What language do you think God speaks? Most likely a verbal language and your mother tongue particularly. For me, that is English. I expect God to speak English to me. It has never crossed my mind that it should be any different, that it would be different if He spoke to me in French? After reading the New York Times article "Does Your Language Shape How You Think?", the implications for perception imbued by different languages became clear to me. But what does that have to do with God? Does it matter whether God describes a bridge as a “she” or an “it”? Probably not. But it did cause me to consider the effects of language in a broader sense. Is language just verbal? Why do we expect God to speak in words anyway? Does God have a cosmic mouth –fitted with teeth and a tongue by which to speak to me? Obviously not, so it follows that limiting God’s language to a verbal language, much less English, might have serious implications on my being able to hear God and converse with Him. Maybe this even accounts for why some many people have a hard time hearing from God, if they hear from Him at all.
So, back to the original question, one that we must answer to hear and understand Him, what language does God speak? As with any theological question, the best place, and the most direct place, to start is with the Bible, interestingly for our discussion also called the Word of God.
In the very opening of the Bible, in Genesis, we encounter God as He creates the world – the cosmos, all matter and life as we know it. As you probably remember, God accomplishes all this by speaking what are related as verbal words, “Let there be light” and so forth. So from the very beginning of the Bible, we get the idea that God speaks English (or the language of the translation we are reading) words, and we, logically, assume that if God is speaking to us then it will be is a similar fashion.
Genesis 1
1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. 3Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. 4God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5God called the light day, and the darkness He called night And there was evening and there was morning, one day. 6Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."
However, if we think about it, at the beginning Christ was not incarnate and flesh had not been created, so there is no way that God actually spoke audible words from a fleshly mouth. He clearly spoke words, but we would do well to widen our understanding of “spoke” and “words”. That’s all well and good, but what does this practically mean? Expand it how?
If we look at the Hebrew word used for “said”, we find “amar”, defined as:
to say, speak, utter
1. (Qal) to say, to answer, to say in one's heart, to think, to command, to promise, to intend
2. (Niphal) to be told, to be said, to be called
3. (Hithpael) to boast, to act proudly
4. (Hiphil) to avow, to avouch
The first definition is the one of most interest here. It includes more than physical speaking of words, expanding the idea toward intention not necessarily tied to spoken words. So what could that mean?
I propose that look at the prologue of the Gospel of John, at the divine logos, the word that was made flesh in Jesus and see what we learn.
John 1:1-14
The Word Became Flesh
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. 6There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. 14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
What we learn is that the was a divine word before there was a human word, incarnate in the flesh, and that it was this divine word that was present with God in the beginning. We also learn that this divine word was/is Jesus.
So, is there more about this? Let’s look at Colossians.
Colossians 1:16-17
16For by him [Christ]all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
From this passage, we learn more about the word God spoke. On first read of Genesis 1, we might say that God created everything by speaking verbal words. However, when we look at Colossians we see that God created all things by speaking a divine word, and that Word was and is Christ.
Wow.
The language God speaks is Christ.
More on what the means practically next week.
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