVELATION

TWO GENERAL FORMS OF REVELATION:

2) Supernatural Revelation
- The Scriptures call this form of
communication a divine speech and
refer to God as speaking to humankind.
 MEANING of REVELATION

TWO GENERAL FORMS OF REVELATION:

2) Supernatural Revelation
Paul on the road to
Damascus

Moses and
the Burning Bush
 MEANING of REVELATION

TWO GENERAL FORMS OF REVELATION:

2) Supernatural Revelation
- There are Two Levels of this
supernatural revelation, as capsulized by
the author of Hebrews:
a. Through the PROPHETS
b. Through JESUS
 MEANING of REVELATION

TWO GENERAL FORMS OF REVELATION:

2) Supernatural Revelation
- "At various times in the past and in various
ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the
prophets; but in our own time, the last days, he
has spoken to us through his Son, the Son that
he has appointed to inherit everything and
through whom he made everything there is..."
- (Hebrews 1:1-2)
 MEANING of REVELATION

TWO GENERAL FORMS OF REVELATION:

2) Supernatural Revelation
a. Through the PROPHETS
PROPHET
ELIJAH
 MEANING of REVELATION

TWO GENERAL FORMS OF REVELATION:

2) Supernatural Revelation
b. Through JESUS
 MEANING of REVELATION
What is the DIFFERENCE between these
Two Kinds of Supernatural Communication?
- Before Christ, God spoke indeed but still
indirectly through the prophets who were
inspired to tell others what Yahweh had told
them.
- In the person of Christ, however, it was God
himself speaking (directly) as man to his fellow
members of the human race.
GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
IN… THROUGH…
CREATION NATURAL
SIGNS
SCRIPTURE BIBLICAL
SIGNS
THE CHURCH LITURGICAL
SIGNS
OTHER RELIGIONS The history and
culture of all men of
good will
GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
A. In Creation
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF

A. IN CREATION
- The first way God reveals Himself to
us is through creation…
“The heavens declare the glory
of God, and the firmament
proclaims His handiwork” (Ps
19:1).
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
A. IN CREATION
 

- God reveals Himself to us through His

handiwork.
“Since the creation of the world. . .
God’s eternal power and divinity have
become visible, recognized through the
things He has made” (Rom 1:20).
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
A. IN CREATION
● NATURAL SIGNS 
- For us Filipinos, the world and
everything in it are natural signs of God.
Yet in our everyday experience, we meet
not only love, friendship, the good and
the beautiful, but also suffering,
temptation and evil.
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
A. IN CREATION
● NATURAL SIGNS 
- All creation has become affected by
SIN __ “sin entered the world, and with
sin death” (Rom 5:12). 
The “natural signs” of the Creator have
thus become disfigured by pollution,
exploitation, injustice, oppression and
suffering.
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
A. IN CREATION
● NATURAL SIGNS 
- So God chose to reveal Himself in
a second, more intimate way, by
entering into the history of the
human race He had created.
- God became man (Incarnation).
GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
B. In Scripture through
Salvation History
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
B. IN SCRIPTURE
- The Bible records God’s entering into
a special covenant relationship with His
chosen people, the people of Israel…
“I will dwell in the midst of
the Israelites and will be
their God ” (Ex 29:45)
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
B. IN SCRIPTURE
● BIBLICAL SIGNS
- In the Old Testament, God revealed
Himself through biblical signs made up
of both deeds and words.
- He made covenants with Noah,
with Abraham, and with Moses.
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
B. IN SCRIPTURE
● BIBLICAL SIGNS
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
B. IN SCRIPTURE
● BIBLICAL SIGNS

ABRAHAM sacrifices his son, ISAAC, to

MOSES parting the RED SEA.
GOD.
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
B. IN SCRIPTURE
● BIBLICAL SIGNS
- Through chosen men and
women __ kings, judges, prophets,
priests and wisemen, God led,
liberated, and corrected His people.
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
B. IN SCRIPTURE
● BIBLICAL SIGNS
- Yet, even God’s revelation in history
was weakened by the infidelities and
hardness of heart of His Chosen People.
- But God so loved the world that He sent
His only Son to be our Savior, like us in
all things except sin.
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
B. IN SCRIPTURE
● BIBLICAL SIGNS
- Jesus Christ “completed and perfected
God’s revelation by words and works, signs
and miracles, but above all by his death and
glorious resurrection from the dead” (DV 4).
- Thus the Risen Christ is the unique,
irrevocable and definitive revelation of
God.
GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
B. In Church
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
C. IN THE CHURCH
- But God’s definitive revelation in
Jesus Christ did not stop with
Christ’s ascension to his Father.
- Jesus himself had gathered around
him a group of disciples who would
form the nucleus of his Church.
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
C. IN THE CHURCH
- In this Church, the “Good News”
of Jesus Christ would be proclaimed
and spread to the ends of the earth
by the power of the Holy
Spirit, sent down upon the apostles
at Pentecost (cf. Acts 1:8).
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF

C. IN THE CHURCH

- “Sacred Scripture and the living
tradition of the Church transmit to
us the teachings of Jesus” (PCP II
65).
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
C. IN THE CHURCH
● LITURGICAL / ECCLESIAL SIGNS
God continues to manifest Himself today
through the Holy Spirit in the Church.
He is present:
a) in the Church’s preaching the 
truth of Scripture,
b) in its witness of loving service,
c) through the celebration of the Sacraments
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
C. IN THE CHURCH
● LITURGICAL SIGNS
a) in the Church’s preaching the truth of Scripture
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
C. IN THE CHURCH
● LITURGICAL / ECCLESIAL SIGNS
b) in its witness of loving service
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
C. IN THE CHURCH
● LITURGICAL / ECCLESIAL SIGNS
c) through the celebration of the
Sacraments
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
CONCLUDING REMARKS
In summary, then, Filipino
Catholics experience God’s Self-
revelation today.
1) God shows Himself in the natural
signs of the beauty and abundance of
our natural resources and our rich
Filipino culture. 
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
CONCLUDING REMARKS
2) The biblical signs in God’s inspired
Word in Scripture, the book of the
Church, reveal Him.
3) Through the Church’s liturgical
signs, we encounter the Risen Christ
in the Sacraments. 
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
CONCLUDING REMARKS
4) God makes Himself known to us
through the ecclesial signs of the
Church’s proclamation of the
Creed and in her moral
teachings and commitment to
service.
GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
D. In Other Religions
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
D. IN OTHER RELIGION
- Do non-Christians receive God’s
revelation?
- The Church, in her prophetic mission
of “reading the signs of the times and
of interpreting them in the light of the
Gospel” (GS 4), discerns the seeds of
the Word in the history and culture
of all men of good will.
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
D. IN OTHER RELIGION
- Even non-Christians “who do not
know the Gospel of Christ or his
Church, but who nevertheless seek God
with a sincere heart, and, moved by
grace, try in their actions to do His will
as they know it through the dictates of
their conscience, may achieve eternal
salvation” (LG 16).
 GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
D. IN OTHER RELIGION
- For whatever is true and holy in non-
Christian cultures and religions is accepted by
the Catholic Church since it “often reflect[s]
a ray of that truth which enlightens all men.”
- Filipino Catholics, therefore, should
“acknowledge, preserve and encourage the
spiritual and moral truths found among non-
Christians, also their social life and culture”.
WHERE CAN WE FIND
GOD’S REVELATION
Where can we find God's revelation?

SCRIPTURE
TRADITION
SACRED SCRIPTURE
 inspired record of how God dealt
with His people, and how they
responded to, remembered, and
interpreted that experience.
 Scriptures arose as the expression

of the people’s experience of

God, and as a response to their
needs.
 SACRED SCRIPTURE
The Bible was written by persons: 
a) from the people of God, 
b) for the people of God,
c) about the God-experience of the
people of God
The Scriptures, then, are never to be separated
from the people of God whose life and history
(Tradition) formed the context of their writing and
development.
SACRED TRADITION
 the process by which divine
revelation, coming from Jesus
Christ through the apostles, is
communicated and unfolded in the
community of the Church, or as
the content of the revelation so
communicated.
SACRED TRADITION

 Thus the living Tradition of the

Church, which includes the
inspired word of God in Sacred
Scripture, is the channel through
which God’s self-revelation comes
to us.
CONCLUSION

Tradition depends on Scripture as

its normative record of Christian
origins and identity, while Scripture
requires the living Tradition of the
Church to bring its Scriptural
message to the fresh challenges and
changing contexts confronting
Christians in every age.
PERFORMANCE TASK 1.1
“Mission Supernatural”
 To be submitted on Friday:
“Mission Supernatural”

STORY, INTERMEDIA COMMUN

SUPER-
EVENT / RY / ICATOR &
MESSAGE NATURAL
Chapter & TRANSMITTE RECEIVE
ELEMENT R R
Verse
● ● ● Communica
tor:

Receiver:

● ● ● Communica
tor:

Receiver:
PERFORMANCE TASK: “Mission Supernatural”

STORY, INTERMEDIA COMMUN

SUPER-
EVENT / RY / ICATOR &
MESSAGE NATURAL
Chapter & TRANSMITTE RECEIVE
ELEMENT R R
Verse
ANNUNCI ● “You are to conceive and ● Mary will ● Angel Gabriel Communica
bear a son, and you must conceive tor: GOD
A-TION name him Jesus. He will be through the
(Luke 1:26- great and will be called Son Holy Spirit Receiver:
38) of the Most High…” Mary
● “I have seen the miserable ● The bush is ● Burning Bush Communica
state of my people in Egypt… burning tor: GOD
MOSES & now the cry of the sons of without being
THE Israel has come to me, & I consumed by Receiver:
BURNING have witnessed the way in the fire Moses
BUSH which the Egyptians oppress
(Exodus them, so come, I send you to
Pharaoh to bring the sons of
3:1-12) Israel, my people, out of
Egypt.”
END of DISCUSSION…

Thank You 
Prepare and study for there will
be a SHORT QUIZ on Friday.