God, Who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, Whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by Whom also He made the worlds. Hebrews 1:1-2
We have all heard of atheists mocking God and demanding that God speak to them. They insist that because God does not answer them, there is no God. We shake our heads at the absolute foolishness of such actions. For one thing, why would an almighty God respond to a silly demand from a foolish mocker? For another, God has already spoken to us, and told us everything that we need to know about Himself. Their demands are akin to a car owner demanding a phone call from the president of Honda Motor Company instead of looking into their owner’s manual for information about their vehicle. God has spoken, and, to those who have heard Him, He continues to speak.
The first instance of God speaking to man was in the Garden of Eden. God had to speak in conviction and judgment because of Adam’s sin. But God did not close the conversation, despite disobedience and rebellion. God communed directly with various people, including Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Hagar, and Moses until the law appeared. From that point, God communicated through the law and the prophets, as we have recorded in our text. He spoke to the prophets, and to such godly men as Samuel, to provide specific messages and general revelations. The Lord Jesus could declare, in the account of Abraham speaking to the rich man in hell, that the law and the prophets were enough to direct sinners to God’s salvation. Those who carefully studied the law and the prophets found the Old Testament to be a vast treasure house of God’s revelation of Himself to mankind. But our text today declares that God went so much further than the law and the prophets to communicate with us.
Jesus began His earthly ministry with John’s declaration: Behold the Lamb of God’ (John 1:36). At His baptism, God announced that He was well pleased with His Son (Matthew 3:17, Mark 1:11, Luke 3:22). Many thousands thronged to hear Him during His years of ministry, and the local authorities declared of Him, ‘Never man spake like this man (John 7:46). The four Gospel writers have recorded for us many of the things that He said. The apostles who followed Him and heard Him during His ministry spent the early years of Christianity passing on what Jesus had taught them. Other godly men joined the Gospel writers to record the 27 books of our New Testament. God was speaking to mankind, and now the canon of Scripture stands as God’s complete recorded message to us. To those who reject or ignore the Bible’s message, it is only a book. To them, God is no longer speaking. But to those of us who accept it as the Word of God, the Bible speaks loudly and clearly. Through this Book, God reveals His will to us and maintains a communication with us. We can laugh at the foolishness of a pope who declares that it is not possible for us to have a personal relationship with God. The pope apparently never read 1 John 1:3: Our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
God speaks to us today through His Word. It is worth noting that one of the titles of the Lord Jesus is the Word of God. – Jim MacIntosh