Question 48. In what way does the Holy Spirit convey God’s general, redemptive call to all mankind?
Answer: The Holy Spirit, as he providentially brings God’s word to us, calls men to read God’s word, to hear and speak God’s word as part of God’s covenant people, and above all to come under the preaching of God’s word by the ministers whom Christ appoints.
One of the things that Job wrestles with in his suffering is the seeming silence of God. It’s something that we all experience at times as believers – that sense that God is silent. We may even wish that he would speak clearly, even audibly, to us at times. In Job’s climactic appeal, before God appears, Job expresses his lament on this point: “I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me” (Job 30:20). In chapter 33, Elihu responds to this claim on Job’s part of divine silence, arguing that God is not silent (Job 33:13). As he begins his response, he makes a remark that specifically counters Job’s claim, though recognises the difficulty of the problem: “For God speaks in one way, and in two, though man does not perceive it” (Job 33:14).
Our common way of communicating with each other is speech. And where there is no speech, I mean direct, verbal speech that we can hear, we have a sense of silence. We are so accustomed to the normal, human manner of communicating that we may find it hard to detect other modes of communication. We want God to speak directly with us, with the same direct (supposed) clarity that comes from talking with another person face to face. If we paused to consider, we might find (like Job), that a face-to-face conversation with God is more than we bargained for! God is kind to refrain from overwhelming us in this way, and he thus normally uses other means to communicate with us. Elihu is right, however. God certainly speaks, but man tends not to perceive it. Like Job, even, as believers, we may fail to perceive God speaking to us.
As we considered the relationship between Christ as the word of God, and the scriptures as the word of God (back in Question 20), we saw that the scriptures, being the redemptive word of God, are the living voice of Christ in the Church and in the world. We have thus clearly established that God’s word, written and recorded in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, supplies the content of God’s redemptive call. As we turn our attention now to the intersection between the truth of God and our own experience, we need to see that the Holy Spirit, as he testifies to Christ and bears witness concerning Christ (Jn 15:26), is the effectual agent who carries Christ’s voice to us and opens our heart (Acts 16:14) to hear his voice and receive his words.
The followup question that we naturally ask on these things is: How exactly is it, then, that the Holy Spirit brings the living voice of Christ into our own lives? There is yearning in our hearts, like Job, to hear God speak, and so we find ourselves very eager to answer this question. The essential answer to this question is that we hear the living voice of Christ by receiving God’s word into our hearts. Scripture testifies to this basic truth at various points:
“And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart” (Deut 6:6);
“I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you” (Ps 119:11);
“My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments... Bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart” (Prov 3:1-3);
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4);
“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (Jn 15:7);
“And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Cor 3:3);
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Col 3:16); and
“I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer 31:33).
I suggest that there are three main categories in scripture that show us just how it is that the Holy Spirit seals God’s word upon our hearts.
Firstly, there is the personal and individual sense in which scripture calls us to read, know, and remember God’s word for ourselves. In Psalm 119:11 we read: “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” To read, study, and remember God’s word is receiving Christ’s words at the most personal level. Wisdom exhorts each one of us to “receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you” (Prov 2:1), and the blessed man is one who meditates on God’s word in himself day and night (Ps 1). The implication in this is that we ought to be personally diligent in our reading and study of God’s word. Does Psalm 1 truly and actually describe the kind of person that you are? Come to scripture daily with Samuel’s prayer on your lips: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
Secondly, there is the word spoken, in the context of our relationships in the community of God’s people. As Peter Adam points out, “Everyone… has some kind of ministry of the Word” (Adam, Speaking God’s Words, p.53). Parents are called to instruct their children in God’s word, and households ought to be heavily saturated with the word of God. Deuteronomy 6:6-9 shows this very clearly: “these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” The Church community as a whole is instructed to let Christ’s word dwell richly among us (Col 3:16), in hospitality and conversation God’s word ought to be abundant. More specifically, we are instructed to be ready to encourage one another with God’s word (e.g. 1 Thess 4:18). We ought to speak that which builds up in our conversation with other believers (Eph 4:29).
Thirdly, and most crucially, the Holy Spirit seals God’s word in our hearts through the ministry of preaching. In scripture, God places an extraordinarily significance on the role of preaching when it comes to receiving the word of God: “But the righteousness based on faith says...“The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim)...How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”” (Rom 10:5-19).
In 1 Thessalonians 1:5, the Apostle Paul says that the gospel came to those in Thessalonica “not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction”. In other words, as Paul and his companions came and preached the word to them, the Holy Spirit was working through that ministry with power. The Christians in that place heard the word preached, and “accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God” (1 Thess 2:13). In the ministry of God’s word, conducted by God’s appointed servants (Eph 4:11), God himself is the chief active agent, and the only supply of power and effect. As Paul said elsewhere: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (1 Cor 3:6-7).
This is why the reformers said things like: “The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God. Wherefore when this Word of God is now preached in the church by preachers lawfully called, we believe that the very Word of God is proclaimed, and received by the faithful; and that neither any other Word of God is to be invented nor is to be expected from heaven: and that now the Word itself which is preached is to be regarded, not the minister that preaches; for even if he be evil and a sinner, nevertheless the Word of God remains still true and good” (see: Second Helvetic Confession, Ch.1). In his sermons on Ephesians, Calvin said: ““Every time the Gospel is preached, it is as if God himself came in person solemnly to summon us.”2
1 Corinthians 2 is an especially important passage on this question as well. “And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom… but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” The word of God is the sword of the Spirit (Eph 6:17), and he wields it as Christ’s appointed servants preach it.
What does this all mean? It means that as we come together in worship with God’s people Lord’s Day by Lord’s Day, we should literally expect Christ to speak to us through the preaching of his word. If Christians really expected Jesus to speak to them each Sunday, do you think it might change the way that we approach the gathered worship of the saints? If Jesus stood in your pulpit, would it change your attitude and experience? It ought not to, because – his bodily presence excepted – that is exactly what is happening.
As we read, as we listen, as we speak, these are the means by which the Holy Spirit brings God’s revelation to us in our experience. It is not some once-in-a-lifetime mystical experience that we should expect, but a daily and weekly experience of the Spirit’s power and presence in these ordinary means of grace. The “the word is very near you” (Deut 30:14). SDG.
2Cited from the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church website: https://cprc.co.uk/quotes/christspeakingpreaching/ (date accessed: Wed 18 June, 2025).
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