Does God still speak to us today?

God speaking was no new thing; for He had spoken in many parts and in many ways. Now there was no limit; for it was in a Son, Only-begotten, full of grace and truth. It was therefore no mere collection of revelations from God, divine but partial and suited to the instruments and the circumstances; it was God revealing Himself. His Son was the only One competent for this purpose. At the beginning of the Epistle it is God speaking in this way when He was on earth; toward the close it is He who speaks from heaven (Heb. 12:25). Everywhere it is God revealed, and not merely communications from Him.

He is the complete revelation of God. In Him God has spoken. The "many times" and "many ways" of the former partial communications have given place to something that is not limited by the place or time it happened, nor limited to any manner or way of God's revealing Himself; it is absolute. Future developments in the history of the world and of creation will produce changes of administration and changes of form; but the Son will remain unchanged and glorious, the complete unfolding of all that God is. Nothing will or can be added to Him to make God better known.

But how is it with you who now read God's testimony to Jesus His Son? Have you heard His voice? For He still speaks in His word; and those who hear Him live; and they follow Him, because they know His voice. Among the confused tongues of Christendom they know it, and there is none like it.

There are people who claim that it is presumption for anyone to say his sins are forgiven. How can he know? Such knowledge would be impossible if God had not spoken. I do not think that we who rejoice in God's word rejoice enough in this fact, that God has spoken to us in this Book. Amid all the uncertainties of this time... how we ought to thank God for that which never fails, His blessed, holy word! Here it is, as it was spoken long ago. We have it now, in all its perfection, unchanged and unchangeable.

The truth of God may be brought, in the most powerful way, by the Holy Spirit, to bear upon the conscience, so that even now, as then, the firmest conviction may be conveyed to an unbeliever who comes in, that God was there. I do not doubt this is perfectly possible, and may happen at any time... But this is an entirely different thing from a revelation... To claim revelation now would clearly be an attack on the perfection of Scripture. Whatever the power of the Spirit of God at work now, it must be by means of truth already revealed — truth already in Scripture.

He loves them too well to let them go on in self-deception — deceiving themselves and deceiving others too. So He is speaking to us by His many dealings and chastenings, warning us of our danger, and calling us back to a sense of our responsibility as His witnesses in the world. May He Himself give us the opened ear to His voice.

The gospel speaks of all these things, and calls us to them, and now we get the exhortation, "See that you do not refuse Him who is speaking." The word is the revelation of God in Christ, and by this word we are formed for the place God intends to give us... That voice should sound louder and sweeter in our hearts than all the voices of the world. May we not be found turning a deaf ear to it.