Reality Rests On The Word Of The Lord: Martin Luther’s Understanding Of God’s Word

By Robert Kolb

We must take note of God’s power that we may be completely without doubt about the things which God promises in his Word. Here full assurance is given concerning all his promises; nothing is either so difficult or so impossible that he could not bring it about by his Word. [1] —Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis, 1535

The thought of the sixteenth-century reformer Martin Luther has been encapsulated in a number of phrases, as a “theology of the cross,” a “theology of the justification of the sinner,” a “theology of God’s wrath and mercy,” or of “Law and Gospel.” These designations and many more can be used to summarize the Reformer’s approach to interpreting the Bible and applying its message to people’s lives. But the sinews that hold the body of his proclamation of the Gospel together—the nervous system that gives the impulses to make his public teaching function in the lives of his hearers—derive from his understanding of what the apostles and prophets meant when they spoke in various ways of the Word of God. Luther’s theology is above all a “theology of God’s Word.”

Luther acknowledged the many sides of the biblical concept “Word of God.” He treasured God’s revelation of himself in “the Word made flesh” (John 1:1, 14), [2] and he recognized that God had begun to reveal himself and his will for humankind through the Old Testament prophets. But, as Hebrews 1:1–2 teaches us, his self-revelation came to its completion and climax in Jesus—”in these last days God has spoken to us by a Son.” Beyond the Word made flesh Luther recognized that God’s communication of himself took place in human language through the proclamation of his prophets and through the Holy Scriptures breathed by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:19–21; 2 Timothy 3:15–17). From the pages of Scripture God’s people delivered his Word into the lives of others in oral, written, and sacramental forms. The fundamental reality of human life rests on God’s address to his people in these forms of the Word.

The Historical Setting Of Luther’s Concept Of God’s Word

Throughout human history people have had different concepts of what words—religious or non-religious words—are and can do. Some people have regarded certain words or phrases as magical formulas through which they can manipulate divine power. Others have believed that mere human words are at best no more than symbolic shadows of some distant, perhaps heavenly, ultimate realities. Others perpetrate the myth that while sticks and stones can break our bones, words can never hurt, nor really help, us.

A different conception of human language governed Luther’s way of thinking. He viewed words which convey the message of Christ as the tool of the Holy Spirit, for these words are God’s Word, as he has placed it in human language. God acts through these words; they are instruments through which he accomplishes his will and actualizes his presence. Luther not only rejected elements of medieval piety which employed certain phrases from the Bible or pious usage in a magical way. He also refused to spiritualize God’s Word in the fashion of some sixteenth-century reformers, who had been shaped by the movement designated as “biblical humanism.”

Their call for the reform of education and life was grounded upon the conviction that true learning and piety had to be based upon knowledge of the biblical texts and other ancient works, whether Christian or philosophical Greek. Many scholars in this movement were influenced by the revival of Platonic and Neoplatonic ideas. Though devout and dedicated to biblical learning, these theologians often let presuppositions from the spiritualizing traditions that proceeded from Plato’s thought determine their reading of Scripture. Therefore, for example, they could only conceive of the material realm as somewhat inferior to the realm of the invisible or spiritual. They failed to recognize that for the biblical writers the decisive divide lay not between material and spiritual but rather between the Creator and the created, whether the created had spiritual or material form. These learned, pious thinkers were convinced that human words and the objects of the material could only be shadows of heavenly reality. Their eyes tended to ignore ways in which God had taken material covering for his presence among his Old Testament people. They believed that the Word had become flesh as God assumed humanity in its fullest for his purpose of saving sinners, but they failed to extend the logical consequence of the Incarnation to God’s use of other forms of his Word as he assumed human language and sacramental elements to exercise his saving power. These theologians believed that the nature of things (as Plato had understood it) prevented God from selecting certain elements of his creation to be the instruments of his power for restoring true human life in relationship with himself to those who had fallen into sin.

Luther did not share these presuppositions even though he used many of the tools the biblical humanists had prepared for the study of Scripture. His orientation for reading the Bible came from professors trained in the philosophical and theological system called nominalism. At the heart of Luther’s reform lay his sharp rejection of nominalist views of salvation that required human contribution and merit to establish a proper relationship with God. However, from his nominalist instructors Luther had also learned that God was in himself unlimited and according to his absolute power could have constructed any kind of world he wanted. In fact, this Almighty God had pledged himself to abide by rules that he had laid down for his creation and human creatures. To these rules and structures God remains faithful; he does not act in arbitrary fashion toward his creation.

The nominalists believed that human speculation over what God might have done or might be capable of doing according to his absolute power could never penetrate the mystery of God behind his revelation. His creatures must be content with what God himself has revealed concerning himself and his way of dealing with humankind (even though they can exercise the gift of reason to explore the world he created and placed within their sphere of responsibility). Although Luther departed from many of the insights of his nominalist teachers, he always presupposed that he was completely dependent on God’s revelation of himself for his knowledge of God and the divine plan for human living. Luther was convinced that the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, was the center and the climax of God’s disclosure of his person and the delivery of his love to his people. He was also convinced that Scripture, given by God to the prophets and apostles, is the only reliable source for the continuing disclosure and delivery of God’s mercy to human creatures. In it, and the proclamation based upon it, Luther experienced the power and presence of God.

The Word Reveals God

In the last ten years of his life, Luther lectured on Genesis on a regular basis. In comments on the creation of the universe, he reflected his convictions concerning God’s Word as the only trustworthy source of God’s revelation of himself and as the ultimate expression of his power in the midst of his earthly creation.

God also does not manifest himself except through his works and the Word because the meaning of these is understood in some measure. Whatever else belongs essentially to the Divinity cannot be grasped and understood, such as being outside time, before the world, etc. [3]

The Reformer recognized that there is a lot more to God than what we can know of him. He also knew that human beings can and want to construct their own pictures of what God ought to be like, even if these pictures tell us more about those who are imaginatively forging their own images of the ultimate than about the true God. Therefore, he differentiated the hidden God from the revealed God. This distinction reflects the nominalists’ demarcating the mysterious God who could have done anything according to his absolute power (but whose nature is inaccessible to human wisdom and human investigation) from the God who has given his promise to human beings in covenants, which set nature and the moral order within fixed bounds. To attempt to venture beyond what God has told us of himself can only lead us into our own imaginations. Luther wanted to turn his hearers from the misdirection of their own fantasies to the God who reveals himself in his Word:

Perhaps God appeared to Adam without a covering, but after the fall into sin he appeared in a gentle breeze as though enveloped in a covering.... It is folly to argue much about God outside and before time because this is an effort to understand the Godhead without a covering, or the uncovered divine essence. Because this is impossible, God envelops himself in his works in certain forms, as today he wraps himself in baptism, in absolution, etc. If you should depart from these, you will get into an area where there is no measure, no space, no time, and into the merest nothing, concerning which, according to the philosopher, there can be no knowledge.” [4]

God’s Word Delivers His Power

God not only reveals himself through his Word. He actually accomplishes his will through his speaking. His words bring reality into being. God’s original creation of all reality also served for Luther as the model for his re-creating activity in bringing sinners back to himself. Luther observed to his students regarding Genesis 1:

God is, so to speak, the Speaker who creates; nevertheless, he does not make us of matter, but he makes heaven and earth out of nothing, solely by the Word which he utters.... The light, Moses says, was not yet in existence; but out of its state of being nothing the darkness was turned into that most outstanding creature, light. Through what? Through the Word. Therefore in the beginning and before every creature there is the Word, and it is such a powerful Word that it makes all things out of nothing.... Paul cites this first work of the Creator as an extraordinary work (2 Corinthians 4:6): “Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness?” “By his command,” he says, “he made that light.” This, therefore, is sufficient for the confirmation of our faith: that Christ is true God, who is with the Father from eternity, before the world was made, and that through him, who is the wisdom and the Word of the Father, the Father made everything. But in this passage this point should be noted: that Paul regards the conversion of the wicked—something which is also brought about by the Word—as a new work of creation.” [5]

For Luther, reality issues from God’s speaking. He believed that the Old Testament witness to God’s way of doing things established reality from the Word of God. That Word not only set reality in place. It also preserves it and continues to keep that reality going. Behind the preserving and providing activity of God in his world stands his Word. [6]

God’s Word Constitutes His Relationship To His Children

God’s Word revealed who he is to his creatures. God’s Word, according to Luther, instituted and constituted the Lord’s relationship with his human creatures. God loves to talk, and God wanted his human creatures to be his conversation partners. The first conversation continued as long as Adam and Eve trusted God and delighted in his conversation. When they no longer trusted his Word, their doubt destroyed that relationship. The break of this fellowship of conversation between God and human creature is the essence of sin. Sin resulted from Satan’s luring them to question whether God meant what he had said (Genesis 3:l):

This also reveals Satan’s cunning. He does not immediately try to allure Eve by means of the loveliness of the fruit. He first attacks the greatest human strength, faith in the Word. Therefore the root and source of sin is unbelief and turning away from God, just as, on the other hand, the source and root of righteousness is faith. [7]

Denial of the reliability of God’s Word meant the cessation of the conversation, the end of the relationship. That doubt exploded into a variety of defensive actions which divided Adam and Eve from their God and voided the claim and the comfort, conveyed in his Word.

Therefore Satan here attacks Adam and Eve in this way to deprive them of the Word and to make them believe his lie after they have lost the Word and their trust in God.... Unbelief is the source of all sins; when Satan brought about this unbelief by driving out or corrupting the Word, the rest was easy for him.... Therefore just as from the true Word of God salvation results, so also from the corrupt Word of God damnation results. [8] 

The source of all sin truly is unbelief and doubt and abandonment of the Word. Because the world is full of these, it remains in idolatry, denies the truth of God, and invents a new god.” [9]

Renewal of the conversation could only come from God’s side. Dead in trespasses and sin (Ephesians 2:1), human creatures were corpses in their relationship to God. They could only return to their original relationship with God through his action, through his act of re-creation. As with his original act of creation, God re-creates his chosen children out of sinners through the action of his Word.

God’s Word Re-Creates Fallen Human Creatures

Luther believed that God had placed his re-creating Word in various forms, which could be classified in three basic categories: oral, written, and sacramental. In preparing a text for the believers’ confession of sin to their pastors, Luther had the pastor ask the parishioner why he wanted to receive the sacrament in addition to the absolution which he had just received. The parishioner was to answer that he desired the grace and strength which God’s Word would give with the sign. The pastor asked whether absolution had not already bestowed forgiveness. The parishioner retorted, “So what! I want to add the sign of God to his Word. To receive God’s Word in many ways is so much better.” [10]

Although Luther believed that God had first spoken with his people through the oral proclamation of the prophets, he also believed that the authority of the written Word in the Scriptures was primary and fundamental to all uses of the Word in God’s world. Only in the Bible could God’s voice be heard with absolutely certain authority. All other writings which conveyed God’s love and mercy, as well as all Gospel preaching or conversation and the sacramental forms of delivering God’s forgiveness and salvation had to be derived from and faithful to the infallible Scripture.

Luther did many things to cultivate the proper reading and use of Scripture as a “means of grace,” an instrument of salvation, among his students, who would leave the University of Wittenberg to care for God’s people in congregations. He also worked hard to bring the biblical message to those parishioners through writings especially designed for their use—devotional materials, hymns, his translation of the Bible, and his catechisms. Toward the end of his life the Reformer also set forth advice for the daily engagement of believers with the biblical text, the facilitating of the conversation with God through study of the written Word because “you should know that the Holy Scriptures constitute a book which turns the wisdom of all other books into foolishness, because not one teaches about eternal life except this one alone.” He suggested three elements necessary for fruitful listening to what God was saying in the pages penned under the Holy Spirit’s guidance by the prophets and apostles. He summarized them in the Latin words oratio (prayer), meditatio (meditation), and tentatio (the struggles and temptations of daily life).

Proper listening to God’s Word begins with prayer (oratio).

Kneel down in your little room and pray to God with real humility and earnestness, that he through his dear Son may give you his Holy Spirit, who will enlighten you, lead you, and give you understanding. Thus, you see how David keeps praying—”Teach me, Lord, instruct me, lead me, show me.”

Second, Luther directed his students to concentrate on the text, for in it the living Word of the Lord comes to human creatures (meditatio).

You should meditate, that is, not only in your heart, but also externally, by actually repeating and comparing oral speech and literal words of the book, reading and rereading them with diligent attention and reflection, so that you may see what the Holy Spirit means by them. For God will not give you his Spirit without the external Word; so take your cue from that.

Luther presumed that this conversation with God that arises from reading the biblical text takes place in the midst of a world in which evil is always at hand. Believers never come to the text apart from experiences that arise from their own sinfulness and their being plagued by the sinfulness of others. Therefore, Luther advised them that the reading of Scripture involved, thirdly, tentatio, in German Anfechtung, (the trials or temptations of daily life).

This is the touchstone which teaches you not only to know and understand, but also to experience how right, how true, how sweet, how lovely, how mighty, how comforting God’s Word is, wisdom beyond all wisdom. [11]

The restored conversation with God takes place within the struggles and weakness of the human condition in a world beset by evil.

Therefore, Luther regarded “purity” of teaching—proper, correct conveying of the content of Scripture—as critical.

Since God’s Word was not a matter of magical formula or of approximate equivalence of some heavenly mystery, it was of vital (that is, life-giving) importance that the Word deliver God’s intent. For God’s Word was conversation between a God who wanted his people to know him by knowing what he had to say to them, in the Word made flesh and in his expressions of mercy and love throughout Scripture. God’s Word was the active, two-edged sword which conveys a new reality, the reality of new life in Christ, to those who died to the possibility of conversation with God. Luther’s scholastic training in the academic disputation had taught him the importance of precise description of the truth. His colleague Philip Melanchthon, one of Germany’s leading biblical humanists, impressed upon him the rhetorician’s concern for accurate communication of ideas designed to move the human mind and heart. His conviction that God is a God of truth and that Christ’s truth sets sinners free to live fully human lives once again required “purity” of teaching. The purity of teaching he required meant communicating what Scripture said without interference from any other human presuppositions. Luther refused to be bound by human rules of reasoning.

Thus when God proposes the doctrines of faith, he always proposes things that are simply impossible and absurd—if, that is, you want to follow the judgment of reason. It does indeed seem ridiculous and absurd to reason that in the Lord’s Supper the body and blood of Christ are presented, that baptism is “the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5), that Christ the Son of God was conceived and carried in the womb of the Virgin, that he was born, that he suffered the most ignominious of deaths on the cross, that he was raised again, that he is now sitting at the right hand of the Father, and that he now has “authority in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18). Paul calls the Gospel of Christ the crucified “the Word of the cross” (1 Corinthians 1:18) and “the folly of preaching” (1 Corinthians 1:21), which the Jews regarded as offensive and the Greeks as a foolish doctrine. Reason judges this way about all the doctrines of the faith; for it does not understand that the supreme form of worship is to listen to the voice of God and to believe, but it supposes that what it chooses on its own and what it does with a so-called good intention and from its own devotion is pleasing to God. When God speaks, reason, therefore, regards his Word as heresy and as the word of the devil; for it seems so absurd. Such is the theology of all the sophists and of the sectarians, who measure the Word of God by reason. But faith slaughters reason and kills the beast that the whole world and all the creatures cannot kill. Thus Abraham killed it by faith in the Word of God. [12]

This quotation illustrates that Luther was aware that his own understanding of how God works through his Word fit neither into the Aristotelian logic he had learned at the university nor into the Platonic presuppositions regarding the separation of material and spiritual, and the unsuitability of the former to serve as an instrument of God’s gracious will. Nonetheless, he remained convinced that the Gospel is God’s power for the salvation of sinners (Romans 1:16). He called the various forms of the Word in which this power was imparted “means of grace,” instruments through which the Holy Spirit created a new relationship, a new conversation, between God and those who had been alienated from him.

God’s Word In The Means Of Grace

In a sort of “doctrinal last will and testament,” the Smalcald Articles (1537), Luther wrote that the Gospel of Jesus Christ “offers resources and help against sin in more than one way, for God is surpassingly rich in his grace.” He listed five examples of the Word in oral and sacramental form: the spoken word (the sermon), “by which the forgiveness of sin (the peculiar function of the Gospel) is preached to the whole world;” to it he added baptism, the Lord’s Supper, absolution, and finally, the mutual conversation and consolation of Christians with one another. [13]

Through these encounters with the Word Luther believed that God comes with the blessing of new life. Therefore, in commenting on Galatians 3:9 he emphasized that the blessing of God came to Abraham through the promise which created and sustained the Patriarch’s trust in God. For Luther understood trust to be the human response to God’s initiation of the conversation which constituted the relationship between Creator and creature.

To bless, then, is to preach and teach the Word of the Gospel, to confess Christ, and to propagate the knowledge of him among others. This is the priestly office and the continuing sacrifice of the church in the New Testament—the church which distributes this blessing by preaching, by administering the sacraments, by granting absolution, by giving comfort, and by using the Word of grace that Abraham had and that was his blessing. Since he believed this, he received the blessing. So we, too, are blessed if we believe it. And this blessing is something to boast of, not in the sight of the world but in the sight of God. For we hear that our sins are forgiven and that we have been accepted by God; that God is our Father and that we are his children, with whom he does not want to be wrathful but whom he wants to liberate from sin, death, and all evil, and to whom he wants to grant righteousness, life, and his kingdom. [14]

God’s promise to re-create his children anew through his Gospel meant, Luther concluded in comments on Galatians 4:7, “sheer liberty, adoption, and sonship.” How does this come about?

Because it is the Father who promises. But he is not a Father to me unless I respond to him as a son. First the Father offers me grace and fatherhood by means of his promises; all that remains is that I accept it. This happens when I cry out with that sigh and when I respond to his voice with the heart of a child, saying, “Father!” ... There is only the Father here, promising and calling me his child through Christ, who was born under the Law. And I for my part accept, reply with a shout, and say: “Father!” [15]

For Luther the Word came not only in oral and written form as an instrument of the Holy Spirit. The means of grace also included the sacraments, instituted by Christ’s command, bearing of God’s promise of life. In his Large Catechism he dismissed the rejection of God’s work and gift in baptism. Some ask, he asserted, how a handful of water could help the soul. The indignant reply from the Reformer:

Who does not know that water is water, if it is considered separately? But how dare you tamper thus with God’s ordinance and rip out his most precious jewel in which God has set and enclosed his ordinance and from which he does not wish it to be separated? For the real significance of the water lies in God’s Word or commandment and God’s name, and this treasure is greater and nobler than heaven and earth. [16]

He later elaborated:

In baptism, therefore, every Christian has enough to study and practice all his or her life. Christians always have enough to do to believe firmly what baptism promises and brings—victory over death and the devil, forgiveness of sin, God’s grace, the entire Christ, and the Holy Spirit with his gifts. In short, the blessings of baptism are so boundless that if our timid nature considers them, it may well doubt whether they could all be true.... Because of the throng of rich people crowding around, no one else would be able to get near. Now, here in baptism there is brought, free of charge, to every person’s door ... a treasure and medicine that swallows up death and keeps all people alive. Thus, we must regard baptism and put it to use in such a way that we may draw strength and comfort from it when our sins or conscience oppress us and say: “But I am baptized! And if I have been baptized, I have the promise that I shall be saved and have eternal life, both in soul and body.” [17]

Baptism, like every other form of God’s Word, was an act of God, according to Luther. He made that point in a sermon preached in 1528: “Baptism is not a human work, but it is God’s work.... The divine majesty ordained it. It is his command, commandment, and word.” That means that baptism will always remain an effective weapon in the battle against Satan. [18] Here, too, Luther drew the specific parallel between God’s creative action in baptism and his creation of all creatures through his Word. [19] Because his thought was guided by an “ontology of the Word,” he believed that God spoke, and the reality of salvation took place in the life of God’s chosen people. In another sermon from 1528, Luther anticipated objections that baptism could have validity for children who could not reason. It is God who speaks the Word in baptism. God’s Word remains valid for those who are sleeping; it aroused John the Baptist in his mother’s womb (Luke 1:44); it does its work also on infants when God pledges his faithfulness to them in his baptismal word. [20]

That did not mean for Luther that the treasures of baptism remained for those who had contempt for God’s promise of life and salvation. Like Paul in Romans 6, he believed that baptismal identity condemned “sinning the more that grace might abound.” The Reformer’s entire understanding of the use of the means of grace was integrated into his proper distinction of Law and Gospel. This principle guided Luther’s admonition in the Large Catechism regarding the Lord’s Supper as well as other forms of the Word. Of the “power and benefit” of the Supper, he wrote:

It is the one who believes what the words say and what they give (who receive that power and benefit), for they are not spoken or preached to stone and wood but to those who hear them, those to whom Christ says, “Take and eat,” etc. And because he offers and promises forgiveness of sins, it cannot be received except by faith.... The one who does not believe has nothing, for he lets this gracious blessing be offered to him in vain and refuses to enjoy it.” [21]

Luther strove to proclaim God’s Word through his preaching, his writing, and his use of the sacraments to recreate and sustain the people of God. For in that Word alone, he was certain, human creatures could receive the gift of trust in Christ and thus find the peace and joy that God had made them to enjoy in the first place. Therefore, he prized his calling as a teacher of that Word and found in it the means by which God had given him, and all his brothers and sisters in Christ, true life.

About the Author

Dr. Robert Kolb is professor of systematic theology and director of the Institute for Mission Studies at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri. He has authored eight books, some of which are Confessing the Faith, Reformers Define the Church, 1530–1580, and For All the Saints, Changing Perceptions of Martyrdom and Sainthood in the Lutheran Reformation. This is his second contribution to Reformation & Revival Journal.

Notes

1. Martin Luther, Luther’s Works (Saint Louis, Missouri, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Concordia and Fortress, 1958–1986), 1:49.
2. Luther’s Works, 22:13–26, 102–24, Sermon on John 1, 1537.
3. Luther’s Works, 1:11.
4. Luther’s Works, 1:11.
5. Luther’s Works, 1:16–17.
6. Luther’s Works, 1:24.
7. Luther’s Works, 1:162.
8. Luther’s Works, 1:147.
9. Luther’s Works, 1:149.
10. Luther’s Works, 53:118.
11. Preface to his German Writings, 1539, 34:285–87.
12. Luther’s Works, 26:227–28.
13. The Book of Concord, The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, eds. (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress, 2000), 319.
14. Luther’s Works, 26:245–46, on Galatians 3:9.
15. Luther’s Works, 26:389–90, on Galatians 4:7.
16. Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelische-lutherischen Kirche (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963), 693–694; The Book of Concord, 458; Large Catechism, 15–16.
17. Die Bekenntnisschriften, 699–700; The Book of Concord, 461–62; Large Catechism, 41–44.
18. Dr. Martin Luthers Werke (Weimar: Böhlau, 1883–1996), 27:33, 3–14.
19. Werke, 37:278,15–22.
20. Werke, 27:49, 12–50, 3.
21. The Book of Concord, 470.

Two Paradigms For Adherents Of Sola Scriptura

By P. Andrew Sandlin

The Protestant Reformation unwaveringly emphasized sola scriptura—Scripture alone. Certain portions of the late medieval church had posited (whether explicitly or implicitly) ecclesiastical tradition as an independent source of authority. The reformers opposed this: for example, Mariology, veneration of the saints, purgatory, and indulgences had no part in the Bible’s revelation. To hold, as Rome did, that they comprised ingredients of the Christian Faith was to undercut the Gospel. The Latin slogan sola scriptura meant that the Bible alone is the church’s sole, ultimate authority. All other authorities—Church, state, parents, and so on—do not speak a divine word. Each holds only a derivative authority, subordinate to the Sacred Scriptures. [1]

It is commonly held by both Protestants and Roman Catholics alike that sola scriptura was an innovation the Reformers introduced into Western Christianity. Actually, this is not the case at all. There was wide acceptance of sola scriptura in certain sectors of the late medieval church. [2] Unfortunately, there was also the viewpoint against which the Reformers were reacting—ecclesiastical tradition as a separate, independent authority.

At the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic answer to the Protestant Reformation, the Latin church codified the “two-source” theory of revelational authority: both the Sacred Scriptures and unwritten tradition handed down in the Church were deemed equally authoritative. [3] It is this theory which the original Protestants and their successors vigorously opposed. To embrace the “two-source” theory of divine revelation, they believed, was to erase the Creator-creature distinction. [4] This is the great error of Tridentine Roman Catholicism, and it is parallel to its twin, salvation by both faith and works. Both erase the Creator-creature distinction. This is a dangerous form of synergism. The Protestants recognized that man and God cooperate no more in salvation than they do in revelation. God’s revelation to man is an absolute revelation in whose origin man does not cooperate. God’s salvation of man is an absolute salvation in whose origin man does not cooperate. Man is the object of both revelation and salvation, not the subject. Sola scriptura guards the Creator-creature distinction as it relates to God’s objective revelation to man in the Bible. [5]

Reformers, Not Revolutionaries

In contesting Rome’s “two-source” theory of revelation, the reformers were by no means arguing that the Western church’s doctrine was altogether erroneous. The reformers were just that—reformers, not revolutionaries. They were quite willing to affirm the inherited ecumenical orthodoxy of the Latin Church, for instance. The reformers were all Trinitarians, and affirmed the dogma of the ecumenical councils. [6] They did this not because they acknowledged the ultimate authority of church councils, but because they believed that these early ecumenical councils expressed Biblical teachings on the core elements of Christianity.

Radicals, Not Reformers

This distinguished the Protestant Reformation from the so-called Radical Reformation, the Anabaptists, the Unitarians, and so on. [7] These latter also affirmed a sort of sola scriptura. To them, it meant that the Bible alone is our authority and, therefore, orthodox Christianity is suspect.

Many of the radical reformers questioned or denied the Trinity. The reformers rightly found this abhorrent—no less abhorrent, and perhaps more abhorrent, than the “two-source” theory of revelation by Rome. While Rome believed in a “two-source” theory of revelation, the radical reformers believed in no tradition of any kind. The Protestants, however, believed in a biblical tradition. A tradition gaining great currency in the Church that flows out of the Sacred Scriptures themselves is authoritative because it is biblical. [8] Therefore, the reformers and their successors did not deny a positive role to tradition. In fact, Lutheran theologian, Martin Chemnitz, in his massive refutation of the Council of Trent, conspicuously acknowledged this crucial role of tradition.  [9] So did the Protestant Irish Articles of Religion, which explicitly affirmed the early ecumenical creeds. [10] John Calvin himself arranged his great systematic theology, Institutes of the Christian Religion, around the Apostles Creed. All of the early Protestants argued in favor of ancient catholic orthodoxy.

Regula Fidei

This understanding of the Bible’s authority and the godly ecclesiastical tradition that flows out of it created a particular standard of interpretation, a regula fidei, or rule of faith. This was a certain traditional way of interpreting the Bible. Luther, Calvin, and other reformers gleaned great nuggets from the Word of God that had been obscured by the highly static exegesis of the late medieval period. For one thing, they recovered the Pauline-Augustinian doctrine of justification by faith alone. But they were not revolutionaries. They believed in a traditional exegesis bounded by ancient catholic orthodoxy.

This is exactly what the patristic church had held. It did not hold the later Roman Catholic idea of Scripture and tradition as separate sources of authority, but neither did it hold the Radical Reformation view that the Bible overthrows all tradition. It held that the Bible alone is our ultimate objective authority, but that there is a legitimate, traditional way of interpreting the Bible. [11]

Hermeneutics

Today we hear a great deal about “hermeneutics.” This is really just a sophisticated term for interpretation—usually, the interpretation of the Bible. Even among those who hold to the highest view of the Bible’s formal authority, there is great disagreement on its interpretation. I refer not mainly to the conclusions of that interpretation, for instance, Calvinism versus Arminianism, amillennialism versus postmillennialism, dispensationalism versus covenant theology, and infant baptism versus professors’ baptism. Rather, I refer more fundamentally to the rules that govern interpretation itself. Different views of these rules lead to different interpretations of specific passages of the Bible and to different theological views.

Some hold that the Bible must be interpreted in its original historical context (as best as we today can ascertain that) and have a single intended meaning. Others agree that it should be interpreted in its original historical context, but hold to a sensus plenior: It can have more than one intended meaning. Still others hold that all interpretation must be canonically contextual—that is, the entire Bible is the context within which a single text is interpreted. Still others are less committed to the specific historical meaning at the time the Bible was penned than to an ultimate, general meaning that God intended to transcend any particular historical situation. Some even wish to distinguish between meaning and significance! These are only a few of the hermeneutical “options” among those who affirm the infallibility of the Bible. Among those who do not affirm the infallibility of the Bible, the hermeneutical options are, unfortunately, even greater.

Historic Versus Innovative Exegesis

More basic and more crucial than any of these differences is that great distinction among Protestant interpreters between those who embrace the original Protestant view, that is, a traditional way of interpreting the Bible, and those who have sided, intentionally or not, with the Radical Reformation, which does not recognize the bounds of orthodoxy in the interpretative endeavor. For purposes of classification, we may label these views as historic exegesis and innovative exegesis. Of course, those who embrace historic exegesis do not deny the permissibility—or even the necessity—of all exegetical innovation. They simply oppose innovation that would overturn orthodox Christianity. [12] Similarly, adherents of innovative exegesis do not wish to throw Christian orthodoxy overboard; they may hold to certain orthodox tenets, but the crucial point is that they are willing to subject those tenets to what they consider contrary exegetical evidence.

Protestant Liberalism

Some examples will suffice. Protestant liberals of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries embraced an assertedly “neutral,” “objective,” “scientific” form of grammatical-historical exegesis, that is finding out what the Scriptures meant when they were originally written. Almost all liberal exegetes were committed to this approach. [13] These liberal Protestants were quite willing, if necessary, to throw overboard essential tenets of orthodox Christianity—the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible, and so on—if the conclusions of their grammatical-historical exegesis warranted this abandonment. Superficially, they seemed to be carrying on the best tradition of the Protestant reformers, who lent great weight to the original meaning of biblical passages and their historic context. What the liberal Protestants did not share with the Protestant reformers, however, was a commitment to orthodox Christianity. Therefore, they were quite willing to overturn orthodox Christianity on the cutting table of grammatical-historical exegesis. The modern liberal Protestant, James Barr, has suggested that this is merely the consistent outcome of the grammatical-historical exegesis employed by the original reformers. [14] Whatever may be the merit of that suggestion, it is certain that the reformers themselves would have found it abhorrent. They were categorically devoted to orthodox Christianity and would have found it astounding that Biblical exegesis may overturn orthodox Christianity That, however, is precisely the viewpoint of the literal innovative exegetes.

Sectarianism

A more conservative version surfaced among those who are willing to throw the Christian creeds overboard if they are convinced those creeds can be shown at variance with the Bible’s teaching. A most flagrant example of this was Alexander Campbell, founder of the so-called “Church of Christ”:

I have endeavored to read the Scriptures as though no one had read them before me ... and as much on my guard against reading them to-day, through the medium of my own views yesterday, or a week ago, as I am against being influenced by any foreign name, authority, or system whatever. [15]

This is an astounding statement, but quite consistent if one denies the need for a traditional method of interpreting the Bible.

Consistent Preterism

Another example of innovative exegesis is in the so-called “consistent Preterist” school of recent years. Most of its supporters are willing to jettison the physical second coming of Christ and the physical resurrection of the saints, holding that these events occurred in or about the destruction in A.D. 70. [16] This clearly deviates from the Christian doctrine expressed in the early ecumenical creeds, and the “consistent Preterists” acknowledge this deviation. They argue, however, that this deviation is justified on the ground that the Bible, in fact, requires just such a deviation.

There is no longer a traditional method of interpreting the Bible among the innovative exegetes; each exegete, as long as he practices his craft properly, is free to arrive at any conclusions, as long as he can justify them biblically.

Historic Exegesis

The historic exegetes find this approach most troubling—even dangerous. While they uncompromisingly embrace sola scriptura, and oppose Rome’s “two-source” theory of revelation, they equally oppose the idea that a few isolated individuals should be permitted to overthrow the time-tested understanding of Scripture. In Thomas Sowell’s notable language, they embrace the “constrained vision” of humanity. [17] This is the idea that knowledge is dispersed widely, among many people in the contemporary world, as well as over many previous generations. They do not believe that the highest form of knowledge inheres in a few bright individuals of any age. For the historic exegetes, this is another way of saying that there is a traditional way of interpreting the Bible. This way is really the bounds of historic, orthodox Christianity. Princeton theologian and exegete, Charles Hodge, was one of the leading proponents of this view:

Protestants admit that there has been an uninterrupted tradition of truth from the protoevangelium to the close of the Apocalypse, so that there has been a stream of traditionary teaching flowing through the Christian church from the day of Pentecost to the present time. This tradition is so far a rule of faith that nothing contrary to it can be true. Christians do not stand isolated, each holding his own creed. They constitute one body, having one common creed. Rejecting that creed, or any of its parts, is the rejection of the fellowship of Christians, incompatible with the communion of saints, or membership in the body of Christ. In other words, Protestants admit that there is a common faith of the Church, which no man is at liberty to reject and be a Christian. [18]

Hodge succinctly expresses the Protestant view that biblical tradition affirmed by the Church catholic is an inviolable rule of faith. We are not free to abandon it, even in our biblical exegesis.

Exegesis within this Christian tradition is desirable, even if it sometimes errs. While, for example, many of the Patristic exegetes may have relied a little too heavily on a mystical and, therefore, fanciful exegesis, those who remained within the fold of the orthodox faith were practicing a legitimate Christian exegesis, no matter how erroneous their specific conclusions may have been. Likewise, while exegetes during the time of the Protestant Reformation may have relied a little too heavily on the immediate historical context of specific Biblical passages (not taking into account, for example the entire range of the Bible), they stayed within the confines of orthodox Christianity, and thus their exegesis was legitimate Christian exegesis. This traditional way of interpreting the Bible holds that the ancient ecumenical orthodoxy is an implicit deduction from the Bible’s explicit teaching. In the language of the Presbyterians’ Westminster Confession of Faith, it is “good and necessary consequence.” If, therefore, ancient catholic orthodoxy is what the Bible itself implicitly teaches, to interpret the Bible contrary to that orthodoxy is to wrongly interpret the Bible.

Historical exegesis and innovative exegesis are, in fact, two distinct, definable paradigms, even visions. They constitute different approaches to the Bible and to its interpretation and, in many cases, lead to different, sometimes radically different, conclusions.

About the Author

P. Andrew Sandlin is executive vice-president of Chalcedon, Vallecito, California, and editor of the Chalcedon Report. He has written hundreds of scholarly and popular articles and several monographs. This is his first contribution to Reformation & Revival Journal.

Notes

1. J. I. Packer, “‘Sola Scriptura’ in History and Today,” in ed., John Warwick Montgomery, God’s Inerrant Word (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1974), 43–62.
2. Alister McGrath, The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker, 1987), 148–151.
3. Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker [1931], 1990), 2:80.
4. Cornelius Van Til, The Doctrine of Scripture (no loc., Den Dulk Foundation, 1967), 35.
5. Auguste Lecerf, An Introduction to Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker [1949], 1981), 294–301.
6. Charles Augustus Briggs, Theological Symbolics (New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1914), 310.
7. Harold O. J. Brown, Heresies (Garden City, New York: Harper & Row, 1984), 326–327.
8. Philip Schaff, The Principle of Protestantism (Philadelphia and Boston: United Church Press, 1964), 115–117.
9. Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent (St. Louis, Missouri: Concordia, 1971), 1:235–236, 249–250, 258, 267–271.
10. Creeds, 3:528.
11. J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (New York: Harper & Row, 1960 edition), 33.
12. James Orr, Progress of Dogma (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Revell, n.d.), 17, 31.
13. James Farrar, History of Interpretation (London: MacMillan and Company, 1886), xxv-xxvi.
14. James Barr, Beyond Fundamentalism (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), 173.
15. Cited in Nathan O. Hatch, “The Christian Movement and the Demand for a Theology of the People,” in D. G. Hart, ed., Reckoning With the Past (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker, 1995), 171.
16. R. C. Leonard and J. E. Leonard, The Promise of His Coming (Chicago, Illinois: Laudemont Press, 1996).
17. Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions (New York: Basic Books, 1987).
18. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1981), 1:113–114.

A Brief History Of Divine Revelation

By Fred G. Zaspel

Surely among the most important considerations that we can ever entertain is this: God has spoken. It is a staggering thought, and it carries far-reaching implications. That God has spoken and that we are enabled to hear his Word is a marvelous condescension of grace. It is life’s greatest privilege to hear him. But it is a privilege which entails enormous responsibility.

“General revelation,” God’s self-disclosure in creation and in providence, offers us much. We can learn from it of God’s great power and Godhood, his glory, his goodness, his wisdom, his patience, even something of his righteous requirements of us. And since the very beginning, men and women created in the image of God have heard God speak. Although in varying degrees God’s self-disclosure has been universally suppressed and denied, it has remained constant and evident and sufficient to render all of humanity guilty of conscious rebellion against its creator (Psalm 19:1–3; Romans 1:18–21).

But as marvelous as God’s general revelation is, it lacks specificity and detail. We need something more. We are ignorant, and we are rebellious; and so we must have more knowledge of him than is available generally through the created order and in our conscience. We need desperately to know what his Law requires and how that Law can be kept. More than that, we need desperately to know how we can find remedy for our rebellion. We want to know if God will have us back. We want to know how he can take us back and under what terms. For all this, and so much more, God’s highest earthly creatures require more revelation, a further self-disclosure of God.

Amazingly, he has condescended to our need. God has spoken “at many times and in various ways” (Hebrews 1:1). The ancient prophets, his commissioned spokesmen, relayed God’s Word received through vision, dream, and other methods of direct communication. “Thus says the Lord,” they would announce. “The Word of the Lord came to me, saying, ...” “The Spirit of the Lord speaks through me, his Word is upon my tongue” (2 Samuel 23:2). Each of these men was God’s own mouthpiece, and through them he made himself known to the world. Through them we hear him. The Old Testament Scriptures have God’s own imprimatur. More, they are themselves his Word.

But God was not done—he had more to say. And as privileged and as royal as the ancient prophets were, God’s fullest self-disclosure would require a still greater ambassador. Climactic revelation requires a special, unique spokesman. It requires one who is thoroughly and intimately familiar with God. Such an assignment can go to “no one less than God’s very own Son” (Hebrews 1:2). [1] “He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being” (Hebrews 1:3); he is uniquely qualified for the task. Jesus Christ, the only begotten, the unique Son, is the supreme revelation of the Father (John 1:18).

It is not surprising that the Lord Jesus fulfills the prophetic office. He is uniquely qualified, and as Moses himself prophesied (Deuteronomy 18:15–19), his Word is final. Indeed, “Listen to him!” was the Father’s own command (Matthew 17:5). That the words of God’s Son should be heard and heeded is a matter of the utmost importance.

In fact, Jesus himself said that his Word was the Word of the Father. “My teaching is not mine but his who sent me” (John 7:16). “the Word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me” (John 14:24). “The Words that you gave to me I have given to them” (John 17:8). Jesus understood himself to be God’s special ambassador to the world. Accordingly, his teaching was marked by a unique authority (Matthew 7:28–29). His “You have heard that it was said ... but I tell you” is either unthinkable blasphemy, or it is unique, divine self-disclosure.

All this is to say that God has spoken climactically and most fully in his Son. We have in Jesus Christ God’s fullest—indeed, his final—revelation. God’s chief ambassador to the world is no less than his own Son.

But if God’s climactic and final revelation was in and through his Son, how does that benefit us? What good is it to us that God spoke fully and finally 2000 years ago in another world, another culture, another language? Living at this late date, have we missed out? After all, we cannot hear him speak—he has returned to glory.

This is precisely the question which Jesus was entertaining and answering in his “Upper Room Discourse” (John 14–16). It was the night before his death, and Jesus had informed his disciples of his soon departure. They were bothered by the announcement, of course. But interestingly, Jesus’ instruction to them focused on the uniqueness of the person and ministry—the role—of the Holy Spirit. Of primary interest is his unique designation of the Third Person: he is “another helper” (allon parakleton, 14:16)—a replacement, if you will, another Jesus. He will come to be for the disciples the helper Jesus had been to them. His is the continuation of the ministry of the Lord Jesus. This “replacement” idea is emphasized in the following verses. Jesus promised, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you” (14:18). This statement has been variously interpreted to refer to Jesus’ resurrection or his second coming. But as true as both of these interpretations are, they do not exhaust the significance of our Lord’s promise. In context his point seems to be that he will return to them via the Holy Spirit, the “other helper.” The Holy Spirit is the continuation of the ministry of Jesus. Indeed, to this point in time, he is the climax of our Lord’s work.

Now these words are most often taken in reference to the Holy Spirit’s ministry to all the people of Christ. There is, of course, a great sense in which that is true. By his Spirit we all are taught and led in the truth and in the ways of God (1 Thessalonians 4:9; 1 John 2:27). But Jesus’ point here is much more specific than that. He is not speaking broadly of provision to all believers. He is speaking narrowly of his specific provision to his apostles, his specially commissioned ambassadors. He is providing for the continuation of his teaching ministry.

Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me. I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you (John 14:24–26). 

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. (John 16:12–15).

Simply put, Jesus’ teaching ministry to his apostles would not end with his departure. Rather, his teaching ministry to them would continue via his replacement, the Holy Spirit, the “other helper.” He is not at all saying that the Spirit will “teach every believer everything” or cause every believer to “remember everything which he said” or “guide every believer into all truth.” No, that was not what he said, and that has not happened. His promise is to his apostles. This is the task for which he had called them. They will be taught “everything.” The Holy Spirit will remind them of “everything” which Jesus had spoken. The Spirit will guide them into “all truth.” This is the Spirit’s role. Jesus’ teaching ministry to his disciples was not complete when he died, but through his replacement, the Holy Spirit, he had provided for its continuation and completion.

So there is something of a parallel here. Just as the Son had come to speak for the Father, so also the Spirit would come to speak for the Son. “He will not speak on his own;” he will speak for and of Christ. This is his great role in the history of revelation. He was commissioned to ensure that these chosen men would recall all that the Lord had taught them when he was with them, to guide them into a fuller understanding of it, and to continue that teaching until it is complete. He would give them illumination, fuller revelation, and new revelation. This “other helper” would bring the climactic revelation of the Son to its culmination.

So Jesus is emphasizing not only the uniqueness of the Holy Spirit. He is stressing the uniqueness of the apostles! They are the repositories of God’s full and final revelation. God has spoken fully and finally in no less than his Son. God’s climactic Word “was declared at first through the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him” (Hebrews 2:3).

Notice this strand of thought in our Lord’s high priestly prayer. “The words you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them. ... As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. ... My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their word” (John 17:8, 18, 20). That is, the apostles were given a very real power of attorney. Equipped by the teaching of our Lord himself and via his Spirit, they were our Lord’s commissioned spokesmen, his representatives. It is in this sense they are referred to as “the foundation” of the Church (Ephesians 2:20; cf. Revelation 21:14). Perhaps if it were not for Protestant fear over the Roman Catholic abuse of Matthew 16:18, this would be the unanimous understanding of our Lord’s designation of Peter as “the rock” on which he would build his Church. It is truly a marvelous promise and provision. As far as the apostles were concerned, they were weak as any other men. They were uneducated. They were very ordinary men. Yet they are given this privileged position: they will deliver the Word of God through the Son to the world. From God the Father, through the Son, through the Spirit, and through the apostles to the world. In this sense, the apostles are “foundational” to the Church.

We evangelicals are instinctively suspicious of tradition. Tradition—ideas, customs and beliefs “handed down” from previous generations—can be both enslaving and wrong. But here is tradition worth dying for—divine truth handed down from the Father, the Son, and the Spirit through the apostles to us. “Stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter” (2 Thessalonians 2:15). Indeed, this tradition is the very basis of our fellowship—”Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us” (2 Thessalonians 3:6). Theological and ethical instruction from the apostles is universally binding. Indeed, it is “from God to us.”

So then we have advanced yet another step—the uniqueness of Christ; the uniqueness of the Holy Spirit; the uniqueness of the apostles—and, therefore, the uniqueness of the New Testament Scriptures. How and where did the Holy Spirit lead these men into “all truth”? How and where did he remind them of and explore the significance of our Lord’s teaching? In John 21:24, the Gospel of John identifies John’s “witness” to the Lord Jesus with his own writing. And it is perhaps significant that the provisions which Jesus specified form an apt description of the New Testament Scriptures. The Spirit would “remind” the apostles of what Jesus did and said; we have that in the New Testament Gospels. He would “lead them into all truth” and show them the fuller significance of what Jesus had said and done; this is what is proclaimed in the Acts and expounded in the Epistles. And he would “show them things to come;” we have this in the prophecies of the Epistles and in the book of Revelation. God’s Word to us reached its climax in his Son, and this we have reduced to writing in the pages of our New Testament. It is not the “red letters” only. The whole of it taken together is God’s fullest Word to us.

This is a very significant fact for us. Most Christians ask at some time, How can we know the New Testament is the Word of God? How can we be sure? How can we know it is truth? How can we know it is accurate? Must we rely on an inner witness? Must we rely on the Church? Archaeology? Religious tradition? No, as helpful as these are, we have something much better. We have Christ’s own word on it. He chose and commissioned these men for exactly this purpose. He invested them with his own authority. He sent them his Spirit to teach and guide them infallibly. The apostles’ witness to Christ and his teaching and work would not be their own invention or even relying merely on their own memory. No. It is the very Word of the Son himself. Such is our Lord’s promise.

Accordingly, when we read of the Scriptures coming to us by the inspiration of the Spirit, we should not think of the Holy Spirit acting on his own. He came to further the teaching of Christ. This also is how we should think when we read of “the law of Christ”—it is not the red letters only but the entire body of writings given by the Spirit through the apostles.

And this is the repeated claim of the apostles themselves. They do not merely preach the Gospel; they do so “by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven” (1 Peter 1:12). Their word was in fact the Word of God (1 Thessalonians 2:13). More specifically, the apostles’ words are to be regarded as the very Word of Christ. “Anyone who claims to be a prophet, or to have spiritual powers, must acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 14:37). Paul’s doctrine came by the revelation of Christ (Galatians 1:14ff, et al.). His detailed exhortations are “in the Lord Jesus” and “through the Lord Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 4:1–2ff). His commands are “in the name of the Lord Jesus” (2 Thessalonians 3:6; cf. 3:12). Indeed, the apostles’ words are themselves “the Words of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Timothy 6:3). This is perhaps most graphically illustrated in the book of Revelation, written by the apostle John. Over and again he reminds us that what he writes to us, the church, he writes from the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus appears and tells him, “What you see, write in a book” (Revelation 1:11). “To the angel of the church at Ephesus, write ...” (2:1 etc.). “I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, ‘Write ...’” (14:13). “Then he said to me, ‘Write ...’” (19:9). “He who sat on the throne ... said to me, ‘Write ...’” (21:5). The words of the apostles bear a unique authority. They form the basis of fellowship and the standard of truth (2 Thessalonians 2:15; 3:14) precisely because they speak for Christ; they carry on and deliver to us God’s final Word through his Son.

A very natural and necessary corollary of this is that the New Testament writings are God’s final and therefore sufficient Word. The apostles were given “all truth” (John 16:13), and we dare not add to it (Revelation 22:18). They bring God’s self-disclosure to its completion. It is “once for all” (Jude 3) and must now be held in trust (1 Timothy 6:20; 2 Timothy 1:14). The Church is the custodian of the truth, not the giver of new truth. The truth has been deposited into our hands, and it is ours faithfully to preserve and hand down to the next generation. “What you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well” (2 Timothy 2:2). We do not need continuing revelation—it would be superfluous. We already possess “all truth.” The full deposit has been made. What each new generation needs is a fresh confrontation with this truth which has been once for all revealed. What has been given is enough. It is sufficient to guide every man and woman of God safely and clearly into precisely all that God requires of them (2 Timothy 3:16–17).

This why our Bible is such a significant book. It is not just another book. It is not one book among others. It is not even one of a select few. It is unique.

Further, this is why we say our Bible is an authoritative book. It bears the stamp of divine authority. Is it the writings of men? Yes, but it is also the Word of God. And so the Church does not stand above it; it stands above the Church. It demands that we subject all teaching to it and that we never subject it to anything (1 John 4:1ff; Galatians 1:6–8). No church, no new religious sect, no creed, no consensus of scholars can improve on or refute what has come from God to us. It is the final court of appeal. Our doctrinal beliefs may well change, but if they do it must only be in order to come into conformity to this book. It must rule supreme.

Do you see what a privilege it is to have such a wonderful treasure? Just try to imagine life without it! Well, you don’t have to imagine—just look at our world! Our society has ignored it and rejected it. Our society has no standard of truth, no measure of right and wrong. This is why we have to debate such (to us) obvious issues like euthanasia, abortion, and homosexuality. If our world is characterized by anything, it is characterized by confusion and moral uncertainty. The people of this world are “like sheep having no shepherd.” In contrast to them we have such confidence and clear direction in truth and matters of right and wrong that the world accuses us of being arrogant! “Everything is so simple for you, isn’t it?” they say. Well, in this regard at least, yes, things are simple for us. But that is not due to any brilliance on our part. It is just that we have received God’s full revelation in his Son. It is not arrogance at all—we have submitted our minds and lives to what he has said, and having done so, life is simple. Issues are clear. We are not left wondering what is right and what is wrong—these things are given to us from God himself.

This is why once a church surrenders its loyalty to the Scriptures it immediately begins a rapid tailspin downward into chaos and confusion. When matters of truth are decided by majority opinion rather than by Christ’s lordship, and when his prophetic and kingly offices are denied, confusion inevitably follows.

God’s full and final Word came 2000 years ago in another culture, another language, another world, and to another people. But thankfully, it did not die there. Before his departure God’s Son made full provision for us today. His Word from the Father would faithfully be given to the apostles via the Holy Spirit, “the other helper.” God’s Word has come, and God’s Word remains.

About the Author

Fred G. Zaspel is pastor of Word of Life Baptist Church, Pottsville, Pennsylvania, and serves as adjunct professor of religious studies, Pennsylvania State University.

Notes

1. The writer to the Hebrews expresses this thought graphically. “Son” (huio) lacks the definite article, a construction which emphasizes the character or quality of the noun in question. Hence, the expanded translation given above. See the discussion in Daniel Wallace, Greek Grammar: Beyond the Basics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 245. The sense of the statement is that in contrast to “the prophets,” the one who is the very Son of God—indeed, the one who is “greater” and “more excellent” (v.4)—speaks with climactic and eclipsing significance.

What Do We Mean By “The Word Of God?”

By Tom Wells

The question at the head of this article may seem a little basic for readers of Reformation & Revival Journal, but it is of such central importance that we need to be clear about it before tackling other issues. There are a number of things that can be called “the Word of God,” so let us see if we can sort them out.

First, I will simply note in passing that God the Son is called in Scripture, “the Word” and “The Word of God” (John 1:1, 14; Revelation 19:13). This title meets English readers as something of a mystery when they first come to the Bible. As a title it had affinities with similar words related to God (or the gods) in middle-eastern culture and among Greek speakers as well. It was the kind of word or phrase that alerted the reader that something “divine” was in the air when it was used. [1] Each religion or culture filled it with its own ideas, and that was true of Christianity also. To find out what it meant, then, we must see how John uses it. When we do that we may say the following: the “Word” refers to God’s self-expression in his Son in such a way that the Son is both God and yet does not exhaust God. He has the very nature of God, but the Word can be distinguished from both Father and Spirit.

Second, in its usual sense as speech or writing, the Word of God would include everything that God has ever said at any time and at any place in heaven or in earth. Of most of this we are totally ignorant. Assuming that he speaks to the elect angels, we know almost nothing of what he has said. The same is true of what he says to Satan and his forces. Yet in both cases what God said/says could certainly be called the Word of God. [2]

Third, this leads to the important point that for us the Word of God must be limited to what he has revealed to us in the Bible. This is not to deny that God works through our minds and judgments to convey his will. Nor do we deny that we receive impulses that are, in fact, from him. There is, however, an enormously important distinction to be made when we compare his activity within us to his written revelation. We are sure that his Word is inerrant; we have no such assurance concerning our minds, our judgments, or our impulses. Only the Bible, properly interpreted, provides certainty.

With these facts as a backdrop for our discussion let us sharpen our focus a bit with a question: What is it about the Bible that can be properly called the Word of God?

The Bible And Its Words

For many the answer to this question is easy. The Word of God and the words of the Bible are the same thing. But that answer simply moves us to ask, “Which words?” There are a multitude of Bible translations and their words do not agree. Which translation, then, contains the right words? Is it the New International Version, the New King James Version, the New Revised Standard Version, or some other? You see the problem: If the words and the Word are identical, then which set of words must we choose?

A frequent answer to this question and, in one sense a profoundly true answer, is this: The original Hebrew and Greek words make up the Word of God. The difficulty with this answer is obvious to most of us. The typical Christian does not read Greek and Hebrew. What about him or her? Even if he did, how could he convey the Word of God to others who had not learned the languages? Must a man or a woman become a linguist in order to be saved—salvation by academic achievement? That might be a gospel for a handful of scholars, but not for the rest of us! Clearly we are on the wrong track here.

I said above, however, that there is a profoundly true sense in which the Hebrew and Greek words make up the Word of God. What I meant was this. Those words (along with some Aramaic in the Old Testament) are the words inspired by God. That is tremendously important, yet even that is subject to easy misunderstanding. To see what I mean, step back from the words for a moment and think instead of the content of those words, the points they convey. Suppose that is the focus of the doctrine of inspiration—what then?

Let me tell you a story that will illustrate what I mean. Some years ago a man visited the church where I am a pastor. He told me that he had previously visited a nearby church and asked what they knew about our church. The pastor said that he didn’t know a whole lot about us, but he knew that we didn’t preach the Word of God! (Talk about an awesome indictment! It tempts me to turn aside and tell you not to ask one church about another. But I refrain!)

You may have guessed by now that the other pastor was not happy with our choice of translations. It appears that he thought the words of the King James Version were inspired and the words of other translations were not. Perhaps he was right and I was wrong. At least some people think this is worth arguing about. The fact is, however, I might have turned his own argument against him. We could not have settled the question of which translation was the inspired Word of God. That would have been too tough for fellows like us. But I could have pointed out that if we must use inspired words in our preaching, the only way he could meet his own criterion would be for him to recite the King James Version and add absolutely no words of his own when he preached. Otherwise he would have been just like me—preaching something other than the Word of God! If the words and the Word of God are the same things, then recitation is the only way to “preach” the Word of God. Is that what he did? I suspect not.

The answer to our problem lies in this fact: we are not primarily interested in the words themselves but in their content, the truth they contain. Notice the word “primarily” in the previous sentence. Let me tell you why it is important. The words in the original languages were there to convey content or truth. If you and I know and embrace that truth, then we know and embrace God’s Word. It makes no difference whatsoever what words were used to convey it to us and it makes no difference what words we use to convey it to others. If the words we use accurately convey the content of Scripture, that is all that is necessary. The content is the Word of God. That is why the phrase “the Word of God” is sometimes replaced by the word “truth.” [3] The focus in both cases is on content and not words.

What about the original words, then? They act as a standard against which everything that claims to be the Word of God must be measured. It is not necessary that you and I be able to apply that standard ourselves, that is, to read the original languages. I feel confident in saying that any of the committee versions (if you ignore their footnotes!) adequately convey the Word of God, that is, the truths contained in the original manuscripts. [4] Our conclusion for this section is as follows: those who use the committee versions of the Bible have little to worry about in following their lead. They have in their hands the Word of God.

The Relation Of Words And Meanings

But we are not yet done.

The other basic point that you must grasp is this: generally speaking individual words have no meanings, or rather, they have so many meanings that you cannot glance at them and know what they mean. Take the word “cut,” for example. What does it mean? The dictionary at my desk—by no means an exhaustive dictionary—gives 92 definitions for the word “cut.” [5] What conclusion shall we draw from this? Communication is impossible? Not at all! (If it were, you would have stopped reading this article long before now.)

The proper conclusion is this: Words in groups have meanings. Context (phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, books)—context determines what a word means. We understand this instinctively. I listed in the previous sentence some things that constitute context, but I could easily add to that list. For example, social context is very important. “Murder the bums!” means one thing at a baseball game and something entirely different in gang warfare. Is all this overwhelming? Not really. We do not often think about it, but subconsciously we sort out these kinds of things every day. And we usually get them right.

As Bible students, however, we need to pursue this matter of meaning and context further. For some years we have insisted upon what is called “verbal inspiration,” a phrase that is accurate enough in a way but is often both ridiculed and misunderstood. Those who have ridiculed it have often said something like this: the thoughts of the Bible were inspired but not the words. For years this passed as a plausible criticism of verbal inspiration in some circles, but of course it was nothing of the kind. If we speak of the inspiration of the Bible at all, we have to be speaking of its words. A typical Bible is made up of ink and paper combined in such a way as to give us words and sentences. Can we speak of the inspiration of the ink or paper? Not if we want anyone to take us seriously! What is left? The words (and the sentences they form). If the Bible is inspired it is the words that are inspired. The only access we have to the thoughts of the writers and of God are the words. Inspiration, if it exists at all, is bound to be verbal.

This, I think, is universally recognized these days. No one could accuse the liberal theologian, James Barr, of conservative bias, so we will let him make the point for us:

[The Bible’s] linguistic form, far from being something antithetical to its “real meaning,” is the means by which the meaning is conveyed; it is the criterion by which we test all interpretations which claim to state the meaning. The basic principle of interpretation is: why was it said in this way, and not in some other way? The linguistic form of the text is not a jumble of dead symbols from which by some process of decipherment meaning has to be extracted; it is the expression of meaning.... This being so ... we no longer have any good reason to be shy about including a reference to the verbal form of the Bible in any assertions we make about its status as a whole.... What we know about the authors, the ideas, the inner theology and so on is known ultimately from the verbal form of the Bible. [6]

This truth, however, has led to distortion and misunderstanding in another way. It has led Bible-believers to put undue stress on its words individually rather than as parts of sentences and the larger context. Many a Bible study and sermon has been made up primarily of word studies. Of course we who preach and teach must know the meanings of the words in the Bible, but we must also recognize that when we have looked up those words in a dictionary we have simply learned what they may mean in their context, not what they do mean. If they are to be experienced as the Word of God and not simply as words, we must understand them as sentences and paragraphs, etc. To put it another way, the Word of God is found in the combinations of words the Bible contains. The Word of God is the content and the truth conveyed by those combinations. Concentrating on individual words distorts the meaning of Scripture and keeps us from understanding it. On the other hand, recognition of this fact works for the good of all of us who read the text. Let me show you how.

In Luke 20:10 the word “produce” appears. (Humor me here and pronounce the word “produce” to yourself right now.) If we consult our dictionary it will, in effect, ask us whether we want to know the meaning of the noun or the verb. Without the verse in front of you, however, you probably don’t know which it is. But if you said it to yourself a moment ago when I asked you to, you made up your mind without any evidence! If you pronounced it with emphasis on the first syllable (“pro-”) you unconsciously opted for the noun which often means something like “farm products.” If you pronounced it with emphasis on the second syllable (“-duce”) you unconsciously opted for the verb that often means “to manufacture” or “to make.” See how helpless you are without a context? That is the way we all are if we treat words as isolated entities. In that case we need an enormous amount of help.

But the situation changes dramatically when we add the surrounding words. Even a single sentence makes an enormous difference. Here is the sentence that the word “produce” appears in. “When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants in order that they might give him his share of the produce of the vineyard; but the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed.” That’s much better! Depending on how familiar you are with the Bible a great deal more context may flood your mind. In fact, a whole parable and much of its meaning may already have come to mind as you read this.

Let me try to show you the significance of this little exercise that you have just gone through. It has often worried me that there seem to be so many layers of “experts” or scholars that fall between me and the meaning of the text. After all, wasn’t the Bible written for ordinary people in ordinary jobs faced with the ordinary difficulties of life? Surely the answer is yes; that was exactly God’s intention in giving it to us, to make it accessible to all kinds of people. And here is the point: contextual reading of the Scripture makes its major points accessible—humanly speaking—to all kinds of men, women, and children once they have it in their own language. The more you read, the more you will learn.

Does that mean we do not need the “experts” at all? Not quite. Language groups without the Scriptures are still at an immense handicap; they need linguists and preachers very badly indeed. This ought to remind us, however, that ultimately the understanding and embracing of Scripture depends on the work of God. Do you remember the words of the Lord Jesus when he spoke of the “harvest,” that is, the progress of Christian work, as having a Lord who controls it for his purposes (Matthew 9:38)? That means that whether any person hears it or not depends on God. It also means that once a man or woman has heard it, whether they understand it or not also depends on the work of God. We need him to send us his Word through his agents, but for most of us in the western world he has already done that. We also need his Spirit to make us to understand what we read, but believers have the Spirit of God (Romans 8:9). Beyond that our scholars and pastors can help us greatly. None of us is self-sufficient. God has made us, however, capable of learning the Scriptures for ourselves if we will concentrate primarily on portions much larger than single words.

Summing Up

I have tried in this article to bring home to you two major points. First, the phrase “the Word of God” is used in two distinct ways in Scripture. In a few cases it is a name or title given to the second person of the Trinity, God the Son.

Its major use, however, is as a description of the Bible itself. We may say with full conviction, “the Bible is the Word of God.” When the Lord Jesus met Satan in the wilderness, Jesus said, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). We see what he meant by this when we note that he was quoting Scripture when he said this (Deuteronomy 8:3). Beyond that, he followed each of Satan’s temptations by quoting more Scripture that applied to himself. “The Word” and the Scripture proved to be the same thing in this case.

Second, we learned that the Word of God is the truth or the content contained in Scripture. That does not mean that the words are unimportant, not at all! It does mean, however, that if we focus on larger units like sentences and paragraphs we will learn what Scripture means more rapidly and with less likelihood of distortion. It is the context and the combinations of words that convey the truths that God wants us to take in. Occasionally we will run across a word that needs attention on its own because it is unfamiliar to us or because it is used in some technical sense. But that is unusual because the Scriptures were written for ordinary people and because excellent translations in our own language are available to us.

Christians, then, must take heart as they face the text of Scripture. Every once in a while we become discouraged when we listen to a pastor or scholar explain one word or a small phrase from “the original.” It seems we have to be linguists after all to grasp God’s Word! But keep this in mind: however true the scholar’s explanation of that small part is, the great themes of Scripture are open to all. That means, assuming you are a believer with the Spirit of God, they are open to you. You must not despise the learning of others. Listen to them and learn. But do not be intimidated. Scripture belongs to all of God’s people. If you are one of those, it is yours to read and to know.

About the Author

Tom Wells is one of the pastors of The King’s Chapel, West Chester, Ohio. He is the author of numerous books, including Come to Me, Come Home Forever, God is King, Christian: Take Heart, A Price for a People, A Vision for Missions, and Faith: The Gift of God. He is a regular contributor to Reformation & Revival Journal.

Notes

1. For discussions of the origin of the phrase see the standard commentaries, especially, George R. Beasley-Murray, Word Biblical Commentary: John (Waco, Texas: Word, 1987), 6–11, and D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids. Michigan: Eerdmans, 1991), 114–17.
2. We are not even certain how God conveys his will to spirit beings, but it seems likely that the idea contained in the word “speech” is suitable here, much as it was in Genesis 1:3: “Then God said, ‘Let there be light.’”
3. See for example John 8:32, 45 where Jesus speaks the Word of God and describes it as truth. See also John 17:7, ” Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”
4. This statement, of course, begs another set of questions about textual and translation theory that we simply cannot pursue in a short article. Most scholars, I think, would agree about most of our committee translations, though some might question the orthodoxy of the producers of a few of them.
5. For the statistically minded, here is the breakdown: (1) Thirty-two meanings simply as a verb; (2) twenty-three in idioms that contain the verb; (3) eighteen meanings as a noun; (4) one meaning in an idiom that contains the noun; (5) sixteen meanings as an adjective, and (6) two meanings in idioms that contain the adjective. (No, I do not guarantee that I counted perfectly!)
6. James Barr, The Bible in the Modern World (New York: Harper & Row, 1973) 178. From the same page scholars will enjoy Barr’s equally forthright defense of the importance of the Hebrew vowel points. Barr rejects anything like inspiration in any sense that would appeal to conservatives, but he recognizes that if the subject is to be discussed, the discussion must center on the words and letters, including the vowel points.

Worship And The Word

By Ron Man

The Word of God is of supreme importance in the life of the Christian, containing as it does God’s revelation of his person, his will, and his ways. The Word needs to be pored over, ingested into one’s mind and heart, meditated on, and acted upon. It is a unique and precious repository of spiritual truth, guidance, and encouragement. There is no aspect of the life of the church or of the individual believer that should not be tied to a scriptural mooring and infused with biblical substance (2 Timothy 3:16). The Bible is indeed “a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105).

When Christians gather for corporate worship, it is logical that the Word of God should play a central and dominant role. Since worship involves focusing our thoughts and hearts and voices on the praise of God, in response to his self-revelation and his gracious saving initiative, we need that view of God which the Word alone gives us if our worship is to be “in-truth” (John 4:23–24). Our worship can only duly honor God if it accurately reflects what he reveals about himself in his Word.

John Stott explains in this way the crucial importance of the Word for worship:

To worship God ... is to “glory in his holy name” (Psalm 105:3), that is, to revel adoringly in who he is in his revealed character. But before we can glory in God’s name, we must know it. Hence the propriety of the reading and preaching of the Word of God in public worship, and of biblical meditation in private devotion. These things are not an intrusion into worship; they form the necessary foundation of it. God must speak to us before we have any liberty to speak to him. He must disclose to us who he is before we can offer him what we are in acceptable worship. The worship of God is always a response to the Word of God. Scripture wonderfully directs and enriches our worship. [1]

Worship is often understood as a dialogue of revelation and response between God and his people. [2] If that is true, then obviously both sides of the equation must be present. [3]

So far so good. However, there are today some imbalances in churches’ understanding of the Word’s proper role in worship. Two of these will be discussed below.

The Word “Versus” Worship?

The Relationship Of Preaching And Corporate Praise. There are a lot of churches where there is a continuing conflict over the proper relationship of preaching and “worship” (an unhappy and inaccurate dichotomy) in church services.

“Preliminaries” And Preaching. James A. White and other church historians have pointed out that many American congregations in the Protestant free church tradition can trace their present worship practices to nineteenth-century revivalism, [4] where music and other activities functioned merely as (and were even called) “preliminaries,” designed as a way to “warm up” the audience for the “main event,” i.e., the message. As White demonstrates, this pattern, which was widely used for evangelistic meetings, was then carried over into worship services. Sadly, that view of the worship service is alive and well today. Even in those churches where Bible teaching has come to take precedence over evangelistic-style preaching, it is now the teaching of the Bible which is seen as the primary if not sole purpose for gathering. [5] Elsewhere I have explained how this is a narrow view which can rob our corporate services of the richness which Jesus Christ can bring to them in the fullness of his mediatorial role: mediating the truth of God to man, and mediating the worship response of God’s people as our High Priest (Hebrews 2:17; 4:14–15; 5:5; 7:26–28; 8:1–2; 9:11–12; 10:19–22). [6]

There is also a great deal of semantic confusion involved in this controversy. To begin with, worship must be understood in its broadest New Testament sense as that which should be a life-pervading, non-localized response of the believer to the gracious work of God in the life (Romans 12:1; John 4:21–23); all of life, all of our activities are to be done for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31) and in the name of the Lord Jesus (Colossians 3:17). In fact, all Christian ministry (including preaching) should have as its ultimate aim the fulfillment of the Great Commandment (Mark 12:28–30), to evoke more and better worship on the part of people to whom that ministry is directed. Only worship is an end in itself, an ultimate end. [7] Perhaps “corporate praise” would be a more appropriate term to use in referring to those non-preaching, participatory parts of the service (since “worship” is so global a category, and since all of what happens in the service, including preaching, should be termed worship [8]).

Some pastors hold to what is in fact a false dichotomy between the roles served by preaching and corporate praise: that the former handles the Word of God while the latter consists simply of singing and such activities. Similarly, in discussions about the revelation/response paradigm that characterizes worship, it is sometimes assumed that only in the sermon does any meaningful communication of revelation take place—with the obvious implication that everything else in the service is necessarily response. [9] And that response is seen as inherently inferior to revelation [10] (presumably because revelation comes from God, while response is of man).

But in fact, the Word of God can be and should be communicated (explicitly and implicitly) throughout the service; a back-and-forth dialogue, between the Word and the people’s response to it, should be an ongoing aspect of the entire service. As Bruce Leafblad puts it:

People don’t hear God speak with an audible voice on Sunday morning.... God has appointed spokespersons.... He’s been appointing people, not to tell what they think, but to speak what he thinks. And that’s why we are people of the Book; and that’s why the Word must be integrated into the entire service of worship, not just be an act for preaching. The conversation depends on the Word at every point where God speaks in the dialogue .... God isn’t limited to one medium of communication. [11]

In addition, response is not an inferior and negligible part of worship. Indeed, God’s revelation is prerequisite and foundational to any response; but the fact is that, since Christ mediates both the revelation and response parts of worship, [12] they are both of immense value. The High Priestly ministry of Jesus in our worship governs and guides both aspects and gives to both an incredible (and complementary) significance.

In spite of (or at least in ignorance of) the points mentioned above, many pastors still feel that an elevating of the importance of “worship” (or corporate praise) necessarily means a degrading of the importance of the Word of God and of preaching.

Preaching Serves Worship. Preaching is an integral part of the revelatory side of the dialogue of worship. For the preacher (as others in the service who communicate scriptural truth to the people) represents God in the dialogue. [13] He plays a theological role of representing “the God who convenes worship.” [14]

John Stott insists on this inseparable connection between preaching and worship:

Word and worship belong indissolubly to each other. All worship is an intelligent and loving response to the revelation of God, because it is the adoration of his Name. Therefore, acceptable worship is impossible without preaching. For preaching is making known the Name of the Lord, and worship is praising the Name of the Lord made known. Far from being an alien intrusion into worship, the reading and preaching of the word are actually indispensable to it. The two cannot be divorced. Indeed, it is their unnatural divorce that accounts for the low level of so much contemporary worship. Our worship is poor because our knowledge of God is poor, and our knowledge of God is poor because our preaching is poor. But when the Word of God is expounded in its fullness, and the congregation begin to glimpse the glory of the living God, they bow down in solemn awe and joyful wonder before his throne. [15]

In order for worship to be filled with the wonder of God, that wonder must be displayed through the reading and exposition of the mighty acts and ways of God as related to us in Scripture. That’s why John Piper refers to preaching as “expository exultation.” [16] Preaching should marvel in the greatness of the glory of God, so that our present circumstances and our worries and our worship are all submitted to the “mighty hand of God.” Worship acknowledges that God is an all-powerful, all-loving heavenly Father who glorifies himself by satisfying his people. [17]

The ascription of praise with which a Chrysostom, an Augustine, or a Calvin ended their sermons was no mere formality: It indicated the intention of the sermon itself and its aim of bringing others also to the praise of God on account of what had been proclaimed in Scripture and sermon. [18]

Preaching is crucial for God-saturated, God-honoring worship. [19] And worship is the end and goal of preaching, as is the entire service. Hence Piper’s view of preaching as “expository exultation”—faithful exposition is not the end, but rather a means to achieving the goal of a worship response (“exultation”) to the God thus seen. The preacher must preach as an act of worship (because, after all, “you can’t commend what you don’t cherish.” [20]); and he must preach with a view toward engendering worship in others.

Vern Poythress puts this well:

We refuse to accept as scriptural a simple dichotomy between praise and preaching. Frankly we do not see how any gospel preacher with a heart in him can refrain from praising God as an integral part of his preaching. [21]

John Piper would agree: “The overarching, pervasive, relentless subject of preaching is God himself with a view to being worshiped.” [22] “Preaching is meant to be and to kindle God-exalting worship.... The mission of all preaching is soul-satisfying, God-exalting worship.” [23]

The Word Neglected In Worship

Benign Neglect In Bible-Believing Churches. The astounding observation is frequently made as to just how little use is made of Scripture in the worship services of most evangelical churches. The irony, of course, is that those who claim most strongly to stand on the Bible have so little of it in their worship. (2 Timothy 3:15 should be more than enough warrant!) While the sermon of course takes a prominent role in our services, even preaching consists mostly of talking about the Scriptures (often after reading just a very few verses). It must be said that liturgical groups (including Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Roman Catholics) have probably ten times as much actual Scripture in their services (because it is built into their liturgies) than do most Bible-believing, evangelical free churches!

In too many evangelical churches the entire first part of the service consists just of music—albeit songs about God and songs reflective of biblical truth (a minimum requirement for songs for worship)—but no Scripture is read at all. The problem is pervasive: I have experienced it often in both traditional and contemporary services. It seems crucially important for people in a service, believers and unbelievers, to hear read (and/or printed in a bulletin or flashed on a screen) verses of Scripture chosen to give a clear signal that: “We have come to worship God. The Word is how we know about God, and therefore it is the foundation for all that we do here and for our understanding of why we have come together.” Without such a declaration—launching into songs without any context of revelation being set—worshipers make the faulty assumption (consciously or unconsciously) that we invite ourselves into God’s presence, when in actuality it is only by virtue of his invitation (and his opening the way through the work of Christ) that we may come before him at all.

Recently I visited a church where the service consisted of five parts, clearly delineated in the bulletin. Every part of this service began with a Scripture reading that set the tone for what followed. There was no question that this church saw the central role of Scripture in their worship! As James White puts it, “the first step toward making our worship more biblical is in giving the reading of God’s Word a central role in Christian worship on any occasion.” [24]

It is impossible to overstate the importance of Scripture for our worship. In Scripture we find the prerequisites for worship, the invitation to worship, the authority for worship, the material for worship, the regulation of our worship, the message of worship, and the end to which worship should lead. It is not simply “old-fashioned,” but rather non-negotiable, that we should include calls to worship, Scripture readings, etc., in our services. By all means, let us be as creative as possible to build in Scripture (verses displayed on banners or projected onto a screen as people enter, verses on the bulletin cover, readers’ theater, children reciting verses, original Scripture songs, etc.), but let us make sure that the primacy of the Word in worship is obvious throughout the entire service—not just during the sermon.

Scripture is read, not just for a sermon text, but to hear what word God addresses to the gathered congregation. Preaching usually builds on that but Scripture is read for its own sake as God’s Word.... It needs to be communicated to all that the centrality of Scripture stems from its function as proclamation of God’s Word to the gathered people. [25]

The Primacy Of The Word In Worship

The Word And The Prerequisites For Worship. The Word of God helps to bring us to the point where our approach to God in worship is possible: it teaches us that we are dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1); it reveals that God has provided for redemption, forgiveness, and eternal life through the work of Jesus Christ; and it presents the opportunity to come by faith into a right relationship with the Father—to “honor him as God” (Romans 1:21).

“The washing of water with the Word” (Ephesians 5:26) provides the spiritual cleanliness which God requires for us to be able to enter confidently into his presence (Psalm 15:1–2; Hebrews 10:19–22; 12:18–24).

The Word As The Inviter To Worship. God has done everything to make our approach in worship possible, and in his Word he extends the invitation (indeed, he commands his people) to draw near. The Old Testament book of worship, the Psalter, is replete with calls to “praise the Lord!” (Hebrew, hallelujah). The Psalmists call the people of Israel, and us as believers, to “come into his presence with singing” (100:2). The New Testament book of worship, the Epistle to the Hebrews, focuses throughout on the access we have into the presence of God through the atoning work and the present mediatorial ministry of our great High Priest, Jesus Christ; in and through him we are encouraged to draw near with confidence and boldness (4:16; 10:19–22; cf. 12:18–24).

We come, invited by your Word,
To kneel before your altar, Lord. [26]

The Word As The Authority For Worship. In the Word of God, the Bible, we have the complete written revelation of God to man. It is divinely inspired, and thus uniquely authoritative for all that we as believers do—including worship. As has already been mentioned, worship is about God: we come to focus on him, learn more about him, express our love for him. But to do all these things intelligently and correctly, we need the Word of God as his revelation of himself and his ways. As John MacArthur has put it, “Worship is a response built upon truth.... Jesus himself said that true worshipers must worship in spirit and truth. ... If we are to worship in truth and the Word of God is truth, we must worship out of our understanding of the Word of God.” [27]

The fact of the matter is that every aspect of the service should serve to reflect and honor the Word of God. The sermon (and the preacher) must be subservient to the Word. The Word must guide and control the preacher’s thoughts and words if the sermon is to communicate God’s message and not just the ideas of man. But the music must also be subservient to the Word. The texts must reflect and express biblical truth, and the music itself must be a suitable medium to carry the text. The musician(s) must also be subservient to the Word in terms of motivation and execution of the music. In addition, prayers and readings must be consistent with biblical teaching, if not actually taken from Scripture.

The Word As The Material For Worship. Obviously preaching is a crucial and central part of the public worship of God’s people, and the above treatment should not be taken to imply otherwise. But it is too simplistic to see the sermon as the sole component of revelation in the revelation/response pattern of worship—at least it should not be, if the Word of God is allowed to infuse the service in a variety of ways, as described above. Gary Furr and Milburn Price have suggested a number of ways in which the revelation of the Word can be communicated in the service, besides the sermon: Scripture readings of all sorts, music (setting Scripture texts, and also faithfully presenting scriptural truth in paraphrased or freely composed form), symbols (fish, cross, stained glass, etc.), carefully used drama. [28] When Scripture and scriptural truth are pervasive in the service, then the acts of response will probably be understood as response to God’s self-revelation through his Word.

If the bulletin makes it clear that Scripture is an important part of Christian worship, then we can be sure people will get the message that the Bible is crucial in shaping their lives as Christians. But, when the role of Scripture in worship is negligible, when Scripture is used only to launch a sermon, what is communicated is that the Bible is marginal in Christian life, too. The use we make or fail to make of Scripture in our worship says far more about Christian discipleship than we may realize. [29]

The ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper likewise occur in the context and under the authority of the Word of God:

Baptism ... ought to be seen as a dynamic response to the Word proclaimed. It is itself a non-verbal proclamation of the gospel in which we show forth with water God’s will to save.

The same, of course, is true of the Lord’s Supper.... The Lord’s Supper is a powerful showing forth of the life and death, the resurrection and ascension of Christ.... The chief act of Christian worship for hundreds of millions of Christians has become for us a quarterly or monthly affair, frequently tacked on to the end of a preaching service. Yet preaching, too, functions best in the context of the visible word shown forth in the sacrament. The Bible calls us to take and eat and drink as well as to hear. [30]

The Word As The Regulator Of Worship. When Jesus spoke of the necessity of worshiping “in spirit and truth” (John 4:23–24), he was coming at the issue from two sides: “Truth is the objective factor in worship, and spirit is the subjective.” [31] (Left-brain and right-brain respectively, if you will.) The fact is (and this is what Jesus was stressing) there must be a balance between these aspects, and both must be there: worship must spring forth from the inside, from the heart (where only God can see), and be genuine and sincere (in other words, not just going through the motions); on the other hand, worship must be guided and channeled by truth, i.e., be in accordance with what God has revealed about himself and his ways (and, as John 4:25–26 shows, must be through the Son, the Messiah, who is the truth [John 15:6]).

So in worship we are to respond to God as we know him to be through his revealed Word; we are not to be coldly orthodox, but rather are to come with enthusiasm and sincerity which are born of an intense encounter with God as he is and as he offers himself to us in Christ. Not emotion for its own sake, [32] but as genuine, heartfelt response to truth and all of its implications. “This is the perfect blend: emotion regulated by understanding, enthusiasm directed by the Word of God.” [33]

The Word And The Message Of Worship. Preaching, Piper says, is “expository exultation.” [34] This definition brings the biblical balance of spirit and truth, emotion and intellect to the pulpit ministry of the Word. That is indeed a high and holy calling: to speak to the people on behalf of God, on the basis and authority of his Word.

The all-pervasive, all-important, all-surpassing reality in very text is God. Whether he is commanding or warning or promising or teaching he is there. And where he is, he is always supreme. And where he is supreme he will be worshiped. [35]

This is the message of worship. But let us not relegate that message to the preaching portion of the service alone. Rather, let it be clear in the service as a whole that we gather under the authority of the Word to learn of God from his Word (in all of its various presentations in the service) and to respond in a fashion that honors the Word and the Lord whose Word it is. May the Word of God guide us and give expression to our responses of praise and adoration, confession and trust, thanksgiving and intercession which well out of a right understanding of God’s Person and ways through their revelation in the Word. May we uphold the Word, read the Word, sing the Word, meditate on the Word, preach the Word, respond to the Word, and place ourselves in submission under the precepts of the Word. May God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be glorified in our worship as we come through under, with, and to the Word.

The Word And The End Of Worship. The Word should rightly be exalted in our worship (because it is the Word of God), but not as an end in itself. For the ultimate goal of worship (as of the church and of our lives as believers) is to display and proclaim and magnify the glory of God.

The glory of God will be well served in our worship as the Word speaks of the wonders of his person and his ways—through reading, preaching, praying, singing, meditating, and practicing ordinances which are infused with and reflective of scriptural truth. The Word will enable us to obey its own command to “praise him according to his surpassing greatness” (Psalm 150:2).

About the Author

Ron Man is a missionary serving as a worship and arts resource consultant with Greater Europe Mission. He lives in the Black Forest region of Germany and travels to teach on worship in seminaries and Bible schools in Western and Eastern Europe. Prior to this new appointment he was pastor of worship at First Evangelical Church, Memphis, Tennessee. He received his Master of Music degree from the University of Maryland and Th. M. from Dallas Theological Seminary. He has published three choral anthems, as well as a number of articles on worship in various periodicals. Most of these articles may be accessed at: www.firstevan.org/articles.htm.

Notes

1. John Stott, The Comtemporary Christian (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 174.
2. See Gary A. Furr and Milburn Price, The Dialogue of Worship: Creating Space for Revelation and Response (Macon, Georgia: Smyth & Helwys, 1998).
3. However, it should also be remembered that “the communion between God and human beings is reciprocal, but not symmetrical.” (Geoffrey Wainwright, “The Praise of God in the Theological Reflection of the Church,” Interpretation 39 [1985]:39).
4. James F. White, Protestant Worship: Traditions in Transition (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989), 171–72, 177.
5. Dr. Tim Ralston of Dallas Theological Seminary characterizes the view that only a steady and strong diet of Bible teaching is needed for growth in the Christian life as “a dysfunctional view of sanctification.” On audiotape “Changing Worship—Calming the Conflict” (Dallas Theological Seminary, 1994).
6. Ron Man, “Jesus Our Worship Leader: The Mediating Work of the Son in Worship,” Reformation and Revival 9:2, 36–37.
7. That worship is a bigger and broader category than preaching is clearly demonstrated by the fact that many pastors have preached about worship, yet it is nonsensical to think of worshiping about preaching; only the lesser can teach about the greater.
8. Cf. John Piper, “Preaching as Worship: Meditations on Expository Exultation,” Lecture transcripts (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Desiring God Ministries, 1994).
9. An additional complication is the fact that, by this understanding, basically all of the response in the service would precede all the revelation!
10. In all fairness, it should be pointed out that corporate praise has grown in some churches to almost sacramental proportions, to the detriment of the proclaimed Word of God; this is likewise an imbalance.
11. Bruce Leafblad, “Leading in Worship” (audiotape, Worship Conference, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1995).
12. “Jesus Our Worship Leader,” 34–37.
13. In another sense, the preacher represents Jesus Christ in his mediatorial ministry whereby he proclaims the Father’s name to his brethren (Heb. 2:12). Cf. “Jesus Our Worship Leader,” 34, 41, n.6.
14. “Leading in Worship.”
15. John R. W. Stott, Between Two Worlds (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 82–83.
16. “Preaching as Worship,” Lecture No. 1:3.
17. Cf. John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, revised edition (Portland, Oregon: Multnomah Press, 1996).
18. “The Praise of God,” 38.
19. But it is a two-way street as well: “Maintaining the centrality of worship in the life of the church is crucial to sustaining integrity in preaching. When worship is central, preaching takes on characteristics that make it an effective means of communicating the gospel.” C. Welton Gaddy, The Gift of Worship (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman Press, 1992), 72.
20. John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions (Grand Rapids, Baker, 1993), 11.
21. Vern S. Poythress, “Ezra 3, Union with Christ, and Exclusive Psalmody,” Westminster Theological Journal 37:2 (1975):229.
22. John Piper, “Preaching as Worship,” Lecture No. 2:3.
23. Lecture No. 1:4.
24. James F. White, “Making Our Worship More Biblical,” Perkins Journal 34 (Fall 1980), 38.
25. “Making Our Worship More Biblical,” 38.
26. Danish Hymn (Text by Thomas Kingo, 1634–1703).
27. John MacArthur, Jr., The Ultimate Priority (Chicago: Moody Press, 1983), 122–23.
28. The Dialogue of Worship, 8–10, 12–15.
29. The Dialogue of Worship, 38.
30. The Dialogue of Worship, 40.
31. The Ultimate Priority, 125–26.
32. The Ultimate Priority, 124, where MacArthur cites 1 Corinthians 14:14–16 and 14:23–25 as possible examples of this.
33. The Ultimate Priority, 125.
34. “Preaching as Worship.”
35. “Preaching as Worship,” Lecture No. 2, 2–3.