WHAT IS THE WORD OF GOD?
by Mark Berrier

Several years ago a student of mine, near the end of a class session, asked me, “Is the Bible the word of God, or does the Bible contain the word of God?” I told him I’d think carefully before answering, and would try to deal with the question the next day.

I had been reading and studying for myself concerning the same question. My struggle was the outgrowth of an interesting set of circumstances: I was studying full-time at a Catholic University and also teaching Hebrew at Wycliffe’s Summer Institute of Linguistics, with every range of Protestantism in my classes. I was in the throes of trying to determine what I really did believe and why I believed it.

The next day, when I again met with the class, I shared this answer: “I believe the Bible is contained in the word of God.” My explanation was, generally, as follows:

The word of God exists with at least five dimensions: (1) Christ, (2) preaching and teaching of the prophets and apostles, (3) Scripture, (4) in nature, (5) in me.

1. The word of God is, first of all, the Christ.

“In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was what God was. He was in the beginning with God. . . . And the word became. . . .”

In Gen. 1, every creative act of God is prefaced with, “And God said. . . .” Even Karl Barth began his work with Christ as word of God. No Christian would deny this: Christ is primary word of God.

2. The word of God is in the preaching of the prophets and of the apostles.

Some such phrase as “The word of the Lord came to” appears hundreds of times in the prophets of old. And as for the apostles, John says: “This is the message we have heard from him. . . .” (my emphasis), and Paul says, “I received this gospel by revelation from Jesus Christ.” And Peter: “We did not follow cleverly invented stories . . ., but we were eyewitness of his majesty. . . . We ourselves heard the voice of God that came from heaven. . . .” And again John: “We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us.” (1 Jn. 4:6). Thus the earliest preachers and teachers of both testaments expressed the word of God.

3. The word of God is recorded in Scripture.

The central way that we of this century know of the Christ and the apostles and prophets is through what is written. The old and the new testament scriptures are leveled by Paul; in 1 Tim. 5:18 he says, “For the Scripture says, ‘Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain,’ and ‘The worker deserves his wages’.” Thus he refers to Dt. 25:4 and Luke 10:7 as Scripture, placing the word of God through Moses on the same level as the word of Christ. Further, in Rom. 9:17, Paul quotes a message which was spoken directly by God himself to Pharaoh of Egypt, as follows: “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘I raised you up for this purpose, that I might be proclaimed in all the earth.’” Thus, when it is really God who speaks, Paul says, “The Scripture says. . . .” And Peter says (2 Pt. 3:15-16).

Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

So Peter levels Paul’s writings with “the other scriptures.” Scripture is, therefore, word of God.

4. The word of God is available in nature.

Ps. 19:1-4 says,

The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech, night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

And Paul quotes this same psalm to show that all men have heard the word (Rom. 10:17). Again, it is Paul who observes that all men know about God: (Rom. 1:18ff).

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

That same Logos who said, “No one comes to the father except through me,” may be contacted in nature. His truth may be revealed in part even by other religions.

C. S. Lewis has a worshipper of a false god in heaven in his seventh book of the “Chronicles of Narnia” — The Last Battle. This worshipper was apparently such a devout follower of the light he had, that Lewis gives him the name “Emet” the Hebrew word for “truth” or “faithfulness.” Lewis implies that, although Emet appeared in this life before a false god, he was actually worshipping the true God in his heart. Note Naaman in 2K 5:17f where he says to Elijah:

If you will not (receive payment for teaching me), please let me, your servant, be given as much earth as a pair of mules can carry, for your servant will never again make offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the Lord. But may the Lord forgive your servant for this one thing: When my master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm and I bow there also — when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant for this.

Besides, Paul is found quoting pagan sources in at least three places. In Acts 17:28 he quotes Aratus, in Titus 1:12 he quotes Epimenides, a pagan writing from the seventh century B.C., and in 1 Cor. 15:33 he quotes Menander. Other NT writers quote or refer to sources such as the Ascension of Isaiah, the Assumption of Moses, Baruch, and the books of Maccabees. Therefore the word of God is in part available in nature.

5. The most difficult and abstruse dimension of the word of God is the word of God in me.

The Old Covenant was written by God on stone. The New Covenant has been (and is being) written by the Spirit in our hearts. Jeremiah prophesies (31:31-34) that the New Covenant God will write “in their minds” and “in their hearts.” Hebrews 8:7-13 quotes Jeremiah and amplifies the inner, personal nature of the New Covenant.

So the word of God is in me. “Your word I have treasured up in my heart, that I may not sin against you.” (Ps. 119:11)

Of this five-dimensional word, I believe the scripture to be word of God in a unique sense. The scripture claims for itself that it is “Godbreathed, useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” (2 Tim. 3:16) In some sense the words of scripture do proceed from the mouth of God. Does this “God-breathedness” mean that we must claim for scripture what it does not claim for itself, that it is “infallible” and “inerrant,” whatever is meant by that? Do we want to have some kind of infallible, de fidei “paper pope”? Is scripture to be worshipped? Must we sing to it: “Holy Bible, Book Divine, Precious treasure, thou art mine:. . . Mine thou art to guide and guard, Mine to punish and reward”? Are we to attribute any book what rightfully belongs to the Lord Himself? Can we say that it is the final authority when it itself says that Jesus Christ has all authority given to him? And in what way can a book, based on 5,000 manuscripts with over 100,000 differences between them be termed “infallible and inerrant”? Such claims are a saccharine-spread veneer across the raw dynamic of the Word of God.

Although the Bible contains accounts of lies, perfidy, mistaken ideas, Satan’s words, murder and adultery, I take them to be accurate. If I have any concept of “inspiration” of Scripture, it is based on the Hebrew word Dabhar. The lexicons give its meanings as: word, saying, message, report, matter, affair, thing, act, event (emphasis mine). The book of Chronicles is entitled “words of” or “events of” in the Hebrew text. Thus, the event and the record of the event are seen by the Jews as being on the same, equal; i.e., the scripture agrees with the reality.

Therefore, I believe scripture to be an accurate record of God’s interaction with men. If it is God-breathed, then His Spirit works through it, and it includes all the necessary elements God would have us know and do. It is a vehicle to show us Christ, whose purpose was to show us God. (John 1:18; 14:9) Christ is the mediator of the new and better covenant, which is written in our hearts. — Dallas Christian College, 2700 Christian Pkwy., Dallas, TX 75234