SHOULD THE WORDS OF CHRIST BE IN RED?

I recall the first Bible I ever made any serious attempt to read. It was the old family Bible with decorated pages between the Testaments that served as a record of births, marriages and deaths. It was of course the King James Version even though I was then unaware of different versions. What especially impressed me was that the words of Christ were in red. This meant that some books, such as Matthew, would have a great deal of red print, while others even in the New Testament, such as Romans, would have no red at all. And of course most of the big Bible, the Old Testament, would be completely void of any red.

While I was then in no position to be critical of this device, I recall that it made this distinct impression upon my young mind: what Jesus actually says is the most important part of the Bible. While all the Bible was the inspired word of God, I surely believed, the words in red are to be taken more seriously and with greater reverence than the rest.

I did not then of course, ask myself why the words of God himself, who now and again actually speaks in Scripture, were not in some special color so as to distinguish them from the rest, such as at the burning bush in Ex. 3:14, where God identifies himself to Moses, and in Rev. 21:5 where He who sits upon the throne at last speaks and declares, “Behold, I makeall things new,” which must be one of the most sublime lines ever written. But it is not in color as are the words of Christ in the next chapter.

All these years I have studied from “black and white” Bibles and had almost forgotten that there are still Bibles “in color.” I was reminded of this when I received my copy of the New King James Version, published by Thomas Nelson Co., which is in color, and I notice in the Nelson catalogue that most of their editions of this new version are advertised as “Words of Christ in Red.” My copy has this notice on its dark blue cover, but even though there is an extensive preface to this revision of a very old translation, there is no reason given for the color. One may assume that Christ’s words are in red because they are supposed to be.

The words in color are sometimes especially conspicuous, such as in , Acts 20:35, where amidst all the black print there suddenly appears a red line, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” While the gospel narratives, where most all the red print is, do not record this saying of Jesus, it is one of those “unwritten sayings” — agraphe the scholars call them — that the apostle knew about. It was appropriate for him to quote it in his address to the Ephesian elders, and since it was Jesus who originally said it and not Paul, it is in red in my new Bible.

This is as good a place as any to put to the test my boyhood conclusion that the words in red are more important, and what other reason could there be for dressing up the words of our Lord unless we assume that is was done strictly arbitrarily? The apostle reveals some crucial truths in Acts 20, such as in verse 28 where we are told it is the Holy Spirit that makes men elders and that the church was purchased with Christ’s own blood, and in verse 32 where God’s grace is revealed as the source of edification. Then in verse 35 he quotes Jesus and we have a red line.

Perhaps that line “It is more blessed to give than to receive” is the most important truth in the chapter. And is it not more important the way it reads than if Paul had made that statement on his own and had not quoted the Lord? If Paul had said it is more blessed to give than to receive it would have been no less true and no less Scripture (and no less inspired”) but would it have been as significant?

I am about to conclude that those Bible publishers who have elected to put Christ’s own words in red so as to set them apart as especially important are right. My boyhood assumption that the words I saw in red in the big book I was reading were the most significant ones may have been right after all. That would at least be generally true, for as I have already suggested, it would surely be as significant when God “himself speaks, as when he speaks from the throne of heaven.

You might put this to the test on your own and you could use 2 Cor. 12 where again we have a single red line in a sea of black ones. The chapter is mind-boggling in its disclosure in that it tells of Paul’s transposition into heaven, and it goes on to reveal why the apostle was given a thorn in the flesh. As breathtaking as all that is, verse 9, which is in red, seems more significant: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

Or you might try 1 Cor. 11 where again we have but four or five lines in red amidst all the black ones, the only red lines that appear in the entire sixteen chapters of the letter. But those few lines, which tell us what our Lord said during the Passover supper which gives meaning to our Communion service, appear to be the most significant in the entire book.

But maybe not. It could be argued that nothing can be more sublime or more important than Paul’s love hymn in the thirteenth chapter or his description of the gospel and the resurrection in the fifteenth chapter. And it may be that the great truths about Christ, such as John’s description of Christ as the eternal Logos in John 1, which William Barclay describes as the greatest truth ever revealed in any religion, are as significant as the words Jesus actually uttered.

What all this means is that some things in the Bible are far more important than other things, and that it is Jesus Christ that is the most important of all. And surely Christ’s own words as they are reported by the evangelists are among the most important if not the most important words in the Bible. So there is good reason to put them in red, just as we might put the words of God himself in gold.

This illustrates a fact that is vital to an understanding of Scripture: all truths are equally true but all truths are not equally important.

What really matters about the Bible is that it points to Jesus Christ. The Old Testament is vitally important because it anticipates “the Sun of Righteousness that rises with healing in its wings” (Mal 4:2), but the New Testament is far more important because it tells the finished story of God’s love for the world as revealed in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the wonderful Person of the Bible and it is he that gives it meaning. What he did and what he said is therefore the most significant thing about the Bible. The reason we believe in the apostolicity of the church and the authority of the apostles is because Jesus chose them as his ambassadors. They were therefore qualified to tell us more about Jesus Christ, which is what matters most of all.

This is why the Bible must always be judged by the spirit of Christ and not the other way around. Those portions of Scripture whether in the Old or New Testament that bring us into closer fellowship with the spirit of Christ and conform us more to Christ’s likeness are by far the most important. When we see the Innocent One die on the Cross for the sins of the world and hear him pray for his enemies, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do, we can know that this is the spirit of Christ and this is what matters most of all. In my new Bible that prayer is scored in red, appropriately. If it is not in yours it would be in order to underline it, along with a mental note: the forgiving spirit of Christ is to be in my heart; this is what it means to be a Christian.

Those who would underline every word of the Bible as if it were all equally important come under the judgment of our Lord’s stinging words to the Pharisees in Jn. 5:39: “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of me.”

In my new Bible those words are in red, and properly so, for they reveal that eternal life is not in a book but in a Person. —the Editor