Matthew 16:16-17 How Divine Revelation Works

Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."  Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.

//Today's verse comes from Matthew. But one of the more interesting tendencies I noted as I researched for my book about John's Gospel is just how often John purposefully contradicts the other Gospels. Many of the contradictions, in fact, tend to downplay something miraculous, such as this divine revelation to Simon Peter. There seems to be an undercurrent of rivalry going on with Peter in the Fourth Gospel. Here, John pooh-pooh's Matthew's explanation and sets the record straight about how Simon Peter learned who Jesus was:

The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). --John 1:41

But this begs the question. Could it have been explained to Peter and also come as a revelation to him? In other words, does "revelation" mean something more along the lines of proving the truth about Jesus for yourself? "Revelation," then, is not some means of divine discloser of a secret but rather making a known truth your own. Does this resonate with anyone else?