Why do you say God doesn’t speak to Christians today? Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice.”
Jesus certainly said, “My sheep hear my voice.”
The question is what he meant.
That may sound unnecessarily complicated. The verse seems straightforward enough: Jesus has sheep, his sheep hear his voice, therefore Christians should expect to hear Jesus speaking to them. From there, “hearing God” is commonly described as learning to recognize an internal impression, a persistent thought, a feeling during prayer, or words that seem to appear in the mind.
The problem is that John 10 is not a lesson about distinguishing God’s private messages from your own thoughts.
Jesus is talking about salvation.
The discussion begins well before the familiar statement in verse 27. Jesus uses the imagery of a shepherd and sheep to describe his relationship with those who belong to him:
“The sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out. Whenever he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. They will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him; for they don’t know the voice of strangers.”
John 10:3–5
If this is teaching Christians how to recognize private revelation, the metaphor becomes rather strange. Jesus does not describe sheep receiving an impression and wondering whether it came from the shepherd, themselves, or somewhere else. They recognize their shepherd and follow him rather than the stranger.
Jesus continues:
“I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and I’m known by my own; even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep.”
John 10:14–15
He then speaks of other sheep who are not yet of this fold. He will bring them also, “and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd” (John 10:16).
The controversy continues until Jesus tells his opponents:
“But you don’t believe, because you are not of my sheep, as I told you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give eternal life to them. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”
John 10:26–28
The contrast is explicit. His opponents do not believe. His sheep hear him, he knows them, they follow him, and he gives them eternal life.
Hearing the Shepherd’s voice in this passage is bound together with recognizing, believing, and following Christ. Jesus is explaining the difference between those who receive him and those who reject him. He is not teaching Christians how to determine whether a thought that entered their minds came directly from God.
That is considerably different from the way the verse is often used.
A Christian says that God told him to take a particular job. Someone says God revealed whom she will marry. Another person believes God told him to move. A preacher announces that God has shown him that someone watching has a back problem. John 10:27 is then offered as proof that Christians should expect this kind of communication because Jesus said his sheep hear his voice.
But that is not the subject Jesus was discussing.
There is also a basic difficulty with treating internal impressions as potential revelation from God. Human beings have thoughts all day long. We have intuitions, remember things unexpectedly, become strongly convinced about decisions, experience emotions while praying, and sometimes have a particular passage of Scripture suddenly come to mind. Occasionally we may even have an unexplained conviction that we should call someone or avoid doing something.
There is no reason to ridicule those experiences. Some may prove remarkably providential.
The problem comes with the next sentence:
“God told me.”
Those words change the nature of the claim.
If I tell my wife, “I really think we should move,” she is free to tell me that she thinks I am wrong. We can examine our circumstances, responsibilities, finances, opportunities, and desires and try to make a wise decision together.
If I tell her, “God told me we should move,” I have introduced another participant into the disagreement.
She is no longer merely disagreeing with me.
She is apparently disagreeing with God.
That is why claims of revelation deserve more scrutiny, not less.
When God speaks in Scripture, his speech carries his authority. The prophets did not regularly announce, “I feel like God may be saying this, but part of it could just be me.” They spoke the word of the Lord.
This creates a problem with the common claim that God still speaks to Christians but that Christians can misunderstand what he says. If God gives me a message and I report it incorrectly, the error did not come from God. It came from me. We are then left needing some reliable means of distinguishing the divine revelation from my own contribution to it.
Usually the solution offered is to test the message against Scripture.
That is certainly better than accepting every claimed revelation. But it raises another question. If Scripture is the infallible standard by which the message must be judged, and the additional message is fallible enough that I cannot know with certainty which parts came from God, what authority does the additional revelation actually possess?
This does not mean the Holy Spirit is inactive in Christians.
The Spirit indwells believers. He sanctifies us, produces his fruit in us, helps us in our weakness, intercedes for us, conforms us to Christ, and works through the Word he inspired. Christians should pray for wisdom, and James explicitly tells us to do so. We should know Scripture well enough that our thinking is shaped by it, seek wise counsel, consider our responsibilities and circumstances, and trust God’s providence as we make decisions.
Sometimes that providence can be astonishing.
You may suddenly think about someone you have not spoken to in months, call him, and discover that he desperately needed someone to talk to that day. You can thank God for that. You do not have to determine that God placed an audible or inaudible sentence in your mind before you are allowed to recognize his providence.
There is an important difference between saying, “I prayed about this, considered what Scripture teaches, sought counsel, and believe this is the wisest decision,” and saying, “God told me to do this.”
The first recognizes that I am a fallible Christian attempting to act wisely under God’s providence.
The second claims revelation.
The distinction becomes especially important when “God told me” is used to influence somebody else. People have been told whom to marry, where to live, which church to attend, how much money to give, and what decisions to make because another Christian claimed God revealed it to him. Once God’s authority has been placed behind the instruction, ordinary disagreement can begin to look like disobedience.
That is far too much authority to place behind my impressions.
None of this limits God’s ability to speak. God can communicate whenever and however he chooses. The issue has never been whether God possesses the ability to speak.
The question is what he has told the Church to expect and where he has placed the authority of his revelation.
Hebrews begins:
“God, having in the past spoken to the fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, has at the end of these days spoken to us by his Son.”
Hebrews 1:1–2
The contrast is not between a God who once communicated and a God who has become silent. God spoke throughout Israel’s history in many times and many ways, but those various forms of revelation move toward their culmination in the Son.
Christ is not simply another prophet added to the succession.
He is the Son through whom God’s revelation reaches its climax.
The apostles then bear authorized witness to him. Jesus promises that the Spirit will bring his teaching to their remembrance and guide them into truth. Their witness becomes foundational to the Church, which Paul describes as “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20).
The Church therefore has something considerably more reliable than trying to determine whether a thought that appeared while driving to work was God.
We have the prophetic and apostolic Word centered upon Christ.
Scripture does not become more authoritative when I feel strongly about it, nor does it become less authoritative when I do not. It does not require me to distinguish God’s contribution from mine. I can open it, read it, examine it in context, compare my understanding with the rest of Scripture, and even allow another Christian to show me that I have interpreted it incorrectly.
That last part is important.
“God told me” can end a conversation.
“Here is why I believe Scripture teaches this” allows the conversation to continue.
So yes, Jesus said:
“My sheep hear my voice.”
I believe him.
I simply want to let Jesus’ own words determine what that statement means. In John 10, his sheep hear their Shepherd because they recognize and follow him. He knows them. He lays down his life for them. He gives them eternal life, and no one can snatch them from his hand.
That is not a promise that every Christian will receive private revelation.
It is a promise about something much greater.
The sheep know their Shepherd, and when he calls them, they follow him.