This is the first of a five-part series by Father Gerard Beigel, S.T.D.
As the evangelist St. John writes in his prologue to the gospel, God’s Word is “the light of man” (John 1:4). God’s Word, God’s revelation, is light—light that scatters the darkness of sin, light that restores man’s vision of God and His plan of salvation for all humanity. God, the Creator of all human beings, sustains and loves what He has fashioned. In every age, from the dawn of human history, God reaches out with faithful love to reveal Himself and His plan of salvation to man. Men and women are created with a capacity to know God and to hear His voice. Moreover, no human being can reach fulfillment and happiness apart from God. Unless we learn how to hear and recognize the voice of God, our lives will lack purpose, clarity and direction.
The human desire to know God is innate. But this desire for God will remain unfulfilled unless God speaks to us, and we, in turn, hear the Word of God. To hear God, we have to be willing and ready to obey Him, willing and ready to line up our whole life with His purposes, willing and ready to allow Him to change the depths of our hearts. The necessary connection between what God says to us and our disposition of obedience to Him is wonderfully portrayed in the biblical story of the young boy Samuel in the Temple. Three times the Lord spoke to the young boy but nothing further happened, because Samuel did not know it was God and did not know how to respond. Finally, the priest Eli told Samuel that if he heard the voice again, he was to respond, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening” (1 Samuel 3:9). It was only when Samuel consciously opened himself to God with an attitude of obedience that he was then able to receive what the Lord had to say. It is the same for us. We cannot talk abstractly about what God says to man and why He speaks to man. We can only understand God’s revelation of Himself and His work of salvation to the extent that we are ready to enter with full obedience into the life of God and the saving plan of God whose center is Jesus Christ.
One of the greatest needs in the Church today is for the Christian people to grow in the grace of hearing God. The goal of this essay is to help people learn how to hear God and to obey Him. The first two parts of the essay will explain the goal of God’s revelation and three ways how God reveals Himself to humanity. The last part of the essay will describe some of the obstacles within us to hearing God’s Word.
God’s Revelation: Its Purpose and Goal
How does God speak to us? Is his revelation an audible word, like that we hear when we speak with other human beings? And if God’s “voice” is not an audible word, then how can someone be sure that he is “hearing God”? When all is said and done, doesn’t “hearing from God” really just mean acting the best I can with the ideas and insights that come to me? These are some of the questions we must face as we consider the topic of how God speaks to us.
When we consider the whole of Christian and Old Testament history, the most remarkable fact of this history is the conviction, possessed by countless believers, that God does speak to man, and that it is possible for man to hear and recognize the voice of God. This certitude that God does speak to man is not a naïve attitude, but recognizes as well the countless factors affecting us that can hinder or color our reception of God’s revelation. The possibility of error or deception in hearing God is real. Nonetheless, despite this possibility, it would be false humility and a grievous spiritual error for us not to desire to have God speak to us. Rather, we should allow God to purify us and to teach us how to face the obstacles to His word, which are within us. Spiritual maturity is nothing less than growing in the ability to hear and obey God.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus (Heb 12:2) One of the most important aspects of the Christian conviction that God does speak to man is the certitude that God’s revelation to us has a clear purpose and goal. That is, God does not relate to man in an idle and happenstance fashion, like two acquaintances passing away the time in mindless conversation. Everything that God does for man, everything that God speaks to man, is directed towards a very specific and clear goal. When we think about God speaking to us it is very helpful to consider this image—all of God’s revelation aims us like an arrow at a bull’s eye target. What exactly is this goal towards which God aims us through His Word?
The goal or purpose of God’s revelation to us is basically two-fold. The primary goal of God’s Word is to elevate human beings to share in God’s inner life—to participate in an eternal, abiding relationship with God, a relationship that begins even here on earth. This “lifting up” of man to share in God’s life is accomplished in Jesus Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit. In Christ and through the Holy Spirit, men and women are “deified”, re-acquiring the “likeness” to God that was lost through original sin. St. Peter bears witness to God’s desire to share His own life with us: “His divine power has bestowed on us everything that makes for life and devotion… He has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:3–4).
In order for this glorification of man to occur, God must cleanse us and purify us of all the defilements and obstacles that stand in the way of our deifying union with the all-holy God. So the second purpose of God with us—second in priority, but first in temporal sequence—is to cleanse us from our sin. As St. Paul bears witness, before we can be glorified, we must be justified or made right with God: “those he called he also justified, and those he justified he also glorified” (Rom 8:30). God justifies us, or re-establishes us in right relationship with Him, by redeeming us from sin through the death of Jesus Christ. We are touched by the redeeming power of Christ’s sacrifice through the preaching of the Gospel, through the sacraments of the Church, especially Baptism, and through our own response of faith to this saving work of Jesus Christ. This interior cleansing of man is not a one-time event, but an ongoing process that lasts the whole of our earthly life. Throughout the life of a Christian, the redemption from sin is deepened through an ongoing work of sanctification—all aiming at the ultimate purpose of God for us: our glorification in and with Jesus Christ in heaven.
Everything that God has done or spoken to man throughout the whole course of human history manifests His two-fold purpose for man—to cleanse human beings of sin and to lift them up to share in God’s inner life. Grasping this two-fold goal at the heart of all God’s interaction with humanity is essential if we are to consider the specific question of how God reveals Himself to man. Many of the deceptions that occur as people try to hear from God are the result of not being focused with a pure heart on this two-fold goal of God. If I am taking a journey but don’t know the goal to which I am moving—the very purpose of the journey—then I am sure to get lost, to wander and to fall prey to confusion. This is why before we consider how God speaks to us or directs us, it is first necessary to know the goal towards which He is directing us. And the more we adopt this goal of God, aiming our life to Him in accord with His two-fold purpose, the more we will have our eyes opened to see the different ways how God speaks to us.
Let us now consider in turn the three basic ways that God reveals Himself to man: in Creation itself, in Salvation History (the words and deeds of God recorded in the Bible), and finally, the supreme revelation of God in His Son Jesus Christ.
Father Gerard Beigel teaches at St. John Vianney Seminary in Denver, Colorado, and writes regularly for The California Mission.
© The California Mission.