What is the difference between illumination, inspiration and revelation?
By Rembrandt. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Illumination is best defined by distinguishing it from two related theological terms: revelation and inspiration.“Revelation” refers to the act by which God makes known what is otherwise unknowable. Theologians sometimes call it “special revelation.” “Natural revelation”—what may be observed in nature and experience regarding the existence and power of God (Rom. 1:20)—is not specific or full enough to bring redemption, so God gave clear, unmistakable “special revelation” in Scripture. That gift was a free act motivated by love and grace through which God disclosed the fullness of His truth to man. The Holy Spirit was the agent of that revelation. In 1 Cor. 2:10, Paul affirmed that “God revealed [His Word] through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.” The Holy Spirit alone is competent to reveal God’s truth, for only He can search the “depths” of God. Since He Himself is God, He is omniscient and knows the mind of God perfectly (cf. Rom. 8:26).
Were it not for God’s sovereign choice to reveal Himself, we could not know enough of His truth to be saved. Since we live in the natural world, locked into the space-time box, we cannot break out of that box into the supernatural world. The only knowledge we have of that realm is what God adds to our confining situation. We can know nothing of His redemptive plan or His will for our lives except by revelation.
“Inspiration” is the vehicle by which God’s special revelation came to man. It was the process by which “men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2 Pet. 1:21). It was the means by which God’s revelation was inscripturated.
Inspiration is verbal. The very words of Scripture are inspired, not merely the thoughts or concepts of the writers. In 1 Cor. 2:12–13, Paul wrote
Words have a power all their own (Photo credit: waɪ.tiː),Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
“We” in this passage does not include all Christians, but is limited to inspired speakers and writers. Paul and the other writers of Scripture received God’s revelation. They were the instruments God used to transmit this revelation to man. In the next verse, Paul added a description of how the Spirit illumines all Christians to receive that inspired revelation.
Inspiration is also plenary. All the Bible is inspired, not merely the parts of it dealing with matters of faith and practice. Paul emphatically stated in 2 Tim. 3:16 that “all Scripture is inspired by God” (emphasis added). Inspired translates the Greek word theopneustos, which literally means “God-breathed.” Scripture is not a human product into which God breathed spiritual life. On the contrary, it originated by being breathed out by God. And since it is ridiculous to charge the God of truth with inspiring error, the Bible’s plenary inspiration guarantees its inerrancy.
Contrary to the teaching of many, neither special revelation nor inspiration are occurring today. The Bible contains God’s final and complete written revelation to man (cf. Jude 3 and Rev. 22:18–19). Currently the Holy Spirit instructs and guides a believer, not by revealing newly inspired data, but by
The Holy Family with God the Father and the Holy Spirit (Photo credit: Wikipedia) bringing illumination to God’s already revealed Word.To argue that God must, through the Spirit, continue giving oral or written revelation today is to treat lightly the Spirit’s revelation in the Scripture and to deny the sufficiency of God’s Word. It is, in fact, a total disregard of the value of illumination by an attempted substitution of alleged revelation. These three ministries of the Spirit must not be confused. Biblical writers received revelation when God inspired Scripture. We receive illumination when the Spirit makes the words of Scripture live for us. Confusing illumination with revelation or inspiration will inevitably lead to error. Illumination is not the reception of new revelations from the Spirit. Rather it is the Spirit’s application of the truths of God’s complete revelation in Scripture to spiritual life.
Despite the fact that illumination is always connected to the revealed Word, throughout church history some people have claimed illumination apart from the Scripture. Calvin described these people as “giddy men” who
The Luther Room in the Wartburg Castle. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) were “not so much under the influence of error as madness.” He went on to chide them for not realizing that the writers of Scripture, who received revelation, had the highest regard for parts of the Word written before their time.6 He strongly warns,What an infatuation of the devil, therefore, to fancy that Scripture, which conducts the sons of God to the final goal, is of transient and temporary use? Again, I should like those people to tell me whether they have imbibed any other Spirit than that which Christ promised to his disciples.… But what kind of Spirit did our Saviour promise to send? One who should not speak of himself (John xvi. 13), but suggest and instil the truths which he himself had delivered through the word. Hence the office of the Spirit promised to us, is not to form new and unheard-of revelations, or to coin a new form of doctrine, by which we may be led away from the received doctrine of the gospel, but to seal on our minds the very doctrine which the gospel recommends.
Luther took a dim view of those who claimed extra-biblical illumination. He often referred to them as “swarmers,” likening them to bees swarming around with no place to land. “The swarmers, he said, were aimlessly flying around in the cloudland of their own dreams and refused to base their faith on the Bible.”
While Luther was in exile at the Wartburg Castle, Andreas Carlstadt, a friend and fellow reformer at Wittenberg, nearly wrecked Luther’s work there by initiating radical social and religious reforms based on an alleged inner leading of the Spirit and not on Scripture. Only Luther’s timely return from exile and courageous action saved the situation.
