Christ is the decisive and ultimate Mediator of Divine speech. He does not merely speak truth; he is ‘the truth’ in Person (John 14:6).
‘All things,’ he claimed, ‘have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him’ (Matt 11:27).
God is Word, and Jesus Christ is the Word of God incarnate (John 1:1-14). ‘Jesus Christ … as an act of sheer grace, takes us into the otherwise closed circle of Divine knowing and being.’1Doyle, ‘Did the Father Punish the Son?,’ 3.
Bodily, he has left; spiritually, he has stayed and remains present, communicating ever still.
Knowing, Not Knowing About
Knowledge of God through the Word of God — a major New Testament theme, and not mere knowledge about God — is fundamental and integral to salvation in Christ. In hearing and seeing him, we hear and see the Father (John 14:9), and the truth he speaks genuinely sets people free (John 8:32).
But that freedom isn’t handed to a passive listener. The word spoken has to be received.
As Messianic Prophet, Christ addresses us from outside. Yet his prophetic activity doesn’t stop there — it also works internally. He gives what he commands, enabling our minds to grasp, understand and respond by the Spirit’s power. It’s the Lord who opens hearts to attend to what is said, whether in preaching (Acts 16:14) or in Scripture (Luke 24:45).
His living word of address and appeal is what effectively saves.
Rejected, Then Counterfeited
But reception is only half the story. Scripture is equally insistent that true prophets are opposed and rejected, and that counterfeit prophecy distorts and lies — a theme running through both Testaments and sharpening in Christ’s own teaching (Matt 5:11-12; 23:29-31; Luke 11:50-51; Acts 7:37, 51-52).
Eric Tully draws out why Jesus and the apostles keep referencing the persecution of Old Testament prophets. Two points are being made: that their essential message has not changed with Christ’s advent, since being right with God still means humbly accepting grace in the form offered; and that rejecting Jesus is not a defence of Old Testament orthodoxy but a rejection of it — of Moses and every prophet after him.2Tully, ‘Prophet,’ 639.
Opposition then gives way to outright counterfeit. Christ was clear that false prophets would abound (Matt 24:11), their counterfeit signs sharpening the persuasive power of deception (Matt 24:24). So John urged God’s people to ‘test the spirits … because many false prophets have gone out into the world’ (1 John 4:1).
The test is straightforward: whether they acknowledge or distort Scripture’s account of Christ’s incarnation, sayings, and saving work in their full New Testament context. As in the Old Testament, so in the New — false teaching ‘does not encourage faith in the true God and does not conform to the certain truth that God has revealed previously.’3Tully, ‘Prophet,’ 639.
The Word Kept Going
Furthermore, this saving Word didn’t fall silent when Christ’s earthly ministry ended.
Jesus promised that he and the Father would continue to speak and teach by his Spirit through the apostles: ‘When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth … He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you’ (John 16:13-14).
The New Testament Scriptures set forth that promised apostolic witness — breathed out from the mouth of God, recorded and published as the written Word of God (2 Tim 3:16). The preaching of the apostles, preserved in Scripture, is identical with God’s very own Word.
Paul says as much to the Thessalonians: ‘when you received the Word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as it really is, the Word of God, which is at work in you believers’ (1 Thess 2:13).
Wherever the words of Scripture are accurately and practically expounded, God in Christ himself speaks. He feeds, governs, guides and rules the church — which is nothing other than the community of the Word.4Chase R. Kuhn and Paul Grimmond eds., Theology is for Preaching: Biblical Foundations, Method, and Practice (Lexham Press, 2021). See also, for example, Peter Adam, Speaking God’s Words: A Practical Theology of Preaching (IVP, 1996); Joel Beeke, Reformed Preaching: Proclaiming God’s Word from the Heart of the Preacher to the Heart of his People (Crossway, 2018); Benjamin Dean, ‘Packer on Preaching: A Recommendation,’ Churchman, 129:2 (2015), 131-147; Christopher Green, Cutting to the Heart: Applying the Bible in Preaching and Teaching (IVP, 2015); Christopher Green and David Jackman eds., When God’s Voice is Heard (IVP, 2003); Conrad Mbewe, Pastoral Preaching: Building a People for God (Langham, 2017).
Never Meant to Stay Put
That Word was never given to be kept to ourselves.
It has always been God’s design that the gospel of his Son would be preached to all nations before this age ends (Luke 24:46-47), and what he has designed he will accomplish (Matt 24:14). But the chief way he has chosen is through human emissaries: first the apostles (Acts 1:8), then Christ’s gifts of evangelists, pastors and teachers (Eph 4:11) for successive generations. Our business is to preach and teach, proclaiming the whole gospel to the whole world (Matt 28:16-20).5Peter Jensen, ‘Now is the Time to Preach: Preaching in Eschatological Context,’ in Kuhn and Grimmond eds., 225.
This global mandate isn’t a later inference. It’s Christ’s own explicit charge in his final words on earth, and all four Gospels record it.
Matthew has his authority across heaven and earth issuing in a charge to make disciples, baptising and teaching them to observe everything he commanded (Matt 28:18-20). Mark agrees: ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation’ (Mark 16:15). Luke supplies the sequence — Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, then promised ‘power from on high’ so they might proclaim ‘repentance for the forgiveness of sins … to all nations’ (Luke 24:44-49).
John locates the whole commission within Christ’s own mission: ‘As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you’ (John 20:21). The ability to fulfil it follows immediately — ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ (John 20:22). And the substance of the message is simply this: the forgiveness of sins (John 20:23).
Still Speaking Today
The sending didn’t end with the apostles’ generation. The risen and ascended Christ continues to exercise his prophetic office as God’s spokesman through those he ordains after them.
‘Since his ascension He performs the same office not only in the fuller revelation of the gospel made to the apostles and in their inspiration as infallible teachers, but also in the institution of the ministry and constantly calling men to that office.’6Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 2:463.
Charles Bridges identified three ‘grand repositories’ of Christ’s truth ordained by the head of the church: the Scriptures, the hearts of Christians, and the Christian ministry.7Charles Bridges, The Christian Ministry: with an inquiry into the causes of its inefficiency (The Banner of Truth Trust, 1959 [Orig. 1830]), 2. Through the first and third — the text of the Bible and Bible-based ministry — Christ continues to speak the Word of God through ‘the continuing preaching of the gospel.’8Calvin, Institutes, 2.15.2; Battles ed., 496.
And that ongoing preaching carries a claim of breath-taking scope. Christ summons all people-groups, in every age, across all nations, to follow him. As all have sinned, so all are called to trust him; as all stand guilty, so all are offered forgiveness and hope through his death and resurrection.
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- 1Doyle, ‘Did the Father Punish the Son?,’ 3. ↩︎
- 2Tully, ‘Prophet,’ 639. ↩︎
- 3Tully, ‘Prophet,’ 639. ↩︎
- 4Chase R. Kuhn and Paul Grimmond eds., Theology is for Preaching: Biblical Foundations, Method, and Practice (Lexham Press, 2021). See also, for example, Peter Adam, Speaking God’s Words: A Practical Theology of Preaching (IVP, 1996); Joel Beeke, Reformed Preaching: Proclaiming God’s Word from the Heart of the Preacher to the Heart of his People (Crossway, 2018); Benjamin Dean, ‘Packer on Preaching: A Recommendation,’ Churchman, 129:2 (2015), 131-147; Christopher Green, Cutting to the Heart: Applying the Bible in Preaching and Teaching (IVP, 2015); Christopher Green and David Jackman eds., When God’s Voice is Heard (IVP, 2003); Conrad Mbewe, Pastoral Preaching: Building a People for God (Langham, 2017). ↩︎
- 5Peter Jensen, ‘Now is the Time to Preach: Preaching in Eschatological Context,’ in Kuhn and Grimmond eds., 225. ↩︎
- 6Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 2:463. ↩︎
- 7Charles Bridges, The Christian Ministry: with an inquiry into the causes of its inefficiency (The Banner of Truth Trust, 1959 [Orig. 1830]), 2. ↩︎
- 8Calvin, Institutes, 2.15.2; Battles ed., 496. ↩︎