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The Greek noun apokalupsis combines apo (away from, removal of) with kaluptō (to cover, to veil), producing the literal sense of an uncovering — the removal of a veil to reveal what was hidden. It is the word behind the English 'apocalypse,' which popular usage has narrowed to mean disaster or end-times catastrophe.
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Full entry for ἀποκάλυψις (G602) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Greek noun apokalupsis combines apo (away from, removal of) with kaluptō (to cover, to veil), producing the literal sense of an uncovering — the removal of a veil to reveal what was hidden. It is the word behind the English 'apocalypse,' which popular usage has narrowed to mean disaster or end-times catastrophe.
The BSB source-word alignment has 18 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include revelation (7), [the] revelation (3), a revelation (2), revelations (2), [ This is the ] revelation (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Luke 2:32. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Corinthians (3), 1 Peter (3), Romans (3), 2 Corinthians (2).
The Greek noun apokalupsis combines apo (away from, removal of) with kaluptō (to cover, to veil), producing the literal sense of an uncovering — the removal of a veil to reveal what was hidden. It is the word behind the English 'apocalypse,' which popular usage has narrowed to mean disaster or end-times catastrophe. In the NT, apokalupsis does not carry that catastrophist connotation at the lexical level; it names revelation: the divine act of making known what was previously hidden or inaccessible to unaided human understanding.
Galatians uses apokalupsis in a theologically precise way: Paul received the gospel 'through a revelation of Jesus Christ' (Gal. 1:12), and he went up to Jerusalem 'in response to a revelation' (Gal. 2:2). Both uses are autobiographical and defensive — Paul is establishing that his gospel came directly from the risen Christ, not from any human mediation, which is central to his argument that the Galatians must not abandon it for a human-mediated alternative.
The word carries this apologetic force throughout Galatians: the gospel is not a tradition passed down through apostolic channels but a revelation from the living Christ, who still addresses his church through what he has made known. This is not an argument against church tradition as such but against the particular Galatian scenario where a human modification of the gospel was claiming authority it could not possess.
The local Greek index currently counts about 17 occurrences for apokalupsis as exact Strong's ID G602. Paul uses it across several letters, including Galatians (1:12; 2:2), Romans (2:5; 8:19; 16:25), 1 Corinthians (1:7; 14:6, 26), 2 Corinthians (12:1, 7), Ephesians (1:17; 3:3), and 2 Thessalonians (1:7). Peter uses it in 1 Peter 1:7, 13; 4:13. The book of Revelation is titled 'Apokalupsis Iēsou Christou' — the Revelation of Jesus Christ. The word encompasses both the act of divine disclosure and its content.
I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
Paul's foundational claim in Galatians: the gospel he preaches is not a human tradition he received through the apostolic chain but a direct apokalupsis from Jesus Christ. This is the basis of its authority — and the basis on which no other gospel can claim to improve upon it. If the gospel came by divine revelation, no Judaizing teacher can add to it without putting themselves in opposition to the revealer.
I went in response to a revelation and set before them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. But I spoke privately to those recognized as leaders, for fear that I was running or had already run in vain.
Paul's second trip to Jerusalem was itself guided by apokalupsis — a divine prompting rather than human instruction or political pressure. This reinforces the pattern: Paul's entire apostolic movement is governed by divine disclosure, not by deference to human authority. The Jerusalem consultation was for mutual recognition, not for obtaining authorization the gospel already had.
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in your knowledge of Him.
Ephesians locates apokalupsis as a continuous gift of the Spirit for growing in knowledge of God — not just the initial disclosure of the gospel but the ongoing work of the Spirit in deepening understanding of what has been revealed. This prevents treating apokalupsis as only past (what Paul received) and opens it to the present dimension of Spirit-illumined Scripture engagement.
Now to Him who is able to strengthen you by my gospel and by the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery concealed for ages past
Romans 16:25 links apokalupsis to the mysterion (mystery) — the hidden plan of God now disclosed: that Gentiles are co-heirs with Israel in Christ. This directly relates to the gospel Paul is defending in Galatians. The Galatian situation is itself an apokalupsis-problem: the mystery of Gentile inclusion by grace through faith has been revealed, and the Judaizers are trying to re-veil it by requiring circumcision and law-observance.
Therefore prepare your minds for action. Be sober-minded. Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Peter uses apokalupsis for the future appearing of Christ — the eschatological dimension. This future unveiling of Christ is the ultimate apokalupsis: everything that has been disclosed in the gospel will be fully manifest when the Christ who was revealed is seen by all. This eschatological use frames the word's full range: from Paul's initial disclosure of the gospel in Galatians 1:12 to the final public disclosure of the glorified Christ at his coming.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Divine truth unveiled or made manifest; God's self-disclosure to humanity, not merely human discovery.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 18 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
an unveiling, uncovering, revealing
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Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 6 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 5 selected witnesses from 17 lexical occurrence verses.
ἀποκάλυψις is built from this root:
Apokalupsis in Galatians does specific defensive work that the preacher must handle accurately. Paul is not making a generic claim that revelation is better than tradition; he is making the specific claim that the Galatian gospel crisis concerns the divine origin of the message. The teachers troubling the Galatians were presumably also claiming some form of authority — apostolic chain, Moses, Jerusalem.
Paul's counter is not that authority doesn't matter but that the authority of the gospel he received came from a source no one can override: direct disclosure from the risen Christ. This is why 'even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God's curse!' (Gal. 1:8) immediately follows the disclosure claim.
The pastoral application has two movements. First, it grounds the gospel's authority in its divine source, which is simultaneously a claim about the finished and sufficient character of what has been revealed. The preacher who handles Galatians 1:12 well will help people see that the pressure to add to or modify the gospel is always a pressure against something divinely given, not against a human construct.
Second, the Ephesians 1:17 dimension opens apokalupsis to the congregation's ongoing life: the Spirit of revelation continues to illuminate what has been given. The church is not generating new revelation; it is continuously receiving the illumination of what was definitively disclosed in Christ.
Gal.1.12
Apokalupsis from apo (away, removal) + kaluptō (to cover, veil). The related verb apokaluptō (to reveal, to uncover) appears frequently alongside the noun. The opposite concept would be kalumma (a veil) — Paul uses this explicitly in 2 Corinthians 3:14-16 for the veil that lies over the old covenant reading among those who have not turned to Christ. Apokalupsis is the removal of that veil.
The cognate apokaluptō appears in Matthew 16:17 (flesh and blood has not 'revealed' this to you) and in Matthew 11:25-27 (the Father has 'hidden' and 'revealed' the things of the kingdom according to his sovereign pleasure) — establishing the theological pattern: revelation is a divine act, not a human discovery.
The OT foundation for apokalupsis is the theology of divine disclosure throughout Israel's history: God reveals himself and his will through prophets, visions, dreams, theophanies, and Scripture. The prophetic formula 'thus says the Lord' is an apokalupsis claim — what follows is not the prophet's opinion but the divine word. Daniel's visions are explicitly divine disclosures of hidden things (Dan.
2:19, 28-29: 'There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries'). The pattern throughout is that God hides and then reveals according to his own purposes and timing. Paul reads this as reaching its climax in Christ: the mystery hidden for ages has now been disclosed (Rom. 16:25-26; Eph. 3:3-6). The gospel Paul preaches is the apokalupsis of this climactic divine disclosure — which is why Galatians 1:12 treats any modification of it as an attack not just on Paul's apostolic authority but on the act of divine revelation itself.
The Galatian problem is finally a revelational problem: who has the right to add to or alter what God has made known in Christ?
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