Speechless at God's Speech

It seems we often take for granted the little amazements God has placed around us. Consider all that is involved in saying ‘hi’ to your mom. You have the thought in your mind, then your thought becomes sound through the one-second process of your volition, memory of vocabulary, habit, muscle memory and other mental faculties sending signals to your obedient diaphragm. The diaphragm then pushes air to strike your vocal chords nearly simultaneously with the movements of your jaw, tongue, lips and corresponding pleasant facial expression. This distinct word would sound like an unintelligible noise if God had not desired sound waves to function the specific way they do.

God has designed it all in such a way that his own word can be thundered from the mountaintops to tens of thousands, yet whispered tenderly to a crying child. All of this would be vain if God had not also designed ears and brains, which have the necessary instruments to receive our encoded sounds and understand the intended meaning.

Augustine compares human speech to the Incarnation in chapter one of “De Doctrina Christiana.” While Augustine does admit various inadequacies of his linguistic analogies for his Christology, the doctrine of the Incarnation can help us better understand the brilliance of human speech — a God-centered gift to be used to glorify him.

In the incarnation, the second person of the Trinity took on a human form without sacrificing his divinity to fulfill the law of God on behalf of his people, to die on the cross to bear their sin and the just wrath it deserved, and to rise from the dead to sit at God’s right hand. Angels shouted for joy and devils howled in terror when they beheld the embryo who would one day conquer the world. The one person would have two natures from that point on. The Word assumed an entire human nature, “taking to himself a true body and a reasonable soul,” and dwelt among us. As Gregory of Nazianzus said, “what is not assumed is not redeemed.” To redeem our minds, bodies, wills and reasonable souls, Christ needed to assume them. He assumed the entirety of human nature in his incarnation, yet without sin, loss of divinity or becoming two persons. The glory of the Incarnation begs the question as to why Augustine would compare the glorious Incarnation of Christ with something as seemingly mundane as speech.

Well, here is the thing: an immaterial meaning present in the mind of a sender, the one who speaks, does not cease to be a meaningful thought when it becomes incarnate in sound to reach the mind of a receiver, the one who hears the message. But it also does not cease to be a physical noise despite its meaning. For instance, I can be having a meaningful conversation with you, but an eavesdropping non-English speaker would hear nothing but unintelligible sounds, being incapable of understanding what actual meaning is encoded in our conversation. My overall point is that human speech is a staggeringly beautiful thing.

How can the immaterial move the material? When we speak, we use our physical bodies to produce spoken words, yet the immaterial God repeatedly spoke from heaven to his people. While human speech should cause us to praise God, divine speech should cause us to not only praise but also fall on our faces in reverent fear. When God speaks, all human speech in comparison looks as impressive as a baby’s mumblings. At the end of the day, we must worship. Worship is carried out by various means, including the reading and especially the preaching of the word of God.

While it may seem unimaginably glorious to hear God’s voice thundering from heaven, see what Peter writes: “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed... Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” This information about the divine voice leaves us without excuse for our neglect of the word of God and blessed beyond all measure when we diligently attend to it.

Keep your eye out for Dr. Mark Talbot’s third volume in his four volume series from Crossway, which will focus on language and will blow your mind. He gives a sneak peak of that volume on language at the end of this podcast.

(Originally published in The Wheaton Record on March 4th, 2021. Artwork designed by Annika Van Dyke.)