By Molly T. Marshall
My theology class was lively last evening; we were asking hard questions about the doctrine of revelation.
To begin with, “doctrine” proved to be an uncomfortable word for many as it often conjures an ossified constellation of beliefs, unchanging forever, amen. Doctrine is seen as problematic, also, when it is used as a bludgeon against others.
Is there a more helpful way to describe essential teaching?
I like to think of doctrine as a map, a sort of theological geography that provides guidance for Christians seeking to understand their faith. Map in hand, a person finds pathways that promise new vistas as well as guardrails that keep him or her from going over the cliff.
James McClendon had this helpful perspective on doctrine: “It is what the church needs to teach in order to be the church.”
Doctrine reminds the pilgrim that one does not travel unaccompanied or without guidance. The great intellectual heritage of the Christian faith continues to propel insight for breaking new trails while, at the same time, regarding the wisdom of earlier maps. The contexts in which doctrine was forged matters, as all postmodern students know.
The question of revelation is a persistent one. Until after the Reformation, systematic-theology books began with the doctrine of God. Luther’s revolutionary insight about Scripture holding primacy over papal and creedal teaching prompted theologians to begin with revelation. “What is our source of authority in speaking of God?” they asked.
The Reformation, to which Baptists owe so much, probed the question of how the Bible authorizes Christian doctrine. Our English Baptist forebear, John Robinson, insisted, “God has ever more light to break forth from the Holy Word.” He was pointing toward what New Testament scholar Raymond Brown called the sensus plenior of Scripture; it has a “surplus of meaning” that is hardly exhausted in varied contexts of interpretation.
It was wonderful to watch light bulbs going on in class as we considered the ways in which God is speaking still. Of course, God still speaks through the Bible, but how do we discern where else God is speaking? A brief review of revelation is in order.
Revelation refers to God’s own self-disclosure; it is a gift of self-giving. It is not abstract but is linked to specific people and places.
Revealing and concealing often go together. Revelation, as Daniel Migliore says, is also, paradoxically, a hiding of God.
Revelation is incomplete without personal response, and it frequently dislocates the recipient from earlier conceptions of God. Revelation urges a new orientation to life, as we understand God and creation more fully.
We cannot understand the doctrine of revelation without considering the role of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the medium through which God’s disclosure is received and understood. The aim of the work of the Spirit is to bring about a real encounter between God and humanity.
The Spirit is the “ground of meeting,” to use John V. Taylor’s term, which makes us present to God and to ourselves. If we used the language of quantum mechanics, the Spirit is the “field” in which God’s self-giving and human understanding transpires.
We had best not relegate God’s revelation to the past nor to the pages of Scripture, although we rely on that witness. When a person senses a calling to ministry, God is speaking. When a politician puts principle over personal ambition, God is speaking. When community leaders protest the compromise of human rights, God is speaking. When an entrepreneurial visionary starts a nonprofit, God is speaking.
How do we know it is the voice of God? We remember that God is committed to the flourishing of life; does this venture measure up? We know that revelation requires confirmation by community; has this perception been tempered by wisdom of others? We believe that the Spirit will guide into truth; is there resonance with others full of the Holy Spirit?
Finally, we test contemporary voices by what God has already disclosed. As the early Christian writes: “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days, God has spoke to us by a Son.” (Hebrews 1:1-2)