Back to Basics
Introduction to the Bible The Bible: the words God speaks
Derrick Harrison 21/10/2020
The Bible: the words God speaks Of greatest importance in the Bible are the words which God speaks, which He speaks through men and women and what He speaks through Christ – the WORD. When God speaks, Scripture is created and the word of God becomes encapsulated in Scripture and becomes accessible to future generations of men and women who did not hear the original speaking of the Lord. This breath-taking speaking by God is the most important feature of the Bible. We will look at the “word of God” under 3 headings: (1) The words God speaks (the speech of God) (2) The words He speaks through men (3) The word God speaks through the “the WORD” who is God’s son 1. The words God speaks The Bible opens with God speaking forth His creative word, “And God said, “Let there be light: and there was light” (Gen.1:3). This is just the first instance of God creating through speaking His word. God created the world through speaking forth His word. In Gen.1:26 we can read a conversation which took place between the members of the Godhead, “And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” When the focus is on God creating man, we find that instead of creating out of nothing, He created man from the dust of the earth and then breathed “the breath of life” into his nose. The second unique feature of man’s creation is that he is created in the image of God. The purpose of the image of God in man is in order that New Life Radio – Talk No 2
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he can begin to see and understand something of God through the mirror image of his own heart, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Gen.2:27). Survey the rest of the OT to identify God speaking. It doesn’t stop with the OT but continues in the NT. When God does not speak we have no Scripture, demonstrating that the spoken word is the foundation for the writing of Scripture, there is a gap of 300 years between the end of the OT and the beginning of the NT during which time God did not speak. One powerful example of God speaking His own name was to Moses on Mount Sinai, “
And He passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and mercy” (Ex.34:6). Can you imagine the sound of God’s name pronounced by God himself? When we refer to the words which God speaks we need to keep in mind that it is GOD who is speaking! When He speaks He is looking to find listening, responsive, believing and obedient hearts. The prophet Elijah is a wonderful example of a prophet who not only spoke the Lord’s words but lived in obedience to God’s word (1Kings 17:2, 5, 8, 14, 16; 18:1, 36; see also 19:11-13). We must identify the occasions when God is speaking and when He is speaking through men. 2. The words He speaks through men
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“For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2Pet.1:21). This is a very simple definition of prophecy which is God speaking His words through men and women by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The Bible does not distinguish between the words which the Lord speaks and the words He speaks through His servants with regards to inspiration and authority – they are God’s words. This is a very simple definition of prophecy which is God speaking His words through men and women by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The Bible makes it clear when the Lord speaks Himself and when He speaks through His servants, with regards to inspiration and authority – they are God’s words. The phrase, “Thus, says the LORD” tells us that God is speaking (throughout the OT), – here is our first example, “And you shall say unto Pharaoh, Thus, says the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn” (Ex.2:14). The Lord wanted Pharaoh to know that Moses was speaking the Lord’s words. God speaks to Pharaoh through Moses a human channel, resulting in 10 miracle judgements. God’s speaking is not always to create by the power of His word, nor to bring judgement by the power of His word. Sometimes he speaks to people’s heart condition; sometimes He speaks revelatory words about Himself, His nature and His purposes. None of these words have been lost and they are embodied in Scripture for our instruction, illumination and edification leading us to salvation, obedience and worship. We have recognised the LORD’s voice speaking forth creation, speaking His word directly through His servant Moses and then repeatedly we discover the phrase, “Thus saith the LORD” which takes New Life Radio – Talk No 2
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us through to Malachi. In the NT we frequently hear from the lips of Jesus the phrase; “I say unto you” these are occasions when He speaks His mind as the Son of Man. Associated with God speaking is the word “prophecy” and sometimes the word prophet. The priest Samuel marks a significant point in Israel’s history where the prophetic gift becomes identified in a particular calling and person, “And all Israel from Dan even to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord” (1Sam.3:20). The fact is that the gift is as fundamental to man as any other ability or gift. If man had not fallen the gift would have operated in the context of his own speech. He would have been the vehicle for God speaking among his own kind, God communicating His active presence among men and women by frequently speaking among them. How wonderful and how natural that would have been. Instead, God speaking to men and women is infrequent and the gift often unknown, even in the church. This is partly because the church is not functioning truly as God’s community or fellowship - people spending time together, outside of “meetings.” Occasions when the gift of prophecy was manifested can easily be traced. Enoch’s prophecy is quite remarkable, because he prophesied the second coming of Jesus, “And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints” (Jude 1:14). Prophecy normally has an immediate application – forthtelling, but often it has a future application and this is foretelling. You find these 2 New Life Radio – Talk No 2
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elements in the prophets. At the heart and the core of the OT are the major and minor prophets. The Major Prophets are the writing prophets – Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, each one seeks to prepare Israel for Exile in Babylon but they also speak promises into the future. The Minor Prophets are so called because the written material we possess is quite small when compared to the Major Prophets and thus we are in danger of dismissing them as minor. The gift of prophecy was not confined to these major figures; we have seen that with Enoch. When Moses appointed 70 elders to assist him in the work of judging Israel, when he prayed for them immediately they prophesied (Nu.11:16-17, 24-25), Then the Lord came down in the cloud, and spoke to him, and took of the Spirit that was upon him, and placed the same upon the seventy elders; and it happened, when the Spirit rested upon them, that they prophesied, although they never did so again (vv24-25). Compare this event with the gift of prophecy imparted to the believers at Ephesus, And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. Now the men were about twelve in all” (Acts 19:4-7). How far are these two events apart? The first one takes place during the journey of Israel in the Wilderness and the second one during Paul’s first visit to Ephesus. We are talking about the same Holy Spirit and the same “spirit of prophecy.” The original elders of Moses only experienced this prophetic gift on this occasion – it was an initial evidence of the anointing they had received whereby they could now New Life Radio – Talk No 2
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judge Israel with God’s wisdom. The occasion at Ephesus was a continuing anointing to prophecy, we read that they continued to prophecy and speak in tongues, this was not initial evidence but a continuing experience of the Holy Spirit in prophecy and tongues. In 1Cor.12 and 14 Paul teaches about the prophetic word of God in the church. The question is often asked: “is the word of the Lord in the OT the same as the gift of prophecy described by Paul? We could also ask ourselves whether the gift of tongues in the church is the same authentic gift we encounter in Acts. We must appreciate the fact that we have the whole Bible accessible to us. This was not the case with the OT saints and the NT church only had the OT Scriptures, but they needed the same Holy Spirit to write the NT. Their first purpose of course was not to write Scripture but to speak forth the word of the Lord. The Gospels were purposeful biographies of Jesus, written by those who were able to speak as witnesses, who realized that the Gospels must be written for subsequent generations of Christians. When Jesus spoke about the coming of the Holy Spirit, He addressed the matter of writing Scripture and the gift of the Spirit to enable them to remember exactly what He had spoken and done. The Gospels are a testimony to the ability to write Scripture through men such as Jesus’ disciples, “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you; But the Paraclete (Comforter), the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you” (Jn.14:25-26).
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This is a new development to writing Scripture; the Holy Spirit quickens the memory of Jesus’ disciples to exactly recollect the events of Jesus life and the words He spoke. Now consider each Gospel and the unique stamp of each writer. Does their individual style, vocabulary and personal interests impinge on Scriptures claim to be the word of the Lord? The four Gospels, the Acts and the letters of the NT are testimony to the Spirit’s inspiration and anointing of men to write Scripture. Luke explains the principles which undergirded his writing; one fundamental difference between his Gospel and the book of Acts was that his Gospel depended on the eye-witness accounts of others, but with regards to Acts he was an eye-witness and a companion of the apostle Paul (see the “we” passages in Acts). Luke’s absence from Palestine during the days of Jesus, in no way hindered his endeavour to produce a Gospel alongside the other Gospel writers, look at his claim, “to have had perfect knowledge from the beginning” – you can see the proof of that in his record of the birth narratives, which point to Luke’s information, no doubt gained from Mary herself. He was a journalist, who alongside Mark, Matthew and John discovered the enablement of the Holy Spirit to write Scripture, “Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed” (Lk.1:1-4).
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There is one further matter to consider and that is the gift of prophecy in the Corinthian church (I suggest that you study 1Cor.12 and 14 for yourself). 3. God speaks through the “the WORD” who is God’s son Just as God’s eternal Son spoke creation into being so now Jesus, the Son of man speaks powerful words demonstrating His power and authority over God’s creation – He rebukes storms (natural phenomena) he rebukes demons and heals sickness and diseases and heals sick and broken bodies and even raises men and women from the dead by the power of His spoken word (Luke is most aware of the link between authority and power). Jesus also speaks prophetic words, words of knowledge and words of wisdom and teaching. Some words come through ministering to human need, some through parables and some through preaching and teaching. The church esteems highly the words of Jesus recorded in the four Gospels. We focus on 2 key Scriptures, Heb.1:1-3; and Jn.1:1-14. God has spoken His final word through His Son. The “finality” of the Word refers to the fact that God’s Son is the complete revelation of God to us and His coming demonstrates God’s eternal purposes which are accomplished through Him. God’s purpose in sending Jesus was in order that He could speak to us through His incarnate Son, “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the
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brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb.1:1-3). These verses state that God has spoken in the past specifically through His prophets – they have been God’s mouthpiece, but He has now spoken to us through His Son who sustains the world by “the word of His power.” What is uniquely different about the Son is that He does not only speak the words of God like the prophets, but He is the exact and complete embodiment of God’s word. This fact is affirmed by the naming of the Son as the “WORD” – He is the LOGOS of God (see John’s Prologue, Jn.1:1-14). John begins his Gospel with the “LOGOS” who he defines in the most amazing terms, “In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was with God, and the WORD was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (Jn.1:1-5). “And the WORD became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (v14). “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (v18). The eternal WORD “became flesh” (the simplest description of the Word’s begetting by the Father). Through this means the WORD became fully human and through His humanness He manifested God’s New Life Radio – Talk No 2
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eternal nature. God incarnate declares Father to all humanity and so in the WORD there is a double witness – the words which He speaks and the declaration of God through His nature. John speaks of the glory of the incarnate Son who was full of grace and truth and the writer to the Hebrews describes Him similarly as, “being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person.” This double witness in speech and personhood is the expression of Father’s highest desire and will. Jesus is the full embodiment of the eternal WORD manifested in his human nature and because of His humanness He is able to speak to us words which are fully intelligible and meaningful to us, words which have irresistible power and authority due to the unity and compatibility of the divine nature and the human nature in the person of the WORD (see 1Jn.1:1-3; 4:2-3). “I say unto you” is a familiar phrase of Jesus, demonstrating His authoritative word which comes to the fore in the Sermon on the Mount (7 times and a total of 24 times in Matthew). He is the final authority in all matters. Jesus is making categorical and authoritative statements in the context of his preaching and teaching. Examine the life of Jesus from the perspective of Him being a prophet (Deut.18:15) and you will be able to identify features of the OT prophet of judgement, calling God’s people to repentance and you will also see His prophetic pronouncements, forthtelling the future fall of Jerusalem (AD 70) and His Second Coming (Mat.24). Examine the words of Jesus as a teacher and preacher, forthtelling the words of God. He often preached by means of parables which generally concluded by speaking an important saying. Preaching should be viewed as a vital exercise of the prophetic word from the mouth of God. Speaking forth the words of God and doing it in an orderly New Life Radio – Talk No 2
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fashion just as Luke wrote his Gospel, surely, there is no incompatibility between order and spontaneity! Thorough preparation provides the necessary basis for extempore preaching. Concluding our first study on the word of God as the core of Scripture – we have shown this under three heading – (1) the words that God speaks, (2) the words that God speaks through men and (3) the word God speaks through the “the WORD” The Revelation demonstrates God (still) speaking directly to the churches throughout the book. An angel reminds John that God’s powerful prophetic focus beams on Jesus alone, “I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev.19:10). Jesus is at the foundation of God’s words and He is its source, He is the subject of God’s words, He is its inspiration and He is the revelation. The prophetic word declares who He is and what He has done and unveils His coming glory and End Time purposes. We need to hear God speaking today in the church through his prophetic word but we also need Jesus among us, His exuberant, rejoicing presence.
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