What is general revelation and special revelation?

The book of nature reveals God’s fingers (Ps. 8:3); the book of revelation His heart. The former tells us of His originality, design, forethought, omnipotence; the latter reveals Himself, His heart, His love, His design in the creation of man and His ways in blessing Him.

Paul describes the universal moral law (general revelation) in Romans 1: "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities‑his eternal power and divine nature‑have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse" (v. 20). Paul goes on to say that men knew God through nature and the very world around them, but they neither glorified God nor thanked Him and instead plunged into idolatry‑serving created things rather than their creator (see vv. 21‑25).

As for knowledge, the Christian worldview doesn't agree with skeptics who say knowledge is simply unattainable. (By the way, if you want to ruin a skeptic's day, ask him how he knows knowledge is unattainable.) Because God is the all-knowing knower of everything, and because we are made in His image (see Gen. 1:27), we can know all we need to know as we work on our own Christian worldview. Obviously, the most important part of a Christian's worldview is knowing God. We can know God through two forms of revelation: the created order of His universe and special revelation - the Scriptures. More on this also in chapter 1.)

In order that we might truly and really know God and the Father, there was a twofold kind of revelation necessary — not only one kind, but two kinds. That is to say, we needed a revelation of God, as really as we needed a revelation from God. We need both. A revelation from God we have in all its precious blessedness in the written word, which we call the scriptures; but the revelation of God we have in the incarnate Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore it is that no one can really know God or the Father except in the Son. To be without the Son is to be without the Father. (See 1 John 2:23.) And that is a very solemn reflection for our hearts, an immense thing in a certain way, because it meets at once all the ideas in the minds of men, who would speak of the knowledge of God or the understanding of God, without Christ.

It is good to see the hand of God in creation, but this will never save the soul; God's power unto salvation is not in the message of creation, but in the word of the Gospel. Many vainly imagine that the recognition of God in His creation, in the beauties of nature, in the glories of the heavens, and in other works of His hands, is sufficient to secure a passport to heaven; but unless they believe in the Gospel of God concerning His Son, they can never have the blessing of God. To ignore the Gospel is to ignore the need of salvation, and to despise the provision that God has made in the riches of His grace.

The testimony of creation renders man inexcusable, but it does not bring to him the knowledge of God. God's power is seen in the creation, but God Himself is only known in the Person of the Son. Man is a sinner, and at a distance from God by sin, and the pretence of worshipping God and communing with Him in the works of His hands ignores the sinful condition of man, his guilt, and the need of salvation. There can be no true worship of God apart from Christ; and the soul must first know God through the Gospel before it can approach Him in worship.

Creation should, indeed, speak, and its voice be heard. What is invisible in the Creator should be and is seen, and seen clearly, being understood by the things that are made—even His eternal power and Godhead—not, indeed, His grace, or truth, or love, but infinite power and design, so much so that people are left thus without excuse. (See Romans 1:20.) Creation declares the power of God. It does not reveal what He is in Himself—His nature—but to any, except those wilfully blind, it is evidence sufficient of the existence of a Creator-God!

There are things concerning God that the natural man is capable of discerning, if he is at all disposed to ponder what he sees in the creation. Of this, the Apostle Paul writes in Romans1, "For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse" (verse 20). But God Himself, in His nature of love, is not to be known from the study of the creation; only by the revelation of Himself in His Son could God be known. Nor can man apprehend the purpose of God apart from divine revelation; and without the knowledge of God and His purposes, man must take his way in darkness through this world; but the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is not in darkness, for he has been enlightened with the knowledge of God through faith; and the purpose of God has been made clear for us in the holy Scriptures.

1914 122 "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." In vain would men pretend to the knowledge of God apart from the Scriptures. They have tried long and hard to attain to it by their own means, science, philosophy, etc., but only to end with this confession of their ignorance, "To the unknown God." Such was the boasted wisdom of the Greeks nothing indeed to be proud of. God can only be known by the revelation of Himself, and a revelation of Himself He has given nowhere but in the Scriptures. He has given, in creation, visible proofs of His eternal power and divinity; but these proofs, if sufficient to condemn the fool who hath said in his heart, "There is no God," do not reveal Him in His nature and character. The Scriptures only, because God-breathed, can do that. Therein alone is God manifested in His holiness, righteousness and love. "God is light" and "God is love" is what we learn and see both in His written Word and in the incarnate Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, "the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person," or, as it may be translated, "the resplendence of His glory and the imprint of His substance."

Now it is clear that neither believing that God is, nor natural conscience, is believing in the special facts of Christianity — the incarnation, atonement, resurrection, redemption, being born again, the exaltation of a Man to God's right hand, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In a word, no special truth or fact of Christianity is "written on our hearts by God's own finger," or can be possessed by mere natural conscience or belief in God. All intervention of God is left out. But it is in this, and the statement of what led to its necessity, that revealed religion consists. There is a conscience in every man: the word of God acts on it. I do not doubt that there is an instinctive knowledge of a God and of judgment. This is all Dr. C. owns, with or without the Bible. Revealed religion is a series of divine and marvellous facts and truths, unfolding an intervention of God in grace with sinful man. He sets this aside; his relationship with God is not founded on it. He prefers, as teaching, what he has without it; that is, he wholly and professedly sets aside Christianity. He goes farther; he recognizes "the voice of God's Spirit … not in the Bible only, but out of the Bible; not to us Christians only, but to our fellow-men of all climes and countries, ages and religions, the same gracious Teacher is revealing, in different measures, according to His own good pleasure, the hidden things of God." (Page 222.)

God's eternal power and divinity may be known in creation, Rom. 1:20; but He has revealed Himself in the person of Christ, the Son, the eternal Word. God has been pleased also to reveal Himself in His written word. His purposes, His ways, and what He has done for sinful man, all demand universal reverence, adoration, and worship.