What Kind of a Book is the Bible? . . .

IS THE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD?

To presume that the answer to this question is a self-evident yes is to oversimplify a difficult problem. Yes, of course, the Bible is to the believer the word of God, but there remains the questions as to just what we should understand this to mean. The scriptures do not make the same claim for themselves that we make for them. Out of over 200 times in the Old Testament, with several more in the New, “the word of God” hardly ever refers to something written. “After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision” (Gn. 15:1) illustrates how “the word” refers to some personal experience that a man has with God, in which some message or vision is revealed. The psalmist’s “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my pathway” could hardly refer to a book, though some suppose David was talking about the Bible including that very passage!

If we allow the Bible itself to identify the word of God, we can only conclude that it is a person: “He was called the Word of God, and the armies of heaven followed him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, clean and shining” (Rev. 19:13). “So the Word became flesh; he came to dwell among us, and we saw his glory, such glory as befits the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth” (Jn. I:14). The eternal Word is Jesus, not a book. That “Word of God” was in the beginning with the Father, long before any scriptures were written, that Word will still be after all books, including the Bible, have ceased to exist.

That the Bible is the word of God is more a matter of our deduction of its character than what it actually claims for itself. In fact the Bible always points away from itself to a Person. It is the Word of God, Jesus, that is to be adored, never scripture itself. The Bible is like the telescope that brings a Person into focus who might otherwise be afar off, with no intention of attracting attention to itself. We are not to become preoccupied with the telescope itself, but with the object that it brings into view.

It is something like the nature of truth. Jesus did not merely speak the truth, but he was the truth (Jn. 14:6). The Bible may be viewed as the truth of God just as it can be called the word of God, but always in reference to the Person it reveals. This is to put the Bible in proper perspective: it mirrors the Christ.

Throughout scripture “the word of God” is much broader than the Bible itself. “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God” (Hb. 11:3) and “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made” (Ps. 33:6) obviously do not refer to any writing. Ps. 105:19 explains why Joseph was kept in prison: “Until what he said came to pass the word of the Lord tested him.” Here “the word of the Lord” is something very personal between God and Joseph. So it is with all the prophets. Amos 3:8 says: “The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy.” Amos is surely referring to more than spoken words, but to the experience of being called and commissioned. “The word of the Lord came . . .” makes it way all through Hosea to John, and it would have been no less real if a word of it had never been written. Jeremiah and Ezekial use the term the most, and it means to them not only that God has spoken to His people, but that He is at work in history. To the prophets “the word of God” is not something written (or even to be written), but something that happens, that imposes itself into the human drama, vindicating God as the sovereign Ruler of the universe. So says Jeremiah: “I will make my words a fire in your mouth; and it shall burn up this people like brushwood” (5:14), or as Ez. 24:14 has it: “I, the Lord, have spoken; the time is coming, I will act.”

The word of the Lord judges, forms, creates, cleanses, renews, makes whole, and sustains — and it “comes” to men of God. But ultimately, in all its essence, it is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. In that the scriptures tell us about Jesus, in prophecy and in fact, they too are the word of God. Maybe it can best be put this way: the Bible is the word of God, while Jesus is the Word of God. Lk. 5:1 says that “the people crowded upon him to listen to the word of God.” Here is the eternal Word of God teaching the word of God!

In 1 Cor. 2:1 0-13 Paul makes it clear that what he taught was given by the Spirit of God, and he explains how such revelation might finally reach the form that we now call the Bible. “We impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit.” Eph. 3:3-4 tells us even more: “The mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ.” What Paul wrote became the written word of God, sometimes referred to as the instrumental word of God. Sometime later Peter refers to such writings, conceding that some things are hard to understand, and he implies that they were then known as scripture. “There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures” (2 Pet. 3:16).

The several references to the scriptures in the New Testament almost certainly refer to the Old Bible. Such as: “First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2 Pet. 1:20-21). And 2 Tim. 3:15: “From childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” It is the next verse that says, “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” These show that the writers believed that the Old Covenant scriptures actually revealed the coming Messiah, the sin bearer. Jesus taught as much, still referring of course to the Old Bible: You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me” (Jn. 5:39).

It is evident enough that Jesus believed that the Old Bible, “the scriptures,” spelled out his mission with some detail: “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Lk. 24:25-27). It is also clear that he viewed those scriptures as the word of God: “For the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God” (Mt. 15:6).

All these principles would apply to the New Covenant scriptures. They are “scripture” because they were composed by men who were moved by the Spirit of God. The message the apostles proclaimed was the word of God, the spoken word. When they wrote that message, along with all the attending, instructions, this became the word of God also, like the Old Covenant scriptures. This word (the gospel and the teachings) may never even once be referred to as such in the New Testament, but there are numerous passages that suggest its emerging character. It is difficult to distinguish the written word from the spoken word, but we can conclude that as the apostles continued to write and as time passed the written word became “the word.” As we have noted, 2 Pet. 3:16 is the one obvious exception, for here Paul’s writings, in circulation for sometime by then, were called scripture.

Eph. 6:17 is to the point: “Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” This may well be a reference to the then emerging New Covenant scriptures. Heb. 4:12 might also be: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Peter likely had the writings of both the Old Covenant scriptures and the emerging New Covenant scriptures in mind when he wrote: “You should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles” (2 Pet. 3:2).

All this means that the Bible is scripture, or it is the written word of God, or, as some prefer to call it (such as our own Robert Milligan) the instrumental word of God. So, yes, it is the word of God, but not the Word of God. The Word came and fulfilled the mission God had for him. Because he came “the word” was proclaimed or spoken or taught, which is the gospel and the teachings. The Word promised to return. Had he done so within two or three decades, as some early disciples believed he would, there would never have been any New Testament at all, that is, no New Covenant scriptures. But the Word of God would have been no less the Word of God. The scriptures of the New Covenant added nothing to the reality of the Word of God just as a mirror reflecting the sun adds nothing to the sun. It is because the Word tarried and did not make an early return that the apostles and their assistants began to write. What they wrote is the word of God, that is, the written word, because it mirrors and points to the Word of God.

That Person is the Word, and that’s what “the word” is all about. —the Editor