The Son Reveals the Father

THE WHOLE HISTORY of God's revelation, which for us is salvation history, reaches its culmination in Christ, who is the "revealer" of the Father. Christ is the one who comes in the fullness of time; all earlier revelation was pointing to him as the ultimate secret that the Father wants to reveal to us. When Christ appears among us, the Father is revealing himself in his mysterious entirety.

JESUS CHRIST is the definitive revealer of the mystery of God. He announces the Father and makes him known (cf. John 1: 18). What he has heard from the Father, he announces to the world (John 3: 3, 32; 8: 26; 15: 15). Jesus is the Father's only-begotten Son who comes into the world keenly aware of his mission of revealing the Father and fully empowered to carry it out. He has authority and he makes it felt: "They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching-with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him. ' At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee" (Mark 1: 22, 27-28). Jesus produces amazement among those who hear his words and behold his deeds. This capacity to cause astonishment comes from who he is: the one to whom all power in heaven and on earth has been given (Matt 28: 18). That is why, when he reveals the mystery of God, he reveals also the conflicting desires of people's hearts (cf. Luke 1: 35-36). By reflecting God's authority as the only-begotten Son, he becomes a cornerstone of contradiction among his own people (cf. Matt 21: 42; Acts 4: 14). As revealer of the triune mystery, Jesus Christ enters into people's lives with unprecedented authority, but he also suffers in his own flesh the rejection brought on by this very revelation.