The Best Is Yet to Come

A close look at the Council’s document On Divine Revelation.

In our previous article, we took a bird's-eye view of the Second Vatican Council and saw how it encouraged renewal in the church through a greater focus on Scripture. In this article, we want to take a more specific look at how the Council Fathers sought renewal through Scripture, especially how they spoke about it in their document On Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum).

The Bible in Other Council Documents. Before turning to that document, we should note that the bishops’ commitment to rediscovering the Bible at Vatican II is also strongly evident in two other major documents: the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium), and the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium).

Lumen Gentium begins by defining the church as the mystery of God at work in the world through the Holy Spirit, not primarily as an institution with a specific hierarchical structure. The document next gives the primary definition of the church as the whole “people of God,” not the hierarchical structure of pope, bishops, and priests. This is significant because both of these themes are drawn directly from Scripture, and both reflect the Council Fathers’ desire that everyone in the church will embrace God and the life in the…

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