Dear Family and Friends of St. John's,

God is the God who speaks, and uses human language to achieve effective communication. He has made human beings in his image and likeness as speaking beings. It would be a bizarre situation if God could not speak. When reluctant and stammering Moses claimed to be slow of speech, the Lord replied, ‘Who makes man's mouth? Is it not I, the LORD?' (Exodus 4:11) Jurgen Moltmann wrote, ‘Theology, as speaking about God is possible only on the basis of what God himself speaks'.

The Old Testament shows us that God can speak in human language. Of course God does not have vocal chords, but he can imprint human words in our consciousness, or produce the sounds of human words for our ears, or speak to us by humans who speak his words.  God is often described as speaking directly and personally to individuals or to his people. Every time God uses human language, his words are both divine and human, ‘God's word in human language' just as Jesus is both divine and human, ‘God's word in human form'.

God normally speaks to people by his written word. If he wanted each of us to hear his voice in an audible manner he could do it. But most people don't experience God this way. He causes his words to be written in human language so that we can read them, study them, learn them and meditate on them. Martin Luther said, ‘Whoever wants to hear God speak should read Holy Scripture'. Those who have a strong preference for supernatural experience and the miraculous prefer dreams and special revelations given directly in some form. To them this seems to authenticate the word. Sometimes they are disparaging of the written word. But the Bible itself looks for a different authentication, namely whether a word or activity is in line with the words already given by the prophets. (E.g. Acts 26:22-23) The Bible is self authenticating and every other word is measured by it.

God's uses his written word to reveal himself and to establish relationship. He uses words to explain what he wants human beings to think, to do, and to know. He uses these words to warn and judge, to encourage and elicit faith, to forgive and give assurance. God's written words can be described as God's ‘instruments'. Calvin wrote: ‘The word is the instrument by which the Lord dispenses the illumination of the Spirit to believers.' Thomas Cranmer put the same truth in more vivid words. He described how carpenters and masons value their tools, then added: ‘as mallets, hammers, saws, chisels... be the tools of their occupation, so are the books of the prophets and apostles, and all Holy Scripture inspired by the Holy Spirit, the instruments of our salvation'.

Indeed the words of God convey the power of God so completely that we can claim that God is present in his speech, in his words, just as he is present in his other actions. ‘In the readings... God speaks to his people, reveals to them the mysteries of redemption and salvation, and provides them with spiritual nourishment; and Christ himself, in the form of his word, is present in the midst of the faithful.'

Bruce Morrison

(adapted from ‘Written for Us - Receiving God's Words in the Bible'. Peter Adam. IVP2008)