The Voice
When you use your voice, sounds come out. They are usually words but can include music, song and undecipherable noises (groans, mutterings, etc). God the Father used his voice and The Word came to us. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) I don’t believe the theory of the trinity. I believe that Jesus Christ was with God in the beginning and due to his nature as the Creator, he is also God (separate from his Father). After performing the great atonement for all mankind, Jesus Christ became fully vested in His Father’s power and speaks with the voice of God.
“Behold, I, the Lord, utter my voice, and it shall be obeyed.” (D&C 63:5) The authority in that statement is undeniable. When his voice commands the winds and the waves, they obey. However, when he commands men and women, they don’t always obey. That may be due to the fact that He doesn’t usually come down from heaven and communicate directly with humans. Instead he communicates with prophets and they send his word to men through missionaries.
The reason why he doesn’t command humans directly is related to his decision to honor the agency that he gave each of us. Agency is the power to choose our actions but not the power to control the consequences of our actions. Prophets have received more of his word by their use of agency to choose faith in Him. In response, he conveys more of His truth to them.
Here are some ways that he uses his voice. 1. His voice frees us. 2. His voice initiates the Resurrection. 3. His voice is the power by which the universe exists and moves. 4. His voice calls us both directly and indirectly 5. His Word is the final judgement.
His Voice Frees Us
This verse comes from D&C 38:21-22: “But, verily I say unto you that in time ye shall have no king nor ruler, for I will be your king and watch over you. Wherefore, hear my voice and follow me, and you shall be a free people, and ye shall have no laws but my laws when I come, for I am your lawgiver, and what can stay my hand?” In this verse, God promises political freedom but he also is the source of spiritual freedom. In John 8: 31-36 we see that Jesus Christ grants us freedom through the truth of his words.
His Voice Intitiates the Resurrection
We learn in D&C 43:18, “For the day cometh that the Lord shall utter his voice out of heaven; the heavens shall shake and the earth shall tremble, and the trump of God shall sound both long and loud, and shall say to the sleeping nations: Ye saints arise and live; ye sinners stay and sleep until I shall call again.” From this verse we see that that trump of God is also an authorized use of his Voice.
His Voice is the Power of Creation
1 Peter 3:5-7 says, “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were [created] of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water [at the time of Noah], perished:
But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” The Word is the creative power of the universe but it also “upholds” all creation. Heb 1:3 talks about how he upholds all things by the Word.
His Voice Calls Us
Speaking Messianically, Isaiah says, “Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: their fish stinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for thirst.” (Isa 50:2) I wonder if we don’t answer because we don’t recognize His Voice. D&C 43:25 clarifies what we should be hearing, “How oft have I called upon you by the mouth of my servants, and by the ministering of angels, and by mine own voice, and by the voice of thunderings, and by the voice of lightnings, and by the voice of tempests, and by the voice of earthquakes, and great hailstorms, and by the voice of famines and pestilences of every kind, and by the great sound of a trump, and by the voice of judgment, and by the voice of mercy all the day long, and by the voice of glory and honor and the riches of eternal life, and would have saved you with an everlasting salvation, but ye would not!”
The Word of His Power is the Final Judgement
“And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.” (John 12:47-48) If his Word has declared us “clean,” then who can deny it? “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.” (John 15:3)
It is interesting to me that the power of His atonement is limited by our use of agency to hear Him. It says in D&C 29:17, “And it shall come to pass, because of the wickedness of the world, that I will take vengeance upon the wicked, for they will not repent; for the cup of mine indignation is full; for behold, my blood shall not cleanse them if they hear me not.”
How do you abide in Him? Do you recognize the Name? How do you Hear Him? These are significant questions, not just in a theoretical sense but truly meaningful. We are instructed to find out how to Hear Him; how he speaks to us. Moses went up into a mountain. Prophets have spoken his Word for us to “hear” and “understand.” The Spirit of truth conveys Him to our hearts and minds.
You can read another of my posts on this topic here. There is a link to a song in that post called His Voice that I think is a significant contribution to the subject.