Like many Christians, I have a lot of Bibles. Most of them sit on my bookshelf next to all kinds of other books. However, the Bible could not be more different than those other books. Here are several reasons why, according to the Bible itself:
Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. (John 17:17 ESV)
The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. (John 6:63b ESV)
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12 ESV)
Let’s observe several things about those texts. The Bible is…
- Truth: Not just true, but truth. Many books on my shelf may be true, but the Bible alone is truth.
- Spirit: There are powerful things happening in the spiritual realm that we usually can’t see, and that is where God’s Word resides. The fact that the Bible exists in the physical realm at all is a great grace to all God’s people.
- Living: Most of my books are made from dead trees. While the Bible may also be printed on paper, it is just as alive, if not more so, than you and I are. I don’t claim to fully understand that, but I do marvel greatly at it!
- Active: When I read the Bible, it is not full of passive words on a page. Unlike my other books, the burden of changing my life when reading the text does not rest on me, but on the Scriptures themselves.
The next time you hold your Bible and open it, take a moment to thank God for the very nature of His Word. It is truth, spirit, living and active – terms that do not apply to any other words that have been or ever will be written. This is why we not only do observation and interpretation of Scripture, but we seek to faithfully apply it as well!
May our response be like Simon Peter’s, who saw Jesus’ words for what they truly are:
After this many of [Jesus’] disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:66-68 ESV, emphasis mine)
Great insight in the Bible! Praying like this gives a new aspect for studying the bible, great reminder!
Excellent list of “the very nature of His Word.” Thank you for sharing these insights.
Hi. I’m not sure about the conclusion you reached about the Bible. The words you’ve quoted are very specific – the only refer to God’s direct speech and the direct speech of the Lord Jesus. These are the only words that are truly His Word. There are many other words contained in the Bible that are not spoken directly by the Triune God. Indeed some are spoken to God e.g. the Psalms.
Therefore, it’s too simplistic in my view to say that every word in the Bible is “God’s Word.” Rather would it not be more accurate to say that the Bible contains God’s words?
Thanks for engaging with me in this post, Frank, and for asking a great question.
While I do think it’s true that the Bible contains God’s words, I think it’s also true that every word in the Bible is God’s Word. I’ll give you a few reasons I believe this:
– In 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul writes to Timothy that “all Scripture is breathed out by God”. He does not limit this to certain parts of Scripture, but rather “all Scripture”.
– Peter believes that Paul is writing Scripture: “…just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” (2 Peter 3:15-16) Note that Peter uses the term “other Scriptures”, implying that Paul’s words are Scripture as well.
– Peter also writes in 2 Peter 1:20-21: “…no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Note that “men spoke” but it was “from God”.
– In Acts 2, Peter quotes David from Psalm 16 (i.e. words spoken to God) and then says this: “Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, [David] foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ.” (Acts 2:30-31)
– On the Emmaus road, Jesus said to His disciples, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” (Luke 24:44) So Jesus Himself saw that the words written in the Psalms had divine authority such that they must be “fulfilled”.
There are many more examples I could give, but does that help?