In what ways has God communicated with mankind?
Can you tell me what your view is about how God communicated to humans?.
Did he do it in speech, did he send men or another way? In the OT there’s
a verse were God spoke with Moses and were he showed himself to Moses on a
rock/mountain. Moses was not able to see God’s face , but what or which
part of God then ,because God is not a human being? God is not a human
being, not physical, but he seems to communicate in humanistic way. Can
you tell me how I can look at passages that bring God in a humanistic way?
First of all, there is the question of how God communicates to human
beings. Consider Hebrews 1:1. “In the past, God spoke to our forefathers
through the prophets at many times and in various ways….” Here the
Hebrew writer says that God has spoken to us in a variety of ways. To add
to this, consider 2 Peter 1:20,21. “Above all, you must understand that no
prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For
prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God
as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” God spoke to the writers
of the Old Testament prophets directly, telling them what to say: “Thus
says the Lord.” Yet the Bible generally does not specify exactly how the
message was delivered. At other times, God communicated through vision, as
in Daniel or Zechariah, or through dreams, as with Nebuchadnezzar and
others. At other times, God spoke directly, as with Moses and with Paul on
the road to Damascus. At times God spoke to his prophets using angels as
intermediaries (Daniel, Revelation). At still other times, God
communicated through poets (Psalms, Job and Song of Songs) and historians
(Samuels and Kings). In this case, the writer did not receive direct
communication from God, but was nevertheless “carried along by the Holy
Spirit,” so that the result is an inspired writing. Rarest of all, God
actually produced written communication (the ten commandments and the
writing on the wall of Daniel).
So as you can see, as it says in Hebrews 1:1, God has communicated with us
in a variety of ways, depending on the need and the situation. God even
speaks to us through his creation (Romans 1:18-20). In some cases, the
exact nature of how God communicated with us is left unclear. In the end,
it is the evidence of the inspiration of the Word of God which leads us to
accept by faith the whole Bible is God’s inspired word.
As to “:God communicating in a humanistic way,” a technical term for what
you are describing is the word anthropomorphism. An anthropomorphism is a
description of something which is definitely not human using human terms.
When the Bible says that Moses spoke to God “face to face,” one is not to
take the word “face” when referring to God in a literal way. The Bible
describes God’s eyes, hands, arms and so forth. No one believes that God
literally has hands and feet (no one, that is, except the Mormons, but
that is a different story). To speak to God face to face is to behold him
in all his glory.
John Oakes, PhD