The Word of God

You’ll frequently hear people talk about “the Word of God.” What comes to mind when you hear that phrase: the Bible? Or something else? It’s a hugely important concept for us Christians, so it’s good to take a moment to ensure that we understand it well.

A foundation for our Christian faith is the conviction that God reveals himself to us. (This isn’t unique to Christians, by the way. For example, Jews believe God revealed himself through the Torah, and Muslims believe that God revealed himself through a series of revelations to Mohammed.) Because God is so completely different from us (Isaiah 55:5), the only way that we can know anything at all about him is if he shows himself to us. That’s what “the Word of God” is all about: God speaking to us so that we can know him and know about him.

There are at least three ways to understand the concept “the Word of God,” and each flows from the one before it.

The first and most important is Jesus Christ (John 1:1-2, for example): the Living Word of God. God has revealed himself to us most fully by becoming one of us through the person of Jesus. It’s the only aspect of this concept that deserves to be capitalized.

The second is the Bible: the written word of God. The Bible is the word of God because it testifies to Christ, the Word of God. We risk turning the Bible into an idol if we believe that it is, by its own merit, God’s perfect revelation to us. It reveals God to us only because of its witness to Christ.

The third is the spoken word of God (Acts 4:31), for example. Whether it is a sermon in the church or a conversation between two people, God is revealed through our words about him. When the phrase “the word of God” is used in the New Testament, it most frequently refers to the message that is preached and believed by people. But, just as the Bible is the word of God only as it testifies to Christ, our words become the word of God only as they also testify to him. And our words can witness to Christ most fully as they are grounded in the Bible, the written word of God. That, for example, is why a sermon is only a sermon if it is based upon Scripture.

It’s good to keep in mind that the word of God, in whatever form we encounter it, is only the word of God (lower case) because it directs our attention to Jesus Christ, the Word of God (upper case). He is the one who reveals God to us in a way that no one and nothing else ever could.

Peter