God created the universe by his word (Genesis 1), then he ruled Adam and Eve by his word (Genesis 2), and when the first sin came, it was not merely rebellion in doubting God, it was rebellion in doubting God’s word (Genesis 3). As Peter Jensen, in his book At the Heart of Universe, writes,
“The serpent of Genesis 3 cast doubt upon the word from the beginning, and the actual disaster was a mutiny against the rule of God in his word” (86)
The problem of the world and our hearts (also known as “sin”) is a continual mutiny against God (see Romans 1:18-32), but even more specifically it is “a mutiny against the rule of God in his word.”
When this same God, therefore, planned and accomplished a redemption for this fallen world, it should come as no surprise that his word remained central. Throughout the Old Testament he calls and saves his people through his written word. Then when he himself arrives incarnate on the scene, he upholds the written word. (Jesus had many disputes with the Pharisees and religious Jews of the day, but one thing they all agreed on was the importance of the word of God.) And finally, when Jesus knew he was soon to die and rise and start his church, he emphasizes the future importance of his word (see John 14-17) and promises that he would guide his apostles to write a written, authoritative word (John 16:13).
From the beginning, at the fall, throughout redemption, and even up until now, God has emphasized his word. He is a speaking God, always relating and ruling by his word.
These considerations are well explained in Peter Jensen’s At the Heart of the Universe, which led him to write two powerful paragraphs about the place of the Bible today in our Christianity and our churches. I commend both paragraphs; I’ll be keeping them as excellent, succinct summaries of why we must continue to emphasize the Bible in our faith
The first paragraph focuses on how our relationship with God must be through the Bible, and what happens when we lose (or downplay) the Bible’s importance:
“The covenantal book is not simply a textbook, even a textbook of theology. It is the word of God and hence it is the very instrument by which God rules us. To trust his word is to trust him; to obey his word is to obey him; to learn from his word is to learn from him. Through Scripture a pure and wholesome language becomes the medium of the most important relationship that we could ever have. It is the exact point on which faith rests. To encourage a habitual doubt in regard to Scripture, to treat it as the word of man in the midst of which may be found the word of God, is to emasculate faith itself; to attack God’s method of ruling us. It is at this point that God becomes remote, and we are tempted to meet him in ways which are satisfactory only in our imagination. It is at this point, necessarily, that true assurance ebbs away…The very health of God’s people depends upon acceptance of the authority of the Bible” (Peter Jensen, At the Heart of the Universe, 102-103)
The second paragraph similarly describes how we will lose our relationship with God if we lose the word, arguing that we, therefore, must maintain the centrality of the Bible and our confidence in the word:
“If…[we] give the Bible only a human status…relationship with God is lost. The church will founder and we will experience the awful judgment of Amos: a famine ‘of hearing the words of the Lord’ (Am. 8:11). This, alas, seems to be the situation in many contemporary churches. Christians have failed to see how integral the word of God in Scripture is to the very way in which God chooses to rule over his people. Having lost confidence in God’s word, they find only the remote god…dark and dumb. I believe that only the rehabilitation and exposition of the Bible will give confidence to the church about God…for this is the way God rules over us.” (Peter Jensen, At the Heart of the Universe, 105)
We must relate to God his way: through his written, authoritative word. The Bible is of utmost importance because if we lose it, we literally lose God. Jensen described this well above; we must grasp what’s at stake here.
If we try to relate to God apart from his word, or while downplaying the word (and up-playing experience or subjective ‘words from God’), God will become a remote god, we will trust other sources for guidance and truth, our faith will wither away, and we may even be found not worshiping the true God.
Like our Lord, then, let’s be people of the Book.
