The Bible: God's speaking, His essence, His Vocabulary.
The Bible is the Christian book; the source of everything that God has chosen to reveal to man. Its importance can’t be overstated, but despite unprecedented availability through both print and digital media, very few Christians read the Bible daily. In this post, we continue our exploration of the Bible by considering three of its aspects: the Bible as God’s speaking, His essence, and His vocabulary. We hope this post will not only inspire you to read the Bible more but also give you an increased appreciation and a deeper love for God’s Word.
God’s Speaking
The Bible is full of verses that describe our God as a speaking God. The Bible begins with God, and immediately God speaks, and through His speaking, the universe comes into being. It seems so obvious that our God speaks that we may take this marvelous characteristic of God for granted. By contrast, idols are often described in the Bible as “dumb,” unable to speak. Our God is a speaking God! A silent person is mysterious. If someone never speaks, it’s hard to know anything about them. God is already the most mysterious One. Isaiah 45:15 even says that He is “a God who hides Himself.” If God never spoke, it would be impossible for us to know Him, let alone His purpose.
If asked what words describe God, some Christians would probably include “living,” but how many would describe God as a speaking God? Our God is a living God, and because He is living, He speaks. Every living person speaks, and even those who are physically unable will always find a way to communicate. How does God speak? The Bible! The Bible is God’s speaking. Hebrews 1:1-2 says, “God, having spoken of old in many portions and in many ways to the fathers in the prophets, has at the last of these days spoken to us in the Son.” “Many portions” and “in the prophets” refer to the Old Testament. In our last post, we saw, according to 2 Peter 1:21, that “men spoke from God while being borne by the Holy Spirit.” And that their speaking was God’s speaking. In the New Testament, God speaks to us “in the Son.” In the Gospel of John chapter 1, verses 1 and 14 show us that the Son, Who is the Word, became flesh and tabernacled among us. As the Word, the Son defines, explains, and expresses God. He makes the mysterious God manifest and knowable. As Christians, we know that there is a God, but as believers in Christ, how can we know our God? Through God’s speaking, the Bible!
God’s Essence
The Bible is God’s essence. Essence is the fundamental nature or most important quality of a thing. The essence of your favorite ceramic coffee mug is the ceramic. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed.” In our last post, we used this verse to show how God authored the Bible. But this verse also shows us what the Bible is. John 4:24 tells us that “God is Spirit.” Spirit is not merely a third of the Trinity; spirit, the Bible tells us, is what God is. The Word of God is the breath of God, and what God breathes out is spirit. This means that the essence of the Word of God is spirit. While the Bible does contain the highest morality and teaching, these things are not its essence. In John 6:63, Jesus told His disciples that His words are spirit and life. The word of God is spirit, and as such, it is the embodiment of God as the Spirit. The Spirit is the essence, the most essential element, the ceramic, of the word of God. Every word out of the mouth of God, His divine breath, contains God’s essence, which is the Spirit. This realization should affect our attitude and approach when we come to God’s Word. We need to study the Bible, and we need to understand its teachings. But our primary engagement with the Scriptures should correspond with the essence of what the Bible is. John 4:24 also tells us that those who worship God must do so “in spirit.” And Ephesians 6:16-17 tells us that we should “receive the sword of the Spirit, which Spirit is the word of God, by means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit.” To receive the maximum benefit, when we come to the Bible, the word which God breathed out, we need to come with not merely our mind to understand, but with our spirit to pray.
His Vocabulary
What’s the difference between the Word of God being God’s speaking and His vocabulary? When God speaks, His thoughts, desires, and purpose are expressed. As we’ve already mentioned, if God had never spoken, we would have never been able to understand Him or His purpose. The word that God uses to speak to His people, His vocabulary, is the Bible. Simply put, God speaks Bible; Bible is the language, the vocabulary, that God uses to speak to His people. This is not only true in the sense that the Bible is the complete Word of God, delivered to us once for all. But also in the sense that when God speaks to us personally, He uses the words of Scripture. God doesn't put signs in the clouds or disrupt the natural order of the universe through miracles to speak to His people. This doesn’t mean that He can’t, but that His chosen vocabulary is Bible. Countless believers can testify that when they pray and read the words of the Bible, God’s Word returns to them at a later time in a way that perfectly matches their situation as the instant speaking of God to them. This is one reason that Paul charges us in Colossians 3:16 to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” When we have a “rich” deposit of God’s word in us, He can speak to us through this word, moment by moment, in the most personal and intimate way. This is not simply coincidentally remembering a verse from the Bible, but rather, God’s personal speaking to us through His word.
We hope that these scriptural insights into the Bible being God’s speaking, essence, and vocabulary will lead to an increased appreciation and deeper love for God’s Word. And that you will be inspired to read the Bible more!
