God has spoken. As a fact, this is easily stated. As a truth, it is one of immense importance, and we learn from it that He did not want to abide in the solitude of His Being without creatures to whom He might communicate His thoughts. All intelligent creatures, as well as all created things, owe their existence to His word. "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.... He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast." Psa. 33:6, 9.
What a graphic description of the power of that word, "He spake, and it was done." Who can resist His will? All that we see around us was called into existence and order by His word. As we survey the heavens above and the earth beneath, we learn something of what the thoughts of Jehovah were, which took shape and form in obedience to His mighty word.
But when did He first speak and call creation into being? Who can tell us but Himself, and to Him we are indebted for all that we know or can know about it. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Gen. 1:1. This simple statement of the Almighty One was made thousands of years ago for the instruction of His earthly people, called out from the nations to own and to maintain the truth of the unity of God (Deut. 6:4).
The Spoken Word
"He spake, and it was done." We look around and see some of the results of that speaking in the heavenly bodies, created before the earth, and the atmosphere which surrounds us, which was made for man. The Lord God intended to bring man on the scene when the time should arrive in accordance with His purpose for the display of His glory, greatness, goodness, and love.
This earth was reduced to chaos, for He formed it not empty, as Isaiah wrote (45:18). That is, He did not form it in the condition over which the Spirit of God hovered in Gen. 1:2. God spoke again and brought it into order, ready for His counsels to begin their accomplishment by the bringing in of man upon the scene. When God spoke at the beginning, no angel had been created. When He spoke to bring this earth out of its chaotic state, the angelic hosts, eye-witnesses of what He did, shouted for joy (Job 38:7). The power of His word was displayed as created things assumed their form, and created beings appeared in all the activity of life.
At last the head of this creation, formed out of the dust of the ground, with the breath of life breathed into him by God and so becoming a living soul, was seen in the garden of Eden with his helpmeet by his side. Thus created things, animate and inanimate, were brought into existence by God's word. The earth was prepared for man, with man himself and his partner on the scene. The invisible things of God were clearly seen, being understood by the things that were made, even His eternal power and Godhead (Rom. 1:20).
His Word of Power
By His word of power God had so far revealed Himself. A Being at once absolute in power and excellent in working, He did not wish to remain alone forever. He surrounded Himself with creatures animate and inanimate with orders and ranks of intelligence who could take delight in what He had done. They found their proper object of worship in Him, the Creator and the Holy One. His command was to be their freedom and their delight to obey.
But rebellion wrought its awful work among the angelic hosts, and disobedience displayed itself in man who was made in the image and likeness of God. Before man was created, the devil had fallen (Ezek. 28:13-19) and before the flood took place, apostasy had developed itself among the angels of God (Gen. 6:2; Jude 6). Divine power to deal with evil was of necessity called forth, and men and angels experienced it. The apostate angels were cast into chains of darkness (2 Peter 2:4). The ungodly amongst men were cut off by the flood, and imprisoned in the other world (1 Peter 3:19) to await their righteous doom.
The Son—The Word of God
Was this, then, all that was to be known of God? Was He only a Being almighty, beneficent, gracious, merciful, and yet just, and dealing in unsparing judgment with those who rebelled against Him? No! He wanted to make Himself known in a second way. So in due time He sent His only-begotten Son who is the Word of God (John 1:1), by whom God is declared to us (John 1:18). When men saw Him, they saw the Father. By knowing the Son they could know the Father (John 14:7-9). He is the Word of God, for by Him God has been declared to us.
The Written Word
Another way in which God has spoken to us is by the written word, placing on record not only what He has done and declaring to us what He is as revealed by the Son, the Word, but acquainting us also with His desires. It reveals to us as well what He will do for the instruction of all who will hear and obey Him. God's works tell us something of what He is, but they cannot make known to us His purposes in the future. In the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, God's heart was opened up to us. In His words the Father's thoughts were expressed.
None of us, however, have seen God or heard Him. For the abiding instruction of souls, therefore, God is pleased to communicate His thoughts in words which men may understand. He communicates in such a way that they may trust implicitly that which has been written.
The Scriptures are inspired, God-breathed. By revelation God's mind is communicated to them to whom the revelation is made. By inspiration the person selected by God is enabled to express the truth in words chosen of the Holy Spirit. In this way God provides for His truth to be transmitted without error or misconception on the part of the one chosen to communicate it. The words in which it is expressed are the words selected by God. David in the Old Testament and Paul in the New Testament have taught us this.
Communicating the Word
David tells us, "The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His word was in my tongue." 2 Sam. 23:2. His tongue, he states in Psa. 45, was the pen of a ready writer. What the Psalmist affirmed, Paul endorsed and explained more fully in 1 Cor. 2:10-13. The truth, the Apostle tells us, was revealed to the writers by the Holy Spirit. They understood it by the same Spirit given to them, and were guided to communicate it in words chosen of the Holy Spirit, communicating, as we should probably better translate the Apostle's statement, "spiritual things by spiritual means." That being done, it was for the hearer or the reader to receive the truth.
The Word Received
The Apostle then distinguishes between revelation, inspiration, and the inspired Word being received by the hearer. God's servants of old (1 Peter 1:11,12), had not always full understanding of that which they set forth, but Paul tells us that the person in Christian times was the intelligent communicator of that which he had received, and authoritatively set forth.
How marvelously all this witnesses to God's real desire for His intelligent creature man to become acquainted with the divine communications. God has taken great pains that His mind should be correctly made known, but His mind cannot be apprehended by mere human intellect. "The natural man receiveth [understandeth] not the things of the Spirit of God... neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Cor. 2:14.
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