As human beings stand and survey the night sky, it can seem as though humanity is a small insignificant speck in a great expanse of cosmos. Humans, since their creation, have sought to understand their place in this vast expanse. But more than the creation, and their place in it, human beings have sought to find the Creator. It is only the Creator that can make sense of the vast cosmos and humanities place in it. According to the writer of Ecclesiastes, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (3:11, ESV). This desire to find God has driven people to build temples on the tops of mountains, use drugs and other substances, and fight countless wars. However, humanity alone was helpless to discover the One True God alone. God had to reveal himself to man. The relationship between Jesus as the revelation of God and Scripture as the revelation of God is they are both how God has, at different times, revealed Himself to humanity.
The essay that follows will attempt to unpack that loaded statement.
God is not hidden, and because He is not hidden, that longing that exists in the human heart, that longing for God, is brought to a fevered pitch because God is clearly seen in nature. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1, ESV). The apostle Paul would also write, “for his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So, they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20, ESV). There is no excuse for not understanding that God is there, but knowing God’s attributes, or God’s characteristics, require more than just an understanding of His existence. That would require God’s grace. The Creator God would have to reveal himself to humanity, so that, humanity could understand who He is.
This work of God, God revealing himself to the people He created begins with Scripture. According to Ward, “Scripture can serve as the necessary lens for putting into focus for us knowledge of God, which is already there, but which without God’s word to us in Scripture is seriously blurred by our sinful perspective.”[1] In the same way that God spoke the creation into being (Genesis 1:1-25), God would reveal Himself to His creation. It is through the word of God that the attributes of God can be clearly seen. And it is in knowing God’s attributes that humanity is given a clearer picture of God. “Thus (we may say) God has invested himself in His words, or we could say that God has so identified himself with his words that whatever someone does to God’s words (whether it is to obey or disobey) they do directly to God himself.” [2] When the Scripture speaks, it is as if God Himself were speaking. This is affirmed in Article I of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, “WE AFFIRM that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative Word of God. WE DENY that the Scriptures receive their authority from the Church, tradition, or any other human source.” [3]
So, in understanding that, the words of Scripture are the very words of God. However, some time should be taken here to clarify that statement. Since some may read this and say, ‘the words of Scripture were written by human authors.’ And there is truth in that statement. It was men who proclaimed these words, and men who recorded these words in written form. And it is people who interpret and proclaim these words today. So, the question that is often asked is, ‘how are these the words of God?’ The answer to that is simple, the Holy Spirit. According to Ward, “the Spirit is the agent of the inspiration of Scripture.”[4] In other words, it is the Holy Spirit that worked in the hearts of the men that wrote down the inspired words of God. It is the Holy Spirit that allowed men to proclaim these words, and it is the continuing work of the Holy Spirit that allows people to proclaim the word of God even now. The words of Scripture are inspired by the Holy Spirit, for the benefit of all humanity.
This benefit spoken of here is allowing human beings, who could never climb a mountain tall enough, build a temple large enough, fight a war righteous enough, or take enough drugs to reach God, an opportunity to begin to get a glimpse of the God that spoke all things into existence (Genesis 1:1). But the story of the Old Testament declares that though God was revealing Himself to people, people still chose their own selfish desires. It was almost as if, as humanity ‘groped’ (Acts 17:27), for God and God allowed them small glimpses of Himself, humanity couldn’t truly get a grasp of who God is and what God actually requires of His people.
So, since man couldn’t get to God, God came down to man. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14, ESV). Jesus came into the world, and God made a lasting footprint in human history. The invisible and unknowable God became personal. “He is the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15, ESV), and the full manifestation of the revelation of God. In Jesus God is revealing Himself to mankind in an unmistakable way. According to Ward, “he appears as the one who is God in person, God’s word in human form, and God in action.” [5] In Jesus, the fullness of God was manifest in a person. A person who talked, walked, and had the same emotions as the people he was sent to save. Jesus was able to explain what God requires of humanity with the ease of a human. People were able to relate to God in a way that they had never before been able too. God was no longer some seemingly distant Spirit, but now God was a close, personal, and relatable being. When Jesus speaks, God speaks. “It is also true to argue that we cannot be loyal to Christ as the word of God while rejecting his view of Scripture as the written word of God.” [6] Jesus understood completely who God is and what God requires. Jesus revealed further in a specific way that reality to the creation. “Scripture is related to the person of Christ as the means of his acting in the world and of his self-presentation to us in such a fundamental way that it is appropriate to call both him and Scripture ‘Word.” [7] Jesus allows people to ‘see’ God, something, that before, would have been impossible to truly do.
In conclusion, while “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1, ESV), for humans to truly begin to understand God, it took the grace of God going further than just a general knowledge that God exists. God spoke to the people He created to further reveal himself to them. This was completely a work of God because humanity alone, though it desperately tried, could not have progressed from a general understanding that God exists. It took a work of God to begin to reveal the attributes of God. Scripture is the account of that work. Through the word of God, He revealed himself to human beings. God spoke, and in his words are found the revelation of who God is and what God requires of people. However, even with this revelation, it seemed that the people to whom God was revealing himself just couldn’t seem to get the full picture of God. How do frail and fragile humans truly wrap their minds around a God they cannot see. Jesus came and answered that dilemma, so to speak. God was no longer just an invisible Spirit, but a visible man. A man that could relate to humanity in a different way. Jesus was a living, breathing, person, and He we able to reveal God in a personal way. A way that God had not been seen before. Jesus called human beings friends. So, the relationship between Jesus as the revelation of God and Scripture as the revelation of God is they are both means by which God has further reveled Himself to His creation. Each way, more personal that the last.
Works Cited
“The Chicago Statements on Inerrancy and Hermeneutics.” Defending Inerrancy,
defendinginerrancy.com/chicago- statements/. Accessed 1 Oct. 2023.
Ward, Timothy. Words of Life: Scripture as the Living and Active Word of God. IVP Academic,
2009.
[1] Ward, Timothy. Words of Life: Scripture as the Living and Active Word of God. IVP Academic, 2009. 98
[2] Ward, Timothy. Words of Life: Scripture as the Living and Active Word of God. 27
[3] “The Chicago Statements on Inerrancy and Hermeneutics.” Defending Inerrancy, defendinginerrancy.com/chicago-statements/. Accessed 1 Oct. 2023.
[4] Ward, Timothy. Words of Life: Scripture as the Living and Active Word of God. 59
[5] Ward, Timothy. Words of Life: Scripture as the Living and Active Word of God. 68
[6] Ward, Timothy. Words of Life: Scripture as the Living and Active Word of God. 70
[7] Ward, Timothy. Words of Life: Scripture as the Living and Active Word of God. 70
