“Long ago God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets at different times and in different ways. In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son.”
— Hebrews 1:1–2 CSB
God Has Been Speaking from the Beginning
Long before Bethlehem held the Christ child, Passover already held the witness of the lamb. Before the veil was torn from top to bottom, it was suspended in the Holy Place before the presence of God. Before Jesus opened the scroll in Nazareth and declared that the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him, generations had carried the words of Isaiah as a promise. They repeated them to their children and waited beneath their hope. Before Israel ever observed the times and seasons, the Father had already set the cycles in motion when He hung the lights in the heavens. And before any approved calendar was constructed, the heavens were already bearing the testimony God had assigned to them.
And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years,” — Genesis 1:14 NIV
Long before Moses raised a Tabernacle in the wilderness, a sanctuary not made with human hands already existed in heaven. The pattern did not originate when God told Moses, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” Moses was being shown a pattern that already existed. The Tabernacle he raised in the wilderness bore witness to a heavenly reality that had been there all along—a reality existing in eternity before its pattern was ever reproduced on earth. The author of Hebrews gives us a glimpse beyond the torn veil and allows us to see that the earthly sanctuary served as a copy and shadow of heavenly things.
And then there were the prophets.
They found themselves caught up by the Spirit as God spoke. They saw things beyond our earthly restrictions. They were entrusted with a heavenly burden. They wept, warned, promised and hoped, watched kingdoms rise and fall, and continued giving testimony to the purpose of God that would reach far beyond their own generations. And woven within the Scriptures is the language God chose for that testimony to be preserved, the Hebrew aleph-bet.
Awakened to Listen as a Disciple
The Lord GOD has given Me [His Servant] the tongue of disciples [as One who is taught], That I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple [as One who is taught]. Isaiah 50:4 AMP
I know this verse speaks of Messiah, yet I remember as I read those words ‘He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple.’ it became the cry of my heart. More than anything I want eyes to see and ears to hear what the Spirit is saying. I seek after the presence of the Lord. I am captivated by His word. I want my ear awakened to listen for the sound of His voice. I continue to be His disciple.
I have spent decades learning how to listen. Sometimes, while I am meditating in the Word, one word, or even one letter of a word speaks. It might say; “Look again. Dig here. Let’s see what’s beneath the surface.” As I contemplated Isaiah 50:4 that phrase morning by morning struck me. So I went digging. The first place this phrase is used in the Scriptures is Exodus 16:21 in reference to the manna the Lord sent being collected morning by morning. Suddenly these verses came to mind:
Truly, truly, I say to you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down out of heaven, so that anyone may eat from it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats from this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I will give for the life of the world also is My flesh.” John 6:47–51 (NASB 2020)
The one who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows except the one who receives it.’ Revelation 2:17 (NASB 2020)
Follow me for a minute. We start out with a desire to have our ears awakened by the Lord to hear as a disciple. Morning by morning brings us to manna, which speaks of Jesus as the bread of life, which leads to the promise of hidden manna. Let’s keep going.
We don’t need to venture outside of Scripture to find that the Israelites took about three quarts of the miracle manna put it in a jar and hid it inside the Ark of the Covenant, [Ex. 16:33] along with Aaron’s rod that budded and the tablets of the covenant, together, these three speak of Christ as: prophet (manna), priest (Aaron’s rod), and king (the Law). Even the contents placed within the Ark bear witness to the Son of God. And somehow lingering as a disciple in Isaiah has led to the testimony of hidden manna and Messiah, as Prophet, Priest and King.
The witnesses didn’t start speaking when we heard their voice. We didn’t invent them, and we don’t give them their testimony. The Father did. He hung the lights in the heavens. He established the appointed times. He revealed the pattern of the sanctuary. He gave the manna. He instructed Moses. He spoke through the prophets. He gave His people His Word. And all along He has been making His Son known.
The Father Has Surrounded His Son with Witnesses
I am not saying that every biblical element possesses a testimony of its own in the same sense that the Father does. I am using witness to describe anything God has appointed to bear testimony to what He is revealing concerning His Son. A witness bears something entrusted to it. It does not originate the testimony; it carries, embodies, preserves, demonstrates, or confirms it.
A prophet bears what has been entrusted to him through words. Passover carries testimony through an appointed remembrance lived out generation after generation. The sanctuary holds testimony in its pattern, priesthood, sacrifice, access, and presence. The biblical calendar marks time as a sign and witness of God’s appointed seasons. Even a Hebrew letter may become a witness, not by standing alone, but by the place it holds within the language and the associations that draw us back into Scripture.
John the Baptist points and says, in effect, There He is. The apostles bear testimony to what their eyes saw and their ears heard. Each witness speaks, but not all in the same way. At different times and in different ways, God spoke. We listen because the Father has spoken.
The Father has always been speaking. His witnesses carry the sound of His testimony, and in His Son, we come to recognize what He has been saying all along. The Spirit gives us eyes to see and ears to hear the Son in the Father’s testimony.
Learning to Recognize His Son in the Testimony
When I taught what I call Devotional Hebrew I wanted to help people dig into the Scriptures and discover Christ through searching the Hebrew text. Sometimes one of those letters voices its opinion and the Spirit awakens me. Often that holy interruption opens a journey through the Scripture I wasn’t expecting to take. It may begin with just a letter, but I find myself several passages away, looking again at the face of Christ.
The biblical calendar is another place we can be awakened to listen. The Lamb of God isn’t just some relic from the biblical past. I know Him. I know the Savior whose blood has purchased me. So, what seems like just the ancient remembrance of Passover becomes deeply personal. It gives me an occasion to not only remember His redemption and honor my Savior, but a chance to celebrate it every year.
The appointed times interrupt ordinary time and call our attention toward something God has chosen to remember with His people. Rosh Chodesh invites us to notice the nuances that come with the turning of another month. The Lord’s Feasts carry their ongoing testimony from generation to generation.
The Tabernacle invites us to enter in. We cannot look at that veil without knowing what happened to it. And why it was torn.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus—he has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain (that is, through his flesh)—and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, since he who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works,not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching. Hebrews 10:19–25 (CSB)
We can have our ears awakened to hear the prophets through the Father’s love before we let someone else explain them to us. We can stand with Isaiah long enough to see what he saw of the Holy One. We can hear the ache in Jeremiah’s voice and the hope that somehow survives it. We can watch with Ezekiel, listen with Micah, and allow Zechariah to show us what was beyond his horizon. While listening to their testimony, we can begin to recognize Someone we already know.
The Father’s witnesses do more than point toward His Son. They invite us to recognize the One the Father has been speaking about and to enter into the reality He has opened to us in Christ.
I have known the Father’s witnesses for years. I’ll bet you have too. We’ve lived with them. We’ve taught from them. We’ve returned to them. And we allowed their testimony to become part of the way we know and walk with Christ. (“See to it that you do not refuse him who is speaking.” Heb. 12:25 CSB)
So I would like to invite you to listen to their testimony along with me. I don’t know where every trail will lead. Perhaps that is the best part of listening.
There is something wonderful about opening the Scriptures without demanding that every witness tell us what we have already decided it should say.
Come and See Jesus
This is not an invitation to come and discover more. It is come and see Jesus.
We will listen to The Witness of the Letters, allowing the Hebrew text to slow us down and give us pause.
We will walk along with The Witness of the Biblical Calendar, as the appointed times, seasons, and rhythms call us into remembrance.
We will step into The Witness of the Tabernacle, not merely studying an ancient sanctuary, but approaching the Ark of Testimony without the barrier of the veil.
And we will listen to The Witness of the Prophets, allowing their voices and visions to speak until the One of whom the Father has been speaking becomes increasingly recognizable.
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