General and Special Revelation

God is transcendent: infinitely above and beyond all creation. The only way people have accurate knowledge of God is for God to condescend to reveal Himself to us. God reveals Himself in a general way and in a special way. 

General Revelation

General revelation is God's revelation of Himself to all people at all times. General revelation comes:

1. Through nature, revealing God as the powerful and wise Creator;

2. Through conscience, revealing God as the Moral Lawgiver.

The doctrine of general revelation is reflected in Romans 1.

Special Revelation

As Dr. George Martin explains, special revelation is "God's particular communication of Himself to particular persons at particular times." Special revelation is necessary for obtaining spiritual life. There are two major categories of special revelation: external special revelation and internal special revelation.

External special revelation refers to the Bible: God's written Word of self-disclosure, external to the individual.

Internal special revelation refers to the way that God specially reveals Himself within the individual soul. Internal special revelation comes through the vehicle of external special revelation (Rom 10:17). Internal special revelation can be considered in two stages:

1. Preparatory internal special revelation: the work of the Spirit in applying Scripture's commands and Scripture's revelation of God's holiness to our hearts in such a way as to bring conviction to the conscience and to humble us before God.

2. Effectual internal special revelation: the work of the Spirit in granting spiritual life to the sinner so that sin is seen as detestable and Christ is seen as lovely.

Effectual internal special revelation is the concept to which John Bunyan refers in the Ninth Stage of The Pilgrim's Progress, when he has Hopeful and Christian tell Ignorance (who gives evidence of knowing many biblical facts, but who lacks saving faith): "Christ is so hid in God from the natural apprehensions of the flesh, that he cannot by any man be savingly known, unless God the Father reveals him to him... no man can know Jesus Christ but by the revelation of the Father."