The Experience of Revelation

Date

018-x900

God, as the Orthodox Church teaches, is not subject to the processes of human reason. He is not discovered by man, but reveals Himself in man’s heart.

Christ prayed to His Father saying, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight” (Matt.11:25-26). The wise and prudent are unable to know God through their wisdom and understanding, as knowledge is revealed in the heart of the humble. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt.5:8). Christ said to the Apostle Peter, who confessed that He was the Son of the living God, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Matt.16:17).

Because the Apostle Paul was sure that his teaching was a revelation of Christ, he writes, “But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal.1:11-12). God revealed His Son in him (Gal.1:15-16). In fact Saint Paul refers to several such revelations (2 Cor.12:off). In general, the truth concerning God is a revelation of God Himself to the saints down through the centuries. “The revelation is the experience of glorification”.

 

source: Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos, “Empirical Dogmatics of the Orthodox Catholic Church according to the spoken teaching of father John Romanides”, Volume 1.

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