Martin Luther tells a story about being in prayer and meditation on a Good Friday, when a vision of Christ in all His radiant glory appeared on his wall! After his initial thought that this must be some grand revelation, he concluded instead that it must be a trick of the devil, for Christ appears to us in His word in a more humble form. He spoke to the vision saying, “I know no other Christ than He who was crucified, and who is pictured to me in His Word.” When he said this, the image vanished. The man who coined the phrase, “sola scriptura” stood by his conviction of the sufficiency of Christ as recorded in the Bible. God speaks to us today, in these times, as the author of the book of Hebrews says, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son.” Luther was convinced that Jesus alone, as revealed in the Bible alone, is sufficient for him. He is for me too! He didn’t need an angel or any other supernatural visitation to confirm for him the truths of the Bible and the reality of the sufficiency of Christ. God’s greatest communication to Luther and to all mankind came from God’s Son who gave Himself for us.
The author of Hebrews goes on to explain why Jesus and the message from God that He brings is the most important. The passage continues “but in these last days He has spoken to us by his Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power.”
In a very real sense, when Jesus speaks, God speaks. He doesn’t say, “thus saith the Lord” as the prophets did. He simply speaks. My former seminary professor, Stanley Toussaint used to say, “If God has spoken, there is nothing more important than to listen to what He has said. Let me say that again. If God has spoken, there is nothing more important than to listen to what He has said.” God speaks to us all in Christ and through Christ. There is nothing more important than what He has to say. Jesus, Himself, made it clear that His words were God’s words. John 8:28 gives us Christ’s testimony. It says, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.”