The Doctrine of Christ

Section II—THE CENTRAL TRUTH IN CHRISTIANITY, THE PERSON OF CHRIST

LESSON SIX Christ the Revealer and the Revelation of God

1. The Son is the channel for all revelation of the Father. Matthew 11:27; John 1:18; 3:11; 7:6, 26; 15:15; Matthew 17:5. TDOC 17.1

2. Christ was himself the revelation of God. Matthew 1:23; 2 Corinthians 5:19; Hebrews 1:1-3; Colossians 1:12-15; 2 Corinthians 4:6. TDOC 17.2

3. Christ was the full revelation of God. Colossians 1:19; 2:8, 9; John 10:30; 14:9; 1 John 1:5 with John 8:12 and 1:9. TDOC 17.3

NOTES: The definition of Son

“The only definition of the Son that will satisfy the argument is God the revealer of God.” TDOC 17.4

The personal revelation

“The whole word is articulately uttered by the Son, in whom he has spoken unto us in these last times. The imperfect revelation, by means of those who were merely mediums for the revelation, leads up to him who is himself the revelation, the revealer, and the revealed.” TDOC 17.5

Christ the speech of God

“In all things He was the speech of God to men no more giver or mere gift, but the supreme revealer-the way and the truth, in short, as well as the life.” TDOC 17.6

The Heir as the Revealer

Everywhere the reference is to the Son’s final glory as Redeemer. At the same time the act of appointing him heir may have taken place before the world was. We must, accordingly, understand the revelation here spoken of [Hebrews 1:13] to mean more especially the manifestation of God in the work of redemption. Of this work also Christ is the ultimate purpose. He is the heir to whom the promised inheritance originally and ultimately belongs. It is this that befits him to become the full and complete revealer of God.” TDOC 17.7

A revelation in life

“Evidently our Lord conceived that his great message to men was a message of God as Father revealed in his own life.” TDOC 18.1

The revelation of the Father in Christ

“The lesson would seem to be the inadequacy of any religious faith that does not recognize the revelation of the Father in Jesus Christ and that does not know Jesus Christ as God.” TDOC 18.2

A personal revelation

“The mind whose thoughts about God and the unseen world are not built on the personal revelation of God in Christ, will have no solid certainties which cannot be shaken, but, at the best, opinions which cannot have more fixedness than belongs to human thoughts upon the great problem.” TDOC 18.3

“In the Teacher sent from God, heaven gave to men its best and greatest. He who had stood in the councils of the Most High, who had dwelt in the innermost sanctuary of the Eternal, was the one chosen to reveal in person to humanity the knowledge of God.”-Education, 73. TDOC 18.4

“The believer obtains power just in the degree in which he is able to ascribe to the Father the perfections and the loveliness of Christ to Christ the power, majesty, and unlimited authority of God.” TDOC 18.5

“Why do we lay such stress on the fact, the person, and the work of Christ? The answer is, Because Christ is before everything else a revelation of God. This, and nothing short of it, is the one and complete explanation of Christ. The idea of God is the dominating idea in all religions, and the idea of Christ as the revealer of God is the dominating idea in Christianity. The supreme message of Christianity is, ‘There is one God and one mediator between God and man, himself man, Jesus;’ one God, and one unique mediator as the personal revealer of God to man. No one can doubt that this is the meaning of the place given to Christ in the New Testament. TDOC 18.6

The name of Christ is found everywhere therein, and always in connection with his personal, revelation of God. It meets our gaze at all points, and proclaims with no uncertain sound that to us men God has revealed himself in Christ Jesus, that for us, for religion, for Christianity, for salvation, for life, Christ is God. TDOC 18.7

“The disciple’s question addressed to Christ, ‘Show us the Father,’ is at once an admission of his own need and a confession of his belief that Christ could supply it; and the relation of Jesus Christ to God is set forth in the New Testament with no uncertain sound. ‘All things are delivered unto me of my Father.’ Matthew 11:27. ‘He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.’ John 14:9. He is the image of the invisible God, the effulgence of his glory. Hebrews 1:3. Jesus Christ, divine and human, is for all time and for all men the final, complete, and sufficient manifestation of God.” TDOC 18.8

The manifestation of the divine

“The truth which Paul opposed to them [the Gnostic errors] is all important for every age. It was simply the person of Christ as the only manifestation of the divine the link between God and the universe, its Creator and Preserver, the light and life of men, the Lord and inspirer of the church.” TDOC 19.1

The Revealer to be received

“While, therefore, we rejoice to trace the wisdom, seen even in the form of that revelation which God in his rich grace has given to us, let none be content intellectually to trace this detail, unless with this, from his in most heart, he also embraces him of whom this Gospel speaks. The wisdom of God in grace as in nature may be coldly contemplated, like any other piece of skill or wondrous workmanship, without a soul-saving and personal appropriation of the grace, which is yet by the understanding discerned so clearly. But, as one has said, the gospel has not been revealed that we may have the pleasure of feeling or expressing fine sentiments, but that we may be saved: the taste may receive the impression of the beauty and sublimity of the Bible, and the nervous system may halve received the impression of the tenderness of its tone, and yet its meaning, its deliverance, its mystery of holy love, may remain, all unknown.” TDOC 19.2

Christ reveals the knowledge of God

“Holiness is agreement with God. By sin the image of God in mw has been marred and well-nigh obliterated; it is the work of the gospel to restore that which has been lost; and we are to co-operate with the divine agency in, this work. And how can we come into harmony with God, how shall we receive his likeness, unless we obtain a knowledge of him? It is this knowledge that Christ came into the world to reveal unto us.”-Testimonies for the Church 5:743. TDOC 19.3

“All that man needs to know or can know of God has been revealed in the life and character of his Son. ‘No man bath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he bath declared him.” TDOC 19.4

“Taking humanity upon him, Christ came to be one with humanity, and at the same time to reveal our heavenly Father to sinful human beings. He was in all things made like unto his brethren. He became flesh, even as we are. He was hungry and thirsty and weary. He was sustained by food and refreshed by sleep. He shared the lot of men, and yet he was the blameless Son of God. He was a stranger and sojourner on the earth, in the world, but not of the world; tempted and tried as men and women today are tempted and tried, yet living a life free from sin.”-Testimonies for the Church 8:286. TDOC 19.5