Got a question? Email me. I don’t have all the answers; God does. (If you want someone who thinks they’re infallible, I can point you to those blogs.) So as usual, all errors are mine.
Question. The Sunday School lesson I’m teaching this week comes from 1 Kings 3.5, where Solomon dreams that God will grant him any wish, and he wishes for wisdom. In one of the commentaries I use, it says, “In those days, God often spoke to people in their dreams.”
I’ve always assumed the Holy Spirit was with the pre-Christian believers in God who had found a personal relationship with Him. But I’d like to know: Did the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, after the start of the Church Age, replace the other types of communication with God?
Reply. Short answer: no.
Much longer answer: When the Holy Spirit came to indwell and empower Christians at Pentecost in 33 CE, Peter pointed out to the crowd that this indwelling fulfilled something that the prophet Joel had said:
“In the last days,” God says, “I will pour out My Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. In those days I will pour out My Spirit even on my servants—men and women alike—and they will prophesy. And I will cause wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below—blood and fire and clouds of smoke.”
—Simon Peter, Acts 2.17-19 NLT
Right there we see two different types of communication with God: Visions and dreams. Peter, by quoting Joel 2.28, indicates that he expected the Spirit, who had come to be a significant part of the new church’s life, would now inspire those same Old Testament style experiences. Only more of them.
Y’see, we’re indwelt: The Holy Spirit lives in us. Now, compare this with how you communicate with your own dad. When you live near your dad, you hear from him from time to time; but when you lived with your dad, you heard from him all the time. It’s like that with the Spirit. He lives not just with, but in Christians. Consequently Christians hear from Him all the time.
Before the Christian Era, the only folks who had such an experience with the Holy Spirit were the prophets and certain other special individuals. Some theologians believe that the OT folks weren’t indwelt; the Holy Spirit might’ve “come upon” them, but only temporarily; He didn’t live in them, but only visited. I’m not so sure about this.
True, there are some leaders, like King Saul or the judge Samson, who had the Holy Spirit leave them after they screwed up. (Jg 16.20, 1Sa 16.14) King David felt he had to ask God to not take His Holy Spirit from him. (Ps 51.11) Yet contrast this with Jeremiah famously complaining that God wouldn’t leave him alone. (Jr 20.7-9) Or Jonah running away from God, only to get chased down by Him. Or John the Baptist indwelt by the Spirit before he was even born. (Lk 1.15) The leaders had a temporary here-today-gone-tomorrow relationship with the Spirit, but the prophets had a stayed-and-took-up-residence relationship with Him… not unlike that which Christians have nowadays.
So when Peter pointed to that bit from Joel about how God was going to make all his followers into prophets, I figure he was likewise pointing to the special relationship the Holy Spirit had with the prophets: Not a temporary coming-upon, but a permanent indwelling—like that of Old Testament prophets. The purpose, of course, is that we’d be prophets. We’d constantly witness God’s actions and share them with others. Spiritual power, just as it was with the Old Testament leaders, comes and goes, depending on circumstances. But the voice of the Lord just keeps talking—because He’s in us.
Like the OT prophets, the Spirit doesn’t limit Himself to speaking to us in any one way. As the writer of Hebrews put it:
Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. And now in these final days, He has spoken to us through His Son. God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son He created the universe.
—Hebrews 1.1-2 NLT
Some bible translations stick a “but” between verses 1 and 2: “Long ago God spoke… BUT in these last days He spoke…” That’s a bad translation which, thankfully, the NLT doesn’t repeat. It makes it look like the Spirit no longer does the many and various ways anymore. He absolutely does.
The fellow who wrote your commentary pointed out that people in bible times heard from God in dreams. He might mean by this that God doesn’t speak as much through dreams anymore. But there’s really no way to prove such a statement. You’d have to survey people back then (ask them “Has God ever spoken to you in a dream?”), then do a similar survey of people today, and compare the percentages. Good luck with that. Now, it’s also likely that your commentator meant people in bible times heard from God in dreams, BUT in these last days they don’t, because God only speaks by the Son. It’s based on that misinterpretation of Hebrews 1… and is disproved by Peter’s quote of Joel that people with God’s Spirit will dream dreams.
When God wants a person’s attention, He’ll speak to them in any way that works on them, in any method He chooses. Some of those ways are the same ways in the bible. The Holy Spirit tends to customize them for the person. Either He talks to people in a way that a person is already receptive to, or—if He’s trying to stretch them—in a way they’re not. Take the fellow who says, “God doesn’t speak in dreams anymore.” Sometimes the Spirit responds, “Says you,” and He gives that fellow freaky dreams that’ll bother him for weeks until he’s willing to accept that God can so communicate that way—and in whatever way He wants. Some of it is God hammering at our pride. Some of it is God expanding our abilities. All of it is done in love, so don’t get the idea that the Spirit gives people freaky dreams purely to weird them out. (Though, and I say this from experience, it sure can feel that way.)
But everyone is different, and the Holy Spirit meets us at whatever level He’s found us. And then He pushes us onto whatever level He wants us. If visions are what will work best for us, the Spirit does visions. If it’s revelations in the middle of a bible study, He’ll do it that way. If it’s tongues and interpretation, the Spirit will say it in gibberish, then say it again in English. If it’s a still small voice, or a voice that sounds like a mountain’s falling over—whatever works for Him, He’ll do.
And of course let’s not rule out the bible, which the Spirit inspired. Half the time when I have a question for God, His answer to me is, “I answered that already. Read your bible.” The consistency between what He said to the prophets then, and what He says to us today, helps us recognize His voice better. So read that bible.
But yes, there are still many and various ways God speaks, and let’s rule none of them out.