Chapter 1 - The Word of Christ

THE WORD OF CHRIST

Understanding the Whole of Scripture

The Bible is God’s inerrant word about Jesus Christ. When we call the Bible "inerrant," we mean that it is without error. Every word of it is true and says exactly what God wants to say. When we describe it as being "about Jesus Christ" we mean that Jesus is the focus of the entire book. Every word of the Bible is about him.

This proposition is not immediately obvious when reading Scripture. After all, Jesus is not even mentioned by name until the last third of the book. Yet when he appears—and the word of God interprets his appearance for us—it becomes clear that he has been the main character all along.

Understanding this, we will not abuse the Bible for our own purposes. Too often our pride tempts us to treat Scripture as simply a manual for daily living. The inerrant word of God then becomes a grab bag of practical tips and tricks for organizing our behavior. We suppose that through such organization we will secure God’s blessing, by which we mean our earthly comfort and security.

In such a scheme, we force Jesus from center stage. We ourselves become the focus. Jesus is rushed in as the solution to our inability to follow the Bible’s rules as precisely as we might desire. We call this perversion of Scripture "legalism." It is a constant temptation.

All this does not mean that God has no interest in changing our behavior. Nor does it mean that the Bible is useless for that purpose. In fact, as we adopt the Bible’s relentless focus on Christ, we will find ourselves renewed in the knowledge of him. We will be conformed to his image. Our actions will reflect the mind of our Savior.

This is the mystery of sanctification. When we focus on changing our behavior, we fail. There is no power in us to make such a change, and all the rules in the world cannot give us that power. But when we focus on Christ, he transforms us by his Spirit. The commands of Scripture then fall into place as the logical outworking of the renewed life.

The Content of Scripture

Jesus himself gives us this understanding of Scripture. He rebukes the legalism of the Jews by telling them, "You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me" (John 5:39). The Jews had been treating the Bible as an instruction manual that they could follow. And they felt if they followed it precisely enough they would receive the abundant life God promised. In other words, they thought the Scriptures were about them.

Jesus redirects their thinking.

"The Scriptures are about Me," he boldly proclaims. Every bit of them. The Scriptures promise abundant life and that life is available only in Jesus Christ. When the Bible told the Jews of God’s holiness and his righteous requirements, they ought to have despaired of their own efforts. They ought to have cried out to God for a Savior whose blood would cover over their sins and whose righteousness would belong to them by faith. All of Scripture was directing them to that conclusion.

It was this understanding of Scripture that Jesus shared with his disciples after his resurrection. Luke tells us that "beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, he expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:27). A little later Jesus reminds them that this was his message even before the crucifixion: "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning me" (Luke 24.44).

In saying these things, Jesus is not simply picking out the parts of the Old Testament that happen to speak of him. He is stating that all the Scriptures find their fulfilment in himself. This becomes clearer when we understand that the Jews frequently divided the Scriptures into two sections—the Law and the Prophets. Or if they wanted to speak of three sections, they spoke of the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms (or, more generally, "the Writings").

So when Jesus shows them himself in the Law and the Prophets, and later in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, he is showing himself to be everywhere in Scripture. We may paraphrase Luke’s point in this way: Jesus showed his disciples how all the Scriptures, from beginning to end, spoke of him.

Matthew records this sentiment of our Savior in the Sermon on the Mount. There Jesus proclaims, "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law and the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfil" (Matt 5:17). Again we see that Jesus comprehends the whole of Scripture as that which points to him and will be fulfilled by him.

More specifically, Luke tells us that Jesus’ exposition of the Old Testament showed how the whole Bible spoke of his suffering, death, burial, resurrection, and entry into glory. Peter, speaking by the Spirit, describes Scripture in much the same terms. He divides the entire message of the prophets under two headings: "the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow" (1 Pet 1:10,11).

As such, Peter affirms that the Old Testament saints and even the angels during that time period did not understand the Bible as clearly as you and I do (1 Pet 1:12). Prior to God’s revealing himself in Christ, the Old Testament was a great puzzle. Clearly it spoke of glorious things, but what those things were was hidden. Now that Jesus has died and been raised, the whole Bible makes sense.

Naturally then, Jesus and the writers of the New Testament help themselves to the Old Testament as that which proclaims, through and through, the message of Christ. Matthew takes the history of Israel—from the Exodus to the Captivity—and confers it on his Savior (Matt 2:15-18). Jesus draws our attention to the manna that God gave to Israel in the wilderness and declares himself to be the real bread from God that comes down from heaven (John 6:32-35). Paul confidently declares that the rock from which water flowed, sustaining Israel in the wilderness, was Christ himself (1 Cor 10:4). The writer of Hebrews interprets for us the story of Moses identifying with suffering Israel rather than wealthy Egypt: "[He considered] the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt" (Heb 11:26).

And again and again the New Testament takes statements of the Old and refers them to Christ. It was of Christ that David spoke when he said, "You will not leave my soul in Hades. Nor will you allow your Holy One to undergo decay" (Acts 2:25-28). It was of Christ that Isaiah spoke when he declared God’s word: "Behold, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone. And the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame" (1 Pet 2:6; Rom 9:33). And it is of Christ that the Psalmist speaks when he says, "The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone" (1 Pet 2:7).

Christ is the deliverer who will come out of Zion and turn away ungodliness from Jacob (Rom 11:26, c.f. Is 59:20). It is to Christ that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess (Rom 14:10,11; c.f. Is 45:23). When God made a promise to Abraham "and his seed," the seed was Christ (Gal 3:16). It is to Christ at his resurrection that God speaks in Psalm 2 when he says "You are my Son. Today I have begotten you" (Acts 13:33). It is to Christ at his ascension into heaven that God speaks in Psalm 110 when he says, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet" (Heb 1:13).

The simple message of all of Scripture is this. Because of Adam’s sin we lost fellowship with God. No one but Christ can restore that fellowship. The redemption Christ brings is glorious and will be fully revealed at the last day.

Time will fail us if we continue. This summary must suffice for now We will spend the remaining chapters of this book unpacking the Scriptures to see how they speak of Christ. Even then we will only have scratched the surface. Let us receive the testimony of the whole Scripture in faith. And let us examine every verse with the certainty that it speaks to us of our Savior.

The Authority of Scripture

We have spoken of Scripture’s content—the message of Jesus Christ. Now let us speak of Scripture’s nature. Scripture is the inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God. God has revealed himself fully in his Son; the word concerning that Son ought to reflect the perfection of this divine self-revelation. The authoritative nature of the Bible perfectly complements its lofty message.

We sometimes speak of Scripture as "inspired," and that is legitimate. But let us be careful not to mean too little by that statement. We do not mean merely that the men who wrote Scripture were moved to do so by the Holy Spirit. That is certainly a true statement, but not a sufficient one. After all, we ourselves may be moved to do things by the Holy Spirit. (Indeed, apart from such motion, we can do nothing good.) Yet we acknowledge that we, being fallen humans, introduce sinfulness and fallibility into that process so that even our best works are not acceptable to God except through Christ our Mediator.

The inspiration of Scripture, though, resulted in a perfect document. The men who wrote it were fallen humans, just like us. But God miraculously preserved them from introducing that fallenness into what they wrote. The message they wrote was the very message God desired. Peter describes the process in this way: "Men, moved by the Holy Spirit, spoke from God" (2 Pet 1:21). And Paul tells us that all Scripture is "breathed out by God" (2 Tim 3:16). Thus he affirms that the final product was just as though God wrote it himself.

This means the Bible is both inerrant and infallible. By "inerrant," we mean that it contains no errors. By "infallible," we mean that the Bible, by its very nature, is incapable of error. In other words, the Bible is not merely a book that happens to get all its facts right. You or I could write something that could be called inerrant in that sense (though it would probably have to be much shorter than the Bible). But we could not write something infallible. We could not write something of which it should be said, "the nature of the author precludes even the possibility of error."

Only a book written by God has such authority. God, who knows all things and who cannot lie, wrote the Scriptures. It is therefore completely impossible that they should contain a single error.

Therefore we cling to this confidence: everything the Bible affirms is true.

To clarify the boundaries of this statement, let us note that the Bible may make "errors" in the sense of breaking human rules. The grammar of 2 Peter, for example, is less than perfect. But grammar is a human convention; and Peter’s rough grammar in no way obscures the truth of his message. Matthew and Luke, quoting the same speech of Jesus, will use different wording. This violates our modern desire for exact quotation (though not the ancient convention that allowed for much more paraphrase). Yet we affirm that both the words Matthew uses and the words Luke uses are breathed out by the same God and communicate exactly the truth God wishes to communicate.

Further, some may feel the Bible fails to meet rigorous "scientific" standards. When Isaiah speaks of "the four corners of the earth," we certainly don’t get a picture of the earth as a sphere. (Much less do we get a picture of the earth as an oblate spheroid, which would be even more rigorously descriptive in a scientific sense.) But God is not the slave of modern science. He is not required to state his truths in scientifically approved formats.

Nevertheless, when the Bible does happen to affirm something that has implications for modern science (or any other field of study), the Bible is correct. For that reason we reject the theory of human evolution. Scripture affirms the uniqueness of man and the directness of his creation in terms that cannot accommodate that theory. (Most Reformed teachers, including this author, reject the theory of animal evolution as well. But much weightier issues hang in the balance with respect to the theory of human evolution.)

The Human Element

God could have accomplished all this simply by writing the whole Bible the way he wrote the 10 Commandments—by his own finger without human intervention. He could have accomplished this the way he did other portions of the Bible—through dictation. Or he could have put men into trances and manipulated their pens so that they produced the word of God without mental engagement.

What God did instead is more miraculous and more glorious. Even in an English translation we can tell the differences in style and personality between, say, Paul and John. Their distinctive concerns and habitual expressions are easy to discern. Clearly these men are fully engaged—intellectually and emotionally—in the process of writing God’s word. They put a lot of thought into what they wrote.

Luke states this directly in the introduction to his gospel. He states how he came to write the book in this way:

Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account…. (Luke 1:1-3)

In other words, Luke did the work of an investigative reporter. He was not a witness to the events he describes; but he interviewed those who were. He then sat down with all the data he had collected and decided what to include in his story. And by God’s preserving power, Luke chose from that data only those anecdotes which were true. And even among the true anecdotes, he chose only those that God wished to have preserved in the Scriptural record. God did this not by circumventing Luke’s thought process but by guiding and using it. God worked this way with his other authors as well.

This is miraculous. Without compromising the personalities, styles, or mental processes of the writers, God produced a Scripture that said exactly what he wanted to say. This is much more amazing than if he had simply dictated the words.

This is glorious. For by this God affirms his entire program of redemption. Salvation will not come by obliterating everything that makes us distinct individuals. Our destiny is not to become interchangeable cogs in the machinery of God’s praise. Rather, we ourselves, with everything that makes us who we are, have been redeemed. Only our sin, which speaks of who we were and now are not, shall fail to make the entry into heaven. God’s method of inspiration underlines this truth.

The Basis of Scripture’s Authority

So far we have been presupposing the authoritative nature of Scripture. But how do we know it has this nature?

One answer—offered by the Roman Catholics—is that the Church tells us of the Bible’s authority. We believe the Bible because the Church declares it to be true. But this makes the authority of the Church more ultimate than the authority of the Bible. On the contrary, we believe that the word of God is our ultimate authority. Scripture defines the Church, not vice versa.

Another answer—offered by many modern conservative defenders of the faith—is that human reason tells us of the Bible’s authority. That is, once we fairly examine the historical, archaeological, geological, and philosophical arguments for the truth of Scripture, we cannot help but be convinced that the Bible is God’s word.

In this scheme of things, what the unbeliever lacks is information and argumentation. But Scripture itself does not look at things this way. The problem of the unbeliever is precisely that he cannot recognize the Bible as God’s word in a saving way. He doesn’t lack information; he lacks ability. All the information and argumentation in the world cannot change his heart.

This is what Paul confidently declares when he says, "the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor 2:14). Jesus takes the same position in his story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. The Rich Man, in hell, begs Abraham in heaven to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his five brothers of the danger they face. Abraham replies, "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them…. If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead" (Luke 16:27-31).

This is the situation in which unbelievers find themselves today. One has risen from the dead, even Jesus Christ. Yet still they do not believe.

Neither the testimony of the Church nor the workings of our reason can be the ultimate authority by which we believe the Bible is the word of God. Calvin Knox Cummings critiqued all such theories this way: "The Bible is thus said to be the Word of God because we say so: the mind of man becomes the final standard of truth" (Confessing Christ, p. 10). Clearly, this is unacceptable.

But what then? How do we know that the Bible is the word of God? Because God says so. And where does he say so? In the Bible.

The argument seems obviously circular. So let’s take a moment to understand why it must be this way. In general, when we want to establish the authority of something or someone, we look to a higher authority for confirmation. Does the Church have authority? Yes. We know this because Scripture, a higher authority, says so.

But how do we know that Scripture has this higher authority? Is there an even higher authority that we may appeal to for confirmation? If so, then that authority would be the ultimate one. We believe, rather, that Scripture is the top of this chain of command. Being the word of God, it bears the authority of God himself. Therefore Scripture cannot appeal to any lesser authority as the basis for its own authority.

The book of Hebrews makes a similar argument concerning the authority of God. Speaking of God’s promise to Abraham, it says, "when God made a promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself" (Heb 6:13). You can see the logic here. Suppose God had said, "I call Abraham to witness that I will keep my promise." What exactly is Abraham supposed to do if God changes his mind? Abraham has no power over God. Similarly, God could not have sworn by the angels or the heavens and the earth or any other created thing. That leaves … himself.

The word of God must partake of this character of God. It must be ultimate in its authority. And therefore it can appeal to nothing but itself for the vindication of that authority.

And this it does, over and over again. The phrase "Thus says the Lord" or something similar occurs over 2,000 times in the Old Testament. Jesus, quoting the book of Psalms, adds the statement, "The Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35). Paul affirms that his own message is not "the word of men, but … the word of God" (1 Th 2:13). And Peter also refers to Paul’s writings as "Scripture" (2 Pet 3:15,16). Paul in turn does the same thing for Matthew and Luke when he quotes Matthew 10:10 and Luke 10:7, saying "For the Scripture says…’The worker is worthy of his hire’" (1 Tim 5:18).

So the Bible abundantly testifies to itself as the divinely authenticated word of God.

Still, this argument can make us uncomfortable. After all, the Book of Mormon claims to be the word of God too. Shall we say that it also is God’s inerrant word because it says so? Clearly not. We are not saying that anything that claims to be the word of God must be so. Nor is the book of Hebrews saying that anyone who swears by himself must be God. In both cases we’ve stood the argument on its head. God must swear by himself because he can swear by no one greater. And Scripture must testify of its own authority because there is no greater testimony to which it may appeal.

The Book of Mormon claims to be the word of God. But it is not. It testifies falsely concerning itself, and the true word of God—the ultimate authority—testifies against it.

Where does this leave us? Obviously the unbeliever will not be persuaded by this argument. But we expected that. The natural man cannot receive the things of God. So any argument that treats him as though he can is a false one. How then do we prove to the unbeliever that the Bible is the word of God?

We don’t. That’s not our job. (And God be thanked for that. We are totally incapable of the task.)

The Work of the Spirit

In the past, when going over this material in membership classes, I have sometimes played "devil’s advocate." The prospective members offer me arguments that the Bible is God’s word. I respond with counter-arguments, suggesting their reasoning is unpersuasive and full of holes. They roll with the punches and try other arguments.

At times I actually stump them. They weren’t expecting this or that particular argument and don’t really know how to answer it. Then something amazing happens. They continue to believe that the Bible is the word of God. They never say, "Wow. That’s a good point. Maybe the Bible isn’t God’s word." Why not?

They are persuaded by God himself that the Bible is his word. The Spirit of God, working through the word, has convinced them of Scripture’s authority. How am I or anyone else going to take away this persuasion? No one is more powerful than God.

I may teach them arguments from the testimony of the church, historical confirmation, philosophical reasoning, etc. But these arguments can never become the basis for a belief they already have. Rather, such arguments must be used to strengthen and confirm a conviction that is already confirmed by the highest authority there is.

The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 1, paragraphs 4 and 5, puts it this way:

The authority of the holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.

We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church to an high and reverent esteem of the holy Scripture. And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.

Scripture agrees with this assessment, describing an inseparable link between the Spirit of God and the word of God. Consider a few examples from the book of Acts.

The Spirit of Christ is given at Pentecost and the apostles respond by preaching the word (Acts 2). Again, later, the whole church is filled with the Spirit and the result is that "they spoke the word of God with boldness" (Acts 4:31). Peter preaches the word concerning the inclusion of the Gentiles in the covenant. His hearers believe him because the Holy Spirit accompanies that word and persuades them (Acts 10:44). Later on, Paul and Timothy were "forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia" (Acts 16:6).

Paul also testifies of this connection. He refers to the word of God as "the sword of the Spirit" (Eph 6:17). And he affirms to the Thessalonians that the gospel he preached did not come "in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance" (1 Th 1:5).

Much more could be said. Indeed, so often is the word connected with the Spirit, that a Biblical study of this theme could take hundreds of pages.

A Further Definition of Infallibility

With all this in mind, let us return to the notion that Scripture is infallible. We have stated the idea negatively as meaning that Scripture is incapable of error. Now let us state the idea positively: God’s word always accomplishes what he desires.

Isaiah, filled with the Spirit and speaking on God’s behalf, proclaims this truth:

10 For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,
And do not return there,
But water the earth,
And make it bring forth and bud,
That it may give seed to the sower
And bread to the eater,
11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
(Isaiah 55:10,11)

God’s word always does exactly what he wants it to. This might not seem true at first glance. After all, many people hear the word of God without seeming to be affected by it. God’s message does not become effective for their salvation and they die in their sins.

But submitting to Scripture, we will not dare to say that in such cases the word of God has returned to him void. Rather, we will say that God’s word has accomplished exactly what he desired. It has hardened the hearts of unbelievers and rendered them without excuse in the day of judgment.

When Jesus tells the parable of the sower in Mark 4, he then explains to his disciples why he speaks in parables: "To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables, so that ‘Seeing they may see and not perceive, And hearing they may hear and not understand; Lest they should turn, And their sins be forgiven them’" (Mark 4:11,12). Jesus is here quoting the prophet Isaiah to demonstrate that it is God himself who blinds their eyes and hardens their hearts (c.f. Isaiah 6:10 and John 12:40). And the instrument by which God does this is the word Christ speaks.

For it is not merely the parables that unbelievers cannot understand. The entire word of God functions as a parable to them, a saying they cannot understand unless God opens their ears to hear and their eyes to see.

This becomes clear when Jesus explains the parable of the sower. The sower, if you recall, sowed some seed on the road and the birds ate it. He sowed some seed on rocky soil and it sprang up, but the sun scorched it because it had no roots. He sowed some seed among the thorns where it tried to grow but was choked out. And he sowed some seed on good soil where it sprang up and bore fruit.

The sower, Jesus says, sows the word. The different types of soil represent the different types of hearers. Some reject the word right away. Some receive it joyfully but abandon the faith when they are persecuted. Some would like to believe but they love this world too much. And some believe and flourish.

Notice that in each case it is the same word that is sown. And in each case, Jesus assures us, it accomplishes exactly what God intended. Thus we add a final dimension to the marvelous nature of God’s word. That selfsame word affects different hearers in different ways, all according to God’s plan.

Imagine if you tried to duplicate this feat. Your task is to write a single letter to four different men. The first man must reject your message. The second man must love it until he realizes how costly the message will be to him. The third must want to love it but be too worried about the consequences. And the fourth must love and embrace the message and do what it says. These responses must come after the four men read identical words on a page.

You can’t do it, of course. Once you’ve committed your word to paper, it’s out of your hands. You cannot prevent your word from being misunderstood by those you want to understand it. Nor can you prevent your word from being understood by those you would want to be kept in the dark.

But imagine if you could somehow send your spirit out with your letter, guiding people to respond according to your predetermined plan. This is what God does. His word is a living word, accompanied by his Spirit. He is always with his word to make sure it does what he wants it to.

Conclusion

For all these reasons it’s appropriate that this message should be brought through preaching. If we try to bring the word by debating unbelievers, we concede that they have as much authority to speak as God does. We allow them to argue with God’s word. And if we spread the message merely by passing out Bibles, that does not convey the idea that this is a living word with present authority.

But when we preach the word, we do so in the assembly of God’s people, with his Spirit in our midst. In that context we accurately display the authority of the word as a living word by which God still speaks today. And the Spirit is present to accompany that word. Therefore, although it is appropriate to communicate the word of God in many other ways, the principal way God chooses to communicate his word is through preaching. We will take up this thought in Chapter 2.

[Contents]

[Catechism for Chapter 1] [First Story for Chapter 1] [Second Story for Chapter 1]

[Chapter 2]