The tyrannous noon of revelation is our solid hope

Salvation is entirely suited to our need and to the situation that we are in as a result of the Fall.

Included in this recovery is the restoration of knowledge and authority. By the work of the Spirit we are made receptive and submissive to God's voice in the gospel. We were created to relate to God through his Word (it should not be lost on us that God relates to the entire creation by his Word, a point that Genesis 1 makes emphatically).

The Fall was the rejection of the words of God in favour of a new form of verbal revelation. Adam and Eve submitted themselves to the wisdom and explanatory power of the words of the Serpent. But this was a lying revelation and a false authority. It promised a better interpretation of God's world, but it could not deliver. Such has been the story of heresy ever since.

That God should then speak words of promise was an act of free grace. And it was necessary that having rejected and rebelled against the voice of God that the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve should find no return to their Maker without once more receiving his words and submitting to their truthfulness, goodness and authority.

"Redemption includes liberation from falsehood and discovery of the truth. Objective religion is not the product of subjective religion but is given in divine revelation; dogma is not a symbolic interpretation of spiritual experience but an expression of truth given by God in his Word."

Bavinck, Prolegomena, p. 501