When the Old Testament says that “the word of the LORD” came to a prophet, it identifies God as the source of the message. Some passages also describe a vision or a personal encounter with Him. John later identifies the eternal Word as the Son who became flesh. I read those earlier encounters in light of that fuller revelation, while letting each account explain how the LORD made Himself known.
The LORD Revealed Himself at Shiloh
In 1 Samuel 3, Samuel was still a boy serving under Eli at Shiloh. Eli’s sons were priests, but they had corrupted the worship they were supposed to lead, and Eli had failed to restrain them. The priests still offered sacrifices at the tabernacle, yet the chapter says that the word of the LORD was rare and there was no widespread revelation. Carrying on with the services had done nothing to remedy the wickedness Eli was allowing in his own household.
When the LORD called Samuel at night, the boy thought Eli wanted him. He went to the priest three times before Eli recognized who was speaking and told him how to answer. The message Samuel then received announced judgment against Eli’s household because Eli knew about his sons’ wickedness and had failed to restrain them.
Samuel had to deliver that judgment to the man under whose care he had been serving. He was afraid to tell Eli the vision, but when Eli insisted on hearing it, Samuel told him everything and hid nothing (1 Samuel 3:15-18). God went on to establish Samuel as a trustworthy prophet in Israel. The chapter closes by describing how the LORD continued to make Himself known.
Then the LORD appeared again in Shiloh. For the LORD revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the LORD.
1 Samuel 3:21, NKJV
The LORD appeared and revealed Himself by His Word. I understand this as more than entrusting Samuel with information to repeat. He was making Himself known to the boy He had called, and His speaking belonged to that encounter. Samuel had not arranged a meeting or discovered a way to reach God. The LORD took the initiative and taught him to listen.
The Hebrew wording translated “revealed Himself” describes something being uncovered or made known. The word dabar, translated “word,” can refer to speech, a matter, an event, or a thing, depending on the context. Here, “by the word of the LORD” explains how the LORD revealed Himself. Those meanings clarify the sentence, but they cannot by themselves establish a visible appearance of Christ. The New Testament also helps us identify the One who makes God known.
The Word Comes with Personal Authority
The LORD also spoke personally to Abram, long before Samuel’s birth. Genesis 15 describes a vision after Abram had rescued Lot from a coalition of kings. Abram had obeyed God’s call and left his homeland, but he still had no son through whom the promise would continue. The LORD addressed him in those circumstances.
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”
Genesis 15:1, NKJV
The LORD assured Abram, “I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.” Abram could bring his concern about remaining childless to the One who had called him. God answered with a promise about Abram’s own offspring and later made a covenant with him. The promise rested on God’s faithfulness, not on Abram finding a way to produce an heir.
In 1 Samuel 15, the phrase “the word of the LORD” introduces a judgment against King Saul, who had disobeyed God’s command concerning Amalek. The LORD sent Samuel to confront him, and the king’s position did not entitle him to a more favorable verdict.
Now the word of the LORD came to Samuel, saying, “I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments.”
1 Samuel 15:10-11, NKJV
Saul had defeated the Amalekites, but he had spared their king and the best of their livestock, contrary to God’s command. He pointed to his victory and defended keeping animals for sacrifice, yet neither success nor a religious explanation could make his disobedience acceptable. Samuel had no right to soften God’s message because the man receiving it was king. A prophet’s responsibility was to deliver what the LORD said, not make it more palatable to an influential audience.
Jeremiah’s commission came centuries later, during Josiah’s reign and before Judah’s exile to Babylon. He would have to address rulers and priests who resisted God’s warnings about judgment. The LORD had appointed Jeremiah to this work before the prophet was born.
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”
Jeremiah 1:4-5, NKJV
Jeremiah objected that he was young and did not know how to speak. The LORD commanded him to go where He sent him and say what He commanded, promising to deliver him. The account also says, “the LORD put forth His hand and touched my mouth” (Jeremiah 1:9). God personally commissioned Jeremiah and gave him the words he was responsible to speak. His youth did not excuse waiting until he felt ready to obey.
Abram, Samuel, and Jeremiah did not have identical experiences, but each heard from the same LORD. The authority of their messages rested with Him. A prophet’s eloquence could not make a false message true, and an unpopular message did not lose its authority because people resented hearing it. We can depend on God’s promises because He is truthful, and we need to heed His warnings because He is holy.
God’s Word Acts
The LORD’s speaking also accomplishes what He intends, whether He is fulfilling a promise or carrying out a judgment. Psalm 33 takes us back before the prophets and kings to the creation of the heavens.
By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.
Psalm 33:6, NKJV
God’s command brought the heavens into existence because He had the power to accomplish what He said. The words did not function as a spell with power independent of Him.
In Isaiah 55, the LORD invites the thirsty to come freely and calls the wicked to forsake their ways because He is ready to pardon. He explains that His thoughts and ways are higher than ours, then compares His Word with rain that waters the earth and causes it to produce food. What He sends accomplishes its purpose.
So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
Isaiah 55:11, NKJV
I can trust God’s promise of mercy because He has promised to pardon those who return to Him. His Word will accomplish what He pleases, so I cannot use it to demand whatever outcome I want. Isaiah’s assurance should lead me to turn back to the LORD and receive His mercy on His terms.
His Word also exposes the lies of people who claim to speak for Him. In Jeremiah 23:29, the LORD asks, “Is not My word like a fire?” The false prophets spoke confidently, but that confidence could not make their claims true or protect them from His judgment. I find comfort in that when false teaching is persuasive and popular. God’s truth does not become weaker because someone has found an appealing way to contradict it.
The Son Makes the Father Known
The Old Testament also describes the LORD appearing to people, including Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and Manoah. How should we understand those encounters when the New Testament says that no one has seen God?
No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
John 1:18, NKJV
John identifies the Son as the One who makes the Father known. Jesus said of the Father in John 5:37, “You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form.” The people involved truly encountered the LORD through the Son, who reveals the unseen Father.
That is why I recognize the Son in the visible appearances of the LORD. The divine Angel of the LORD speaks as God, bears His name and exercises divine authority to forgive or judge, while remaining personally distinct from the One who sends Him. I also believe Melchizedek was the preincarnate Son exercising His eternal priesthood. Such an appearance before Christ became man is called a Christophany. The studies on the Angel of the Lord and Christophanies in the Old Testament examine the reasons for those identifications.
This does not mean every angel is Christ or that every prophetic message involved a visible appearance. Samuel’s account expressly connects the LORD’s appearing with His revealing Himself by His Word, and Genesis 15 describes a vision in which He addressed Abram. We should acknowledge those details where they are given and avoid adding them to passages that do not describe them.
The Word Was God and Became Flesh
John opens with “In the beginning,” recalling Genesis. He describes the Word as already existing when creation began.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
John 1:1-3, NKJV
The Word was with God and was God. He is eternal and fully divine, yet personally distinct from the Father. We cannot account for John’s words by calling Him “a god” among other gods or an exalted creature. Nor is John describing an impersonal attribute that eventually developed into a person. He is writing about Someone who already existed with God in the beginning.
Verse 3 makes the claim even more explicit. Everything that was made came into existence through Him. If the Son were a created being, we would have to place Him among the things He Himself made, which makes no sense. John identifies Him as the Creator, not a distinguished servant within creation.
Being with God also rules out the idea that the Father and Son are the same Person changing roles. That view is called modalism. The Son speaks to the Father, obeys Him, reveals Him and returns to Him. Those relationships are real. Scripture teaches one God in three personally distinct, coequal and coeternal Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Son’s relationship with the Father does not make Him less than God.
The Greek word John uses for Word is Logos. Some readers look to Greek philosophy to explain the term, but John gives us his own explanation of who the Word is. He writes about creation and the light and life found in Him, then identifies the One whose glory the disciples saw, full of grace and truth. I would rather let John’s testimony explain Jesus than begin with Plato and try to fit Christ into that framework.
John’s explanation agrees with the earlier passages. Psalm 33 connects creation with God’s Word, Samuel’s account describes the LORD revealing Himself by His Word, and Isaiah declares that His Word accomplishes what He sends it to do. John identifies the eternal Person through whom all things were made and who makes the Father known. We should not assume that every Old Testament reader understood everything John would later explain. We can receive that fuller revelation while reading the earlier accounts in their own setting.
Then John tells us that the eternal Word became flesh. This was the incarnation: the Son truly became man without ceasing to be God. He did not appear briefly in a human disguise and then leave it behind.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14, NKJV
The word translated “dwelt” carries the idea of pitching a tent or tabernacling. Israel’s tabernacle had stood among the people’s tents as the place God appointed for His presence and worship. John describes the Word living among His people in real human flesh. Jesus experienced hunger and weariness, and He wept. His obedience as man was real, as was the physical blood He would shed for sinners.
Paul brings the Son’s revelation of God together with His saving work at the beginning of Hebrews. God had spoken through the prophets in many ways. He has now spoken by His Son, the One through whom He made the worlds. This same Son provided cleansing from our sins.
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
Hebrews 1:1-3, NKJV
Paul speaks of redemption through Christ’s blood in Colossians 1, the same chapter in which he describes Christ’s authority over everything created. The Savior who shed His blood for us is also the One who made us.
For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
Colossians 1:16-17, NKJV
The Son continues to sustain the creation He entered to save sinners. Wicked men tortured His innocent body and put Him to death. His sinlessness qualified Him as the perfect sacrifice for our sins, and He willingly gave Himself to be slain. He completed His saving work through His shed blood and death before His burial and bodily resurrection. His death was for the sins of the whole world. The Father did not punish or abandon Him; Father and Son were united in providing our redemption.
Having purged sins and risen bodily, He is seated at the Father’s right hand. I need to receive Him as my Savior and respond to what these passages reveal about Him. We receive salvation by grace through repentance and faith in Christ. Moral improvement and religious insight cannot earn it. His invitation is genuine and open to everyone, even though people can resist and reject it.
Someone who is truly born again becomes a new creation, indwelt and sealed by the Holy Spirit. That believer is eternally secure in Christ. I am speaking of God making a person new, not merely someone calling himself a Christian. The new life should become evident in our conduct. Obedience does not earn salvation or keep us saved, but assurance gives us no excuse to carry on in sin as though the Lord who saved us has no authority over how we live.
Revelation 19:13 calls the returning Christ “The Word of God.” The One who existed before creation and became flesh to save sinners will return as King.
Reading and Answering the Word Faithfully
The LORD who spoke to His prophets has given us Scripture as our final authority. It is inspired, inerrant and sufficient for the faith and obedience He requires. The Holy Spirit indwells believers and guides His people, but every spiritual claim must be tested by the written Word. I have no grounds to disregard a command in Scripture while asking God for fresh direction about whether I should obey it.
A strong feeling does not become God’s Word because I announce it confidently. The Holy Spirit will not contradict the Scripture He inspired, and no claim of private revelation can overrule it. If a leader demands obedience to his impressions while refusing to let anyone examine them by Scripture, the church needs to challenge that demand. The written Word gives us a standard the whole church can read and use to test those claims, including the people being told to submit.
Samuel answered, “Speak, for Your servant hears” (1 Samuel 3:10). I want that willingness to listen when I open the Bible. If Scripture exposes a sin I have been excusing, I need to confess it and turn back to God. Looking for someone who will give me a more comfortable interpretation will not make disobedience acceptable. When Scripture offers comfort through Christ, I can receive that too, trusting His promise rather than trying to earn what He offers through His blood.
At Shiloh, worship continued while Eli left serious sin unrestrained. That makes me cautious about measuring a church’s health by an energetic schedule or polished programs. We need to ask whether Scripture is being taught and received with faith, and whether its correction is being acted on. Entertainment cannot supply the conviction and comfort that come from hearing God’s Word and responding to Him.
My Final Thoughts
I do not believe every “word of the LORD” passage describes a visible appearance of Christ. Each account needs to be heard on its own terms, whether it records a vision, an appearance or a prophetic message. What they share is the authority of the LORD who speaks. John reveals the eternal Word who was with God and was God, and who became flesh to save us. Samuel had to tell Eli what God said even when he was afraid to do so. I want to receive the Scripture that reveals this Savior with the same willingness to obey, including when I would rather avoid what He says.