I will reveal myself to the one who keeps my word. God has always revealed the self to God’s people, as the Hebrew Scriptures clearly attest. From the time of Abraham and the patriarchs to the time of Samuel and the judges, God has always made himself known to God’s people. And in all these instances, God’s self-revelation always preceded or accompanied God’s intervention in the lives of the people. God’s self-revelation, in other words, has always been redemptive/salvific. In addition, those to whom God revealed himself always acted as the medium of this revelation. For the recipients of God’s revelation were to transmit the contents of the revelation to the community. The ultimate self-revelation of God took place in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the fullest revelation of God. In him, God’s revelation has been made accessible to all, for he is God with us (cf. Matthew 1:23). Unfortunately, even with God’s fullest revelation in the person of Jesus Christ, God’s still remains unknown. Why is this so?
God reveals the self to those who keep God’s words. In other words, one must make this self-revelation of God happen. In Jesus Christ, God’s self-revelation is not so much an imposition from the outside as it is the coming to an awareness by the individual. The self-revelation of God is not an external event. It does not happen to one from the outside (as a vision or apparition). Rather, it is an internal occurrence (a state of being) that is brought about (and seen) in the keeping of the words of Jesus. He/she who keeps God’s word becomes imbued with the love of God and becomes aflame with God’s love (whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me). It is this fire of love ignited by the indwelling of God within one that is the revelation. God’s self-revelation is an awareness of the redemptive love of God towards an individual.