Up Calvary's mountain

There are three times in Christ’s earthly ministry that heaven speaks, as it were; the Father audibly speaks to Him where everyone can hear.

The first is in Matthew 3 at His baptism. John sees the Spirit descend on Christ and hears a voice from heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him.” Here’s the Messiah!

“John said, ‘I didn’t know who He was but that He that sent me said’ . . . so there’s the public testimony from the Father to John the Baptist that, ‘This is my beloved Son,’ ” explains Jordan. “In Luke 3, it was not just a statement for John to hear, but also for Christ to hear. So there’s a double entendre there in the message; the Father visibly, audibly speaking.

“The next time the Father speaks audibly is on the Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew 17 (or Luke 9). There’s Moses, Elijah and Jesus and they say, ‘Let’s build three tabernacles,’ and they go to sleep and wake up and they only see Jesus, and the Father says, ‘This is my beloved Son.’

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“We sing that song ‘He Could Have Called Ten Thousand Angels.’ The chorus goes, ‘He could have called ten thousand angels to destroy the world and set Him free . . . but He died alone for you and me.’ That song is based upon a statement Christ makes in Matthew 26. When He makes that statement He makes the point of this verse: ‘My soul is troubled . . . ’ (John 12:27).

“ ‘There’s difficulty ahead but what am I gonna say?! Am I gonna say the trouble turns me away from it? Father save me from this hour’? No, He says, ‘But for this hour came I unto this hour. The whole purpose of me being here is this!’ So for the joy set before Him, the reality of what’s going to be accomplished through what He goes through, ‘I choose to go through this.’

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Verse 28 says, “Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” Christ prays and the Father audibly answers Him back.

Jordan says, “You remember how the raising of Lazarus back in chapter 11 was for the glory of God? 11:4. All through the Book of John, since chapter 1:14 when he says, ‘We beheld his glory,’ the Book of John puts illustration, incidence, event after event after event, where you see something manifested of the person of Christ, and when you do that, it glorifies it; it magnifies who He is.

“When you see that, you see the Father glorified. So He says, ‘I have glorified it; I’ve been doing that all along in your ministry and will glorify it again.’ In other words, that is a clear statement that, ‘Not only have I glorified it, but I’m going to glorify it again and that’s going to be in your resurrection.’ In Romans 6:4, Paul says he was raised by the glory of the Father.

“That’s a wonderful statement made to Christ and the next verse, in John 12:29, is important: ‘The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him.’ They hear something but they don’t understand what’s being said. They hear thunder and people have said that’s an angel talking.

“Job 37 1-4 reads, ‘At this also my heart trembleth, and is moved out of his place.
[2] Hear attentively the noise of his voice, and the sound that goeth out of his mouth.
[3] He directeth it under the whole heaven, and his lightning unto the ends of the earth.
[4] After it a voice roareth: he thundereth with the voice of his excellency; and he will not stay them when his voice is heard.
[5] God thundereth marvellously with his voice; great things doeth he, which we cannot comprehend.’

“Elihu says he hears what God’s voice, when He speaks, sounds like, so the idea of the thunder is associated with God’s speaking. So what God spoke, Jesus heard what they said and understood . . . they heard a noise but didn’t understand the words. In other words, there was a direct communication to Christ that He got; the people standing around just thought they heard noise and assumed, ‘Well that was a message from God; an angel spoke.’

“That verse is interesting in the context of the conversion of Saul. Acts 9:3 says, ‘And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:
[4] And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
[5] And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.’

“When you compare that with Acts 22, Acts 9 is Luke’s record of the conversion of Saul. In Acts 22 you have the Apostle Paul himself giving a testimony about what happened to him on the road to Damascus ( Acts 22:6). Now Paul says, ‘I heard it.’ Here it says they heard not of the voice of him that spake. In Acts 7 it says they were hearing a voice but seeing no man.

“You say, ‘Wait a minute, did they hear the voice or didn’t they?’ One verse says they heard a voice but don’t see a man. Acts 22 says they heard NOT the voice of him that spake. You say, ‘Why does one place say they heard it and another place say they didn’t hear it?’ The logical observation is the thing in John 12. They hear the noise, they hear the thunder (the voice) but they don’t hear ‘the voice of him that spake to me.’ They don’t get the words. Paul hears what the voice is saying. They just hear the racket.”

Acts 26:14 says, “And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”

Jordan explains, “So when Paul heard the voice it was ‘the voice of him that spake to me’; it was an audible voice talking intelligently to him in Hebrew. When the other guys heard it, they just heard the commotion.
The illustration of that in John 12 helps you ferret out what otherwise would seem like something that didn’t quite fit together because it’s not an unusual thing for God to speak and for people to hear it as a thunder—as a noise. To know that God or an angel spoke but not know what the message was.

“So back here in John 12, Jesus gets the message; the people just hear the noise so Christ explains to them in John 12:30: ‘Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes.’ me and to strengthen your faith; to demonstrate to you that, ‘When I pray, heaven answers.”