How God Speaks, Then and Now

Introduction

God speaks.

God spoke in the OT through prophets.

God has now spoken again, but in a more perfect way through his Son.

Therefore, there is no reason to go back to relying only on the Old when the New and more perfect has come.

How God Spoke in the Past

Two Ages - First century Jews viewed world history as having two main stages with an intermediate stage in between the two.

The first stage is what the auther here refers to as long ago or in former times and covers what we would today think of as the Old Testament era. This was a time of waiting for God’s promises to King David to be fulfilled; promises of an eternal Kingdom under David’s dynasty. They looked for the coming Christ, the anointed one who even David himself would call lord who would reign over God’s people and spread the Kingdom over all the nations.

The second stage was, of course, that eternal reign of the Messiah over the world. All the nations would be subject to the King, the nations would bow or break before him as Psalm 2 foretold. This is what we would call the new heavens and the new earth: the full, physical, visible riegn of Christ on earth with his enemies under his feet.

But between these two stages of history was an intermediate stage; a time of transition from the old age to the new as the Messiah set up his Kingdom, first in Jerusalem and then extended it over the whole earth, calling the nations to worship YHWH on Mount Zion together. This intermediate stage is what the Author of Hebrews refers to as these last days and identifies the church as living in this period of transition between the first and second comings of Christ.

In His first coming, Christ joined humanity, suffered and died for our redemption, rose from the dead, and handed over Kingdom authority to his church to spread the Kingdom through the making of disciples of all nations. So it is now, as the Gospel is spreading and as disciples are being made of the nations, that this transition is taking place. These are the last days before the final age of the Messiah comes.

In our text today, as the author opens his message of steadfastness in the excellence of Christ, he begins by contrasting how God spoke in the old age and how God speaks in these last days, in this age of transition as the Kingdom of God spreads throughout all the world.

While the author focuses on these differences, it should be noted that he still holds to what God spoke in the previous age, in the OT, as the words of God. Contrasting the new revelation of God through Jesus Christ is not meant to discount those ways in which God revealed himself in the past, but as we will see it shows that those revelations were incomplete, partial, and pointing towards a greater revelation. So while the OT and NT are in complete agreement as equally legitimate revelations of God, the OT remained an incomplete picture until the coming of Christ.

The Contrast Between Old and New

There are three qualities in how God has spoken in the past ages. As we see the author contrast these three qualities with how the

Bits and pieces Vs. One Final Revelation

At many times is more literally translated in many parts, which is probably closer to what is meant here. It isn’t so much the variaty of times that the author is focusing on, but rather the fragmented nature of the way God spoke in the OT.

Throughout the OT age, God’s speaking to humans was done progressively, little by little. God didn’t give the law to Abraham, nor did he give the Davidic covenant to Moses. The OT is very much like an incomplete puzzle, with a general shape taking place, a buch of pieces that fit together here, a bunch more there, a rough image emerging but impossible to connect together perfectly. It is like a storybook with the last few chapters cut out, where all the themes and the plot are not able to be resolved in a satisfying conclusion. This is the nature of the way God spoke in the OT, in bits and pieces, incomplete and fragmentary.

Now, this is contrasted with an implied completion in Christ. While in the past God revealed himself in bits and pieces of an incomplete puzzle, in these last days God has completed the picture. The coming of Christ gave God’s people the last few pieces that brought all that God spoke together. It is the last couple of chapters that bring a great conclusion to the story.

Now it is Christ himself that is this new revelation. However, for us that revelation is given in the NT portion of the Bibles we now hold in our hands. The author will tell us in Heb 2:3

Hebrews 2:3 NIVUK

This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him.

So as Christ came and in his earthly life gave those whom he called the Gospel, so they have written what they saw and heard into the NT books which now contain for us those last puzzle pieces we need to get the full substance of all that God means to tell us concerning our salvation and relationship with Him.

This means that, while the New age and covenant does replace the Old, the Gospel and NT Scriptures do not replace the OT. You do not throw out the beginning of the book once you find the last chapter, and you don’t throw away the first puzzle pieces once you fit in the last ones. The Old Covenant passed away because it was a temporary structure which held God’s people in place until the final revelation of God had come. Much like how scaffolding on a construction site is only there when the building is not yet complete, the Old Covenant and the Mosaic Law outlined and structured what would one day be filled in by the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now that it is filled in, the scaffolding in no longer needed, not because it was wrong or didn’t work, but because it has served its purpose.

But the OT Scriptures remain relevant for us because of how the Gospel fits the bits and pieces together. Before Christ came, it was unknown how someone was supposed to reconcile the victorious triumph of the Messiah in Psalm 2 with the suffering and death of Isaiah 53 or Zech 13:7. Two parts of the puzzle that needed to be connected are now complete in Christ, who through his death defeated the demonic power which held the nations enslaved and in his resurrection obtained the victory of Psalm 2 and Psalm 110.

In Many Ways Vs. One Way

The next distinction between the way God spoke before and how he speaks now is the variety of ways God communicated to the OT prophets, in contrast to how God has revealed himself through Jesus Christ.

In the OT, we see God giving bits and pieces of revelation through various means. Dreams, visions, voices from heaven, fire from heaven, wind, angelic appearances, and so on. Now its not the variety of channels that is really the main focus, but again the way it was spread out over time, places, peoples, and contexts.

It was also spread out over 1500 years in a gradual and progressive way. In many ways also means in many circumstances, contexts, ages, and phases in God’s revelation to mankind.

In contrast, Christ has come once and for all to bring completion to what God is saying to us before this age closes and the next one begins. If you lived in the days of Abraham, what God had spoken to mankind was very limited and more was coming slowly as the ages passed by. It was a time of actively seeking a further revelation of God, feeling around in the darkness and taking in any little bit of light that God revealed. Acts 17:27

Acts 17:27 ESV

that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.

Now of course, Israel was given much more light than the nations around them, but it was still so incomplete and so gradual. The prophets themselves longed to understand more 1 Peter 1:10-11

1 Peter 1:10–11 ESV

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.

In contrast, when Christ came the fullness of God’s revelation came to us. The light has fully come and there is no need for any more than what we have. The end of God’s speaking to us before the full appearance of the age to come was in Christ. Jesus isn’t just another prophet bringing in another candel to light an impossibly dark room, he is the sun rising on our knowledge of God and our salvation.

Prophets Vs. Son

The final contrast here between how God spoke in the past and how he speaks in these last days is in the persons through whom God spoke. In the past God spoke through various prophets.

Although prophets are often thought of in terms of telling the future, the main role of a prophet in the OT was as a messenger or a mouthpiece for God calling his people to himself. As Paul says in 2 Tim 3:16, God breathed his speech through these messengers.

Now it must be said that the fact that God used these prophets to speak does not make the OT any less the Word of God. God did effectively speak through them and their words remain as Scripture from the mouth of God, so to speak. However, while they delivered God’s word as messengers, Christ delivers it as the Son. He is not a mere servant, but the heir of God’s Kingdom, the true Israelite, the Son of David; God himself in human flesh. So just as a message delivered by a prince is better than that delivered by a servant, Christ speaks a better, more complete and illuminating word from God the Father than those who went before him. He alone is worthy to give us this full and final revelation of God in the Gospel.

Jesus Christ: The Full Revelation of God

So what does all this mean for us? Why does it matter so much how and when God has spoken?

First, it is important that God is a God who speaks. The Scriptures and the natural world are testiments to the fact that God does not leave his people in the dark about himself. He means for all people to feel their way towards him. God wants to be found, heard, and known by those he has made in his image. As the ages of human history have gone by, God has been making himself known through the prophets, but it was in a limited, fragmented, and incomplete way. It was mainly restrained to the people of Israel and always looked forward to something better that was coming.

In the coming of Jesus, God fully expressed his heart, his mind, and his will. He communicated in the fullest and most comprehensible way possible for us in this present age.

Now, we are all familiar with the fact that God so loved the world that he sent his Son. Love is not something that happens strictly inside a person, it is necessary for communication to happen for love to be realized. So it is not accident that the greatest display of God’s love, sending Christ into the world, is also the greatest act of God’s’ communication to us. In previous ages this love was somewhat veiled by our sin and the distance it put between us and God. But now, in the coming of the Son, in the message he has given, in the death he died and the life he now lives, God has spoken a clear, complete, and final message to humanity and that message is a declaration of love and mercy for sinners like us.

God loves sinners, and he made this perfectly clear to us when, in the fullness of his revelation to us, he sent his Son to die for us in our guilt and shame.

Conclusion

God’s perfect speech, his final reveal of himself before the end of this age, is through Jesus Christ and the Gospel he passed on to his Apostles and his Church.

This rules out supposed further revelations through supposed prophets like Mohammed in Islam or Joseph Smith in Mormonism. The age God speaking through prophets to give new revelation about himself was ended with the coming of Christ. It also rules out the need for novel doctrines and practices such as those that the Roman Catholic Church has come up with over the years, since Christ’s revelation was perfect in regards to what we need for our relationship with God.

This also rules out going back to the Old Covenant and restricting what Christians can eat with food laws or enforcing legalistic rules around the Sabbath, since these things have their fulfillment in Christ who is the perfect fulfillment of the law.

So instead of looking for something new or going back something old, let us dwell the in perfect way God has spoken to us thorugh Jesus Christ. This revelation speaks love, forgiveness, healing, resurrection life, holiness, goodness, and victory. So let Christ be your centre. Let his heart be what you seek. Let his gospel be your meditation. All you need from God is in him.