Chapter 10.10

Physically Seeing & Hearing God

The Voice & Apparitions of God

 

Table of Topics

A) The Voice of God

B) Apparitions from God

Extras & Endnotes

Primary Points

• Scripture records several times that God spoke to people in an audible voice that was physically heard with human ears.
• The clearest NT examples of people physically hearing the voice of God occurred in the ministry of Christ.
• Even in a mental vision, it seemed to the person that God was physically speaking to them (cf. 2 Cor 12:1-4).
• Biblically speaking, people only either heard God’s voice audibly such that others could hear it too, or they “heard” His voice in a vision. What many call “hearing God” is not biblically hearing God at all.
• Examples of demonic counterfeiting illustrate again the importance of authenticating revelation as demonic or divine.
• Most all of the miraculous revelations recorded in Scripture could be labeled as an apparition, vision, or dream.
• We can conclude that essentially the whole Law of Moses, consisting of large portions of Exodus and Numbers, and virtually all of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, were received, not in visions, but in a very physical experience with God.
• A few others such as Samuel, Job, Peter, and Paul experienced apparitions of God.
• Emperor Constantine and his army experienced a very famous apparition of God.

A) The Voice of God

Scripture records several times that God spoke to people in an audible voice that was physically heard with human ears. The clearest OT examples were in the context of God meeting with Moses and the Israelites at Mount Sinai. Accordingly, Moses tells the Israelites:

When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was ablaze with fire, all the leading men of your tribes and your Elders came to Me. ²⁴ And you said, “The LORD our God has shown us His glory and His majesty, and we have heard His voice from the fire. Today we have seen that a man can live even if God speaks with him. ²⁵ But now, why should we die? This great fire will consume us, and we will die if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any longer. ²⁶ For what mortal man has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and survived? ²⁷ Go near and listen to all that the LORD our God says. Then tell us whatever the LORD our God tells you. We will listen and obey.” (Deut 5:23-27)

We are reminded here of what an awesome thing it is to really hear God. So much so that the Israelites could not bear it (cf. Exod 20:19). Accordingly, Moses thereafter heard the voice of God. We read of the incident that, “Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain . . . . The LORD said to Moses, “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear Me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you” (Exod 19:3, 9). The monumental nature of these events is reflected in the number of times it is mentioned (cf. Deut 4:12; 4:33, 36; 5:4; 5:22-26; Exod 19:9, 19; 20:22; 24:16; Heb 12:18-21).

Because Moses typically experienced apparitions of God and not just God’s voice, we discuss him further below. Nonetheless, it would seem clear that Moses physically heard the voice of God on several occasions, especially when it is described as coming from a particular direction or object such as “from within a [burning] bush” (Exod 3:4), “from the Tent of Meeting” (Lev 1:1), or when “Moses . . . heard the voice speaking to him from between the two cherubim above the atonement cover on the ark of the Testimony” (Num 7:89).

The clearest NT examples of people physically hearing the voice of God occurred in the ministry of Christ, Whom God said would be a “Prophet like” Moses (Deut 18:18). At the time of Christ’s baptism, “a voice from Heaven said, “This is My Son, Whom I love; with Him I am well pleased” (Matt 3:17). Likewise, at Christ’s transfiguration, “a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is My Son, Whom I love; with Him I am well pleased. Listen to Him!” (Matt 17:5). And again, at Christ’s request for the Father to glorify His Name, John records, “Then a voice came from Heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.’ The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to Him” (John 12:28-29).

The above examples of people hearing God’s voice clearly occurred in a physical way with people hearing the voice of God with their ears. However, most of the time that Scripture records people hearing God, it is in the context of a vision in which the sound is not physically heard, but is rather “mentally” heard. Nonetheless, it is often difficult to be sure in many cases which kind of divine voice people experienced, the physical one or the mental one. Not only is it difficult to discern the difference in the biblical text, but we would suggest the person themselves could hardly tell the difference because of God’s use of the sensical parts of the person’s mind while they experienced the vision. In other words, even in a mental vision, it seemed to the person that God was physically speaking to them (cf. 2 Cor 12:1-4).

Accordingly, we cannot be dogmatic about whether the voice of God was experienced in a physical or more psychical way when “The LORD God commanded the man [Adam], saying [amar: “utter,” “say”] . . .” (Gen 2:16), or later when “the LORD God called [qara: “call,” “proclaim”] to the man, ‘Where are you?’” (Gen 3:9). However, the Hebrew words used to describe God’s communication, and the fact that the first man and woman clearly experienced God in a physical way, as they “heard the sound of the LORD God as He was walking in the garden” (Gen 3:8), strongly suggest they typically experienced God’s voice in a physical way as well. We would suggest the same when Samuel first heard God call Him (cf. 1 Sam 3:4-10).

However, even if the voice of God was not experienced physically, it occurred as something “heard” in the person’s mind, not just a thought entering the mind in a telepathic way. Unfortunately, many people claim they have heard the voice of God, or that God told them something, when in reality all they experienced was a strong impression or emotional impulse. They actually didn’t hear anything, whether physically or mentally. But again, biblically speaking, people only either heard God’s voice audibly such that others could hear it too, or they “heard” His voice in a vision. What many call “hearing God” is not biblically hearing God at all.

Therefore, when we read, “The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it” (Acts 8:29), we would suggest that such instruction occurred as an audible sensation, and the incident gives no biblical evidence for the mega mystical idea of merely mental “leadings” of the Holy Spirit as so many commonly claim. As we have said, there is no biblical evidence for the idea that God gives us instruction to obey through mere mental promptings.

There is no biblical reason why God could not provide divine revelation in a similar way today. For example, the following believable story is told of Peter Marshall (1902-1949), former Chaplain to the U. S. Senate:

Back in Britain, on one foggy, pitch-black Northumberland night, he was taking a shortcut across the moors in an area where there was a deep, deserted limestone quarry. As he plodded blindly forward, an urgent voice called out, “Peter!” He stopped and answered: “Yes, who is it? What do you want?” But there was no response. Thinking he was mistaken, he took a few more steps. The voice came again, even more urgently, “Peter!”

At this he stopped again and, trying to peer into the darkness, stumbled forward and fell to his knees. Putting down his hand to brace himself, he found nothing there. As he felt around in a semicircle he discovered that he was right on the brink of the abandoned quarry, where one step more would certainly have killed him. ^[1]

While God may provide divine revelation in this manner, we can always expect divine authentication to accompany it. God knows that humans are susceptible to the “delusions of their own minds” (cf. Jer 14:14; 23:26-28; Col 2:18-19). Not even God expects us to receive any revelation as divine, including either a physical or psychical “voice,” until it has been sufficiently authenticated as such. Accordingly, when God first spoke to Moses, He did it from a supernaturally burning bush (cf. Exod 2:1-6; cf. 3:12). Supernatural revelation from God will always be accompanied by undeniable supernatural authentication from God. ^[2] In addition, no “voice of God” will contradict already authenticated revelation such as Scripture.

Finally, like every other mode of divine miraculous communication, the devil desires to copy it, and certainly has been known to “speak” to people. Many particularly possessed unbelievers have attested to hearing “voices” in their head. Here we are reminded of a young man on the popular Oprah Winfrey television show who claimed he had voices telling him he was a woman, and when he acted that way the voices would stop. We believe him.

We are reminded as well of what would seem to be a demonic voice in the life of Socrates (c. 469-399 B. C.). NT scholar William Sanday (1843–1920) wrote:

One of the most striking things about Socrates is what he calls his ‘Daemon,’ that voice which has attended him from his youth up and whispers in his ear when he or those in whom he is interested are about to do anything that they should not.

It is a pathetic touch, when, in the Epilogue to his Apology, he consoles those who voted for his acquittal by telling them that this Warning Voice of his, which in all the rest of his life had been ready enough to stop him when he was doing anything wrong or unpropitious, placed no obstacle before him when he went out to his arrest, or when he was on his way to trial, or at any part of his speech in his own defense. At other times it was in the habit of interrupting him while he was speaking, but it had not done so then. He argued from this that it was a mistake to suppose that death was an evil. Otherwise his mentor would not have let him go to certain death. ^[3]

Which illustrates again the importance of authenticating revelation as demonic or divine. Accordingly, we would suggest “the voice” that V. P. Wierwille, founder of the heretical cult The Way International, heard at the inception of his ministry, was demonic. His claim to the divine authority he exercised and deceived so many with, was based on his testimony that: “God spoke to me audibly, just like I’m talking to you now. He said he would teach me the word as it had not been known since the first century, if I would teach it to others.” ^[4] Based on what Wierwille taught, and if he wasn’t lying, that voice was clearly not God. ^[5]

B) Apparitions from God

Most all of the miraculous revelations recorded in Scripture could be labeled as an apparition, vision, or dream. Webster’s defines an apparition as, “An unusual or unexpected sight or phenomenon.” By apparition, we refer to any miraculous revelation that is received by the physical sense of sight. This would include many of the appearances of Angel, theophanies and Glory Cloud discussed in the previous chapter. Nonetheless, other apparitions are recorded as well, especially surrounding the ministry of Moses.

Accordingly God said:

When a Prophet of the LORD is among you, I reveal Myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams. But this is not true of My servant Moses; he is faithful in all My house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the LORD. (Num 12:6-8)

Of course, neither Moses nor any human has literally seen God’s face (cf. Exod 33:20; John 1:18; 6:46; 1 Tim 6:16; 1 John 4:12), ^[6] although we are told Moses was granted an apparition of God’s “back” (Exod 33:23). ^[7] But God uses the metaphor to reflect how intimate Moses’ experiences with God were. As we read elsewhere, “The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend” (Exod 33:9). The phrase also probably reflects the fact that while Moses only saw “the form of the Lord,” he heard the voice of the Lord as if God were facing Him.

Therefore, when we read almost 140 times “the Lord said to Moses,” we have good reason to believe these revelatory experiences were in the context of seeing “the form of the Lord” and speaking to Him as “face to face,” just as God Himself described (Num 12:8). Accordingly, we can conclude that essentially the whole Law of Moses, consisting of large portions of Exodus and Numbers, and virtually all of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, were received in this very same way. Not in visions, but in a very physical experience with God, either on Mount Sinai (cf. Exod 31:18; Lev 25:1; 27:34), or in the Tent of Meeting (cf. Exod 33:9; Num 1:1).

In addition to Moses seeing apparitions of God, we read:

Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under His feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. But God did not raise His hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank. (Exod 24:9-11)

The physical, rather than visionary nature of this encounter seems confirmed by the fact that those involved physically “ate and drank.”

Even considering the incident above, it is clear that Moses’ revelatory experiences were extremely unique. It is said once of the Prophet Samuel that “The LORD continued to appear at Shiloh, and there He revealed Himself to Samuel through His word” (1 Sam 3:21). Likewise, we read that, “the LORD answered Job out of the storm” (38:1) and Job remarks, “My ears had heard of You but now my eyes have seen You” (42:5).

Others such as Abraham and Jacob experienced the Angel of the Lord as discussed in the previous chapter, and other Prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah experienced visions. But Moses, and we believe the “Prophet like” (Deut 18:18) Moses (i.e. Christ), experienced revelation from God in a very unique, direct, and physical way, seeing God with their eyes and hearing Him with their ears.

Accordingly, Scripture records very few others experiencing physical apparitions (apart from the Angel, theophanies, and the Glory Cloud) coming from God as well. King Belshazzar is described as probably experiencing a divine apparition when we read: “Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote” (Dan 5:5). Evidence that the King experienced this revelation through his physical senses is the fact that the writing of the “hand” remained on the wall for others to read (cf. v. 7).

A rare NT example of an apparition experienced with the physical senses was the privilege that Peter, James, and John received by witnessing Christ’s Transfiguration (cf. Matt 17:1-8). Likewise, the Apostle Paul seemed to have experienced a physical apparition of Jesus when Luke records: “The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, ‘Take courage! As you have testified about Me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome’” (Acts 23:11).

There is nothing in Scripture that would deny the possibility of extra-biblical characters experiencing a divine apparition. In fact, we will relate one of the more famous apparitions in all of Church history, as recorded by the early Church historian Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260-c. 340), concerning the Roman Emperor Constantine (c. 285–337):

He [Constantine] judged it to be folly indeed to join in the idle worship of those who were no gods, and, after such convincing evidence, to err from the truth; and therefore felt it incumbent on him to honor his father’s God alone [before a battle]. He prayed to Him, therefore. He asked Him and besought Him to say Who He was and to stretch forth a hand to him in his present situation.

As he prayed in this fashion and as he earnestly gave voice to his entreaties, a most marvelous sign appeared to the Emperor from God. It would have been hard to believe if anyone else had spoken of it. But a long time later the triumphant Emperor himself described it to the writer of this work. This was when I had the honor of knowing him and of being in his company. When he told me the story, he swore to its truth. And who could refuse to believe it, especially when later evidence showed it to have been genuine?

Around noontime, when the day was already beginning to decline, he saw before him in the sky the sign of a cross of light. He said it was above the sun and it bore the inscription, “Conquer with this.” The vision astounded him, as it astounded the whole army which was with him on this expedition and which also beheld the miraculous event.

He said he became disturbed. What could the vision mean? He continued to ponder and to give great thought to the question, and night came on him suddenly. When he was asleep, the Christ of God appeared to him and He brought with Him the sign which had appeared in the sky. He ordered Constantine to make a replica of this sign which he had witnessed in the sky, and he was to use it as a protection during his encounters with the enemy. ^[8]

We would suggest this incident was authenticated as divine in several ways. First, more than one ancient Church historian attested to its known occurrence. ^[9] Secondly, it was witnessed by multiple people as a physical apparition. Finally, it was interpreted Church-wide at the time as a divine intervention to cease the persecution of the Church and inaugurate the great blessing that Emperor Constantine brought the Christian Church with his ascension to Emperor after this victory.

Extras & Endnotes

Gauging Your Grasp

1. What is meant by the term “audition”?
2. Name some times that Scripture records God spoke to people in an audible voice that was physically heard with human ears. How is this different than the common way “inspiration” is understood?
3. Name some instances when Christ is recorded as hearing the voice of God.
4. Why do we claim that even in a mental vision, it seemed to the person that God was physically speaking to them?
5. Biblically speaking, what is wrong with so many people who claim God “spoke to them” or they “heard God”?
6. What are some examples of demonic counterfeiting of auditions?
7. What is the definition of an “apparition”? How does it differ from a vision?
8. We claim that most all of the miraculous revelations recorded in Scripture could be labeled as an apparition, vision, or dream. Do you agree or disagree and why?
9. How do we believe Moses received essentially the whole Law of Moses? How is this different than a common idea of “inspiration”?
10. What other biblical characters besides Moses seemed to have experienced an apparition of God?
11. Who do we claim experienced a divine apparition in Church history? Do you believe this happened? Why or why not?

Publications & Particulars

1. Told by Dallas Willard in Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God (Intervarsity, 1999), 63-4. Of course, Willard is using this example to give support to his mega mystical perspective that we have “conversational relationship with God.” However, once again, the example does not help mega mystics because they do not normally claim to audibly hear God like Peter Marshall did. The biblical examples of how God really spoke to people do not support the mere divine/human mental telepathy espoused by mega mystics. ↑

2. For further discussion on the need for authentication of divine revelation see sections 3.1.C-D; 7.1.B.5 ↑

3. William Sanday, The Oracles of God (Longmans, Green, 1891), 97-8. ↑

4. Quoted by Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Handbook of Today’s Religions (Thomas Nelson, 1992), 105. ↑

5. For further critique concerning The Way International see McDowell and Stewart. ↑

6. The statement that Moses saw God “face to face” (Exod 33:9) need to be carefully interpreted in light of other Scripture concerning seeing God. For example, God tells Moses, “you cannot see My face, for no one may see Me and live” (Exod. 33:20). This echoes NT declarations including Christ’s claim that, “No one has seen the Father except the One who is from God; only He has seen the Father” (John 6:46; cf. John 1:18; 1 John 4:12). Likewise, the Apostle Paul describes God as the One, “Who lives in unapproachable light, Whom no one has seen or can see” (1 Tim. 6:16).

   We must conclude then that when Moses saw God “face to face”, that it was a physical representation of the presence of God rather than a vision of the full and real essence of God. In addition, as NT scholar Gordon Fee points out, it is necessary to see the phrase “face to face” as “a biblical idiom for direct personal communication,” (The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT) [Eerdmans, 1987], 647, n. 44)

   Likewise, R. K. Harrison in his entry to the ISBE writes:

   The human face was frequently regarded as representative of the person (e.g., Lam. 1:8; cf. the expression “face to face,” Jer. 32:4; Acts 25:6; 1 Thess. 2:17), since personality is most clearly expressed through facial expressions. Often “my face” or “your face” is merely a circumlocution for “me” or “you” (cf. NEB Hos. 5:15; Ezk. 3:8; Mk. 1:2). Thus to seek someone’s face (e.g., Ps. 24:6; 27:8; Hos. 5:15) was to make an effort to be in that person’s presence (Ps. 105:4; Prov. 7:15; Acts 5:41; etc.), sometimes to obtain a favor (2 Ch. 7:14).

   When applied to God, “face” often means God’s presence (cf. Gen. 4:16; Mt. 18:10; 2 Thess. 1:9). From the time of the wilderness wanderings the concept of “presence” was made specific in Hebrew worship through the use of the term “bread of the presence” (Heb. lehem panim, lit. “bread of the face”; AV “shewbread”). . . . Moses was allowed to speak to God “face to face” (Ex. 33:11; cf. Dt. 34: 10), but he was not permitted to see God’s face, lest he die (Ex. 33:20,23). . . . To see God “face to face” is reserved for believers in the life to come. (“Face”, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Geoffrey W. Bromiley ed., 4 vols. [Eerdmans, 1988], II:267).

   Accordingly, even though Jacob says, “I saw God face to face” (Gen. 32:30) his encounter with God is clearly described as occurring in the form of a “man” (‘iysh, male person, 32:24). Jacob’s description cannot be taken to mean that he saw God’s physical face and it is clear that Jacob simply used this language to convey the intimacy that he experienced in his personal encounter with God. It is only in Heaven, after shedding mortality, that “we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2). The difference between seeing God and seeing Him as He really is, is eloquently described in the following:

   Of that divine glory mentioned in the Scripture, there is one degree which the eyes of the prophets were able to explore; another which all the Israelites saw, as the cloud and consuming fire; the third is so bright, and so dazzling, that no mortal is able to comprehend it; but should anyone venture to look on it, his whole frame would be dissolved. In such inconceivable splendour is the Divine Majesty revealed to the inhabitants of the celestial world, where he is said to “dwell in the light which no man can approach unto.” (1 Ti 6:16.) By the “face of God,” therefore, we are to understand that light inaccessible before which Angel may stand, but which would be so insufferable to mortal eyes, that no man could see it and live. (ref. unavailable)

   Likewise, C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch comment on Exod 33:18-23:

   No mortal man can see the face of God and remain alive; for not only is the holy God a consuming fire to unholy man, but a limit has been set, in and with the σῶμα χοϊκόν and ψυχικόν (the earthly and psychical body) of man, between the infinite God, the absolute Spirit, and the human spirit clothed in an earthly body, which will only be removed by the “redemption of our body,” and our being clothed in a “spiritual body,” and which, so long as it lasts, renders a direct sight of the glory of God impossible.

   As our bodily eye is dazzled, and its power of vision destroyed, by looking directly at the brightness of the sun, so would our whole nature be destroyed by an unveiled sight of the brilliancy of the glory of God. So long as we are clothed with this body, which was destined, indeed, from the very first to be transformed into the glorified state of the immortality of the spirit, but has become through the fall a prey to the corruption of death, we can only walk in faith, and only see God with the eye of faith, so far as He has revealed His glory to us in His works and His word.

   When we have become like God, and have been transformed into the “divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), then, and not till then, shall we see Him as He is; then we shall see His glory without a veil, and live before Him forever. For this reason Moses had to content himself with the passing by of the glory of God before his face, and with the revelation of the name of Jehovah through the medium of the word, in which God discloses His inmost being, and, so to speak, His whole heart to faith. (Commentary on the Old Testament, Electronic Edition STEP Files CD-ROM [Findex.com, 2000])

   Of course, while Christ was God in the flesh, He was hidden in the flesh ↑

7. It should be noted here that God often describes Himself as having human features. This should not surprise us as our features must have some relation to the Creator as we are made in His image. ↑

8. Eusebius of Caesarea, Life of Constantine, I:28, 29, 32; online at http://www.ccel.org. ↑

9. A similar account of only the dream is given by Lactantius, an early Church historian like Eusebius, and the tutor of Constantine’s son, in his Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died, 44.4–6; online at http://www.ccel.org. ↑