The Granite Altar: Why Personal Revelation Must Bow to the Written Word

The Treason of the Pulpit: A Charge to Teachers and Pastors

To those who stand in the sacred desk, your primary duty is not to be a visionary but to be a herald. When you stand before a congregation and offer “a word from the Lord” that did not originate in the systematic exposition of the text, you are not being spiritual, you are being a traitor. You have been entrusted with the oracles of God, the completed and sufficient revelation of His will, yet you treat the Bible as a mere launchpad for your own creative impulses.

The writer of Hebrews begins his great defence of Christ’s supremacy by declaring:

Christ is the final period at the end of God’s sentence. When you claim a “new” revelation, you are effectively stating that the Son’s testimony was incomplete.

The Church Fathers were clear that the faith was once for all delivered to the saints. Polycarp and Irenaeus did not seek to “hear something new” but to preserve what was old and true. When you elevate your personal impressions to the level of Scripture, you are engaging in a form of modern-day Gnosticism, suggesting that you possess secret knowledge that the Holy Spirit neglected to include in the sixty-six books of the Bible.

Charles Spurgeon once remarked that he would rather have a single verse of Scripture than a thousand sermons of human manufacture. If you find the Bible too restrictive for your “prophetic” flow, it is because your heart has become too large for God’s truth and too small for His glory. To lead a people away from the anchor of the Word and into the fog of subjective “feeling” is to lead them to the slaughter. You are responsible for the souls under your care, and if you feed them on the chaff of your own mind instead of the wheat of the Gospel, you will answer for their malnutrition at the Great White Throne.

The Gnostic Shadow: Learning from the Ancient Conflict

We must understand that this is not a new “move of the Spirit,” but a resurrection of an ancient heresy. In the second and third centuries, the Gnostics claimed a gnosis, a specialized, interior knowledge that superseded the “public” teachings of the Apostles. Irenaeus, in his masterwork Against Heresies, dismantled this arrogance by pointing to the “Rule of Faith.” He insisted that the Holy Spirit works through the public, apostolic succession of truth, not through the private, unverified “insights” of individuals.

The Fathers knew that once the objective standard of the written Word is removed, there is no defense against demonic delusion. If every man has his own “revelation,” then there is no longer one Body, but a thousand fragmented sects, each following the idol of their own imagination. The Apostle John warns us:

The only “test” provided is the objective truth of Christ as revealed in the apostolic witness.

The Anchor of the Soul: A Word for the Believer

For the average believer, the temptation is often more subtle. We desire to feel “close” to God, and we mistakenly believe that a sudden thought or a gut feeling is a more “living” communication than the black ink on a white page. We must remember that the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. It does not need your emotions to give it life; it is the source of life itself.

John Wesley often referred to himself as a “man of one book.” He understood that while reason and experience have their place, they must always sit at the feet of the written Word. The Holy Spirit is indeed active in your life, but His work is to illuminate what He has already spoken, not to whisper new secrets that bypass the Cross. When you prioritize personal revelation, you make yourself the final arbiter of truth. You become your own Pope, and your shifting moods become your infallible decrees.

The great danger of this “inner voice” theology is that it provides no protection against the deceptions of the enemy. If your feelings are your guide, how will you know when the “angel of light” is speaking to you? The early church survived the fires of Roman persecution not because they had “vibrations” or “impressions,” but because they had the apostolic witness. They had a Rock beneath their feet.

The Finality of the Word

We must return to a radical, dogged, and uncompromising “Bible Christianity.” Let your teacher be the Spirit through the Word, and let every impression be hauled before the judgment seat of Scripture. If it does not align with the Law and the Testimony, it is because there is no light in it. We do not need new voices; we need to hear the Voice that has already spoken.

The warning at the end of the Canon is not merely for the book of Revelation, but for the entire scope of God’s revealed will:

This is not a suggestion; it is a seal.

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God will stand forever. Build your house on that granite truth, or prepare to watch it collapse when the storms of life reveal the emptiness of your personal revelations.