#Bavinck2022 Chapter Four: The Value of General Revelation
In this chapter, Bavinck explains how all men have benefited from general revelation, God’s self-disclosure that goes out to all people. Rightly esteeming the importance of general revelation is of the utmost importance, to avoid overemphasizing it to the exclusion of special revelation, and to avoid underestimating it altogether.
The first quote that I have gone back to again and again from this chapter is on page 29: “The deepest cause of this present state of the world [the state of both wrath and grace, punishment and blessing] is this: because of the sin of man, God is continually manifesting his wrath and yet, by reason of His own good pleasure, is always again revealing His grace also.” He borrows the expression of another who describes the world as a laugh inside of a tear to demonstrate the duality of this present age, where there is much weeping but also much joy.
He tackles the history of general revelation from the earliest history of man, the first eleven chapters of Genesis. This section is extremely valuable in order to get an understanding of the foundation of human history. A few observations from this section:
Note from the very beginning of human history, God makes a distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous. God’s purpose in setting aside a people for himself as early as Cain and Abel, and the thread of election is woven into the entire storyline of Scripture.
Note the special covenant that God makes with Noah. Despite man’s heart being evil from his youth, God promises to preserve mankind and seals his promise with the rainbow.
Bavinck takes the intermarriage between the “sons of God” and “daughters of men” in Genesis 6:4 not to refer to some kind of relationship between spiritual beings and humans, as some do today, but instead to refer to intermarriage between those from Seth’s line (the “sons of God”) and from Cain’s line (the “daughters of men”).
One part of this chapter for you to keep an eye out for is Bavinck’s description of non-Christian religions. After denying that monotheism evolved from animism and polytheism, he identifies three ideas and practices that every non-Christian religion has in common:
First, idolatry, the worship of images. Broadly speaking, “idolatry means putting something else in the place of the one, true God, or alongside of Him, and placing one’s trust in that.” (40)
Second, false ideas about man and the world. When the line between creature and Creator is blurred, it is impossible to come to a right understanding about man’s past and his ultimate future.
Third and finally, man made religions imagine salvation to be a result of man’s works, strength and exertion. While these three characteristics vary in how they are manifested in each alternative religion, they are surely present in each case.
Bavinck ends the chapter with an even-handed evaluation of the results of general revelation. By it, man has been preserved from self-destruction and there is much rich cultural fruit in the world for him to enjoy. Yet, general revelation has not led mankind to find God, it is inadequate in and of itself for that task. Only special revelation, the subject of Bavinck’s next chapter, is sufficient for that.