God has Spoken

 

 

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. (Hebrews 1:1-2)

 

 

God is not silent. He has spoken. As the writer to the Hebrews points out, the way He chose to communicate to the world was by His prophets. These were men specially called by God to be His mouthpiece. The words they spoke had their origin in God.

 

 

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. (Deuteronomy 18:18-19)

 

 

For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:21)

 

 

In order to preserve His word and make it available to His people throughout the centuries, God caused His prophets to write it down. This process began with God Himself writing the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone. 

 

 

Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. (Exodus 32:15-16)

 

 

Moses, as God’s prophet, followed suit by recording God’s laws and the history of God’s dealing with His people. By Jesus’ day, the collection of writings we know as the Old Testament had been formed. This collection was called ‘the Scriptures (writings)’ and was regarded as the word of God.

 

 

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, (2 Timothy 3:16)

 

 

Put your hand over your mouth and read these words out loud. What do you feel? Breath. Why? You are speaking. When you speak, you breathe out. That is Paul’s point regarding the Scriptures. They are God’s words. He is their ultimate source. Whatever Scripture says, God says.

 

 

It is clear from the gospels that Jesus accepted and believed this view of the Scriptures. Consider how He references His quotations from Scripture.

 

 

David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, "'The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.'" (Mark 12:36)

 

 

He answered, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh'?" (Matthew 19:4-5)

 

 

The Matthew 19 passage is extremely telling. In this passage, Jesus quotes from Genesis 2:24. Read this reference in its original context and you will see that it is clearly the word of the narrator (i.e. Moses, the author). But in line with the view we have already seen, Jesus ascribes the words to God. Jesus believed that what Scripture says, God says. This fact raises an important implication for you as a follower of Jesus.

 

 

In what sense can you call Jesus teacher and Lord if you do not accept His view of the Scriptures?

 

 

400 years of silence followed the writing of the last book of the Old Testament, but that was not the end of God’s speech. Hebrews 1:1-2 points out that God has spoken again in a complete and final way by His Son.

 

 

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. (Hebrews 1:1-2)

 

 

The completeness of God’s word in Jesus is seen most significantly in the contrast between God’s speaking by the prophets and His speaking by His Son. A son is a reflection of his father. This is a category of revelation superior to that of the prophets of old. As God’s Son, Jesus is the prophet par excellence, in whom we not only hear the Father but also see Him. John 1:1 calls Jesus ‘the Word’. As the Word, He is God’s self disclosure, not just in the words He speaks (like the prophets of old), but in His very person.

 

 

Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? (John 14:9)

 

 

Jesus is also God’s final word to us. This is evident from the contrast between ‘long ago’ and ‘in these last days’. God’s word to us in the last days is His Son; there is no other. Since Jesus is God’s final and complete word to us,  we should take heed to listen to Him.

 

 

At the end of his sermon, Peter points out that Jesus is the prophet that Moses had foretold. In doing so, he spells out the importance of listening to Jesus.

 

 

Moses said, 'The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.' And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. (Acts 3:22-24)

 

 

The warning Moses sounds is destruction for all who fail to listen to Jesus. This is serious stuff. But it raises an important question. How do we listen to Jesus? By the time Peter said these words, Jesus was gone, and He hadn’t written anything down. There were no Jesus books, mp3 recordings or YouTube videos. How were Peter’s hearers (let alone us today) to listen to Jesus? Hebrews 2:1-4 gives us a clue. 

 

 

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. (Hebrews 2:1-4)

 

 

Jesus’ word was attested to us by those who heard. We hear Jesus through the message of His eyewitnesses (or ‘ear’ witnesses). This is exactly why Jesus appointed 12 Apostles during His earthly ministry.

 

 

And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons. (Mark 3:13-15)

 

 

Definition: An Apostle

 

‘One chosen and sent with a special commission

as the fully authorized representative of the sender.’

 

 

This means:

 

• the words of the Apostles are the words of Jesus.

• The authority of the Apostles is the authority of Jesus.

 

 

This fact was clearly understood by the Apostles themselves. They spoke of their words as a command of the Lord. To hear the word of an Apostle of Jesus was to hear Jesus. To disobey an Apostle of Jesus was to disobey Jesus. 

 

 

…that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, (2 Peter 3:2)

 

 

If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized. (1 Corinthians 14:37-38) 

 

 

Not only did the Apostles proclaim Jesus’ word orally, they also wrote it down so that it would be preserved for later generations of Christians. Therefore, it is no surprise to see the writings of the Apostles regarded as Scripture, on par with the Old Testament. As an example of this, consider what the Apostle Peter says about the letters of the Apostle Paul.

 

 

And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. (2 Peter 3:15-16)

 

 

The Apostles and Prophets are no longer on the scene. Their task was to lay the foundation for the church, by giving us a sufficient body of God-breathed teaching on which the church could be built. 

 

 

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. (Ephesians 2:19-21)

 

 

This they have done by adding the 27 books of the New Testament to the 39 books of the Old Testament. Together, these books are God’s complete, authoritative, sufficient and final word to the church. God has spoken. Will you listen?