1.-Revelation

By revelation, so far as man is concerned, I understand the uncovering before man of truth which man is capable of recognizing, but which he could never have attained to the knowledge of by his natural faculties as man. The nature of that which is thus made known (whether things past, present, or to come,-persons or doctrines, etc.), matters not; neither, as we shall see, does the mode in which the knowledge is communicated, etc., enter into the definition of revelation.
It must he clear to any simple mind, that a man does not, and cannot, intuitively know what preceded His existence here on earth, or what will follow after the moment actually present. And man-Adam in the garden of Eden-could not know intuitively, of the creation of that part of the world which preceded his own existence, as the account of it is given to us in Scripture (Gen. 1:1-26). If Adam knew it at all, it was by a divine communication. So, again, as to the revelation given to John in Patmos. The great mass of the things revealed were lying in the distant future. It was only by a divine communication, that John could know them.
Now, how Moses learned about the creation of the world we know not. Were it through a vision, in which the scenes were made to pass before him; or were it by tradition, handed down to him from Adam, of what God revealed to him; or were it by thoughts breathed into him by God, through a "Thus saith the Lord," as in Old Testament times; or were it that God told Moses himself about it, as one man speaketh face to face with a friend -as, indeed, He did communicate to Moses all about the tabernacle, etc., when on the mount-the mode of communication matters not; the how the revelation was made to Moses, who wrote the account of it for us, this is not the important thing. Again, John, in the Apocalypse, learned by seeing and hearing, and so far, the mode of the revelation being made to him was unlike the mode in which the Spirit of the Lord came upon a Balaam, a Saul, an Isaiah, etc., with a "Thus saith the Lord." Balaam and Saul had, though they were wicked men, a flow of truth breathed through them, of truth which no mere man could ever have attained to as mere man. It was a divine communication. Now, the mode of communication to Moses in the Mount, and to David (as to the patterns of the tabernacle, the temple, etc.) were of other kinds altogether from a "Thus saith the Lord." Again, the four evangelists saw and heard all that they wrote, apparently, as following their Master upon earth, and conversant with others that did so likewise. Much of what they wrote about was perfect as a revelation. They had seen and heard; "God manifest in the flesh, full of grace and truth." They had, as men in the body, had the Christ of God as their Leader and Master. HE was the revelation of God in the highest sense of the term. But then there were a number of outside facts which were not in themselves revelations (Acts 1:21,22), which, also, they had to write about.
Enough has been said to slew what revelation is. And, if we consider the person of our blessed Lord while upon earth, we shall see how the purest, fullest, most perfect revelation, even that of God himself in His Son (Heb. 1), can exist and be before man in open display quite independently of inspiration, or of sacred scripture. No man hath seen God at any time. "The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him (John 1:18; 1 John 1:1,2).