That is a category mistake to put it somewhat awkwardly. Brother, have heard you make similar comments in this regard. Being co-equal is not the same as to confuse the Persons or better put, to mistake the distinctions.
Joh 10:29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
Joh 14:28 Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.
Even your own following of the statement;
[u]Father[/u] except through him.
We can get caught sideways with the idioms of the language, where it is used, what is intended. It may actually launch off towards the contents of this post, trying what we think, what we have 'heard' against what has been said. There is no trust to be had by any of us, the greatest of us, the greatest of all the heroes of the faith without taking it back to the source which is God's Word ...
I am actually breaking off into generalities but it did just occur to me that even your comment;
[i]The Word of God is the Son of God[/i]
And
[i]The Word of God that God exalts above himself is not the book that you read.[/i]
Actually, it proves out the point for you, except for the fact that it is indeed the Book that we read. As I took a peek at some of the replies now preceding this as I write I am hearing the same things; They are inseparable. The Lord's voice and His Word. They are the ultimate "self-fulfilling prophecy" since they cannot be in contradiction, nor lie. They are authoritative as they speak with authority. They speak within themselves of testing even the very words that were written if we could grapple with that tremendous, seeming conundrum. They are completely intertwined. [i]The Word became flesh[/i] has got to be the most incredible statement every uttered, it has to be beyond our finite minds just of it's own ... utterance.
All that is without even the mention of what we hear, inwardly or I would prefer more intuitively. Our brother Paul makes a great mention of the experience and fear I have always had - It is summarized in the quote by I believe an old slave when he talked of being delivered from the world, the devil and '[i]most of all deliver me from that bad man, myself[/i]'. I do believe that we hear indeed in a very different way than we hear any other voice. Even our conscience is bound up in it. How does one adequately explain this unexplainable way of hearing? Without a doubt the scripture is true;
Joh 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
And yet I think where the real ... hesitation or if it must be, argumentation is to place a wedge, a divide clean down the middle so that the dichotomy is the Word of God, the scriptures on one side and the interior voice on the other. Already the confusion is under way by this separation. We cannot do this and we should not do it either.
We did not walk with the Lord physically and hear His audible voice as the disciples did. The apostle Paul stands out alone it seems in getting his information from ... where? Is it not in essence again [i]both[/i]? Who else was able, capable of drawing out all that was wrought in the Old Testament and making sense of it in what was to become the New Testament?
I bring this up because of the argument of knowing ones wife rather than reading about her in a book. It is not just you brother, this is a common rebuttal, but it doesn't work here either. Our wives are not the same as the Lord, they do not have the capacity of sharing this mystery - We can know everything (seemingly) about them in real life experience yet are we not also told ...
[i] For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.[/i] 1Co 2:11
In fact this may be a great verse to consider in it's totality to this discussion. [i]Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.[/i]
I am finding myself in a pickle now and do not know how to get out ... If there is anything at all I would say it is, don't trust yourself in this regard. We are constantly getting our wires crossed as Sparks so perfectly put it. I do not think it is healthy to be either unduly obsessed one way or the other, deriding and driving ourselves to distraction over what we think we are hearing beyond the sacred page or being so completely ascribed to some flip-side that gets lodged into our gears and shuts down the whole process of being led by the Spirit. The whole modern realm of 'prophecy' is filled with notions that are just not the Lord. They are not. If they were, if they were as convinced as they seem the defending and explaining would stop wholesale. The minute these things start up, the minute we have to start defending our selves in a "no one can tell me I didn't hear from the Lord" on this, that or the other is the very minute that that person should stop and recognize that the very hesitation is a great proof they may not have after all and are seconding guessing themselves.
Could have saved myself a lot of words and just used our sisters response;
I would say it is impossible to do so, to separate them. If we were more honest, how often is it that we are really hearing this inward voice in such ways that are purported so commonly in Christendom? Is it not subtle? The very impression and incredible meaning of a [i]still ... small ... voice[/i]? Does it not actually more often than not practically bypass the mechanisms of our speech, actually betray it? Is this not why this is such a difficult subject to broach, to try and put into a vernacular that everyone would come to agreement let alone grips with? Is it not truly a great mystery? I am want to say that it even bypasses our reason but that is a tricky and difficult thing to say. It seems that it does and yet it doesn't. We are not automatons taking mental shorthand or GPS coordinates from the Lord; "Turn right at the second stop light." There is a mix, if the Holy Spirit is with us and in us ... is it not co-operation in the grandest sense?
Well, since I thought I was finished and yet the thoughts keep coming ... It's funny in a way, we are really almost saying the same things in a strange, circular kind of way, short of the too fine distinctions between the Voice and the Word. We can memorize scripture or we can heartize scripture to coin a term. My own failures and the realm that I came out from under has me one happily paranoid (hyperbole there) fool over what jostles about in this melon. In fact ... what about those very thoughts either .. placed .. or drawn off from our own carnality? Not all of the devils intentions are to get us to lust or connive or be proud but also to [i]distort[/i], too misplace even heart felt intentions, recall Peter's warm, affectionate pleading to the Lord, even a [i]rebuke![/i] That the Lord did not know what He was talking about - suffering many things, being handed over, rejected and killed, and after three days would rise again. "Not so" said Peter (Or was it truly the devil? Both? Some combination of the two?);
[i]he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.[/i]
How often is this precisely what comes out and about from the lips of many even if it is speaking of coming judgment - peace - prosperity ... Do we really know what we are talking about?
The Lord saw fit to give us a Book. A Book! Of all things. He could have just gone on and continued to give us all revelation in an ongoing manner and for some ... this is precisely what is believed and exactly why we have the present confusion and chaos that we have. The Book is [i]important[/i] but, it is not everything, so it goes, so it is inferred and so it is practiced. It's a mighty thing that the Lord would seemingly put us to a test to see if we would adhere to it, appeal to it, love it, breath it ... hearterize it. Or if we would go against it's own precepts that tell us just what we are to do.
To the law and the testimony. Which? It is written the Lord said, it is written, it is written ... why the appeal back to it? Why the explanations from within it's pages - describing Himself;
Luk 24:27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
How often the prophets?
Even Paul;
Act 28:23 And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging; to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening.
Fatigue is setting in and I hope this is not to convoluted. I have not re-read it and might I add just one more thing. Writing all this out, what was it that prompted me? It is truly a gift that a brother put together something like E-sword, which many of us use. It is tremendous because to even attempt this, the verses just start coming and keep on coming, I can jump over to the Bible Search function and get them accurate by just quickly typing in parts of a phrase of scripture. But where did they come from in the first place? I think that is why some of us tend to ramble and maybe get too excited sometimes ... they just keep coming and you keeping thinking of others that apply.
