Today I’m gonna share a theological term you probably haven’t heard of unless you attended seminary.
The term is “Progressive Revelation”.
It’s something the modern gentile church speaks about quite a bit.
What is “Progressive Revelation” ?
It’s the idea that when the Lord wishes to reveal Himself to mankind, He does it in baby steps.
At each step of the way, the Lord reveals a new piece of information about who He is and how He works.
And we aren’t allowed to skip steps or fast forward the process.
We have no choice but to go through this journey at a certain speed in a certain way in order to properly understand the Lord and His plans for mankind.
Understand however that “Progressive Revelation” doesn’t reflect the nature of the Lord.
Rather, it reflects the nature of man.
In my last article, I mentioned that Abraham started off life as a pagan.
Even after God revealed Himself to him, Abraham still held to polytheistic beliefs (“polytheism” means the belief in more than one god).
The truth is it would take literally hundreds of years of tiny baby steps inching towards the truth before Abraham and his descendants would finally grasp the idea there’s ONLY ONE God in existence AND…
…that this one God was NOT a part of the commonly accepted Mystery Babylon god system popular in the ancient world at the time.
Heck, even in Japan where I live now, a lot of folks still believe in multiple gods who represent the elements of nature.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
It simply isn’t possible for one to go from a firmly entrenched polytheistic belief system (belief in may gods) to full-blown monotheism (belief in only one God) in one big leap.
That’s like trying to teach a kid algebra before he even knows how to do basic arithmetic.
That’s why the Lord had to take His people on a journey consisting of many baby steps.
What are some of the “baby steps” the Lord used to progressively reveal Himself to His people?
Well, first He used the existing customs and traditions of the time.
This is exactly what He did when He introduced Himself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as EL SHADDAI.
Remember, EL was the name of the Canaanite’s highest God.
The Lord permitted the early Hebrews to imagine Him in the same way the Canaanites understood EL.
And since all ancient peoples believed gods were territorial by nature, this made sense to them since they were living in the land of Canaan.
In other words, it was obvious to them the highest God where they were now living would be EL.
Because that’s what the Canaanites had always claimed.
God was piggybacking off of the common understanding of the times when He first introduced Himself as EL SHADDAI.
And again, EL SHADDAI does NOT mean God Almighty.
It means “God of the Mountain”.
This also aligns with the ancient belief at the time that all the gods lived up in high places.
However, with Moses, the Lord took things to the next level and made a bold and ballsy move.
From the burning bush, God revealed to Moses that His Name was not EL.
Instead, His real name was YHVH.
Woah!!!
This kicked off a whole new dimension of theological understanding.
This new pronouncement would have been easier to accept because Israel had long ago left Canaan and were now living in Egypt.
Again, this would just make sense to them because there’s no way the God they had met in Canaan would also be in Egypt.
Only Egyptian deities would be chillin’ in Egypt so to speak.
In fact, when Israel departed from Egypt during the time of the plagues, they really didn’t know how to react to this “new” God who suddenly revealed Himself to them at Mount Sinai.
Why?
Because this “new” God had appeared to them in a new land or territory that wasn’t Canaan and wasn’t Egypt.
Are getting this?
Accepting that the God at Sinai was the same God who had rescued them from Pharaoh in Egypt would have seriously conflicted with their current belief system that all gods were territorial.
When the Lord finally revealed Himself by His personal name YHVH, the Hebrew’s thought they had just discovered the name of the deity who was the head honcho in the territory they had just traveled to after hightailing it out of Egypt.
Are you getting this folks?
The ancient Hebrew mind would have had difficulty understanding that the same God who they encountered at Sinai was actually the same God who performed the awesome plagues in Egypt.
Why?
Because these things happened in DIFFERENT TERRITORIES man!
Why do you think the Lord had to repeat over and over and over again…
“I am the God who led you out of Egypt”.
“It is ME. I am the SAME God”.
And it’s why God told Moses…
“I am the SAME God who appeared to your forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”.
Again, this would have been really hard for the Hebrews to understand because it broke every known rule governing how the gods operated in the ancient world.
In their minds, they would be thinking, there’s just no way the God who had worked such incredible miracles in Egypt could now be the same God who is appearing to us at Mount Sinai.
It went against all of their ingrained assumptions about how deities functioned.
Heck, even I felt the same way when I first moved to Japan (my biological father’s country) when I was a high school student.
I wondered, does the God I worshipped in the United States also have power in this new land?
Of course, I found out He did.
Boy, did I ever find out.
The Lord is sovereign to a degree most humans will never comprehend because His influence and His blessings can only be tapped into through a strong faith.
And that’s something a secular, scientific and atheistic world looks down on with condescending eyes.
To close, understand the Lord was now breaking down the Israelites’ false belief system about who He really was and how He operated.
In due time, God’s people would soon come to understand their God was not only the only god in existence…
…but that territorial boundaries, limitations or restrictions meant nothing to Him.
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