I. The Essence of Revelation

The name Jesus Christ defines the revelation as one that has taken place and that still takes place 45 in the event of the existence of Him who bears this name. To know anything about revelation in the original, true and strict sense of the concept, we must know about Jesus Christ. ›Revelations‹ which are different from that which has taken place and that which is still taking place in Him, we can only call ›revelations‹ in a perverted, invalid and loose sense of the concept. The discussion as to whether there is not revelation also in ›other religions‹ is superfluous. We need not hesitate to grant this to them, for revelation to them clearly means something very different. But then the Christian understanding of revelation must be very exactly differentiated from what is understood by revelation in these ›other religions‹. The difference is this – that in Jesus Christ, and in Him alone, there enters upon the stage of human life that which is really new, and that which is hitherto unknown, because veiled and hidden. Revelation is here something other than an exaggerated expression for the unexpected and astounding appearance and discovery of a best example in an otherwise familiar sequence of development. It is no recollection (anamnesis) of the Idea, in the Platonic sense, of such a sequence – an idea that has perhaps been forgotten, but is not fundamentally unknown. Revelation (apokalypsis, phanerosis, revelatio) really means here what the word itself implies, viz., the appearance of that which is 46 new; the appearance, therefore, of that which is in no wise known before. That which is new is primarily Jesus Christ Himself, His person in its concrete reality. This His concrete reality, simply as a concrete reality, towers above every other reality in virtue of its being |762 unique in kind and of its having taken place once for all. It is, as the New Testament says, ἐφ’ἅπαξ. There are indeed tokens of this reality, there are witnesses and testimonies to it, but it has no analogies and is nowhere repeated. It stands alone and it speaks for itself. It receives light from nowhere else; the source of its light is in itself and in itself alone. This newness of Jesus Christ must not, however, be understood to mean that His person was ultimately merely the appearance of a nature with which we are familiar apart from Him, even if it is regarded as the highest appearance and best example of it. Nor must it be understood to mean that He was the supreme realization of a general potentiality, even if He be regarded as for this reason unique. One must ask the representatives of the ›other religions‹ whether by revelation they do not at the best mean this – the highest manifestation of an idea, of a general potentiality. Just as the reality is new, so too is the potentiality which is presupposed and realized in the reality of the person of Jesus Christ. It is a potentiality that is God`s and not ours, that is known to God and not to us. 47 Hence Jesus Christ is indeed the fulfilment of divine prophecy; He is not, however, the fulfilment of human yearnings, of human demands and of human speculations. He is, indeed, the manifestation of the eternal wisdom of God; but He is not the verification of the a priori wit of man. There is certainly a divinely posited potentiality of His existence and of the knowledge of His existence; but there is no standard by which we can measure Him, no point from which we can survey Him, no principle by means of which we can judge Him. If we are free to set our human presuppositions, as though they were absolute, over against Him; or, to put this otherwise, if we are not free, if we are unable to set our human presuppositions, because they are relative, over against Him; or again, if we really imagine that we can and should measure Him, survey Him, pass judgment upon Him and therefore master Him – all these can only be symptoms of the fact that the reality and the potentiality of His person are both still hidden from us. For if the divine potentiality of His existence were known to us, how could we desire to exalt ourselves above Him in this fashion? And if the divine potentiality of His existence is unknown to us, this very fact betrays that even the reality of His existence is unknown to us, and that Jesus Christ is still in truth hidden from us. We are then speaking about Jesus Christ only |763 in 48 appearance; we are speaking in reality and under misuse of His name about one of the deities on whose revelation the ›other religions‹ base themselves; and it should not then surprise us, if in our encounter with these we should find ourselves embarrassed. But if He is not hidden from us, His potentiality will be as new to us as His reality, and we shall make no attempt to master Him. It is precisely this complete newness of His appearing that mark the revelation as revelation in the original, true and strict meaning of the concept. What point is there then in applying the word revelation to something whose potentiality and presupposition we already know before we know the revelation – as the astronomers already knew the orbit of Sirius before we had discovered the star itself? If it is not wholly new to us, even as a possibility, how then can it be a revelation to us? But just on that account we must say that only the man who knows about Jesus Christ knows anything at all about revelation. Any attitude towards Jesus Christ that could envisage accepting or rejecting Him as possible alternatives would therefore immediately be another symptom of the fact that we know nothing whatsoever about revelation. For revelation to which analogies can be drawn, revelation which can be repeated, revelation which merely conforms to a general potentiality, is not revelation. Hence, there being no 49 possibility of mastering Him, revelation will be discerned in Jesus Christ or it will just not be discerned at all.

The assertion of the newness of the person of Jesus Christ and therefore the assertion that He, and He alone, is to be called revelation in the original, true and strict meaning of the concept, cannot however itself result from general considerations and reflections. For a doctrine which rested on the basis of general considerations and reflections would certainly operate only as a strong assertion which would necessarily be opposed by corresponding and equally strong doubt. But the assertion of the revelation in Jesus Christ, if intended in the original, true and strict sense of the term ›revelation‹, does not in its origin rest upon the basis of general considerations and reflections, and for that very reason it is not to be attacked, let alone demolished, on this ground. On the contrary, the doctrine has its origin in the recognition of the person of Jesus Christ as the eternal Word of God who was made flesh. This recognition means in general at least this, |764 that revelation is grace for sinners. And grace for sinners means an especial free, unmerited and unearned act of divine turning towards, and condescension to, man. The Word is eternal: it is itself God. Precisely in the recognition of Jesus Christ and therefore in the recognition that the Word was made 50 flesh, we shall say, not that the Word had to be made flesh, but that this is actual and potential in virtue of God’s free compassion; and we shall also say that, but for this free compassion the eternal Word would be eternally hidden from us. The grace of God made manifest in Jesus Christ necessarily brings us into Judgment; it lays us bare as those who are not worthy and who are consequently incapable of perceiving the Word of God in His naked Godhead – as eternally He is in God and is God – to be indeed the Word of God. The man who has received grace, and therefore recognizes that he has need of grace and that he is utterly an object of divine mercy, cannot at any rate conceive of himself as one who discovers and receives a direct revelation. No: and he cannot conceive of himself, either, as one who receives and discovers even an indirect revelation other than the revelation which is in Jesus Christ. He will indeed acknowledge that the same eternal Word of God, who was made flesh, is to be perceived in creation as the first work of God, and is therefore to be perceived in nature, in history and in his own heart, conscience and understanding. But he will go further and acknowledge to his own shame that in actual fact he never has perceived the Word in these things, and that moreover he neither can nor ever will perceive it in them. He will certainly not make this admission on the basis of some critical 51 theory of knowledge, but, once again, in the recognition of Jesus Christ as the Word made flesh; in the recognition of the fact that it was God’s good pleasure to reveal His Word in this wholly different way; in recognition that he has received grace, and therefore stands in need of grace. In making this recognition he will certainly not consider himself capable of perceiving the Word of God in God’s creation. As one who has been brought by grace under judgment, he will on the contrary confess that in that sphere he has always heard and always will hear nothing but the voices of the gods, that is to say, the God-created elements of this world; the voice of earth and of animal life; the voice of the apparently infinite heavens and, sounding through this voice, the voice of the heavens’ |765 apparently inescapable fate; the voice of his own blood and of the blood of his parents and of his ancestors flowing in his veins; the voice of the genius and of the hero in his own breast: voices all falsely endowed with divine dignity and authority, and for that very reason, not the eternal Word of God!

The conception of an indirect revelation in nature, in history and in our self-consciousness is destroyed by the recognition of grace, by the recognition of Jesus Christ as the eternal Word who was made flesh: but nothing else destroys it. Accordingly, just in so far as we are blind to this 52 recognition, do we necessarily begin to place fresh confidence in ourselves, and therefore to range by the side of Jesus Christ, first all kinds of indirect revelation and then all kinds of direct revelation too. When this happens the doctrine of the newness of the person of Jesus Christ, and consequently the doctrine that He and He alone may with full seriousness be called revelation, will cease to be clear to us and will barely be defensible. But once we are prepared to recognize the one and only way which was adopted by God to reveal Himself in Jesus Christ, the way of the Word made flesh, the doctrine becomes easy and obvious. For if we come to have confidence in God through this way, the way in which it is given to us to know ourselves as sinners who have received grace, the self-confidence that makes us want to glory in all kinds of other indirect or direct revelations is ipso facto taken from us. We can set ourselves against the recognition of grace in Jesus Christ, for that is a bitter recognition indeed. We can wish we were something other and better than mere objects of divine compassion and that alone. In that case it is open to us to glory in revelations. Some natural theology or other may easily be found to take up the tale with greater or less noise and effect. But once we have arrived at the recognition of Jesus Christ and therefore at the recognition that we have received grace and stand in need of grace, 53 such a course is impossible. Rather the confession becomes inevitable that Jesus Christ alone is the revelation.

Jesus Christ is the revelation because He is the grace of God made manifest to us – grace in the full sense of the conception. Revelation means that God, without ceasing to be God, was made man, ›flesh‹. ›Flesh‹ means man like us in all the finitude, infirmity and helplessness that characterizes our human life and results from our utter distance |766 from God. Revelation means grace. Grace means condescension. Condescension means being made man. Being made man means being made flesh. Jesus Christ is all that. And that, and that alone, is revelation. If God were not gracious (and this means if He retained the majesty of His Godhead for Himself), if He did not of His own free decision turn towards men, there would be no revelation; man would be left to himself. If God’s grace were not complete, if that grace did not consist in an inconceivably real descent of God into our depths, there would be no revelation. If God had not descended so far into these depths that He met us as one of ourselves in all the distance and nearness of a human form, there would be no revelation. If He had not become in all respects a man like ourselves, and consequently ›flesh‹, there would be no revelation. All this in very truth God has done for us in Jesus Christ. We acknowledge the grace of 54 God in that we confess that the eternal Word of the Father, the Lord of heaven and earth, was born and suffered, was crucified, dead and buried. We acknowledge Gods true and sole revelation just in the fact that we acknowledge the true manhood of Jesus Christ.

But we must not stop here. Jesus Christ is revelation, for the reason that He is the grace of God, made manifest to us in the full sense of the conception ›God‹. In that He becomes and is man, He is the Lord, who was made us and without who’m we are not. He is the Lord of the world, the Lord of all lords of this world. Revelation means the grace of God. But God’s grace means the presence and the act of God Himself. God Himself however, means the Lord. But the Lord means: the One, the Unchangeable, the Eternal, the Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth. That and that alone is revelation. If man felt himself for a single moment obliged to doubt that the grace which he has received was the grace of God, not only would there be no revelation but he would feel himself abandoned. If he who encounters man in revelation and acts upon him were not the Creator, but only one who belongs like man himself to God’s created world; there would be no revelation. If it were but a demigod or an angel or a man exalted in some special way, whom man encountered in revelation, there would be no revela55tion. If God Himself in the fullness of His glory did not will to meet us and make Himself known to us in revelation, there would be no revelation. But it is just this that He has done for us in |767 Jesus Christ. We acknowledge the grace of God, in that we confess that this Man was conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, and that on the third day He rose again from the dead, He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father. In that we acknowledge the true Godhead of Jesus Christ, we acknowledge the true and sole revelation of God.

The decisive point can and must now be made. Jesus Christ is the revelation because He is, as the grace of God made manifest, the way, the only way, by which men may come to know God and by which a relationship, and more than this, a communion, between man and God is established. Jesus Christ is the revelation, because in His existence He is the reconciliation. Only as he beholds the reconciliation that has taken place between God and man, can man know God. Anything that man may imagine he knows about God apart from reconciliation, that is to say in his ›natural‹ position as a rebel against God and consequently under the wrath of God, is in truth but the idol of his own heart. Between God and that man stands, shrouding all things in gloom, his sin. The existence of Jesus Christ is the reconciliation, 56 and therefore the bridging of the gulf that has opened here. And the way in which this comes about is that in Jesus Christ God Himself steps into the place of sinful man, while sinful man is for his part translated into the place of God.

God steps into the place of sinful man. Jesus Christ is true man, man like us. But, as man like us, He acts in a way which is altogether different from the way in which we act. In His humiliation, in His sufferings and death, He espouses the lost condition of mankind and acknowledges the righteousness of the wrath and the judgment of God. He submits to the baptism of repentance. He justifies God against Himself. He calls to God out of the depths and praises His grace alone. Guiltless – and it is precisely in this, His bowing to the judgment of God in which He differentiates Himself from us, that He proves His sinlessness! – He bears our uncleanness and the punishment it involves, and makes it His very own. And since it is He, the eternal Word of God, who does this, the uncleanness and the punishment is now, and this most truly, no longer ours but His. There has taken place once and for all what had to take place if there was to be expiation, if our sins were to be covered, to be washed away, to be |768 forgiven. If the sin is His, if God has taken possession of it, then it is no more ours. So when we re member our sins we are summoned to think no more about our57selves, but about Him who once for all has borne our sin upon the cross and carried it to the grave.

And sinful man is translated to the place of God. That is the other side of the same fact. Jesus Christ is very God. But, just because He is very God, he does not retain the majesty of His Godhead for Himself; rather in the majesty of His Godhead He espouses man in his baseness, man in his suffering and dying, man in his position as one under judgment, man in his subjection to death, man in his utter need of grace. It is indeed this man, this ›flesh‹, that the eternal Word of God in the person of Jesus Christ has accepted and raised up to unity with Himself. But it is precisely this unity that is signified by the exaltation of this man, accomplished once for all in the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ who is true God, man is snatched from the ordinances and necessities of his mere human nature, and therefore finally and ultimately from death, in order that he may participate in the free, preeminent, eternal life of God Himself. In Jesus Christ the glory of God, without ceasing to be God’s, has become our own as well. But if it is ours, if God has bestowed it on us in Jesus Christ, then we are summoned to seek our life in faith and there to let it be lived, where our life has been made new in Christ and has become our true life. We are summoned to seek our life in faith there, 58 where in the exalted manhood of Jesus Christ we already stand at the right hand of God. This exchange (καταλλαγή) is the reconciliation. It is at once our justification and our sanctification, the remission of our sins and our new birth to a new life. This exchange is the bridging of the gulf between God and man, the dissolution of the darkness, which prevents us from recognizing God, the truth (aletheia), and consequently the revelation. Therefore, since this exchange is accomplished in Jesus Christ, He is the true and only revelation of God.

Now it must be admitted that it is by no means obvious that we do recognize in the existence of Jesus Christ the real newness, new even in its potentiality, for what it really is. It is by no means obvious that the grace of God made manifest in Jesus Christ does become judgment for us, and so renders impossible the self-confidence with which we search round for all kinds of other indirect or direct revelations. It is |769 by no means obvious that in Jesus Christ we do recognize very man, and not, say, an idea of man; and very God, and not, say, a demigod; and that we do recognize very God and very man precisely in Jesus Christ. And above all it is by no means obvious that we do recognize in that which has taken place in the death and the resurrection of Christ, that exchange, and therefore our own reconciliation, justification, 59 sanctification and regeneration, as something which has taken place once for all. It is by no means obvious that there is a Christian apprehension of revelation, an apprehension which is the response of man to the Word of God whose name is Jesus Christ. It is by no means obvious that we believe. How should we arrive at this response? How should we arrive at faith? Faith is much more than the knowledge that enables us to make this response. Faith is the reference of all our living, thinking, willing, and feeling to the existence of Jesus Christ as the on ground upon which we stand, the one stay upon which we hang, the one food by which we are nourished. In the midst of the flux and conflict of human hope an despair, human success and failure, human goodness and evil, human comradeship and loneliness, faith is the ultimate repose, certainty, serenity and hope, which is true and enduring because it is not grounded upon any state, knowledge or action of our own, but upon the existence of Jesus Christ. Faith is our participation in the humanity, in the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, and thus in the eternal Word of God who has in Christ Jesus made flesh and blood His ow, and exalted them to the right hand of God. Faith means life on the basis of exchange and therefore on the basis of the justification and sanctification which man has received in Jesus Christ. Faith means the life 60 of the man who has been born again in Jesus Christ. The recognition of the revelation, of which we have been speaking, is the recognition given by this faith.

And for this reason it is by no means obvious. Faith admittedly, and with it too the recognition of faith, is a free act of human choice and decision; a work of the heart, the will and the understanding. But, when we are engaged in this work we have no more power to apprehend what we are from our knowledge of ourselves, than we have power to apprehend Jesus Christ from the knowledge which, apart from Him, we have of man and of mankind. Why is it that I believe? Certainly I believe of my own free choice and decision – why should |770 not that be conceded to the pragmatists, psychologists, etc.? I am no machine when I believe, but just as certainly I can in so doing apprehend myself only as one who, before he makes his choice, is chosen, and as one upon whom, before he himself has decided, a decision has descended. What I do as a work of my own heart, will and understanding, can, when I believe, only be done as a service to the Word of God. It is only in view of all this, in view of the fact that Jesus Chris t, very God and very man, interposes with God for me, that I am in a position to stand before God, and walk before Him and respond to His Word. Not for one moment or in any respect can I find 61 occasion for boasting in the fact that I believe and confess that I am called, or that I am ready and able to respond to that call: for that I can only be thankful. The revelation then has proved a revelation to me also, and that by virtue of its own power and decision. The reconciling grace of Jesus Christ has then come to me also as grace which chooses, calls, illuminates and converts, as the grace of the Holy Ghost. How of myself could I tell how I come to believe and make confession? How could I tell how I come to be pardoned? If of myself I had anything to say on the matter it would certainly not be the grace of the Holy Ghost which had come to me; my faith would not then be faith but some sort of religious presumption; my confession not confession but some sort of arbitrary assertion. Of the grace of the Holy Ghost I shall always have only this to say, that I am thankful for it, and that it has come to me as a miracle. And so the Christian apprehension of the essence of revelation will inevitably be consummated in the recognition that, when it does take place, even this apprehension itself takes place only through revelation; or rather that the apprehension is itself revelation, is itself the pouring out of the Holy Ghost, through which the historic incarnation of the Word of God finds its confirmation, through which the ascended Christ shows forth His power and His goodness.

II. The tokens of revelation

62 Revelation, as the Christian apprehends it, is something that occurs once and for all – once for all just as God is one! It is an occurrence whose subject is and remains God Himself, hence an occurrence whose radiance and power proceeds from itself. Revelation, however, |771 does not occur in heaven but on earth, not in God’s eternal sphere, but as the action of God in the human sphere; it takes place amidst the continuity of the occurrences of created things, and that means amidst the occurrences of natural historical life. How otherwise would it be revelation? How otherwise would it consist in the fact that God became man? And it is amidst the same continuity that the revelation actually seeks and finds faith. How otherwise would our faith be a human choice and a freely made decision?

Jesus Christ encounters men humanly and ipso facto divinely. And while it is most certainly on the ground of His divinity that men are awakened to faith in Him, it is nevertheless through the medium of His manhood that this awakening takes place. As we have already said, the name, Jesus Christ, the name which is peculiar amongst all other human names betokens the revelation. The man, who, because He is the eternal Word of 63 God, is Himself the revelation, is, considered in Himself, its primary and absolute means; He is the Temple, the Robe, the Sword of the eternal Word; He is the token that can demonstrate to the human eye, ear and heart ›Here is Emmanuel‹. One who believes in Him, believes in the eternal Word of God. But no one would believe in the eternal Word of God, unless this token were given him, unless this name and this man, the flesh and the blood of Jesus Christ, were given. This token by itself would not be revelation. And yet, without this token, the revelation would not be visible and audible to men. Without this token there would be no communication to men, and consequently no revelation.

Now, this primary and absolute token of revelation is in some measure reflected and paralleled, and in this sense repeated, in the sphere of created things, in the sphere of natural lives and historical events. The revelation is but one. But this one revelation has not taken place in vain; it has taken place once and for all. It concerns the whole world, it concerns all men. In that God became man the world has been given a new look. The revelation has imprinted itself upon the nature and the history of this world in quite definite forms, and this it does ever anew. These forms are not revelation itself. They are no multiplications of the Incarnation! They belong en64tirely to created things, as do all other forms. As tokens of revelation they can be misunderstood and overlooked. Nevertheless, it is just in this their |772 insignificance that, through the revelation, they are what they are; Jesus Christ Himself has instituted and established and determined them, in order that, according to God’s good pleasure, they may serve and be effective as tokens of revelation; in order that they may be witnesses and testimonies to Jesus Christ for the purpose of calling men to faith in Him. If this is what the tokens both are and do, then they are this, not by virtue of any power within them or proceeding from them, but by virtue of the power of Jesus Christ, the instruments in Whose hands they are. The power of Jesus Christ is not operative, however, save through these instruments, these secondary and therefore conditioned means of revelation. Just as the power of Christ in their prototype, the humanity of Jesus Christ, is an indirect revelation, so too it is indirect revelation where it is reflected and paralleled in the sphere of other created things.

Here we shall have to think above all of the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth, as they form the subject of the New Testament Gospels. These words and deeds are not themselves the Kingdom of God that ›is at hand‹. But both in themselves and in their relation to each other, these words and 65 deeds are the tokens of that Kingdom. They bear witness that this Jesus, Who spoke thus and did these miracles, is the Messiah. And here the words of Jesus differentiate His deeds from those of a mere human miracle-monger or thaumaturgist, just as the deeds of Jesus differentiate His words from those of a human prophet. Admittedly, even in this mutually differentiating character, the words and deeds of Jesus do not as such cease to be tokens that can do no more than point toward the Kingdom of God that transcends them. Many heard the words of Jesus and saw His deeds, and yet did not believe in Him. Those, however, who believed in Him did believe in Him on account of His tokens, on account, that is, of His words and deeds.

At the beginning of the life of Jesus stands the miraculous token of His Virgin Birth. At the end of His life stands the miraculous token of the Empty Tomb. It is precisely to these two miracles that we have to give particular attention. We may, if we will, call the biblical reports of them ›legends‹. But let us at least see and understand their meaning as tokens! Then we shall no longer discredit them as ›legends‹, nor shall we be offended by their character as unequivocally miraculous stories, |773 because we shall realize that no stories that were not miraculous could suffice to indicate that to which they point. Both betoken the existence of 66 Jesus Christ as the human existence which is identical with God Himself, and which thereby, both in its entrance upon and its departure from the human plane, is different from every similar life. Here in the sphere of His creation God Himself, in establishing a new beginning, has condescended to be man. To this the Virgin Birth bears witness. And the Empty Tomb bears witness to the reality of this divine new beginning. It is the unveiling of that which in the new beginning is veiled. But even these tokens can be overlooked. Unbelief is possible despite the fact that we have these miracles, and, it may be, actually in face of these miracles. We may, however, ask whether faith is possible without seeing these tokens and without apprehending them as tokens? Are not they beyond all others the occasion as well as the criterion of faith in the secret of revelation? Is it possible for us to see in Jesus Christ the divine new beginning and the divine triumph if we overlook these tokens and it may be persist in overlooking them completely?

To the tokens of revelation belong in an especial way the existence of the Prophets and of the Apostles, or, to put it another way, the witness of the Old Testament and the witness of the New. Here too we find both difference and correspondence. The event of revelation has a definite time which precedes it and a definite time which follows 67 it. There is an expectation and there is a recollection of revelation. The subject of both is the same: namely, Jesus Christ – the time fulfilled in the midst of the times. The Prophets and the Apostles are therefore alike also in this respect, that they are men directly called to witness to the Fullness of the times. They belong either to the time which precedes the Fullness of the times, and witness to the future event; or they belong to the time which follows the Fullness of the times, and witness to the past fact. Now of both these are documents; there are prophetic documents belonging to the period of expectation, and there are apostolic documents belonging to the period of recollection. These documents form Holy Scripture. Holy Scripture as such is not the revelation. And yet Holy Scripture is the revelation, if and in so far as Jesus Christ speaks to us through the witness of His prophets and apostles. True, there has never been a single person who for his part could |774 honestly say that he has heard Jesus Christ speak equally clearly in every part and parcel of the Scriptures. Countless people would be obliged in all honesty to admit that there are large portions of Holy Scripture in which they have not yet heard the voice of Jesus Christ. Even the Church, in holding fast to the sacred character or canonicity of each and every part of the whole of Scripture, only asserts that here within the compass of this Scrip68ture has she at her birth heard Jesus Christ speak; and that here and here only, as far as we know, can Jesus Christ speak to us again. Anyone who should happen to be offended at this ›here only‹ must first inform us where else Jesus Christ speaks to us. Of course there are many self-appointed witnesses testifying to all sorts of spurious revelations. But are there any other witnesses of the true and unique revelation, any other witnesses of Jesus Christ? Holy Scripture is a token of revelation. Unbelief is possible even when confronted by this token. But there has never yet been a faith in the revelation which has passed by this token, a faith which was not rather awakened, nourished and controlled precisely through the instrumentality of this token.

Because Holy Scripture exists as a token of revelation, there exist in the Church Proclamation (preaching) and Sacrament as further tokens of revelation. And here there is repeated in some measure that relation of word and deed which we have found in the life of Jesus. But in the relation between proclamation and sacrament there can also be found reflected the relation between the Old and New Testaments. Preaching is the utterance whose subject and creative form is the biblical witness. As such it is a proclaiming of Jesus Christ’s action as present ever anew. The sacrament, on the other hand, is a symbolical act 69 consummated in the sense of, and in accordance with, the biblical witness. It is the confirmation of the action of Jesus as something which has taken place for us, and happened to us, once and for all; of the action which is the source (baptism) and sustenance (Lord’s Supper) of our life in faith. Thus preaching and sacrament too are in different ways – but still in this difference at one – mutually explanatory tokens of revelation. Neither preaching nor sacrament can be dispensed with; for how should we believe today if the biblical witness also were not re-presented today? Neither preaching nor sacrament can be dispensed with; for surely this re-presentation must consist in |775 testimony to the true revelation as present as well as once and for all? Neither preaching nor sacrament, however, is effective of itself in awakening faith today; but both are effective through the power of the revelation which they attest and through that alone.

Because preaching and sacrament exist as tokens of revelation, there also exist in the Church both congregation and ministry, though again in another connexion and order. The congregation exists as the assembly, constituted ever anew, of those who themselves have heard the witness of Holy Scripture through preaching and sacrament, and, through this witness, the proclamation of their election and calling to faith in Jesus Christ, and so have heard the voice of the Good Shepherd 70 Himself and consequently know that they are responsible for passing on this witness and proclamation pure and unsullied. The ministry exists to pass on the Word. This service of passing on the Word is exercised in the name of the congregation of Jesus Christ and therefore by commission from Him. The purpose of such service, like that of the liturgy concerned with the same thing, is to preserve as tokens, in the congregation and for all people, the tokens that have been received. Its purpose, therefore, is to perform the preaching and celebrate the sacraments rightly and diligently; that is, with constant attention to the biblical witness and so in obedience to Jesus Christ. Congregation and ministry are tokens of revelation. Their existence and the confession they make are able to awaken faith. How can faith be awakened, if at all, except in and through congregation and ministry? But all the same if faith be awakened it is not congregation and ministry which have done this, but Jesus Christ Himself as the Lord of the congregation and of the ministry.

As a concluding point we come to the individual Christian’s experience and exhibition of faith. The actual faith in which man is justified and saved and born again is the hidden work of the Holy Spirit, veiled, indeed completely veiled, by man’s own work. For man’s own work is and remains the work of a sinner and will always be visible as such. 71 But here too, the revelation is not without tokens. There cannot be faith without experience. The hidden faith will, indeed, determine, change and shape the heart and conscience, the desires and the deeds of the sinful man; but certainly not in an unambiguous way, certainly not in such a manner that the believer will be directly dis|776cernible to himself or to others in his true status as a child of God; but for all that he will be determined, changed and shaped. And this happening, this experience, in its utter insignificance, relativity and infirmity can then, as the reflection of this faith, as the gift of the Holy Spirit, serve (though its evidence is only indirect) to remind him of his faith, and to confirm him in it and so in the revelation which has come to him (Syllogismus practicus!). Human experience has no power of its own to become such a reminder or such a confirmation. And that is the error again and again made at this point. Only Jesus Christ can give a man’s experience the power to become the visible evidence of the gift of the Holy Spirit, and therefore such a reminder and confirmation. But undoubtedly Jesus Christ both can and does do this. And undoubtedly, in every instance in which a man really believes on Jesus Christ and lives by this faith, he also lives with and by such faith-experiences as tokens of revelation now given to him. Nor can the faith of the individual Christian exist without showing 72 itself outwardly and to others. As a sinful man, like all other men, the individual Christian stands in their midst and goes in and out amongst them making no boast or claim to be or to have anything special. But since, in virtue of the hidden work of the Holy Spirit, he participates as a believer in something that is indeed special and therefore also in a special experience, his life can signify outwardly and for others something special, can signify an exhibition of faith and so a token of revelation. Of himself he cannot make himself this. He cannot even aim at becoming this. Least of all can he speak of it as something that he is. Nor can he in any case – and here again error is constantly creeping in – adduce his own life as evidence, just where, as witness to Jesus Christ, he is bound to point to Jesus Christ alone. None the less – though happy is the man who knows it not, or, if he knows it, then it is to his own supreme astonishment and even horror! – his own existence can in fact be an evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ. Through Jesus Christ he can, in actual fact, be appointed and placed to be such evidence. But he can never be such evidence in the totality of his life, but only in a definite aspect and a definite function. Even then the revelation will itself be its own proof. This it does, however, by means of this token. And we should have to search long for the believer who – in boundless gratitude 73 to Jesus Christ alone – did not owe his faith to this |777 Christ-given token, viz., the exhibition of faith furnished him by other men.

In this whole context, instead of the ›tokens of revelation› we could have spoken of the Body of Jesus Christ upon earth, the Body which derives its life and food and drink from His heavenly Body, the humanity of Jesus Christ exalted to the right hand of God. For the earthly Body of Christ is the sum total of the tokens of which we have been speaking. And, since this earthly Body of Christ is again none other than the Church, everything we have said about the ›tokens‹ could also have been said about the Church through which and in which we must be brought together, if we are partakers of the revelation and since we are partakers. The Church is the secondary token of revelation – the Church as conditioned by the primary and unconditioned token of the flesh of Jesus Christ, that flesh which the eternal Word has accepted and received into unity with itself. The Church is conditioned and secondary, but none the less, so far as we can see, it is indispensable. At the outset we ref erred to the sphere and the discipline within which alone the Christian apprehension of revelation can be spoken of. This sphere and discipline are the sphere and the discipline of the Church. Therefore we may ask whether faith in the revelation, and so apprehension of the 74 revelation, is possible, if it is accompanied by disobedience to the tokens of revelation or by disregard of them. If this cannot be, then the maxim extra ecclesiam nulla salus is still in force and is still valid; it is something which not even the most profound humility will allow us to deny or qualify.

III. The work of revelation

Jesus Christ does not merely point a way: He is the way. Revelation according to Christian apprehension is not merely a matter of communication of divine truth about the relation between God and man, a communication which has then to be followed by a corresponding human work – some definite cult or religious and moral line of conduct. It is not a communication of divine truth which has to be followed by a corresponding human work in the form of a theological doctrine, at the root of which that communication lay and in which it now attains practical application and theoretical realization. Revela|778tion, as the Christian apprehends it, is certainly such communication of truth. But it is also the work in which God Himself acts in His relation to man – originally in Jesus Christ, mediately in the Church of Jesus Christ. It has therefore been impossible for us to speak of the essence of revelation without straightway speaking also of Reconciliation. The truth revealed 75 to us in revelation is not a doctrine about reconciliation but is the reconciliation itself, the reconciling action of God. But the human work which is called in to being by the revelation can only be the faith by which man beholds the revelation, both in its essence and in its tokens, doing its own work, and in which man lets it do its own work. Thus, since this attitude on man’s part signifies and implies the claim laid by God upon his whole life, he accompanies the revelation with service, within the limits of his human capacity.

The revelation, Jesus Christ, is the work in which God Himself restores the shattered order of the relation between Himself and man. We must always apprehend the revelation as this work of restoration, whether we seek to apprehend it relatively to its essence or its tokens. A shattered relation between God and man has to be restored; hence the work of God, if it is not to consist in abandoning man or in annihilating what He has created, must consist in revelation. Revelation must therefore be revelation – a new event, grace, and therefore judgment upon our confidence that all the potentialities of ordering that relation lie in our own power. Revelation must therefore be God’s own existence as man, His entering into our place, our being taken into His. Hence its extraordinary character, a character which more or less attaches also to all tokens of revelation as such. 76 The offence that is everywhere presented to us in revelation does not rest upon divine whim or caprice. The revelation shatters no real order, even though it is in actual fact extraordinary both in its essence and its tokens. Its extraordinary character and its giving offence is due to the fact that in the revelation through God’s action, the sheltering of the real order is itself shattered for the purpose of restoring the real order. Paradoxically it is not God who is arbitrary and capricious, but man, man who has shattered the real order, and whom God in His revelation now meets with its restoration.

779 God Himself is the One who acts. God is the subject in this work. This He is in the life of Jesus Christ Himself. This He is too in the tokens of revelation. Every thought of revelation and every doctrine about it has, according to Christian apprehension, its truth and its importance in the fact, and solely in the fact, that it gives God the glory. And by giving God the glory is meant that these thoughts and doctrines do not concern man, or things, forms, relations, conditions, effects, situations – not even though that relation to God be allowed for! These thoughts and doctrines always refer directly to God as the Lord of this work and therefore as the Lord of man who is the object of this work, and therefore also of the things, forms, relations and the rest, which here are to be taken into account. Christian thought 77 and Christian utterance about revelation revolve continually around the reality of the sovereignty of God. Hence Christian thought and Christian utterance involve the recognition, in every event of revelation, of an act of God, and of God as the One who acts. Therefore it will never treat the grace of revelation as a supernatural species of matter, but ever anew will seek and find such grace, as an undeserved and unearned miraculous gift, in the free and good will of the Divine Giver, the God of grace. It will recognize and definitely assert the fact that the revelation takes place in the sphere of God’s creation, that is in the sphere of nature and history, in the human sphere. But equally it will recognize that the revelation always takes place through the divine freedom, and therefore also with a spontaneity of its own. The revelation is neither in competition, nor in cooperation with other lords, creators, powers or forces, but is always their Lord and Commander. It is not as if there came through the revelation to man and his world a voice which is man’s own. What actually takes place is that God speaks and man in his world has to listen and to obey. It is not as if there were in creation, in nature and history or in the life of man, or in his consciousness thereof, tokens of God’s divine revelation (›ordinances of creation‹) which are simply self-existent. What actually happens is that in His good pleasure God 78 establishes such tokens and makes them effective by His own free dispensation. In referring to the Church, too, the Christian in his apprehension of revelation will never think of her or speak of her as if God had, so to say, made over His truth and righteousness to the |780 Church herself. The Christian will never think or speak of the Church as if God had transferred His truth and righteousness to her in general, or more particularly to her officials, to be controlled by them. The Christian apprehension will so treat the ecclesiastical authority both in theory and practice that the fact is, and remains, visible that Church authority is no pseudo-divine authority inherent in men, but the authority of the heavenly Lord of the Church. The Christian in his apprehension of revelation will never value even Christian experience and Christian work for their own sake. If some experience and some work of the kind does actually appear here and there, he will be grateful for this. But he will recognize without reserve the insignificance and the human frailty of all Christian experience and all Christian work. He will recognize without reserve that in them too sin triumphs. He will not speak as if the aesthetic or moral beauty which they may possess could be identified with righteousness and holiness possessed by them in God’s sight. He will not therefore be put out by any aesthetic or moral infirmity which they 79 may have. In that he sees through and beyond the beauty or the lack of beauty that may appear in the lives of those who, though Christians, are and remain creatures, he will never give praise to the creature but always to the Lord and Creator.

The work of revelation, as we know it here and now, is, however, the announcement of an order re-established. The announcement is as authentic as is the fact that God Himself is the subject and the Lord of this work. The announcement is as sure and as certain as is the fact that the restoration of order in the relations between God and man has already taken place and is already manifest in the essence of revelation, that is in the existence of Jesus Christ. And yet, in so far as we and the world are concerned, it is the announcement but not yet the accomplishing of this restoration, certain as it is that revelation must be believed and proclaimed as a work that has taken place once and for all in Jesus Christ. This is as certain as it is that alongside of the time fulfilled and the prophetic time of expectation and the apostolic time of recollection, there is our time – the time before Abraham and the time after the Ascension. This is as certain as it is that we in this time of ours stand in need of the tokens, if we are to become and remain contemporaneous with the revelation and if we |781 are to believe – tokens which are not themselves the essence of revelation but only its tokens. Remem80bering and drawing comfort from the fulfilment which has taken place in Jesus Christ, and accepting that fulfilment as a promise we await the fulfilment of our time also. If we ask how for ourselves we share directly in revelation within the sphere of the Church which is the Body of Jesus Christ upon earth, the answer is that, inasmuch as our sharing in the revelation consists in our sharing in the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ Himself, our sharing is a sharing in hope. This sharing can, of course, determine our faith and our life, but it cannot visibly or ultimately transform it. True, the Church can set limits to the State. She can and should remind it of the righteousness and of the judgment of God. But she cannot herself become the State, nor can she make the State into a Church. Theology can, of course, as an ecclesiastical science, perform its definite and necessary service in the sphere of the Church, and in addition it can fulfil the useful function of pointing science to its real and ultimate problem, a problem that still remains unsolved, unelaborated and unconsidered. But it has no systematic correlation or synthesis of human thinking to offer. Theology cannot become philosophy and it cannot permit its task to be usurped by any philosophy. In every generation and amongst all men and people it is possible to secure the proclamation as such of the justification, sanctification and regeneration which 81 takes place in Jesus Christ. But this proclamation cannot allow itself to be changed or transposed into any scheme of life or into any plan for saving men by the solution of political, economic or social problems; and in no circumstances can it be made the proclamation of a Kingdom of God which has already come or has already appeared, even if this be merely in the form of a programme. None of the tokens of revelation is the revelation itself. The revelation, here and now, is Jesus Christ alone. And the work of Jesus Christ, as we know it here and now in the time of divine forbearance is the work of announcement. The New Testament ought not, therefore, to surprise us when in more than one passage it employs the conception of ›revelation‹ as a description of the Last Things towards which it sees moving the whole time of forbearance, of tokens and of the Church. In point of fact, the work of revelation, in its full operation upon man and his world, is a |782 future work. But in its full operation it will still be the work of Jesus Christ. Consequently our time, even now, is no empty time; it is the time of authentic and sure proclamation and therefore of joyful and confident hope. For our time is the time between the Ascension and the Return of Jesus Christ. It is therefore His time, the time of faith in Him. Accordingly, and in that degree, it is the time of faith in revelation as already completed.