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2. In His goodness and wisdom God chose to reveal Himself and to
make known to us the hidden purpose of His will (see Eph. 1:9)
by which through Christ, the Word made flesh, man might in the Holy
Spirit have access to the Father and come to share in the divine
nature (see Eph. 2:18; 2 Peter 1:4). Through this
revelation, therefore, the invisible God (see Col. 1;15, 1
Tim. 1:17) out of the abundance of His love speaks to men as
friends (see Ex. 33:11; John 15:14-15) and lives
among them (see Bar. 3:38), so that He may invite and take
them into fellowship with Himself. This plan of revelation is
realized by deeds and words having in inner unity: the deeds wrought by
God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the teaching and
realities signified by the words, while the words proclaim the deeds
and clarify the mystery contained in them. By this revelation then,
the deepest truth about God and the salvation of man shines out for our
sake in Christ, who is both the mediator and the fullness of all
revelation. [2]
3. God, who through the Word creates all things (see John
1:3) and keeps them in existence, gives men an enduring witness to
Himself in created realities (see Rom. 1:19-20). Planning
to make known the way of heavenly salvation, He went further and from
the start manifested Himself to our first parents. Then after their
fall His promise of redemption aroused in them the hope of being saved
(see Gen. 3:15) and from that time on He ceaselessly kept the
human race in His care, to give eternal life to those who
perseveringly do good in search of salvation (see Rom. 2:6-7).
Then, at the time He had appointed He called Abraham in order to
make of him a great nation (see Gen. 12:2). Through the
patriarchs, and after them through Moses and the prophets, He taught
this people to acknowledge Himself the one living and true God,
provident father and just judge, and to wait for the Savior promised
by Him, and in this manner prepared the way for the Gospel down
through the centuries.
4. Then, after speaking in many and varied ways through the
prophets, "now at last in these days God has spoken to us in His
Son" (Heb. 1:1-2). For He sent His Son, the eternal
Word, who enlightens all men, so that He might dwell among men and
tell them of the innermost being of God (see John 1:1-18).
Jesus Christ, therefore, the Word made flesh, was sent as "a man
to men." [3] He "speaks the words of God" (John 3;34),
and completes the work of salvation which His Father gave Him to do
(see John 5:36; Divine Revelation 17:4). To see Jesus
is to see His Father (John 14:9). For this reason Jesus
perfected revelation by fulfilling it through his whole work of making
Himself present and manifesting Himself: through His words and
deeds, His signs and wonders, but especially through His death and
glorious resurrection from the dead and final sending of the Spirit of
truth. Moreover He confirmed with divine testimony what revelation
proclaimed, that God is with us to free us from the darkness of sin
and death, and to raise us up to life eternal.
The Christian dispensation, therefore, as the new and definitive
covenant, will never pass away and we now await no further new public
revelation before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ
(see 1 Tim. 6:14 and Tit. 2:13).
5. "The obedience of faith" (Rom. 13:26; see 1:5; 2
Cor 10:5-6) "is to be given to God who reveals, an obedience
by which man commits his whole self freely to God, offering the full
submission of intellect and will to God who reveals," [4] and
freely assenting to the truth revealed by Him. To make this act of
faith, the grace of God and the interior help of the Holy Spirit
must precede and assist, moving the heart and turning it to God,
opening the eyes of the mind and giving "joy and ease to everyone in
assenting to the truth and believing it." [5] To bring about an
ever deeper understanding of revelation the same Holy Spirit
constantly brings faith to completion by His gifts.
6. Through divine revelation, God chose to show forth and
communicate Himself and the eternal decisions of His will regarding
the salvation of men. That is to say, He chose to share with them
those divine treasures which totally transcend the understanding of the
human mind. [6]
As a sacred synod has affirmed, God, the beginning and end of all
things, can be known with certainty from created reality by the light
of human reason (see Rom. 1:20); but teaches that it is through
His revelation that those religious truths which are by their nature
accessible to human reason can be known by all men with ease, with
solid certitude and with no trace of error, even in this present state
of the human race. [7]
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