REVELATION: DEEDS AND WORDS

11 So that men may come to a knowledge of his plan, God works in this way, namely, through events in the history of salvation and through the divinely inspired words which accompany these events and clarify them: "This plan of revelation is realised by deeds and words having an inner unity: the deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the teaching and realities signified by the words, while the words proclaim the deeds and clarify the mystery contained in them"

(DV, 2).

Revelation, therefore, consists of deeds and words, the ones illuminating, and being illuminated by, the others. The ministry of the word should proclaim these deeds and words in such a way that the loftiest mysteries contained in them are further explained and communicated by it. In this way the ministry of the word not only recalls the revelation of God’s wonders which was made in time and brought to perfection in Christ, but at the same lime, in the light of this revelation, interprets human life in our age, the signs of the limes, and the things of this world, for the plan of God works in these for the salvation of men.