"He that heareth you heareth me"

As a former member and minister within the "Primitive Baptists" direct-voice regeneration was central to my understanding of salvation. It had to be, for the only alternative was to hold to gospel regeneration which I was firmly against.

In studying history I eventually came across the words of Elder John Clark published in the Zion’s Advocate in 1880 (emphasis mine – KF):

"Under the quickening power and influence of the Holy Ghost, the Word preached comes to God's people in power, by which they live, hear, and believe with the heart unto righteousness. Now, when the Gospel is preached they know it. It is the voice of their Shepherd, the great Shepherd...For with the heart, man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." [Rom. x., 6, 8, 10]"

According to this Old Baptist, to hear the gospel is to hear the voice of Christ himself! On top of that, he cites Romans 10 in support of his argument, meaning that he did not make the salvation taught in that chapter different than the one expressed in the previous chapters, unlike our moderns today.

The primary verse of scripture, obviously more important than any man's opinion, which persuaded me that I was making a distinction which God’s Word did not was Luke 10:16. There we find our Lord saying to the seventy disciples:

"He that heareth you heareth me…" (Luke 10:16)

The disciples went forward with the understanding that when others heard them speak, they were in fact hearing Christ! The idea that the voice of Christ is not contained in the gospel, or that there are “two kinds” of hearing the voice of Christ would have been absolutely foreign to their minds.