Christ vs. Pannenberg vs. the Hermeneutic Death Spiral, pt 4:
This is an article in a series. Please see:
Christ vs. the Hermeneutical Death Spiral, part 1
Christ and the Hermeneutical Death Spiral Part 2
Christ and the Hermeneutical Death Spiral part 3: Corrupt Hermeneutics
Hermeneutics: What’s in a Word: Revealing Revelation
I want the reader to meditate on Hermeneutics, the branch of knowledge that deals with biblical interpretation, but I want to keep doing it asymmetrically, not directly laying out one position against another and arguing for one or a combination. I’ll close this chapter by recalling Wolfhart Pannenberg’s history of the development of the concept of “revelation.” All of this may not seem like the usual presentation of Christian hermeneutics but, after all, if a study of how the meaning of a word can change does not relate to hermeneutics then nothing does. The insight that comes from this will tell you all you have to know that is important on the subject.
“Revelation” means something, and it means something biblical and original to Christ and the Apostles, and If we know anything for sure it’s that the way they use it in the Church and by our scholars it’s not the original.
It’s quite shocking that many Christian theologians don’t have a problem with the assertion that the Bible is not necessarily the only point of its accessibility, what is in it, or the raising of it to a superlative revelation. That the Bible in so many ways is subservient to perception, culture, method, and presupposition and the entirety of its relevance and power is determined by the time we spend rehabilitating it in so many possible ways. It’s about a slow change in the idea of the possibility of ultimate informational sources that makes the “Bible” dispossessed of its own message and vision, and this is because we have a sublimated problem with invasive (subjective) authority (objective) that lives and operates beyond us.
It is especially a wonder that those who profess to be conservative and careful in their approach and claim the Bible as their sole rule of faith and practice also insist on a stridently anti-biblical conception of revelation, confidently disposing of the one taught by Christ was the divine knowledge given for salvation. This anti-biblical conception runs far deeper than you might think it does in a Southern Baptist prayer meeting in Mobile Alabama or St. Matthews Catholic Church in Jacksonville, Florida, not to mention the Unitarian Universalist Association. Liberal groups have cast away the centrality of the Bible and Christ upfront and unashamed, but conservative groups, no matter their stripe and no matter how much they protest about it not being true have just as much guilt in this as anyone else.
There is nothing like a biblical word study for those disposed toward the Bible as the sole rule of faith and practice. It’s a cleanser and an astringent for wiping away all the fetid mess by which contamination and infection by causal contact occurs with a theology that aspires only to produce something, anything, as long as it’s a new and status attaining revelation. Something like from a Heidegger, or with the clout of Hawking. But that injurious effect is nowhere near us in this because we are not trying to facilitate in any way the attainment of anything that this world can offer our effort, to tell the truth. What we attain can be of no greater reward than the blessing of knowing that the salvific subject in which we are trying to divine is the same as what we get out of it. If we claim that we are products of this subject, a word study, which establishes by our ultimate authority the meaning of a crucial word, is the best hermeneutics we can engage in, and no reward of meaning is greater than the results if it’s done honestly.
A Revelation of Revelation
Revelation, ἀποκάλυψις (apokálypsis) is first used in the NT in Luke 2:32 when Mary presented to Simeon the baby Jesus in the Temple. He says this Messiah is: “a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel.”
The word “lighten” is “reveal,” that Jesus is the light which reveals. This is a play on words. Light is φῶς phōs, and ἀποκάλυψις are related. Light reveals, uncovers. ἀποκάλυψις is the content of revelation, the particular truth(s) exposed. In case you are missing the species of truth(s) revealed, Barnes clarifies this:
Verse 32. A light to lighten the Gentiles {p}. This is in accordance with the prophecies in the Old Testament, Isa 49; 9:6-7; Ps 98:3; Mal 4:2. The Gentiles are represented as sitting in darkness–that is, in ignorance and sin. Christ is a light to them, as by him they will be made acquainted with the character of the true God, his law, and the plan of redemption. As the darkness rolls away when the sun rises, so ignorance and error flee away when Jesus gives light to the mind. Nations shall come to his light, and kings to the brightness of his rising, Isa 60:3.
But after this, Simeon was suddenly not full of happy thoughts, but his words turned very dark and grave: “And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” What did he mean?
Only that his death would make his mother sad? Why will he be spoken against, and how can he be the fall and rising again of many? Just because people will reject what he preaches and what he claims for himself?
Or is Simeon’s subject not only Jesus but his Truth, equating Jesus with that prophetic light, a light which is ordained to be the sole illuminating influence and rule over religion? That for some the appearance of God in this light is the same as the religion, then a mustering point for an entrance into Heaven, but for others the usurpation of man as King is the cause of a mob of tradition worshippers, status seekers, intellectual and emotional hedonists and symbol fanatics that attempt to snuff out that light? Yes, indeed, this sword of the spirit will pierce many hearts just by its existence, revealing who we really are. The pain of knowing that either causes repentance or a doubling-down in Satanic thought.
It’s the first sign in the New Testament that this Messiah will replace mans’ opaque formulations of religion and faith, unfounded by and open demonstration of God, with one that will be synonymous only on a demonstration and its immanent Agent.
Simeon does not refer to some general conception of revelation, but he speciates it exactly as messianic prophecy, and therefore Jesus is himself the enfleshment of messianic prophecy in fulfillment. How does Barnes, above, so easily pick up on this? Because of the context of “light” and the spiritual sword that pierces the heart which, like this, a simple word brings out without many other alternatives. All disclosure of this secret divine information is carried on the prophecies of the Messiah in which Jesus will fulfill.
There are 18 uses of the word apokálypsisa in the NT, including the one just mentioned:
- Romans 2:5: the revelation is the “day of wrath,” for which man treasures up sin. This is a prophetic future.
- Romans 8:19: we wait for this revelation, complete on the last day when the Angels and Christ are revealed. Again, all expressions of a future state are prophetic utterances.
- Romans 16:25: the “revelation of the mystery,” the revealing, the elucidation of the prophets concerning all things Messiah, establishes a person in faith through the gospel, its equivalent, and the content of this gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ is the same as this OT revelation.
- 1 CO 1:7: the faithful wait for the revelation of Jesus Christ on the last day, the full disclosure not only of the Person but the explanation how the entire corpus of scripture he fulfilled and applies to him,.
- 1 CO 14:6: Paul puts revelation with knowledge, prophesying, and doctrine as that which edifies as opposed tongues. The previous verse identifies all the content of these three dominated by the concept “prophesying.” “Revelation” is a special and unexpected insight given to the receiver of God pertaining to Messianic Truth, something not possible for him without God. “Knowledge” is learned information pertaining to God’s promises and their fulfillments in Messiah. “Doctrine,” didachḗ, is the universally accepted and established teaching of such knowledge, identical to messianic revelation, and is not subject to change. Prophesying is the preaching of this revelation, knowledge and doctrine, all relating to a sharply messianic, prophetic knowledge alone.
- 1 CO 14:26: “How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.”
Here, in the lease two verses, but particularly the last, is the seam where the definition of revelation begins to be ripped from its context and applied idiomatically.
1 Corinthians 14 is in context about gifts of the Spirit. Since God gives the gifts to an individual who identifies him as of a higher spiritual responsibility, they become something highly coveted. But besides a change in the meaning of “revelation” by us for religious self-aggrandizement, it is here that subsequent theology could also change it to destroy the entire possibility of revealed faith. It could then be said that the Old-Testament prophet did not receive his prophecies by direct contact or theophany of God but by hallucination, auto-suggestion or just personal insight of the Scriptures because of learning and wisdom. This happens when there is an apathy or disbelief toward the suggestion of historical facts, or any evidence, existing to prove the God of the Bible, as in the revelation by the prophetic scriptures. Moving revelation to personal insight removes this epistemic threat for the desired disbelief in a God which exits far beyond a mere philosophical idea or religious claim.
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