What are we talking about when we speak of the “Word of God”?
The “Word of God” can refer to several different categories of divine expression. Theologians, like Grudem (2020), use something like the following categories:
Decrees
With decrees, God speaks to reality, if you will, speaking out what will happen. We see this in the creation account in Genesis. God says, “Let there be light, and there was light” (Genesis 1:3).
We see this kind of Word in the ongoing sustaining of life. Psalm 147 says, “[15] He sends out his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly. [16] He gives snow like wool; he scatters frost like ashes…[18] He sends out his word, and melts them…” (vv. 15-16, 18). So, he says, “snow,” and it snows. He says, “melt,” and it melts…all by his word. We are also told he “upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3).
So the “Word of God” can refer to these kinds of decretive statements.
Personal Address
Personal address is when God audibly speaks to someone. This is actually pretty rare, but you see it throughout the Old Testament because when it does happen you write it down!
So we see God speaking to Adam and Eve. He speaks to Cain. He speaks to Noah. He speaks to Abraham. He speaks to Moses from the burning bush and so forth.
Prophecy
Prophecy is when God speaks through messengers. If you look through the prophets, you will see the phrase “Thus says the Lord” scores and scores of times. They are speaking for the Lord as the Lord has directed them. If you were alive in that era, you would not have directly heard God’s word, but you would have heard a direct quote via the prophets.
Jesus
The Word of God comes by and through his Son, Jesus. God speaks through the speech and person of Jesus.
John says, “[1] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…[14] 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 1:1, 14).
Later on, the writer of Hebrews would summarize this dramatic shift in revelation like this: “[1] Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, [2] but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. [3] He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power…” (Hebrews 1:1-3a).
Jesus literally speaks to us the Word of God (“I speak of what I have seen with my Father,” John 8:38a), and through his person and work we are hearing from God; we are seeing what he is like in a very tangible way.
Jesus Excursus
So think about this reality for a moment. Jesus is the Word of God because is he is the perfect expression or communication of who God is, in his speech and person. This tells us two things.
(1) God is able to perfectly communicate himself through human means. If Jesus is perfectly God, then that shows God can perfectly communicate himself through things like human action and human speech. We might doubt whether the Word of God could be truly communicated through prophets or the language of Greek, but if God can take on human form and speak Aramaic and still be fully God, then, yes, he can speak perfectly through human means.
(2) There is a sense in which, the words of God are truly himself because he is able to perfectly communicate himself in human words, just as he did in his Son. This is hard for us to imagine because, try as we might, we cannot perfectly disclose ourselves in words. We are often searching for words to describe how we feel, and when we say them, they often fall short of the reality in us we are trying to describe. But God can perfectly speak himself in his Word.
But really, John is saying even more than that (Frame, 2010). John says, “[2] He was in the beginning with God. [3] All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:2-3). So John implies all of those “let there be” phrases of Genesis involved, in some sense, Jesus. I do not fully understand how that worked, but I picture it like this: The will of God was to create, and when he spoke, the voice and execution was Jesus. (This imagery is consistent with the economy of the Trinity wherein typically the Father plans, the Son executes, and the Spirit applies.)
Now, I am not saying the Bible is the third person of the Trinity, but if the words of creation in Genesis are in some sense Jesus himself, then God is very much in his Word. John Frame says, “So when [John 1:1] says that ‘the Word was God,’ it indicates not only the deity of Christ, but also the deity of the creative word [of Genesis]. So the pasage teaches not only an identity between God and Christ, but a threefold identity, between God, Christ, and the creative word” (2010, p. 68). Frame goes on to conclude:
“So the word is God. When we encounter the word of God, we encounter God. When we encounter God, we encounter his word. We cannot encounter God without the word, or the word without God. God’s word and his personal presence are inseparable. His word, indeed, is his personal presence. Whenever God’s Word is spoken, read, or heard, God himself is there.”
Frame, 2010, p. 68
This truth would explain what we see in Hebrews 4:12, where we read, “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.” These are things only God can do. So we are really getting God himself in his Word. (See Frame, pp. 63-68, for this whole discussion).
We should probably tremble a bit more when we consider His presence in His Word.
Bible
The Word of God can also refer to scripture. All of the above categories are written down in the Bible, not exhaustively (John says “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” John 21:25.), but the Words of God that have been written down in the Bible are sufficient and accurate.
So this is the Word of God: Decrees, personal address, prophecy, his Son, and all these captured, in part, in the Bible.
Sources
Frame, J. M. (2010). The Doctrine of the Word of God. P&R Publishing.
Grudem, W. A. (2020). Systematic Theology, Second Edition: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Second edition). Zondervan Academic.
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