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What the Bible says about Disclosure, Revelation as
(From Forerunner Commentary)

2 Corinthians 3:14-16

This passage is very important to us in regard to God's revelation of Himself. The apostle Paul refers to when Moses came down off the mount, and his face was shining, reflecting the glory of God, and he put a veil over his face. Paul is using the veil Moses put over his face as a metaphor. However, the veil represents something different to us spiritually.

We are in this condition because we are all spiritual Gentiles when God calls us. He initiates contact with us, beginning a process of revealing Himself, and as we turn to Him, we begin to be able to "see" Him, to understand God. But even after conversion, some of that veil, the lack of understanding, remains. Because of our former blindness, it takes a long time to come to the place where we really "see" God in a great deal more of His glory.

Jesus says in John 17:3 that eternal life is to know God. How can we have faith in someone that we do not know? The relationship with God, once He begins the revelation, has to be developed. He does not reveal Himself fully all at once. We could not take it, so He reveals His glory little by little. He takes the veil away from our eyes, and as time passes, we see increasingly more of Him.

Do we see God? Do we see Him working in our lives? Do we see Him working in the world? Those who see Him most clearly are those who have the closest, most intimate relationship with Him. Such people will also be the ones who have the highest, greatest degree of faith in Him. Because they know Him, they trust Him because to know Him is to love Him, and to love Him is to submit to Him. It is a cycle; we keep coming around to the same spiritual concepts.

God has called us. He has opened our minds, and so when we turn to Him, He will remove the veil, taking away the blindness so that the relationship can be more intense, pure, and trusting. That is His promise: He will remove the blindness.

Yet, all of us still have blind spots. We do not understand God completely, so we should not feel that we alone in the world really do not see God well. None of us see Him as completely as we will see Him someday, but our understanding of Him should be growing. We should be evaluating how well we respond to God because we will respond to Him to the degree that we "see" Him, know Him, and trust Him.

John W. Ritenbaugh
A Pre-Passover Look

Revelation 1:1-2

Verse 1 opens the book with the words, "The Revelation of Jesus Christ." This is the book's real title, not what the Greeks titled it, Apokalypsis Ioannou?"The Revelation of John." In a sense, the apostle John is merely a witness or observer of the visions and sayings that we find within these twenty-two chapters, one who faithfully wrote them down for the instruction, preparation, and edification of the church (verse 2).

Apokalypsis means "unveiling," "disclosure," or "revelation," which is just the opposite of what most people suppose it means. The book is not intended to be a collection of arcane prophecies, mysteries, symbols, and warnings, but an uncovering of knowledge about "things which must shortly take place." As verse 1 maintains, the Father gave the contents of Revelation to Jesus Christ, who as Head of the church passed them on to His disciples through John, so that they would have all the facts that God allowed about the imminent future. God does not desire the book of Revelation to be a frustrating, impenetrable enigma, but as a gift of His grace, a sharing of privileged information.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The All-Important Introduction to Revelation


 




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