1He said to Moses, “Come up to Yahweh, you, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and worship from a distance. 2Moses alone shall come near to Yahweh, but they shall not come near. The people shall not go up with him.”
3Moses came and told the people all Yahweh’s words, and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, “All the words which Yahweh has spoken will we do.”
4Moses wrote all Yahweh’s words, then rose up early in the morning and built an altar at the base of the mountain, with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. 5He sent young men of the children of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of cattle to Yahweh. 6Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. 7He took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, “We will do all that Yahweh has said, and be obedient.”
8Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, “Look, this is the blood of the covenant, which Yahweh has made with you concerning all these words.”
9Then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up. 10They saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was like a paved work of sapphire stone, like the skies for clearness. 11He didn’t lay his hand on the nobles of the children of Israel. They saw God, and ate and drank.
12Yahweh said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain, and stay here, and I will give you the stone tablets with the law and the commands that I have written, that you may teach them.”
13Moses rose up with Joshua, his servant, and Moses went up onto God’s Mountain. 14He said to the elders, “Wait here for us, until we come again to you. Behold, Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever is involved in a dispute can go to them.”
15Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. 16Yahweh’s glory settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. The seventh day he called to Moses out of the middle of the cloud. 17The appearance of Yahweh’s glory was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel. 18Moses entered into the middle of the cloud, and went up on the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
Although God reveals Himself in nature, and all people may know Him by this, general revelation is incomplete. It only gives us a glimpse of who He is, and what He requires of us. There is a source where we can fully know everything God wishes us to know about Him – the Bible. It is in the Bible that we find what theologians call “special revelation.”
We learned previously that God reveals His character through what He has created. But, as the name of the term implies, general revelation only gives us general information about God. General revelation is incomplete. It does not tell us what God’s will is, His plans for us, or what He requires of us. Theologians call this specific information from God “special revelation.” There is only one source where this information may be found today – the Bible. The Bible is the complete revelation of the mind of God, written in human language. God gives us special revelation in the historical events, divine speech, and visible appearances found in the Bible. The pinnacle of special revelation is found in the person of Jesus.
Exodus 24:16-18
Many times God visibly revealed Himself to Israel. Here God called Moses to the top of Mt. Sinai, where His glory looked like a “consuming fire.” From the midst of this “cloud,” Moses received the Law, spoken audibly by God.
Hebrews 1:1-3
The writer of this letter tells us that God spoke through prophets in times of old, but has now spoken through Jesus. In essence then, Jesus’ words are God’s words, and are therefore revelation.
John 1:1, 14, 18
The most important revelation of God is that of Jesus Christ. The Apostle John captured this importance at the beginning of his Gospel, calling Jesus “the Word.” The Early Church Fathers saw the importance of this title for Jesus. Hyppolytus said of Him, “This Logos (Word) the Father in the latter days sent forth, no longer to speak by a prophet…but that He should be made visible, so that we could see Him with our own eyes.”
Conclusion
Special revelation is the Mind of God expressed in human language, and gives us everything we need to know about God and what He expects of us. The ultimate special revelation is found in the person of Jesus.
What does the Bible say about God? What about God does the person of Jesus reveal? What does the Bible reveal of what God wants of us?