The Letter and the Lord
“Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that each person who belongs to God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
2 Tim. 3:16–17. WEB
The Word of God — timeless, eternal, immutable, perfect, and beautiful. I am speaking of the Son. These are worthy terms for him.
You have the word (expressed and vibrantly enacted) of God, the Spirit, the Rhema. She reveals the mind of the Father and the Son, for she is God, three in one.
You have the word of God, the written scriptures. These words are of holy men, though flawed, who loved and faithfully lived with the faithful God even preceding the incarnation of Christ Jesus.
These ordinary men and some extraordinary, wrote what they were GOD-INSPIRED to write, faithfully looking at their inspiration, the living and only true God, Jesus Christ, by his Spirit infusing eternal truths into their hearts and minds.
Some saw him dimly, having had their vision made cloudy through the cultural understandings that they carried pertaining to their time.
These yet holy men wrote through the words of their culture and of their understanding, which of course was expanded by knowing the lovingkindness of the Lord of All.
Finally… Jesus came and set the record straight for all men to see, Jew and Gentile alike. The knowledge of him written was no longer limited to the Jews alone.
For — the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and revealed in person who is, what is, how it is, the word of God, and the Spirit that followed him revealed it to the hearts of the listening, and yet stood before they who would not yet believe, or in this life ever; thereby fulfilling the words of the prophets of old.
We are to let scripture interpret scripture. We must respect context, the context of the literal, the context of history, the context of the faithfulness of the translations, the underlaying text of what is being spoken of, and above all… the Supreme Text of the Holy Spirit of God, the spirit of God the Son, and the spirit of God the Father, and all and any other allegories that they inspire in our hearts, of course confessing that Christ Jesus is the Son of God.
We are to be aware of false gods and spirits against the Lord Almighty that would never profess him as the Son of God, and as the Lord of All.
We must allow the Lord to interpret these holy texts to our hearts, for it is impossible for a written corpus to grant the fullest meaning of what it means by itself alone. Language requires levels of information and systems to understand just one sentence. No language has enough information in itself to cover all things from a limited set of words and permutations of those words available to itself.
It needs an external source, an expander, an author, the Author and Word himself — Christ Jesus.
Sola Scriptura yes, if and only that allows for Christ, and the Spirit to speak independently of the written word, for they will never say something against it, though if our understanding of it is wrong, they will correct it.
“I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”
Psalms 119:10–12, WEB
Scripture is not God. God is God, and God is good. He does speak through the holy faithfully curated scriptures; it does not speak for him alone. He speaks for himself period, now and forever, past and still within our hearts. The holy words of our great faith do not bind God to what he must say, he himself binds the right and good meanings of the holy scriptures to HIMSELF.
There is no other word (logos) of the heavens besides Christ, and there is no other revealer, besides God.
The historical and magnificent inspired words of the scriptures, there are no others like them… for God still uses the words written by prophets inspired by him.
“I will bow down toward your holy temple, and give thanks to your Name for your loving kindness and for your truth; for you have exalted your Name and your Word above all.”
Psalms 138:2, WEB
Blessings to you, and blessed Easter.
