Hearing the word of God with reverence and proclaiming it with faith, the Sacred Synod takes its direction from these words of St. John: We announce to you the eternal life which dwelt with the Father and was made visible to us. What we have seen and heard we announce to you, so that you may have fellowship with us, and that our common fellowship may be with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1). Following in the footsteps of the Council of Trent and of the First Vatican Council, this present council wishes to set forth authentic doctrine on divine revelation, and on how it is handed on, so that by hearing the message of salvation the whole world may believe; and by believing it may hope; and by hoping it may love.
In His goodness and wisdom God chose to reveal Himself and make known to us the hidden purpose of His will, by which through Christ, the Word made flesh, man might in the Holy Spirit have access to the Father and come to share in the divine nature. Through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God out of the abundance of His love speaks to men as friends, and lives among them, so that he may draw them into fellowship with Himself. This plan of revelation is realized by deeds and words having an inner unity: the deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the same teaching signified by the words, while the words in turn proclaim the deeds and clarify the mystery contained in them. By this revelation, then, the deepest truth about God and about the salvation of man shines out for our sake in Christ, who is both the mediator and the fullness of revelation.
God, who through his Word creates all things and keeps them in being, gives men an enduring witness to himself in created realities. Further, planning to make known the way of heavenly salvation, he from the start manifested himself to our first parents. After their fall, his promise of redemption aroused in them the hope of being saved, and from that time on he ceaselessly kept the human race in his care, in order to give eternal life to those who perseveringly do good in search of salvation. Then, at the time he had appointed, he called Abraham, to make of him a great nation. Through the patriarchs, and after them through Moses and the prophets, he taught this people to acknowledge himself the one living and true God, provident father and just judge, and to wait for the Savior promised by him. In this manner did he prepare the way for the Gospel down through the centuries.
After speaking in many and varied ways through the prophets, now at last in these days God has spoken to us in His Son (Heb. 1:1-2). For he sent His Son, the eternal Word who enlightens all men that come into the world, so that he might dwell among men and tell them of the innermost being of God. Therefore was Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, sent as a man to men. He speaks the words of God (John 3;34) and he completes the work of salvation which His Father gave Him to do. To see Jesus is to see His Father (John 14:9).
Jesus for this reason perfects revelation by fulfilling it, through his work of making Himself present and of manifesting himself in his words and deeds; in his signs and wonders; but especially in his death and glorious resurrection from the dead, and through his final sending of the Spirit of truth. He moreover confirmed with divine testimony what revelation proclaimed: that God is with us to free us from the darkness of sin and death, and to raise us up to life eternal.
The Christian
dispensation, therefore, as the new and definitive covenant, will never pass
away, and we now await no further new public revelation before the glorious
manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
From Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation
of the Second Vatican Council,
Office of Readings, Thursday of Advent Week III