The Fullness of Revelation: A Meditation on Mark 9

Our day and age has no shortage of those who look for secret knowledge, or to peer into things previously unseen.  For those who remember the various fiascos around the turning of the Millenium (Y2K, anyone?), 2012 (the Mayan apocalypse, picked up in ridiculous movies, and by a handful of modern “prophets”), and the most recent fervor around the Four Blood Moons (with some Christian pastors making a lot of money on their published books, which apparently they don’t intend to spend if the world is ending shortly…), we know that there are always people who want to know what God has not given them to know.  While end of the world apocalyptic projections can be disconcerting and sometimes harmful (think of the people who were duped into selling their retirement accounts to fund the proclamation of the 2012 end of the world), there are more dangerous purveyors of this problematic method theologians call “Enthusiasm.”

Many modern church bodies have become enamored with the idea that “God is still speaking.”  These church bodies, most notably the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), The Episcopal Church (TEC) and the United Church of Christ (UCC) have used this concept to find “truths” previous generations could not perceive.  In fact, they have proposed a whole new slate of moral accommodations and mandates which Scripture seems to condemn, but which their scholars seem to find either behind the text, or in new revelations of God that come through Naturalism, Social Science, politics, or popular opinion.  Hence they embrace infanticide through abortion, the deconstruction of the family through easy divorce, the deconstruction of natural male and female vocations through their discard of the Order of Creation, and the debasement of human sexuality through their embrace of sodomy, adultery, and fornication.  As these churches try to peer into things God has not revealed through His Word, they think they find new doctrines and new gospels, even as they leave the authentic doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles behind.  Such churches teach their people to trust in revelations by other spirits, and guide them away from the Holy Spirit who works through His Word to reveal Christ as our Savior.

But they are not alone.  Ostensibly conservative and traditional church bodies struggle with this desire to peer into things not revealed, and come away with new revelations born by unholy spirits.  American Evangelicalism is growing up a new crop of pastors that are choosing to embrace homosexuality, twisting Scripture to their conclusions.  American Catholic universities promote Jesuit theologians who turn the Gospel of Salvation into political liberation, while the Nuns on a Bus ride around promoting new sexual ethics.  Churches like the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) protect heretics teaching at major universities on their clergy roster, a movement called FiveTwo that effectively deconstructs the pastoral office into populist enthusiasm, and whole districts that defend syncretistic worship alongside the clergy of other gods (most recently after 9/11/2001, and the Newtown shooting tragedy.)  They are not alone.  Time would fail to recount all the church bodies and well schooled teachers who have peered into the mists of unrevealed knowledge, and pulled out of their ponderings things which conflict with Holy Scripture.  This should not surprise us, even if it scandalizes us—man has always been seeking knowledge apart from God and His Word, only to find the devil with his lying spirits ready to fill our heads with every form of nonsense.

Our sinful inclination to take what is not ours, to deny what is given to us for the lust of something we have not been given, is not God’s fault or design.  This twisted nature of ours is entirely our own fault, as is the Fall of Creation which we brought on by heeding the devil’s voice rather than our Creator’s.  His Word called all things into existence, and continues to sustain all things, even after we corrupted them.  His Word pierces through the darkness of the world we have perverted, shining His glorious light into the lies we choose to believe.  His Word is the reality upon which the whole universe turns, and the reality of our own existence, as well.  His Word is everything to us, despite the derision we have for it.

But thanks be to God, that He does not withdraw His Word from His fallen and lost people!  Rather, He sends His Word to us through His Prophets and Apostles, so that we might hear and know Him.  He sends His messengers of every time and place, to bear witness to His Word, so that every generation might be called by Him into His marvelous light.  He sends His Word to seek and to save the lost and the dying, the abuser and the abused—all those who are enslaved to the sinful lies of the devil, taken captive by peering into things not given while abandoning the clear and constant Word of God.

And so we may ask, what is this Word?  It is Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of the Father.  The Word is certainly that which the Spirit of Christ caused to be written by the Prophets and the Apostles, and which we hold in our hands as the Holy Scriptures.  But the Word of God is more than a book, and more than the words of men.  The Word of God is a Person, who came in the proper time, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so that He might be the salvation for all mankind.  The Word of God is Jesus Christ, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, died, and was buried; who rose again victorious over sin, death, hell, and the devil on the third day; who sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.  Jesus is the fullness of the revelation of God’s Word to mankind, in whom alone is the salvation of the whole human race.  Jesus is all we need to know, since He is the one who made satisfaction for our sins through His Holy Cross, who grafts us into His eternal life by grace through faith in Him, who absolves us of all our sins and empowers us by His Spirit to live lives of faith, repentance, holiness and love.

This is what we learn from Jesus on the mount of Transfiguration.  We see and hear Him, as the Father declares Him to us:  This is My Beloved Son:  hear Him!  He speaks to us and calls us by His Word written and proclaimed, that we might know Him, and in His fellowship abide forever.  Heaven and earth will indeed pass away, but the Word of the Lord— Gospel of our salvation—shall abide forever.  All praise be to Christ our Savior, the living and saving Word of God, now and forevermore!  Amen.