How does God speak to man, and if he does, how do we know it? God is Spirit (John 4:24), but men are flesh (Genesis 6:3; cp. John 3:6). How is flesh able to hear Spirit? We cannot see spirit, or taste it, smell it, or feel it with our hands, so how could we hear it with our ears? Those five gates are the only gates through which we are able to take in knowledge to consider and understand. Indeed, because of these five senses, we know we are alive! So, how is man, who is flesh, able to hear God, who is Spirit? Well, Elihu tells us that God speaks in one way or another, but man doesn’t perceive it (Job 33:14). In other words, the difficulty of communication lies with man, not God. He speaks, but we don’t know it. The Lord comes to us, when we are at peace (Genesis 3:8), in a dream, when we lie on our beds (Job 33:15). This is where he opens our ears and seals our instructions (Job 33:16)! So, God is able to communicate with man without any difficulty on his part, but, because we are flesh and our only perceived sources of awareness are one or more of our five senses (the gates of physical communication), we are unable to perceive that God is at work and speaking to us.
However, what is the usual method God uses to communicate with mankind? We are told in the New Covenant text that God has communicated with men in various ways (Hebrews 1:1; cp. Elihu’s statement in Job 33:14-15). The age in which Job lived was prior to Moses, whom the Lord instructed to write down and record his words for mankind. Prior to Moses, the Lord spoke to Abraham in a vision (Genesis 15:1; cp. 17:9 Luke 1:22; Acts 9:10, 12; 10:3, 17, 19), and in a dream he warned Abimelech against taking Sarah for his wife (Genesis 20:3). The Lord used dreams to speak with Jacob (Genesis 28:10-15), his brother Esau (Genesis 31:24), and with Jacob’s son, Joseph (Genesis 37:5-11). The Lord also used a dream near the birth of Jesus to cause Joseph to understand Mary’s pregnancy was of God, not man, and he used dreams, as a sign, for the Jews to understand, they were living in the last days of their covenant with him (Acts 2:17). So, dreams and visions were, indeed, used by God to communicate with men, but does he still do that? I don’t doubt that he does, but the real question is, are these the preferred or usual methods God uses to open men’s ears and seal their instruction (Job 33:16)? I don’t believe so.
The problem with dreams is: they are often difficult to understand (Genesis 41:8), and so are visions (cp. Acts 10:17), and, more often than not, one needs an interpreter (cp. Genesis 40:8-13, 16-19). More problems arise from the fact that many interpreters of dreams are often wrong in their understandings or simply unable to interpret them at all (cp. Daniel 2:3-10). The Lord may also communicate to us through conscience. Through it, man is able to determine right from wrong, but even one’s conscience may be corrupted and excuse him, when he is guilty or accuse him when he is innocent. Moreover, creation is able to show man that there is a God. After all, everything that is built has a builder, and he who built all things is God (Hebrews 3:4). Not only is creation able to point to God, but it is also able to show that God is infinitely powerful and glorious (Romans 1:20). However, even creation is limited in its ability to unveil the unknown God behind all things.
Nevertheless, the New Covenant text tells us that the eternal God has been fully revealed in the flesh by his Son, Jesus (John 1:14, 18; Hebrews 1:1-3). Therefore, having Jesus’ life and words recorded by those who knew him (the Gospels) is better than dreams or one’s conscience. Moreover, Jesus’ commission to his disciples was interpreted and lived out by the very ones who witnessed him alive after he was crucified, and is recorded in Acts and the epistles. Thus, having the word of God written down and recorded for us is much more certain to receive and live by than dreams and visions, the wonders of creation or even our consciences (2Peter 1:19; cp. 2Timothy 3:16).
On the other hand, the word of God also reveals to us that, while the Lord communicates to men through his word, men may freely pursue their own wicked purposes, (Job 33:17-18). In other words, in whatever age one wishes to imagine that God speaks to men, they have free will, and they will not always obey the Lord’s instruction, because men have been in a state of rebellion since Genesis 3. .
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