It is this aspect of Christ as the Eevealer of God which is indicated in the profound phrases of the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel. He is the Word, the Eternal Wisdom ; He was ' from the beginning with God,' and is God. Revelation is the act of self-manifestation of God to man, and the Word is the eternal expression of Deity, as in Creation at the first, so in the Incar- nation when the fulness of time had come. So Athanasius : ' It was the function of the Word, who, by His peculiar provi- dence and ordering of the universe, teaches us concerning the Father, to renew that .same teaching' (tou yap Sia ttjs [Bias Trporoias Kal ^taKocr/irjerfio; ruiv oAwi' 6i5dtrKO»'TOs Trepl toO ilarpd?, avTOv r)V Kal ttji' avrrfv Si.Sa(TKa.\iav avaveuxrai, de Incarn. Verb. Dei, c. 14). The same idea is in Irenanis. 'Per ipsam con- ditionem, revelat Verbum conditorem Deum, et per mundum fabricatorein mundi Dominum, et per plasma eum qui plasma- verit artificeni, et per Filium eum Patrem qui generaverit Filium ' (e. Hair. iv. 0). These high speculations are perhaps beyond the modest capacity of human reason, but at all events they are in accordance with the phrases of Scripture, which represent the Word as the Agent of Creation, and as the Ex- pres.sion of the Divine Will. Christ is set before us in the Bible and the Church as the Kevealer of the Divine nature and not only as the Kevealer of Divine secrets.
It has been urged by some writers that the uniqueness of Chnst as Revealer is indicated in the NT by the fact that, while revelation is continually represented as proceeding from Him, it is never represented as given to Him. He is the exponent, not the recipient, of revelation ; and is, in a sense, the Kevealer and the Revealed (1 Ti S^!), both the subject and the object of revelation. This, however, is to use language that strict exegesis does not justify. 'The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him to show unto his servants ' . . . (Rev l'), is the view of Christ's office as Kevealer which is presented in
the Fourth Gospel as well as in the Apocalypse. Christ describes Himself as "a man that hath told you the truth which I heai-d from God' (Jn 8'"') ; 'as the Father taught me, I speak these things ' (v.28) ; ' the Father which sent me hath given me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak '
(12^9).
The distinguishing features of the ' revelation of Jesus Christ ' are, rather : (a) He reveals the inmost nature of God (see above). (6) The revelation to the Son is not intermittent, but continuous and perpetual. ' The Father showeth him all things ' (Jn 5-0) ; 'himself hath given (S^Sco/cex') me a com- mandment' (12''9), the tense marking the contim;- ance of the action of the command (so Westcott)."* (c) All has been revealed to Him. ' The Father showeth him all things that himself doeth' (5-'>). The Son sees all, while we see parts in Him (so Westcolt). The revelation which Christ in His own Person gave of the Divine nature is repre- sented as complete ; and the task of the Divine Spirit throughout the ages is to assist mankind in the understanding of it (1426), and in the application of it to life. It is not to be understood all at once (1612), nor will it be perfectly apprehended until the Day of Consummation, when the human race shall have fulfilled its destiny, ' the day when the Son of Man shall be revealed ' (Lk n^>), the day to which the Apostolic Epistles continually point as the day of 'the revelation of Jesus Christ ' (1 Co 1", 1 P 113), for which humanity is to wait in patience and hope.
These quotations have been given at length, because it is this claim of Christ to be the Revealer of the Eternal God, as no other was, which is the centre of the Christian religion, and it is this claim which is felt to be difficult to reconcile with the claims of other religions to the possession of re- vealed truth. But it will bear repetition that it is no article of the Christian faith that God does not reveal His purposes and His will except in Christ, or that those who seek His face without the know- ledge of Christ shall be disappointed of their hope. Wherever and whenever the spirit of man has sought communion with the Eternal Spirit, a response — we must believe — has been given ; and such response is, in its measure, a revelation of light and life. By whatever avenues of thought men reach new truth about the highest things, the light which makes their journey possible is a light in the heavens. It was a favourite thought of the early Christian apologists that the aspirations of pagan philosophy after God were prompted and encouraged by the Eternal Word speaking to men's hearts. ' Those that have lived with Reason ' (ol nera \6yov ^tJjaavres), writes Justin Martyr, 'are Chriistians, even though they were counted atheists, such as Socrates and Heraclitus and others among the Greeks, and among the barbarians Abraham and the rest' (Apnl. i. 46). That there is always the seed of Divine Reason (\6yos o-n-epfiaTiKds) in man is urged by the same writer more than once : rd €fj.<f)VTov Travrl yivei dvdpdnrcov (nrip/j.a rod \6yov (Apol. ii. 8) is a typical utterance. Whatever Ave may think of the technical phrases of Christian theology used by these writers, we cannot doubt that their main thought was true. God is ahvays revealing Himself to the world. Yet — the question recur.s — how then are we to express our belief in a special revelation in Christ, a revelation differing not only in degree but in kind from all that went before? We are so much affected, in this age, by the idea of orderly and continuous progress in nature, and by the idea of the gradual quickening of man's spiritual faculty, that we find it unwelcome to be