The Book and the Son

                                 2 Peter 1: 19-21, John 1:1, 14

 

 

          Sometime in the next few weeks, we will be shifting over to ECO, our new denomination. It will come with a new set of buzzwords and acronyms to learn as we begin to incorporate the business of our church into compliance with this new denomination. First, let me say that I have been working with ECO for about a year now at one level or another, and everything I have seen so far makes this affiliation not only a breath of fresh air, but a re-charging of my spiritual batteries. I really believe it will be the same for this church as well.

          ECO - A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians - is our new denomination, and it acknowledges a small list of principles it has labeled as its essential tenets. In the next few weeks, we will be looking at those essential tenets. If you find yourself familiar with the spiritual ground, you should. You will hear nothing that Presbyterian and Reformed Christians haven’t been saying for a long time. This is not new ground, but it is fertile ground, and it is at the heart of ECO. What I am finding so far is that ECO says nothing new, but it does say a lot of things well. And unlike some other denominations that seem to want to appeal to everyone, ECO seems satisfied to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ in the most powerful and clear way that it can find by planting that gospel in every place it can, and let the harvest belong to God.  It is in that spirit that today we look at the first of the essential tenets of ECO, God’s Word.

          ECO states in its literature that God’s Word is the “authority of our confession,” that is, God’s Word is our set of marching orders. It is our authoritative source for what we believe. Everything else is built around that. So what is God’s Word? Before we even answer that question, let’s back up. What is the chief end of man? Think of what you learned in your catechism so long ago and you will be right on point. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. ECO says it this way: The great purpose toward which each human life is drawn is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Some things never change. One of those things is the chief end, the great purpose, of mankind. We glorify God. That’s why we are here.

          So, back to our initial question. What is God’s Word? Amy Grant and other artists sing the song taken from Psalm 119 (v.105): Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. God’s Word illuminates. It shows us the way. Without it, we walk in darkness. So God’s Word will tell us about God. God’s Word is his authoritative self-revelation. God’s Word tells us who God is, and who God is to us.  That’s pretty important, because if we don’t know who God is, we can’t recognize him. And if we can’t recognize him, then how can we receive him?

          What is God’s Word? We intuitively know what it does to us. But what is it? Now, Preacher, you say, don’t try to make this hard. God’s Word is the Bible. Everyone knows that. Of course, you’re right. 2 Peter says this about it:

                   And we have something more sure, the prophetic

             word, to which you will do well to pay attention as

                  a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns      

              and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this

              first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from

    someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was

    ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from

    God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

 

          Peter is telling us that Scripture comes not from the mouths or minds or men, but from the mind of God uttered by men influenced by that guidance and interpreted by the Holy Spirit. John Calvin said that “Scripture, having gathered up the otherwise confused knowledge of God in our minds, having dispersed our dullness, clearly shows us the true God.” Both the great apostle and the great Reformer are saying essentially the same thing, that God reveals himself to us through Scripture, the written Word of God.

          But if we are to properly understand the Word of God, we must understand that Word as not only written, but living. Listen again to the words of the apostle John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…and the Word came and dwelt among us.” That’s powerful. The Word lives. It lives in physical form. It moves and walks and breathes. The living Word is Jesus, the Son of God.

          Let me ask you a question. And I’ll warn you before I ask, that it is a trick question, so think before you answer. Do you believe in the Bible?

Let me ask it again. Do you believe in the Bible? Let me ask it another way. Do you believe in Isaiah? Do you believe in Jonah? No, you don’t. You may believe the truths they contain, but that’s not the same as believing in the book or those writers, is it? We save that kind of belief for God himself.

          No, you don’t believe in the Bible. You believe in its witness! There’s a big difference when you think about it. And that difference helps us to understand the authority of God’s Word, both written and living. Who rules? Who saves? Who helps? To whom do you pray? Whom do you trust? The answer is God. The Bible testifies to the identity of God, gives us traction in our quest to know him, but the Bible is not God. Theologian Shirley Guthrie puts it this way: “The Bible makes present to us here and now the self-revelation of God that happened back there and then. In this sense—a secondary sense—the Bible is not only a witness to revelation; it is itself revelation” [Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 63].

            So, we have the written Word of God and we have the living Word of God. Does one take precedence over the other? Yes, of course. One is God and the other is the witness of him. But we don’t need to go there. Perhaps a better way to understand the Word of God is to look at Jesus as God in human form, fully God and fully man, and to understand that presence as the living Word. We then look to the Bible as the divinely inspired witness to that identity. Each of these pieces is a facet of God’s self-revelation to us. What did the apostle Paul say to his protégé Timothy? “All Scripture is breathed out by God…”  What did Jesus say to his disciples? “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”  Whether it is the written Word or the living Word of God, he is revealing himself to his creation.  

          There is an order to these concepts. First, there is God. God, the great I Am. He predates history. As God creates, mankind begins to find some understanding about it all and starts to write it down. If we look at God’s written Word, we find a description of God revealing himself, first to the people of Israel and later to both Israel and the world through Jesus Christ. But bear in mind that what we are looking at is a written record of actions and events that God had already revealed to us across the pages of history. That history of God’s revelation was then written down. It becomes a witness to that revelation. It is the written Word, the Bible. But note that God, and Jesus with him from the beginning, was creating and revealing through his living Word so that the written Word could become that witness.  

          We don’t need to pick. We have both the living and written Word of God to guide us, to inform us, to support us, to reveal his identity to us. There is unity in the two revelations, for that is what they are. They are the special revelation of God himself. We see God when we read the witness of Scripture. the Book, through the lens of the Holy Spirit. We see God when we look at the life and death and resurrection of the Son. We can trust them as the authority for our own confession, that God in the Trinity is creator of all, Lord of all, and Savior of all those who believe in him.

          Our great purpose? To glorify God and enjoy him forever. The authority for our confession? The living Word of God in the Incarnation of his Son and the written witness to that truth found in the infallible scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments.

          God’s Word. A lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.