God's Revelation in the Old Testament

            In the scriptures, we find two different revelations of God. First, the "natural," which is when God is revealed through His work (i.e. Creation functions for us as a book). The second form, which is the one we will spend more time on today, is the "supernatural." This form is the free-willing self-disclosure of God as recorded in the Old and New Testaments. It is the will of God to reveal Himself – to have a dialogue with mankind. Carrying this forward, one may distinguish three phases of the divine revelation throughout the Old Testament period corresponding to the three divisions of the Hebrew Bible: Torah, Nebiim, and Kethubim. As such, we will take some time to review the ways of God's self-disclosure in the Old Testament and how these three phases were embodied in Christ's life and work. .
             Beginning with the Torah, which means "instruction", God reveals Himself through natural phenomena such as: wind, fire, earthquake, cloud, smoke, etc. In the midst of all these powerful signs of divine presence, Moses receives the Torah, the instruction, which represents the most important section of God's revelation in the Old Testament. In Exodus 19:18-19 we witness a moment of this natural phenomena, "Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke, for Yahweh had come down upon it in fire; the smoke rose like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled violently. The sound of the shophar grew louder and louder. As Moses spoke, God answered him in thunder." Later in Exodus 34, when Moses was descending the mountain with the two tablets containing the commandments, the appearance of the color of his face was glorified, ".Since he had spoken with Him.". Therefore, we can conclude the source of Moses' transfiguration was God talking to him. .
             The second phase of God's revelation to us is the Nebiim, the "prophets". Here God reveals Himself through a "whisper" discerned only by those called to discern such a whispering voice.