Chapter 2

God’s Call: Revelation

Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and
him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ.
(Jn 17:3)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has bestowed on us in Christ every spiritual
blessing in the heavens! God has given us the wisdom to
understand fully the mystery, the plan he was pleased to
decree in Christ, to be carried out in the fullness of
time: namely, to bring all things in the heavens and on
earth into one under Christ’s headship. In Him you too
were chosen.
(Eph 1:3,9-10,13)
OPENING
61. “It pleased G od, in His goodness and wisdom to reveal Himself . . . By
this revelation, then, the invisible God, from the fullness of His love,
addresses men as His friends, and moves among them in order to invite and
receive them in His own company” (DV 2). Christian life is based on the
conviction that God has spoken to us and that the central truths of our Faith
are given in this revelation. The Christian Scriptures attest that “in times past
God spoke in varied ways to our fathers through the prophets; in this, the
final age, He has spoken to us through His Son” (Heb 1:1-2).
CONTEXT
62. But how does this idea of “revelation” relate to ordinary Filipino life?
The answer is in our personal relationships. One of the best things you can say
about a Filipino is: “Marami siyang kakilala” (He knows many people), or
“Maraming nakakakilala sa kanya” (Many people know him). On the other hand,
one of the worst things to say about a Filipino is “Wala siyang kakilala” (Nobody
knows him), or “Walang kumikilala sa kanya” (No one gives him recognition). So
in our family relationships and friendships we reveal our personal selves to others,
and openly receive their self-giving to us. This is what uplifts the Filipino.
63. Now the first one to know us, the first one to show us recognition and
reach out to establish a personal relationship with us __ to become our
kakilala __ is God. Only in relation to God do we become our full selves.
Only in coming to know God do we grow to the full stature of our true
selves. But how do we come to know the one true God?
64. Perhaps few countries in the world can compare to the Philippines when
it comes to trying to make God known. Newspapers, radio, TV and movies
are filled with new preachers, religious celebrations, public devotions, and
never-ending appeals for new chapels and churches. Faith healers abound in
every community. Self-proclaimed mediums claim to lead their gullible
devotees in mysterious ways to supposedly closer contact with God, or the
Sto. Niño, or the Blessed Virgin Mary. With so many different people
claiming to reveal God, who can we believe? How does the one true God
actually reveal Himself to us today?
EXPOSITION
I. GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
A. In Creation
65. The first way God reveals Himself to us is through creation. “The
heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims His handiwork”
(Ps
19:1). In creation, man holds a special place. God said: “Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness” (Gn 1:26). God even gives us a share in His own
creativity: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Gn 1:28).
God creates the whole world for us, to support us in life and reveals Himself
to us through His handiwork. “Since the creation of the world. . . God’s
eternal power and divinity have become visible, recognized through the
things He has made” (Rom 1:20).
66. Our Fourth Eucharistic Prayer clearly expresses this recognition of
God’s Self-revelation through creation:
Father in heaven, You are the one God, living and true . . .
Source of life and goodness,
You have created all things
To fill Your creatures with every blessing
And lead all men to the joyful vision of Your light . . .
Father, we acknowledge Your greatness:
All Your actions show Your wisdom and love,
You formed man in Your own likeness,
and set him over the whole world
To serve You, his Creator, and to rule over all creatures.
Natural Signs
67. For us Filipinos, then, the world and everything in it are natural signs of
God __ the initial way God makes Himself known to us. Yet in our everyday
experience, we meet not only love, friendship, the good and the beautiful,
but also suffering, temptation and evil. All creation has become affected by
sin __ “sin entered the world, and with sin death” (Rom 5:12). The “natural
signs” of the Creator have thus become disfigured by pollution, exploitation,
injustice, oppression and suffering. So God chose to reveal Himself in a
second, more intimate way, by entering into the history of the human race
He had created.
B. In Scripture, through Salvation History
68. The Bible records God’s entering into a special covenant relationship
with His chosen people, the race of Abraham, the people of Israel. “I will
dwell in the midst of the Israelites and will be their God” (Ex 29:45). Again,
we pray in the Eucharistic Prayer IV:
Even when man disobeyed you and lost your friendship,
You did not abandon him to the power of death,
But helped all men to seek and find you.
Again and again you offered a covenant to man,
and through the prophets taught him to hope for salvation.
Biblical Signs
69. God revealed Himself in stages. In the Old Testament, God revealed
Himself through biblical signs made up of both deeds and words. He made
covenants with Noah, with Abraham, and with Moses. He performed great
works for His Chosen People, and proclaimed their saving power and truth
through the prophets’ words (cf. DV 2; CCC 56-64). Through chosen men
and women __ kings, judges, prophets, priests and wisemen, God led,
liberated, and corrected His people. He forgave their sins. He thus revealed
Himself as Yahweh, He-who-is-with His people. He is “the Lord, a merciful
and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity” (Ex
34:6). Today, through His inspired word in the Old Testament, God still
reveals Himself to us, and inspires us to respond to His covenant.
70. Yet, even God’s revelation in history was weakened by the infidelities
and hardness of heart of His Chosen People. But God so loved the world,
that in the fullness of time, He sent His only Son to be our Savior, like us in
all things except sin (cf. Jn 3:16; Gal 4:4; Heb 4:15; CCC 65). Jesus Christ
“completed and perfected God’s revelation by words and works, signs and
miracles, but above all by his death and glorious resurrection from the dead”
(DV 4). Thus the Risen Christ, prefigured in the Old Testament and
proclaimed by the apostles, is the unique, irrevocable and definitive
revelation of God.
C. In the Church
71. But God’s definitive revelation in Jesus Christ did not stop with
Christ’s ascension to his Father. Jesus himself had gathered around him a
group of disciples who would form the nucleus of his Church. In this
Church, the “Good News” of Jesus Christ would be proclaimed and spread
to the ends of the earth by the power of the Holy Spirit, sent down upon the
apostles at Pentecost (cf. Acts 1:8). “What was handed on by the apostles
comprises everything that serves to make the People of God live their lives
in holiness and increase their faith. In this way the Church in her doctrine,
life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she
herself is, all that she believes” (DV 8; cf. CCC 77-79). PCP II summarizes
this by stating that Sacred Scripture and the living tradition of the Church
transmit to us the teachings of Jesus” (PCP II 65).
Liturgical/Ecclesial Signs
72. God continues to manifest Himself today through the Holy Spirit in the
Church. He is present in the Church’s preaching the truth of Scripture, in its
witness of loving service, and through the celebration of its Christ-given
Sacraments. Christ’s revelation in the Church is “the new and definitive
covenant [which] will never pass away. No new public revelation is to be
expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord, Jesus Christ (1 Tim
6:14; Ti 2:13)” (DV 4).
73. In summary, then, Filipino Catholics experience God’s Self-revelation
today. First, God shows Himself in the natural signs of the beauty and
abundance of our natural resources and our rich Filipino culture. Second, the
biblical signs in God’s inspired Word in Scripture, the book of the Church,
reveal Him. Third, through the Church’s liturgical signs, we encounter the
Risen Christ in the Sacraments. Finally, God makes Himself known to us
through the ecclesial signs of the Church’s proclamation of the Creed and in
her moral teachings and commitment to service.
D. In Other Religions
74. But many Filipino Catholics ask if non-Christians receive God’s
revelation. The Church, in her prophetic mission of “reading the signs of the
times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel” (GS 4), discerns
the seeds of the Word in the history and culture of all men of good will.
Thus, even non-Christians “who do not know the Gospel of Christ or his
Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by
grace, try in their actions to do His will as they know it through the dictates
of their conscience, may achieve eternal salvation” (LG 16).
75. For whatever is true and holy in non-Christian cultures and religions is
accepted by the Catholic Church since it “often reflect[s] a ray of that truth
which enlightens all men.” Filipino Catholics, therefore, should
“acknowledge, preserve and encourage the spiritual and moral truths found
among non-Christians, also their social life and culture” (NA 2).
PCP II provides guidelines for this inter-religious dialogue. It must be
based firmly on the fact that salvation in Jesus Christ is offered to all, and
that the Church is the ordinary means of salvation since she possesses the
fullness of the means to salvation (cf. UR 3). This makes possible “openness
in understanding the religious convictions of others. [For] ‘dialogue based
on hope and love will bear fruit in the Spirit’ (RMi 56)” [PCP II 112-13].
II. JESUS CHRIST:
AGENT, CONTENT AND GOAL OF REVELATION
76. Nevertheless we Catholics must “witness to [our] own faith and way of
life” in the Catholic Church which “proclaims, and is duty-bound to
proclaim, without fail, Christ who is the way, the truth and the life” (NA 2).
Jesus Christ is “himself both the mediator and the fullness of all Revelation”
(DV 2; cf. CCC 65).
PCP II puts it sharply: “We are followers of Christ, his disciples. We trace
his footsteps in our times, to utter his word to others. To love with his love.
To live with his life . . . To cease following him is to betray our very
identity” (PCP II 34). Filipino Catholics, therefore, recognize in Jesus Christ
the goal, the content, and the agent of God’s Self-revelation.
A. Goal
77. As goal, Jesus is “the key, the center and the purpose of the whole of
man’s history” (GS 10), in whose image we all are to be conformed (cf. Rom
8:29). For it is through the Risen Christ that we shall share the Trinitarian
divine life of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Therefore our present earthly life
is a challenge to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” as St. Paul admonishes us
(cf. Rm 13:14).
B. Content
78. But Christ is not only the goal of God’s revelation, He is also its
content, the Revealed One. In himself, Jesus reveals both God and ourselves.
“Christ, the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father
and of His love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most
high calling” (GS 22). Our Faith centers on Christ precisely because we
believe we “are called to union with him, who is the light of the world, from
whom we go forth, through whom we live, and towards whom our whole
life is directed” (LG 3).
C. Agent
79. Finally, besides being the goal and content of Revelation, Christ is also
its agent, the mediator (cf. DV 2). “God is one. One also is the mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom
for all” (1 Tim 2:5-6). Christ is revealer through his part in creation, through
his becoming man, through his hidden and public life, and especially
through his passion, death and resurrection. After his resurrection, the Risen
Christ continues his revelation by sending us his Holy Spirit, the Spirit of
truth (cf. DV 4).
80. But how does the revealing Christ touch the Filipino Catholic today? Clearly,
through his Church, the people of God, united in his name. “The one mediator,
Christ, established and ever sustains here on earth his holy Church, the community
of faith, hope and charity, as a visible organization through which he
communicates
truth and grace to all men” (LG 8). The Church herself receives Christ’s revelation.
She regards “the Scriptures, taken together with sacred Tradition, as the supreme
rule of her faith.” For they present “God’s own Word in an unalterable form, and
make the voice of the Holy Spirit sound again and again in the words of the
prophets and apostles” (DV 21).
III. WHERE WE FIND GOD’S REVELATION
A. Scripture and Tradition
81. The Sacred Scriptures, collected in the Bible, are the inspired record of
how God dealt with His people, and how they responded to, remembered,
and interpreted that experience. The Scriptures arose, then, as the expression
of the people’s experience of God, and as a response to their needs.
Collectively, the Scriptures form “The Book of the People of God” __ the
book of the Church. The Bible was written by persons from the people of
God, for the people of God, about the God-experience of the people of God”
(NCDP 131).
82. The Scriptures, then, are never to be separated from the people of God
whose life and history (Tradition) formed the context of their writing and
development. This is best shown in the three stages of how the Gospels
were formed.
First stage, the life and teaching of Jesus — what Jesus, while he lived
among us, really did and taught for our eternal salvation, until the day he
was taken up. Second stage, oral tradition. After Jesus’ Ascension, the
apostles handed on to their hearers what Jesus had said and done. Third
stage, the written Gospels. “The sacred authors, in writing the four Gospels,
selected certain elements that had been handed on orally or already in
written form, others they synthesized or explained in view of the situation of
their churches, while preserving the form of proclamation. But always in
such a way that they have told us the honest truth about Jesus” (DV 19; cf.
CCC 126).
This shows how the written Gospels grew out of oral tradition, and
were composed in view of the concrete “people of God” of the early
Christian communities. Through His inspired Word in Scripture, God
continues to reveal Himself to us today.
83. Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together.
. . flowing out from the same divine well spring, moving towards the same
goal and making up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God (cf. DV 9, 10).
Tradition can be taken either as the process by which divine revelation, coming
from Jesus Christ through the apostles, is communicated and unfolded in the
community of the Church, or as the content of the revelation so
communicated. Thus the living Tradition of the Church, which includes the
inspired word of God in Sacred Scripture, is the channel through which God’s
self-revelation comes to us.
84. As Sacred Scripture grew from Tradition, so it is interpreted by
Tradition __ the life, worship, and teaching of the Church. Tradition depends
on Scripture as its normative record of Christian origins and identity, while
Scripture requires the living Tradition of the Church to bring its Scriptural
message to the fresh challenges and changing contexts confronting
Christians in every age.
Biblical Inspiration
85. The Sacred Scriptures are said to be “inspired” in a special sense __ not
just as some artist or author may be “inspired” to paint or compose. Rather,
biblical inspiration means that the sacred and canonical books of the Old
and New Testaments, whole and entire, were written under the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit, so that we can call God their “author” and the Bible “the
Word of God” (cf. DV 11; CCC 105-6). God chose certain human authors,
who as true authors made full use of their human powers and faculties, yet
were so guided by the Holy Spirit who so enlightened their minds and
moved their wills, that they put down in writing what God wanted written.
86. Biblical inspiration, then, is a charism referring to the special divine
activity, communicated to individual authors, editors, and compilers
belonging to the community, for the sake of the community. It produced the
sacred texts both of the Old Testament and the New. These texts ground the
apostolic Church which remains uniquely authoritative for us and for all
generations of Christians.
87. But the Holy Spirit’s work in Scripture touches more than its human
authors: in some fashion it also touches both the proclaimers and the
hearers of the word. “In the sacred books the Father who is in heaven comes
lovingly to meet His children, and talks with them” (DV 21). Scripture thus
supports and invigorates the Church (cf. CCC 131-33). It strengthens our
faith, offers food for our souls, and remains a pure and lasting fount for our
spiritual lives. Through the Spirit “God’s word is living and effective” (Heb
4:12). But we realize that what was written in the Spirit must be proclaimed
and heard in the Spirit.
The Canon of Scripture
88. Because of disputes, the Church found it necessary to make a definitive
list, a “canon” of the books which have been truly inspired by God and thus
have God for their author (cf. CCC 120). The Canon of Scripture is divided
into the books written before Jesus’ life (the Old Testament) and those
written after (the New Testament). Guided by the Holy Spirit, the Church
determined the inspired and normative NT books in terms of their apostolic
origin, coherence with the essential Gospel message, and constant use in the
Church’s liturgy. After a long development, the Church finally accepted as
inspired, sacred, and canonical, the 46 books of the Old Testament and the
27 books of the New Testament that we find in our Catholic Bible.
Inerrant Saving Truth
89. Since all of Scripture was written, compiled and edited under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, “we must acknowledge that the books of
Scripture, firmly, faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God,
for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred
Scriptures” (DV 11; cf. CCC 107). In recognizing the Bible as normative, the
Church confesses that when properly used, Scripture imparts saving truth
that can be relied upon to bring us into deeper communion with God.
90. But we must recognize that the Bible is a collection of historical
accounts, doctrinal teachings, poems, parables, ethical exhortations,
apocalyptic visions and many other forms. It was written over a period of
more than a thousand years, separated from us by almost twenty centuries.
Therefore, it is not easy to determine precisely what is the “saving truth”
which God wills to impart to us through a particular book or text of
Scripture.
In addition, the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that
the Christian Faith is not a ‘religion of the Book.’ Christianity is the religion of
the Word of God, ‘not a written word unable to speak, but the incarnate and
living Word.’ So that the Scriptures do not remain a dead letter, it is necessary
that Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, by the Holy Spirit, opens our
minds to understand them (CCC 108).
B. Interpreting Scripture
91. St. Paul tells us that “all Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for
teaching __ for reproof, correction, and training in holiness so that the man of
God may be fully competent and equipped for every good work” (2 Tim
3:16-17). But the problem, of course, is how to faithfully and accurately
interpret Scripture. For the Filipino Catholic, the answer is clear. “The task
of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God has been entrusted
to the living teaching office of the Church alone” (DV 10).
Four Factors
92. At least four factors play a significant part in interpreting Scripture: (1)
the inspired human author’s intention; (2) the text itself; (3) the reader of the
text; and (4) the common horizon connecting the original community context
of the text with our Christian community reading it today.
93. First, the human author. Common sense tells us to find out what the
inspired human author had in mind when interpreting a text. This involves
some basic idea of the social, economic, and religious conditions of the
authors in their particular historical situations (cf. DV 12; CCC 110).
94. Second, the text itself. We have to look at its literary form (e.g.,
historical narratives, prophetic oracles, poems or parables) which the author
is using (cf. DV 12.)
In addition, the text must be viewed within the unity of the whole Bible (cf.
CCC 112). Both Old and New Testaments are read by Christians in the light of the
Risen Crucified Christ. The New Testament’s own use of Old Testament events,
persons and things as “types” foreshadowing its own, exemplifies this dynamic
unity
of the two Testaments. For example, Adam and Melchisedek are types of Christ
(cf.
Heb 6:20-28); the flood foreshadows Baptism (cf. 1 Pt 3:20-21); manna in the
desert is the “type” of the Eucharist (cf. Jn 6:48-51, CCC 128-30).
Something of the history of the text’s interpretations, especially its use
in the Church’s liturgy, can be very helpful.*
95. Third, the readers/hearers. We are constantly asking Scripture new
questions and problems, drawn from our own experience. Every Filipino
Catholic wants to know what the Scripture means “to me/us.” At the same
time we recognize that the Bible brings its own culture of meanings and
framework of attitudes that help form, reform and transform us, the readers,
into the image of Christ. We must let the Bible “form” us, even while
conscious that we are reading it in the light of our own contemporary
experience.
In seeking what the Scripture text means “for me/us,” we need to consider the
witness offered in the lives of holy men and women in the Church through the
centuries. Any authentic interpretation of the text for the Christian community
today
must be in continuity and harmonize with this tradition of meaning that has grown
out of the text’s impact on Christian communities through the ages (cf. DV 21;
CCC 131-33).
96. Fourth, is the common horizon which first unites all the books of the
Bible into a basic unity, and second, links together the context of the
Scriptural text and its tradition with our present reading context today. This
horizon is the new and eternal covenant God has established with us in His
Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. In interpreting Scripture, we seek the truth that
God wishes to communicate to us today, through Scripture. In this we are
guided by the living teaching office of the Church which “exercises its
authority in the name of Jesus Christ, not as superior to the Word of God,
but as its servant” (DV 10).
97. Thus we see that “in the supremely wise arrangement of God, Sacred
Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching office (Magisterium) of the
Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand
without the others. Working together, each in its own way under the action
of the one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to our salvation” (DV
10).
INTEGRATION
98. The danger is that all this “doctrine” about Revelation and its sources in
Scripture and Tradition will remain only as “head knowledge,” left behind
in our daily living. But God is touching us, calling us to relate to Him in
thought, word and deed. It is in and through our daily life-experiences __ our
everyday dealings in family, work and recreation __ as well as in prayer and
the Sacraments, that God is close to us. Scripture and Tradition illumine our
experiences in two ways: 1) by showing us how to act as disciples of Jesus
Christ, and 2) by helping us discern God’s action in our daily lives.
99. “Showing us how to act as believers in Jesus Christ” is the goal of
Catholic moral teaching. The Filipino Catholic’s conscience is gradually
formed through Scripture and the Church’s living tradition. We are drawn to
the lifestyle of a son/daughter of the heavenly Father, following Jesus
Christ, the Incarnate Son, strengthened and inspired by the indwelling Spirit,
and living in the Church, Christ’s own community. The Commandments of
God and Christ’s Beatitudes do not impose burdensome obligations that
restrict our genuine freedom. Rather, they reveal and protect our inalienable
dignity as human persons by specifying the moral duties of each and
everyone. God’s call to justice and honesty creates our authentic freedom.
100. “To discern God’s action in our daily lives” demands a spiritual
sensitivity that comes only from authentic Christian prayer and worship.
This means that our personal prayer is grounded in God’s revelation in
Scripture and the Church’s living tradition. Only then are we sure to worship
“in Spirit and in truth” (Jn 4:24). All the typical Filipino devotions and
forms of religiosity must ultimately be viewed in the light of the Gospel. For
Jesus Christ taught us to pray “Our Father” (cf. Mt 6:9-13) and gave us the
sacrament of his love to be our sacrificial worship of his Father in the Holy
Spirit.