6.2 A Personal Voice

Those who hear the voice of the Son out from God will live (John 5).

What is “voice?” Voice is more than sound; it’s more than words; it’s more than vibrations moving through the air. Voice is more than the one speaking and more than the one hearing. Yes, it’s all those things put together in one word, but voice is also a term used in writing, a term that means the personality of the writer coming through the words. When I hear the voice of one whom I know, their entire person is conveyed to me by those sounds. Voice is the impact of a personal spirit.

Hear His Voice. Voice, then, is more than the distinction of sounds that carry meaning; voice is also the distinction of person. Voice conveys to me everything I know about that person as well as their emotions or intentions in the present moment.

Let’s list some further verses concerning voice. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!” (Luke 9:35). – The sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. – My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me (John 10:3 & 27). – “Today, if you will hear His voice” (Hebrews 3:7 & 15 & 4:7).

Become through Him. All through Him become, and without him not even one thing became that has become (John 1:3). Let’s set out our purpose in this lesson. Of truth, we want to know what this verse means in the context of being human, of how we exist and of what makes us what we are.

We have established that God’s thoughts concerning us are part of God Himself. We, then, are a mirror image of those thoughts unfolding in time and space. Then, consider this line, which is the topic of the next lesson. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). John is speaking specifically of Jesus, yes, but how could we exist except in the same way?

How Words Become Us. First, we have the words inside of God, His Pro-Knowing. These words are not us, but God. Then, we have the same words become our human persons in all that we are, living now upon the earth. The question for us is how do those words get from God as part of Himself to become us as the fabric of our beings? The answer is Christ Jesus, that is Voice, the movement of meaning from one to another as a Living Spirit Word.

And so, in this lesson, we are using the word, “Voice,” to mean Christ Jesus as Living Spirit Word moving from God to us. Yet we are talking about two very different things, here. First, our forms and our days exist by that good-speaking, separate from any human awareness. – Sustaining all things.

Existing versus Living. Yet that absolute reality does not then become LIFE to us. Life is the entrance of that same Living Spirit Word into our souls, into our knowing, into our story of self.

Think of the functions of your body that happen automatically, heartbeat, breathing, and so on. Those are representative of that automatic existence that comes for us by the general sustaining power that is Christ Jesus. We exist by such words, but we do not LIVE by them. Rather, life, as God defines life, is those same Words interacting with us in our knowing as part of our self-consciousness. And Voice is the appropriate choice for those words entering our story, for Voice is the Personal expression of God-Words.

Animals and Angels. Consider animals and angels. Both of these types of created beings exist by the same automatic good-speaking that is Christ Jesus. Yet animals do not know any Personal Words entering any self-story of self-awareness inside of them.

We know much less about angels at the present time, so when we speak of them, we are mostly speculating. We know that angels do not know God as we do, for Peter and Paul both say that we will teach angels. And we suppose that God’s word to angels is “hear and obey,” as Paul said in Galatians – the law came through angels. That is, angels have only an external relationship with Voice.

External Word. Consider this opposing word, then. – Now therefore, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God anymore, then we shall die (Deuteronomy 5:25).

The law, the tree of knowing right from wrong, is not made for humans. Humans are made for Christ Jesus Himself in Person entering into their stories of self as Word and as Life. An external word is for angels, not for humans. Angels are made to hear and to do. In fact, animals are the same, to hear and to obey. Humans, on the other hand, are made to contain and to reveal a Personal God, something entirely different.

Physic and Spirit Only. Let’s use the word “cloud,” just momentarily, to mean an object of spiritual material in the heavens. In the end, there is little difference between our physic and a rock. Our physic is more complex, but still the same stuff. In the same way, there is little difference between our spirit and a “cloud.” Our spirit is more complex, but still the same stuff.

Animals have the same complexity of physic AND are able to hear and obey spoken word with contentment. Angels have the same complexity of spirit AND are able to hear and obey spoken word with contentment. Humans are entirely different. We have to argue and contend with word. Humans who obey without thought are inhuman.

Anti-Human. “Perfect obedience” without thought or question is anti-human. If you saw such a thing in full operation, you would know it as evil. In fact, the only humans who perform like that are squads of trained killers, thoughtless and cruel.

A team of horses moving together in perfect obedience is a beauty to behold. A team of angels would be the same. A “perfect soldier,” however, is one who knows neither fear nor pain and who is never bothered by thoughts of “mercy,” one who never sees the object to be killed as another human being, one who does exactly what he is “commanded” to do. A “perfect soldier” is the opposite of a human.

What words do we use, however, when we see true humans moving together in unison? Dance – orchestra - community.

One Among Many. When you see a team of horses moving together, you see a team of horses moving together. But consider a dance troupe – say Riverdance. In fact, watch that profound moment when Riverdance was first introduced to the world – https://youtu.be/w0v_pu6miJ8 Yes, you see wondrous unison of movement, coming from endless hours of training and commitment. But your eyes and focus and interest go from ONE individual person to the next. You enjoy the group, but you marvel at the individuals.

What we are trying to do is to distinguish between words spoken and registered as existence versus Personal Voice that enters the soul and makes us HUMAN.

Who Knows the Father. We could say it this way. – Humans are a personal song sung in response to the entrance of a Personal Voice. Apart from that, apart from being a living soul, we would be no different than an animal and an angel merged together. If that were the case, we could not know Father inside our own hearts, sharing our lives with us. And that thought of not knowing Father is to me the saddest thought that could ever be. Why? Because I remain a human.

Let’s define a human. A human is a being who knows the Father through knowing Jesus Sent into them. The entrance of Christ Jesus as Spirit Word into our souls is what makes us different from animals and angels.

Our Birth. We have said that Jesus’ prayer in John 17 is the words that birthed the New Creation. Consider, then, the first part of those words. – Father the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son might glorify You. As You gave Him authority over all flesh, that He should give age-unfolding life to all whom You have given Him. For this is age-unfolding life, that they should know You, the One true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent (John 17:1-3).

If verse 3 is the definition of “human,” then we are the first parts of God’s New Creation, as James said we are. – Out from His own desire, He gave birth to us by the Word of truth, for us to be specific firstfruits of His created beings (James 1:18).

A Personal Voice. Out from His own desire, He gave birth to us by the Word of truth – To know You, the One True God [Good]. True and Good is a Person and has a name – Father. A human is one who comes out from God’s Desire through the Words that are Christ Jesus to become one who knows Father.

Spirit and Word together are the cause of all “rocks” and all “clouds,” and by extension, all animals and all angels. But it is Spirit Word as a Personal Voice that makes us humans. And that brings us to the single most important quality of our design as humans that makes us what we are – the ability to reciprocate, like to like, mirror to mirror, voice to voice.

A Letter of Christ. It is fully made visible that you ARE a letter of Christ, with us under your service, having already been written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God – not on tablets of stone, but inside tablets of hearts of flesh (2 Corinthians 3:3).

Think of a vinyl record on a record player. The music and the voice are etched onto that vinyl record and then the record player resends that music and voice back out into the air. Yet a human is different. Notice that Paul said, “Not on tablets of stone.” NOT – an exact playback without personal input. But rather – “inside tablets of hearts of flesh.”

A Personal Word entering us then becomes our own personal word spoken back, ruled by our own human heart.

Personal to Themselves. This is the importance of John 10. – The sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. – My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. – “By name.” – each one individually, recognized and honored.

Consider a human who twists the words and hurls them back in unthankfulness. Then consider a human who simply repeats the words back by rote, with nothing personal added. I think the second is more anti-human than the first. God can deal with the first, but the second? I think the second has set themselves more firmly against knowing the Father. A human, then, is one who makes the Words that are Christ Jesus personal to themselves and speaks back a unique expression of those same words.

Honored Individuals. What makes Michael Flatley of Riverdance or Beethoven, Michelangelo or Tolkien or Tolstoy such honored individuals, people who hold our attention with awe? It is that they have taken what God has given them and they have returned it back in their own personal and wondrously unique expression. But they have done more than that. They have also taken the many and made them as one, and filled the one with many, each honored with respect. And yes – think of Riverdance or the Sistine Chapel ceiling or War and Peace, and that is an accurate description of what makes these human expressions “great.”

Symmorphy and Fellowship. It is a Personal Voice, then, that enters into us, Christ Jesus, a Man we know, Spirit and Word together, that makes us human and yet only as we also give our own unique expression of personal voice back in return. And this Personal Voice that makes us to be living souls, alive unto God, takes the Words that are God and makes them known to us as Father arising in our hearts. And this same Personal Voice then takes our own unique words as humans and makes them known to Father as part of Himself, alive unto us.

It is this personalized reciprocity that makes us human, the shape of which we call “symmorphy” and the practice, “fellowship.”

The Likeness and Image of God. All through Him become, and without him not even one thing became that has become. – And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. What can I say? This is a reality so wondrous that all we can do is bask in its goodness and truth.

Nothing in all the universe is better than being a human. Nothing is more wondrous. We are indeed the likeness and image of God, Good and True.

And again, as seems to be happening often in this series, I begin with the thought of an almost “mechanical” explanation of how Spirit Word causes us to be and end with something quite different, something LIVING, something very, very human.