Sermon Tone Analysis

Bibles out!

Same voice - the same God - people were saved the same way - God did many of the same things

To understand what’s going on in this chapter, we need to back up to where we ended last week.

We saw the sin of Eli and his sons, and the prophet come to Eli to tell him that the Aaronic priesthood would come to an end because the priests did not honor God, and Eli’s two sons would die for their sin, and he ends with these words of God:

We see that contrast being drawing between faithful priests of God, and unfaithful priests of God.

God would raise up a true Priest - Who is ultimately Christ - and a whole family - a house - of spiritual priests that would minister in His presence, and that includes us.

And the physical line of priests will have the priesthood - and all of its blessings - taken way.

Well, the writer continues that contrast in chapter 3, and we see it actually begin to play out here.

Remember, Samuel is a type of Christ.

The ultimate fulfillment of the faithful priest is Christ, but it will first be Samuel.

Who we find faithfully serving as a priest:

First, this word for boy is the same word used of Isaac in Genesis 22.

It doesn’t mean a child, necessarily.

It means a young man.

It is often used of men in their late teens or even their twenties.

And we see that Samuel was ministering to YHWH.

He was doing the work of a priest even though he was not of Aaronic descent.

He was a spiritual priest.

And this contrast is played out in this chapter, and it is set up by what we read next: the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision.

I don’t want us to overlook the wording here.

We are told that the word of the Lord was rare in those days.

Now the “word of the Lord” - or the “word of YHWH” - in the Bible means a few different things in different contexts.

It may speak of the Bible itself.

It speaks of the actual words of God recorded or spoken through His prophets and Apostles.

Sometimes, the word of the Lord means the specific commands of the Lord.

We are told over and over that faithful people like Moses did things according to the word of the Lord.

Other times, we read about the Word of the Lord coming to this or that person, usually a prophet.

And I think that when we read in the Old Testament that the Word of the Lord came to someone, we think that this is the voice of God speaking to a prophet, whether audibly or supernaturally somehow so they can prophesy.

But note how this is worded here: the Word of the Lord was rare in those days, there was no frequent vision.

And it isn’t saying two different thing here.

That the word of the Lord was rare, and on top of that, there were no visions being had.

It’s all one thought: the word of the Lord was rare, there was no frequent vision.

It speaks of the same thing two different ways.

Now how can the Word of the Lord be in a vision?

How can you see a Word?

How is a Word made visible - made physically see-able?

Well, there’s another way that this “Word of YHWH” is referred to in the Bible:

And what or Who is this Word?

What does this have to do with the visibility or physicality of the Word in 1 Samuel?

We see here that the Word can, in fact, be seen.

The Gospel writer describes this Word as being the eternal God, but somehow different from God.

And then says that this Word became physical, and was seen by him and a bunch of other people.

And that is how the “Word of the Lord” is being used here:

This is talking about the pre-incarnate Christ.

This is the same Word as John 1:1.

So many will say that the writer of the fourth Gospel is pulling from the Greek philosophical idea of "the word” - a basis of divine reason.

But I see no reason to deviate from what the Bible has already established.

Multiple times in the Old Testament, we are told about the Word of the Lord appearing - being seen - by the people of God.

Like with Abraham.

We all probably know the story of God making a covenant with Him, but Who are we told made the covenant with him?

This is the first time in the Bible the phrase “Word of the Lord” is used.

And here, the Word of the Lord is seen.

He comes to Abraham in a vision.

And Abraham calls Him Lord YHWH:

And the Word of the Lord - Who is YHWH - interacts physically with Abraham:

And then He claims to be YHWH:

And Moses who wrote the book calls Him YHWH:

Genesis 15:18 (ESV)

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram…

YHWH came as the Word in order to make this covenant.

This is Christ - not as Jesus of Nazareth - but in a pre-incarnate physical form - coming to Abraham to make the covenant with Him.

This is God the Son in physical form making this covenant, of which we are heirs because the Word became flesh and died for our sins to make a covenant with us.

This is Who is in view whenever we read in the Old Testament that “the Word of the Lord came” to someone.

And this is Who was not appearing at this point in Israel’s history:

And this should not be a surprise.

Think of what we talked about last week.

How Israel had fallen away already from what God called them to be.

How there were unbelievers serving in the priesthood and sinning greatly in the sight of God.

How throughout their history the nation cycled through periods of mass unbelief.

Of course God was not appearing to such people.

And when God saved Israel and called them as His, He told them there were conditions for them to stay His people.

And He a few times tells them how they will be blessed if they obey and meet those conditions, and how they would be cursed if they did not.

And the ultimate blessing was His presence, and the ultimate curse was the removal of His presence - which eventually happens.

And when God promises this blessing for obedience, the ultimate blessing of His presence is put this way:

God meant this.

He would literally - visibly - walk among them as the pre-incarnate Christ.

This is Who is spoken of when we read things like:

Exodus 33:11 (ESV)

Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.

Why is this important?

Because we see much more than types of Christ in the Old Testament.

We see more than pointers to Him and pictures of Him.

We see Christ Himself.

And in our passage today, we will see Christ Himself.

That’s Who is being talked about here.

And we see that, at the start of the chapter, Christ had not been walking among the people of Israel.

He was not making His presence known to them.

Because they were not honoring Him.

And we see that in the description here:

Note how masterfully the writer says so much in only a few sentences.

This excites me.

Some of the writers of the Bible were really good writers, humanly speaking.

The writer here tells us that there were no frequent visions - referring to God making His presence known to His people through the Word of YHWH.

And he tells us then that Eli’s eyesight had begun to grow dim.

Literally, “his eye started to dim.”

This is pointing us to something beyond a physical ailment here.

Yes, Eli was old - we saw that in the last chapter - and his physical eyesight isn’t what it once was.

But there’s more here.

There were no visions of God, because the High Priest’s eye started to dim.

Eli lost his eye for God.