Progressive Revelation

Last week we revisited a key principle in Bible Reading: Jesus is our hermeneutic. Jesus is the lens through which we understand God’s revelation of Himself in scripture.

Theologians put it this way: Jesus is the climax of God’s revelation of Himself. He represents the definitive revelation of God’s purposes for us.

This does not mean that the rest of scripture is irrelevant. Neither does it mean that all scripture is equally relevant to us. The theological term for what I am describing is Progressive Revelation. God’s purpose for humanity is eternal (relationship with God), and recovering that purpose after the Fall has been a work in progress. God did not deal with sin instantly and irrevocably, but His redemption of humanity is victorious and eternal. So we live in an overlap between what is and what will be.

Reading scripture has to take account of the eternal nature of God’s redemptive plan, and recognize that there is progressive revelation of that plan. From Noah to Abraham to Moses to David to Jesus (with many other steps in between).

Jesus is the pinnacle of that redemption. The conclusion of God’s rescue mission. The perfect representation of the Father’s heart and the Spirit’s indwelling. So all revelation prior to Jesus is incomplete, without being incompatible. We don’t throw it out, but neither do we give commands about the treatment of slaves or the eating of blood equal standing with the command of Jesus to love God with our entire being and love one another as we love ourselves.

Every part of God’s revelation that precedes Jesus must be understood through the lens of Jesus. This is why Jesus often says “you have heard it said… … but I say to you…” He is fulfilling the Old to introduce the New.

This is another reason why literalism and an over-emphasis on inerrancy will lead us into error. We must understand God’s Word through the revelation of The Word - Jesus.

I’ll unpack this further in future posts but in the meantime, if you are interested in exploring this topic further, I recommend the book Seven Things I Wish Christians Knew About The Bible by Michael F. Bird.