Eschatological Communication: How God’s Word Leads to Perfect Communion

When we see someone that we don’t know approaching us with locked eyes, our antennas go up. We quickly begin sifting through the possibilities of what this person wants with us: Are they going to ask for money? Are they going to take my money? Do they know me? Do I know them? Did I leave my gas cap cover open? What does this person want to talk about? We evaluate nonverbals to determine their purpose: their posture, their clothing, their facial expression—anything that will give us a clue as to why this person is about to speak to us. This instinct is predicated on the idea that all communication has a purpose. We know that people initiate communication for a reason. Sometimes we assume the worst, and sometimes we assume the best. And while a conversational purpose might be hidden or even subconscious, there’s always a purpose, nonetheless.

For what purpose does God speak? God is Trinitarian, and thus He is a communicative Being. He creates as an expression of the divine communicativeness that He has enjoyed within Himself from all eternity. But why does He speak to us? What does He want with us? No doubt, when He communicates with His image bearers, He does so with a purpose—He wants something for us and with us. Simply put, the Lord speaks to His people to manifest His glory and for the purpose of having sustained communion with those whom He loves. This means that God’s communication has a telos (i.e., ultimate end), it has a goal, and it will achieve that intended goal. God doesn’t miscommunicate or miss the mark. His speech never returns empty (Isa. 55:11). God’s speech intends to commune; revelation is for the sake of consummate communion. As Herman Bavinck puts it:

If God, as both nature and Scripture teach, is a personal being equipped with self-consciousness and self-determination, then revelation in a true sense, as well as revelation in word and deed, comes fully into its own in truth and life. He can then not only take us up into fellowship with him and make us partakers of his divine nature but also by speaking, by his word, communicate his thoughts to us and do it as “unmechanically” as one human to another, a father to his child, a teacher to his or her pupil.¹

The Lord has spoken to us so that He can “take us up into fellowship with him and make us partakers of his divine nature.” Not without reason have theologians and scholars identified the goal of creation and redemption as the Lord’s opening a way for humanity to dwell forever in the divine presence.² If communication is about communion, then the purpose of God’s creating and sustaining language is to bring humanity’s communion with Himself to its full and final expression—to its eschatological end. Kevin Vanhoozer writes:

The true end of the covenant of discourse and the discourse of the covenant is indeed a kind of dwelling—or better, a mutual indwelling. The Bible simply calls it communion: we in Christ; Christ in us. I am referring, of course, to the supreme covenant blessing: life with God. Perhaps this blessing will one day be realized without the benefit of language. Until then, however, humans are embodied persons who have to walk and talk with one another to have fellowship. It is noteworthy that God is depicted as walking and talking with man in the garden—before Babel, and before Pentecost. For language is not only a medium of communicative action; it is arguably the most elastic, variegated and powerful medium of interpersonal communion as well.³

This eschatological (i.e., pertaining to last things) end was inaugurated and set into motion with the incarnation of the eternal Word—the Word who “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). This Word was God’s final, definitive word to His people (Heb. 1:2). Throughout His earthly life, this incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, spoke no idle word. He spoke “the words of eternal life” (John 6:68); He was “full of grace and truth” (1:14). He is the true imago Dei, “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1:15). This eternal Son took to Himself a human nature and was “in every respect . . . tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). He conversed with men and women using language. In Him there was truly no guile. Therefore, His death was a vicarious sacrifice (2 Cor. 5:21)—He suffered for the sake of His brothers (Heb. 2:11). By His Spirit, we are more and more conformed into His image—into the true image bearers that we ought to be. Our speech is being “seasoned” (Col. 4:6) as we “all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). The Lord is reversing the curse of Babel and restoring His people to the original purpose for which they were created.

It is through the power of the Holy Spirit that we have the divinely empowered ability to communicate with grace and truth after the example of Christ. Nevertheless, we must bear in mind that our sanctification in this life is incomplete, a dim reflection of the image of our Savior. This includes the way that we communicate. Our tongues are still tainted with the poison of sin and corruption. Likewise, the communion that we enjoy with our triune God through faith in Christ Jesus is but a foretaste of the eternal, unmediated communion that we will enjoy in heaven. Our communion with the Lord here and now is real, to be sure. As J. Gresham Machen explains: “The Christian can enjoy a real communion with him as with the Father and the Son. In the presence of the Spirit we have communion with God; the Persons of the Godhead are united in a manner far beyond all human analogies. There is no imperfect medium separating us from the divine presence; by the gracious work of the Holy Spirit we come into vital contact with the living God.”⁴ This communion is initiated by God’s speech; Peter tells us that we’ve “been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” (1 Peter 1:23). It’s also sustained and preserved by God’s effectual speech, so that we can be confident “that he who began a good work in [us] will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). Nevertheless, although this word-initiated and word-sustained communion is real, it is only a glimpse of the full thing—that “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading” inheritance that is being kept for us (1 Peter 1:4). The warmth of our communion with the Lord on this side of glory is but a prelude to what is to come:

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. (1 Cor. 2:9–10)

One day we will experience God in His fullness; we will see God’s face, and His name will be on our foreheads (see 1 John 3:2–3; Rev. 3:20–21; 22:4). John Owen admits that “no tongue can express that heavenly communion and blessed intercourse which is intimated in this promise.”⁵ Only then will our senses experience the incomprehensible, when our eyes, ears, and mouths will come into the consummate state of their original purpose: sustained and unmitigated communion with the Lord (1 Cor. 2:9). In that place, perfect fellowship and communion will remain between God and His people and between His people themselves. Geerhardus Vos describes this place as a “perfect communion in a perfect society.”⁶ This place will be brought into being by the same voice that brought creation into being at the very beginning. Herman Bavinck suggests,

Just as at the beginning God called things into being by His word, so by His word He will in the course of the ages bring into being the new heaven and the new earth, in which the tabernacle of God shall be among men.⁷

The One who brought into being the world and everything in it in the space of six days has declared, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5).

In this place of consummate communion, speech will continue, but it will be a perfected speech. No more corrupt talk will flow from our tongues. The end for which God made our mouths will be realized. As the Scottish Presbyterian Thomas Boston (1676–1732) beautifully puts it, “There will be the use of speech in heaven; and the saints will glorify God in their bodies there, as well as in their spirits, speaking forth His praises with an audible voice.”⁸ Communication will have attained its perfected form. The purpose for which God made man’s mouth will be realized. We will never again doubt or misunderstand God’s discourse to us. Our eyes will be opened, our ears will be cleared, and our mouths will be cleaned. Then and only then will our communication struggles cease. This book that you hold will be unnecessary. Our communication telos will be fully realized. Richard Gaffin’s articulation of this eschatological reality is worth quoting at length:

[In the future resurrection] and not until, as Romans 8:18ff intimates, in the context of the renewed creation every vestige of groaning will finally be stripped from what so often, for now, proves to be our inarticulate and artless and frustrated imaging-efforts. And with this open revelation of “the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rom. 2:21), undreamed-of media possibilities will open up, or, if that seems too speculative, we will communicate as never before. In store, we may anticipate, is a potential for our words and images that will be part of a creation order, which, especially because Jesus Christ, the true image, will be manifested there in his full glory, will have dimensions that, for now, are simply “beyond words” (2 Cor. 9:15), “too great for words” (1 Peter 1:8, my trans). The glorious magnitude of that new creation order so strains the limits of our language that for the meantime its realities are perhaps best intimated in evocative images like those resplendent in portions of the Old Testament prophets and the Book of Revelation.⁹

Our tongues, no less than all the rest of creation, are groaning inwardly as we await “the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23). There’s an expiration date for our frustrated communication efforts. We need a heavenly vision of our eternal fellowship with God and His people if we’re not to grow weary in doing good (Gal. 6:9). God’s speech does and will accomplish precisely what its Sender intends, both in our own hearts and in the cosmos. At Christ’s second coming, that Word will have realized its full effect in the history of creation and redemption. Bavinck memorably writes:

Objective and subjective revelation, in a general as well as a special sense, are carried forward by the witness of the Spirit throughout the centuries until in the final manifestation of Christ they will have attained their end. The objective special revelation was completed with the first coming of Christ; at his second coming, its full effect in the history of mankind will be completed. The time of sowing will then be concluded in the time of the harvest.¹⁰

Once the harvest is complete, the new eternal city—along with our glorified bodies—will be established and suitable for perfect communion and fellowship incorruptible:

In this new Jerusalem in the immediate presence of God, there is no longer any sin, any sickness, or death, but glory and incorruptibility rule also in the material world. This, too, is a revelation of the eternal, holy, and blessed life, which all the citizens of the city share in the fellowship of God.¹¹

Then, too, we will have new tongues to forever praise the God who has spoken. This end-time promise is foreshadowed in the prophet Hosea’s words to Israel:

Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,
for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.
Take with you words
and return to the Lord; say to him,
“Take away all iniquity; accept what is good,
and we will pay with bulls
the vows of our lips.” (Hos. 14:1–2)

God’s forgiveness and plentiful redemption are for the sake of His people offering a sacrifice of praise with their lips to God.

The Bible begins with the account that God created man after His own image and likeness, in order that he should know God his creator aright, should love Him with all his heart, and should live with Him in eternal blessedness. And the Bible ends with the description of the new Jerusalem, whose inhabitants shall see God face to face and shall have His name upon their foreheads.¹²

When we’re in the new heaven and new earth with glorified bodies, our redemption—initiated and sustained by God’s speech—will be perfected as we join together in flawless harmony and communion to praise with our lips the One who has created and re-created all things by the word of His power (Rev. 4:11). At last, our eyes will finally see, our ears will finally hear, our hearts will finally perceive, and our tongues will finally speak of that which “God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor. 2:9).