revealedCarl F.H. Henry wrote, “Revelation is a divinely initiated activity, God’s free communication by which he alone turns his personal privacy into a deliberate disclosure of his reality.” He argues that all merely human affirmations about God that are based on something other than his divinely initiated, freely communicated, and deliberately disclosed reality will inevitably curl into a question mark. (Timothy George)

In other words, the only way anyone can know God is if He reveals Himself to them. Unless God initiates revelation, the person will continue in ignorance, incapable of knowing the true God so as to be saved. Consider…

Who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. (Mt 16:15-17)

Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, 38 so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” 39 Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, 40 “He (God) has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.” (Jn 12:37-40)

At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. (Mt 11:25-27)

Anyone who knows God… Jehovah God (Not Allah, Nor any other supposed deity) is because GOD chose to reveal Himself to the person. The ONLY way you or I know anything about God is because HE chose to allow us to know it or else we’d still be ignorant of Him. It is also true that the level to which a Christian matures is completely in God’s sovereign providential hand according to Hebrews 6:1-3…

Let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do IF God permits.

The point is everything we are is by the grace of God, and nothing else (1 Cor 15:10), “I am what I am by the grace of God.” You are what you are… we are what we are… BY GOD’S GRACE ALONE. Therefore He alone gets all the praise, adoration, and glory.