Evangelicalism is roughly (very roughly) divided into two camps: those who believe in “continuing revelation” in the form of supernatural prophecies, utterances, and divinely-given knowledge. Others insist that, since “the canon is closed,”  all prophecy must have ceased.

Personally, I believe that all prophecy, utterances, and divinely-given knowledge of the self-attesting type is now over. My main reason for this belief is what I think is the obvious fact that it does not happen anymore. I don’t see any direct instruction in the Bible that explains that it was all going to cease at a certain point in time, but it did (again, I take this as obvious). Given that the kind of stuff we read about in Acts and First Corinthians doesn’t happen anymore, I have deduced that once the canon of the Word of God, the Bible, was complete, that God wanted us to make our way in the world without such specific communications from Him.

So doe this mean God never speaks anymore?

I don’t think so.

The Reformation tradition gives us a way that God continues to communicate in specific ways to his Church in specific times and places. While this communication is not an addition to the inerrant word of God, it is nevertheless truly a communication from God. It is best set out in the Second Helvetic Confession:

THE PREACHING OF THE WORD OF GOD IS THE WORD OF GOD. Wherefore when this Word of God is now preached in the church by preachers lawfully called, we believe that the very Word of God is proclaimed, and received by the faithful; and that neither any other Word of God is to be invented nor is to be expected from heaven: and that now the Word itself which is preached is to be regarded, not the minister that preaches; for even if he be evil and a sinner, nevertheless the Word of God remains still true and good.

Neither do we think that therefore the outward preaching is to be thought as fruitless because the instruction in true religion depends on the inward illumination of the Spirit, or because it is written “And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor…, for they shall all know me” (Jer. 31:34), And “Neither he who plants nor he that waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (I Cor. 3:7). For although “No one can come to Christ unless he be drawn by the Father” (John 6:44), And unless the Holy Spirit inwardly illumines him, yet we know that it is surely the will of God that his Word should be preached outwardly also. God could indeed, by his Holy Spirit, or by the ministry of an angel, without the ministry of St. Peter, have taught Cornelius in the Acts; but, nevertheless, he refers him to Peter, of whom the angel speaking says, “He shall tell you what you ought to do.”

So notice the identity. The preaching of God’s Word is God’s Word. Is there Biblical backing for this? I believe so. In Ephesians 2 Paul writes that,

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off [Gentiles] have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

So Christ not only died and rose again but he then went and preached to the Ephesians. How did he do this since we know he ascended into Heaven and never traveled to Ephesus? The answer seems to be that he preached through authorized intermediaries. Paul later elaborates on his list so that it includes more than just “apostles and prophets.” In Ephesians 4 we read that, as a result of Jesus’ ascension

he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds [pastors] and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

Through these people, Jesus preaches peace in this age. Thus Paul goes on to write

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Notice that I have re-literalized the ESV. It does not say we have heard about Christ but that we have heard Christ ourselves. We learned Christ this way. How? By the preaching of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. Christ Himself speaks for them.

And if this is so, we must also recognize that God himself acts through his servants. Jesus gave the Great Commission which not only commanded that He be taught (“to observe all that I have commanded you”) but that he induct disciples (“baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”). When a pastor fulfills the Great Commission by baptizing a person, he is not acting on his own. He is acting as an authorized and empowered agent of Jesus Christ. Christ himself is publicly and officially receiving the person baptized into his own household and kingdom. “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (First Corinthians 12.13).

So when we are tempted to doubt that God has named and claimed us as his own, we need to remember the act in which He did so. A mere mortal may have baptized you, perhaps one who has subsequently fallen from the faith. It does not matter. He was acting as God’s agent at the time under the direction of God’s providence and God’s Spirit. You were not merely baptized by man but by God.

Does God still speak? Does God still act?

God has received you into His Son and, has thus declared over you, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3.21). As it is written:

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s family, heirs according to promise. I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.