We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

2236199757_62dcb45583_z

One Word

While I’ve lately been pretty distracted finishing up Benefit of the Doubt (Baker, 2013), my goal is to sprinkle in posts that comment on the distinctive commitments of ReKnew a couple of times a week. I’m presently sharing some thoughts on the second conviction of ReKnew, which is that Jesus Christ is the full and final revelation of God. Jesus is thus not to be placed alongside of other portraits of God in Scripture, which is what Christians have tended to do throughout history. Rather, everything in Scripture should be read through the lens of Christ and, more specifically, through the lens of the cross, for as I’ve argued, everything Jesus is about is summed up, and woven together, around the cross.

John 1:1 teaches us that Jesus is “the Word” who was “in beginning with God” and who is himself “God.”  While scholars nuance it differently, all agree that the concept of the “Word” (logos), as John uses it, refers to God’s self-communication. As John Robinson put it, Jesus is “the face of God.”  And notice the definite article. Jesus is the Word. God doesn’t having many Words. He has one, and it’s Jesus Christ. Whenever God speaks or presents himself to us, John is saying, he looks like Jesus.

So far as I can see, this means it is illegitimate to ever think we can supplement or qualify what we learn about God in Jesus Christ with other words in Scripture. Scripture’s words are only the Word of God insofar as they agree with, and in fact point to, the revelation of God in Christ. In fact, Jesus himself reflects this conviction when he chastises the religious leaders of his day saying they study Scripture while failing to see that it all “testifies about me” (Jn 5:39). So too, the resurrected Jesus chided two of his disciples for being “slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken” about him. “Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” he asked. (Lk 24:25-26). And then, Luke says,” beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (Lk 24:27).

It is apparent that Jesus is the Word of the words of Scripture. God “breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16) all Scripture for the ultimate purpose of “breathing” his Word, Jesus. In this light, the last thing we should ever do is try to supplement, let alone qualify, the revelation of God in Christ with other words.

Image by carulmare. Sourced via Flickr.

Related Reading

Interview with Frank Viola on his Book “God’s Favorite Place on Earth”

Today is the release date for Frank Viola’s new book, God’s Favorite Place on Earth. Greg did an interview with Frank recently, and in celebration of his book release, we’re sharing that interview here. If you read to the end you’ll see how you can get 25 free gifts if you purchase the book from…

Don’t Be a Functional Atheist at Christmas

All of us raised in Western culture have been strongly conditioned by what is called a secular worldview. The word secular comes from the Latin saeculum, meaning “the present world.” A secular worldview, therefore, is one that focuses on the present physical world and ignores or rejects the spiritual realm. To the extent that one…

How To Talk about Theology

Social media is full of theological debate. Theological arguments that formerly took months or even years to get in print, now only takes the time to write a post or 140 characters and click “publish.” Social media is great in that it makes space for all of our voices. However, it also seems to elevate…

What Makes the Good News So Good

While God was revealed in various ways and to various degrees through the law and the prophets of the Old Testament, in Jesus we finally have the one who is “the exact representation of God’s being” or essence (hypostasis, Heb. 1:1-13). This is the heart of the Good News that reverberates throughout the New Testament.…

Reviewing the Reviews: Tom Belt (Part 2)

In my previous post I reviewed Tom’s critical review of volume 1 of CWG, and in this post I’d like to do the same for his critical review of volume 2. As he did in his review of volume I, Tom begins with some praises and points of agreement. He thinks my quest to discern “what…

God’s Shadow Activity [Sermon 7/15/12]

If we believe the whole Bible is inspired, how do we reconcile the Old Testament with the self-sacrificial, enemy-loving God revealed in Jesus Christ? In this past Sunday’s sermon at Woodland Hills Church, Greg succinctly summarizes his own thoughts by echoing that of the apostle Paul: the Old Testament is a shadow of the reality which is found in Christ.