belong to revelation periods, and appear only when God is speaking to His people through accredited messengers, declaring His gracious purposes. Their abundant display in the Apostolic Church is the mark of the richness of the Apostolic age in revelation ; and when this revelation period closed, the period of miracle-working had passed by also, as a mere matter of course. It might, indeed, be a priori conceivable that God should deal with men atomistically, and reveal Himself and His will to each in- dividual, throughout the whole course of history, in the penetralium of his own consciousness. This is the mys- tic's dream. It has not, however, been God's way. He has chosen rather to deal with the race in its entirety, and to give to this race His complete revelation of Himself in an organic whole. And when this historic process of organic revelation had reached its completeness, and when the whole knowledge of God designed for the saving health of the world had been incorporated into the living body of the world's thought— there remained, of course, no further revelation to be made, and there has been accordingly no further revelation made. God the Holy Spirit has made it His subsequent work, not to introduce new and unneeded revelations into the world, but to diffuse this one complete revelation through the world and to bring mankind into the saving knowledge of it.
As Abraham Kuyper figuratively expresses it,63 it has not been God's way to communicate to each and every man a separate store of divine knowledge of his own, to meet his separate needs; but He rather has spread a common board for all, and invites all to come and partake of the richness of the great feast. He has given to the world one organically complete revelation, adapted to all, sufficient for all, provided for all, and from this one completed revelation He requires each to draw his whole spiritual sustenance. Therefore it is that the miraculous working which is but the sign of God's revealing power, cannot be expected to
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continue, and in point of fact does not continue, after the revelation of which it is the accompaniment has been com- pleted. It is unreasonable to ask miracles, says John Cal- vin— or to find them — where there is no new gospel.54 By as much as the one gospel suffices for all lands and all peoples and all times, by so much does the miraculous at- testation of that one single gospel suffice for all lands and all times, and no further miracles are to be expected in connection with it. "According to the Scriptures," Herman Bavinck explains,55 "special revelation has been delivered in the form of a historical process, which reaches its end- point in the person and work of Christ. When Christ had appeared and returned again to heaven, special revelation did not, indeed, come at once to an end. There was yet to follow the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, and the extraor- dinary working of the powers and gifts through and under the guidance of the Apostolate. The Scriptures undoubt- edly reckon all this to the sphere of special revelation, and the continuance of this revelation was necessary to give abiding existence in the world to the special revelation which reached its climax in Christ — abiding existence both in the word of Scripture and in the life of the church. Truth and life, prophecy and miracle, word and deed, in- spiration and regeneration go hand in hand in the comple- tion of special revelation. But when the revelation of God in Christ had taken place, and had become in Scrip- ture and church a constituent part of the cosmos, then an- other era began. As before everything was a preparation for Christ, so afterward everything is to be a consequence of Christ. Then Christ was being framed into the Head of His people, now His people are being framed into the Body of Christ. Then the Scriptures were being produced, now they are being applied. New constituent elements of special revelation can no longer be added; for Christ has come, His work has been done, and His word is complete." Had any miracles perchance occurred beyond the Apostolic
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age they would be without significance; mere occurrences with no universal meaning. What is important is that " the Holy Scriptures teach clearly that the complete revelation of God is given in Christ, and that the Holy Spirit who is poured out on the people of God has come solely in order to glorify Christ and to take of the things of Christ." Be- cause Christ is all in all, and all revelation and redemption alike are summed up in Him, it would be inconceivable that either revelation or its accompanying signs should con- tinue after the completion of that great revelation with its accrediting works, by which Christ has been established in His rightful place as the culmination and climax and all- inclusive summary of the saving revelation of God, the sole and sufficient redeemer of His people.