The TWO WORDS of God
[The following article was written over 50 years ago by a
dear man of God. In the past attacks upon Jesus Christ - living
Word - and the Bible - the written Word - came from admitted
liberals. Today, however, many who claim to be evangelical are
raising questions about the person and work of Christ, and the
inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility of the Bible. We must
also warn of the growing effort to separate Christ from the Bible
by the use of the very deceptive slogan, "We worship Christ,
not the Bible." Clearly, liberals and pseudo-evangelicals
use this statement to downgrade the Bible, and rob the Scriptures
of divine authority and accuracy. Yes, we worship Christ, not the
Bible. But, how would we know anything about Him apart from the
Bible? Jesus said that He is the way, the TRUTH, and the life.
(John 14:6) Our Saviour prayed, "Sanctify them through thy
truth: thy word is TRUTH" (John 17:17). Anyone who casts
doubt upon the Bible, casts doubt upon Jesus Christ. Don't be
deceived.]
The aim of God from the beginning has been to unfold Himself. He
has revealed Himself in Scripture and in Christ. The Book and the
Man are called the Word of God. There are many points of
resemblance between them.
1. Both have a duality of substance. There is a
human element and a Divine element in Christ and in Scripture.
The relation between these two elements is an inexplicable
mystery. Christ had a Divine nature which made Him one with God.
At the same time, He had a real human body of flesh and blood and
a real human soul.
Scripture likewise has a material element of paper and ink and
also vital and energetic element which is divine. It is the most
human of all books in its structure and yet it is perfectly
divine. Of Christ it was said "In him was life and the life
was the light of men." (John 1:4) "As the Father hath
life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in
himself." (John 5:26)
Life is also predicated of the words of Scripture. "The
words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are
life." (John 6:63) "The Word of God is quick and
powerful and sharper than any twoedged sword..." (Heb.4:12).
These two elements are united to make one Man and one Book but
not in such wise that a third substance is formed thereby.
The material or human element is patent to our senses and may be
the object of criticism and analysis. The divine element on the
other hand in incomprehensible and must be apprehended by faith
and not by reason. "The natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God neither can he know them because they are
spiritually discerned". (I Cor. 2:14). Any passage of
Scripture may be analyzed and criticized. It may be resolved into
its parts of speech and compared with other passages but the
divine inspiration that makes all Scripture one organic whole can
not be discovered by this process. The human body of the Lord
Jesus Christ might have been put on a dissecting table and cut up
by the surgeon's knife. It might have been examined under the
microscope but nothing would have been seen but flesh and blood
and tissue. The principle of life, to say nothing of Deity, could
not be discovered in this way.
There is a distinct loss in all analysis that sometimes may
exceed the gain. You pick a flower to pieces in the study of
botany. You have a long Latin name as a result of your labor, but
where is the perfume? You dissect a bird in the study of
ornithology. You have feathers, claws and a few bones to reward
your labor, but where is the song?
These things being so, there are two extremes against which we
have to be on our guard. There has
always been a tendency to go to one of these extremes and ignore
the other. The Appollonian heresy which is as old as the third
century, is the denial of a human soul to Christ. The opposite
error is that of the Unitarian who regards Jesus simply as a man
and denies that He is divine in any other sense than that in
which every man is said to be divine.
2. The second feature of resemblance is similarity of
expression. A word may be either spoken or written. In
either case, it is the expression of a thought . Apart from the
thought to which it gives expression, a word is only an empty
sound in the air, or a meaningless character upon a piece of
paper. It is the audible or visible sign of an idea and the
medium of exchange between different minds.
We frequently find in scripture the phrase "Thus saith the
Lord". The prophets introduce their messages by saying
"The Word of the Lord came to me". God communicates the
saving truths of redemption to man through the inspired words of
Scripture. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was
with God and the Word was God. All things were made by him; and
without him was not anything made that was made" (John 1:1
& 3). The Word was the mind of God from eternity though
unexpressed. Each fiat of the creative week shows the creative
power of the uttered
Word. As a word is the revelation of a thought, so Christ is the
revelation of the Father. The incarnation is God's last final
utterance. "God, who in sundry times and in divers manners,
spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in
these last days spoken unto us by his Son, by whom also he made
the worlds".
The last time He appears in the Apocalyptic vision, He is called
the Word of God. It is the purpose of language not to conceal
thought but to reveal it. The Word of God is a revelation, not an
obscuration, transparently luminous and infallibly exact,
conveying the mind and the meaning of Almighty God to every one
who is willing to receive it. In neither Book nor Man is there
ambiguity or variation.
3. Another point of resemblance is trinity of
relationship. Vocalization involves the thought in the
mind, the word articulate upon the lips and the breath by means
of which utterance is made. The breath is the bond of union
between the mind and the mouth. These three things are
inseparably related and united.
Nature is the image of grace. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
are seen in redemption. Each has his own distinct office work to
perform. It is significant that the word "Spirit" and
"breath" is the same. The Holy Spirit is the bond of
union between the Father and the Son, the Executive of the
God-head, without whom redemption could not be accomplished.
4. There is also a similarity in the preparation of both
written and incarnate words. "A body hast thou
prepared me". The Greek language in which the New Testament
was written was probably in the most perfect vehicle for thought
that the world has ever known.
Wisdom was the key word of Greek civilization. God had permitted
this wonderful language to be
prepared and perfected for centuries, so that when the time
arrived for the sacred oracles to be entrusted to human vehicles,
there was nothing lacking.
It was the language of philosophy and marvelously adapted to the
subtleties of the Pauline and Petrine theologies crystallizing
them into a permanent form so that they remain unchanged to the
see present day.
A living language constantly changes. We can not read Chaucer
without a glossary. A dead
language is fixed and cannot change. Divine Providence may be as
clearly seen in the preparation of the Greek language for the
thought of Christianity as in the construction of the Roman
highways over which the missionaries of the cross traveled as
they carried the Gospel to the uttermost parts of the habitable
globe.
Divine wisdom is as clearly manifested in the preparation of the
human body of our Saviour. The
hygienic and sanitary regulations of ancient Israel prevented the
introduction of any impurity and in-
creased the power of resisting disease. There was no taint of
evil, hereditary or acquired in the human body of the Son of God.
He had a prepared body, out of a prepared mother, out of a
prepared nation.
Whenever a victim was brought to the Temple to be offered in
sacrifice, it was carefully inspected by the officiating priest,
to see if it complied with the requirements of the law and was
without spot or blemish. If the priest after scrutiny discovered
no blemish, the victim was pronounced acceptable and was sealed
with the temple seal.
Jesus was heralded by his forerunner John as the sacrificial
Lamb. "Behold the Lamb of God which
taketh away the sin of the world." (John 1:29). At his
baptism in the Jordan, the approving voice of the Father was
heard from the open heavens, pronouncing the verdict of
acceptance. "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well
pleased." (Matt. 3:17). The victim was thus accepted for the
sacrifice. "Him hath God the Father sealed" (John
6:27).
5. Both the written Word and the Incarnate Word have
received similar treatment from the hands of man. God
loves man but man hates God. The enmity of the carnal mind
reveals itself in gratuitous and studied insult. In that scathing
arraignment of the Pharisees by Christ shortly before His
crucifixion, He accuses them of building and adorning the
sepulchers of the prophets whom their fathers slew.
From the beginning God had been sending His rebellious people His
messengers of mercy. Instead of welcoming them and yielding glad
obedience to their exhortation, they cast them out in scorn and
scourged and stoned them. Last of all, God sent His Son. They
said, "This is the heir; Come let us kill him and the
inheritance shall be ours." (Mark 12:7).
They fell upon the Son of God like a pack of hungry wolves upon a
tender lamb that had wandered from the shelter of the fold they
gnashed upon him with their teeth, they mangled His body in their
fiendish rage and were not content till they nailed it to the
cross. Herein is shown what is in the human heart. Man would kill
God if he could.
The presence of a pure character is a standing rebuke to the
impure and unholy. It makes them restless and uncomfortable and
because it judges and condemns them, they seek to put it away as
quickly as possible.
The written Word of God has fared no better at the hands of man.
The Devil hates the Scriptures with an unrelenting hatred and has
ever sought to discredit and destroy them through the agency of
evil men. The devil hates the Bible because it is the sword of
the Spirit which has thrust him through and defeated him so many
times and men hate it because it convicts them of sin and judges
their position of antagonism to God.
When Baruch gave his Bible reading at the court of Jehoikim, what
a sensation it made! Jehudi childishly vented his rage against
the innocent parchment by slashing it with his penknife and
thrusting the mutilated fragments in the fire. Jehudi has many
modern successors. They do not literally repeat his actions but
they show their contempt for the Word of God by seeking to bring
it into contempt, by denying its infallibility, discrediting its
veracity and disputing its authority.
Dr. John Robertson tells of a certain woman who had a strange
fondness for tearing silk. She indulged her whim until it became
a mania. She would purchase the most expensive fabrics and
holding them to her ear, would tear them in twain and shriek with
laughter at the sound. She kept this up until she found herself
in the lunatic asylum.
There are learned professors in universities and seminaries who
go before their classes and say "Listen!" Then they
take the Pentateuch and tear it from end to end with a smile of
complacency and delight. There are learned doctors of divinity
who go before their congregation and say "Listen!" Then
they take up the prophecies and tear them into shreds and
patches. It seems as if modern criticism has become almost
demented, to such an extreme of fury and folly has it gone in
attacking the Word of God.
6. There is also a similar Divine vindication of these
attacks upon the incarnate and written word. The
resurrection from the dead was God's reversal of the human
verdict against his Son. Christ's dishonored and crucified body
never saw corruption. It was exalted to the highest heavens and
clothed with immortality.
The written Word has come through the fires of persecution
unscathed. There have been times when every manuscript copy was
diligenttly sought after to be destroyed as Herod sought the
infant Jesus. God's people defended the Scriptures and concealed
them often at the peril of their lives. Although many precious
manuscripts were discovered and destroyed, nevertheless the
Scriptures have come down to us in their purity and entirety.
The Bible has survived the assaults of skeptics and for the past
1800 years. It is an anvil that has worn out and broken to pieces
many a hammer. The crowbar has never yet been forged in the
furnaces of hell that can overturn this Rock of Ages. The
Scripture can not be broken and the things that cannot be shaken
shall remain.
by E.W.Farr