What is the Word of God?: A Prophetic Think Tank

What is the Word of God? A very dangerous question.

“This is a very simple question, and one to which a Calvinist, it would seem, could give a very simple answer. And yet that simple answer would hardly be adequate for an occasion of this kind, since the query to which a reply is sought involves such questions as these: Is it a natural or a supernatural Word? Is it a communication of truth, addressed to the intellect, or a behest or command, addressed to the will? Is it a written or a spoken Word or both? Does it represent a verbal or a factual revelation, or one that is both verbal and factual? Is it a Word spoken in the past, and now a finished product, or is it rather a continuous speaking of God? Is it wholly or only in part identical with the divine revelation? Is the Bible the Word of God or is it not?”¹

The novelist Thomas Pynchon said, “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.” Not that the question “what is the word of God?” is the wrong question. I would say that this question to Christians, and the World, is probably the most critical possible. But it’s the wrong question because we don’t use it to get an honest answer. We use it to stand for a pious intention for which no answer warrants unless it leads us into another red herring ever further from the Messiah.

Of course, it’s mere rhetoric if you are asking it to a people who already claim to know its answer. Rhetorical queries are fine for the great and most consequential questions, but only if the answer you wish to receive reflects reality. If it’s not, they are careless and empty, haughty, platitudinous,  pretentious, and misleading of where we really are want to be in having real knowledge.

“Is it true that scientists said on Foxnews that in one week a two-kilometer asteroid is going to hit the earth and all life will die?” “Yes, and our saviors, the spacemen, will land their rescue ships on Tuesday and will start to load passengers for the trip to Zeta Reticuli.”

That’s not really a serious question. Its meant to be funny by pretending to be serious, knowing that the answer you get can only be a funny retort or one of a serious but funny panic attack. What makes it the wrong question for a real searcher of truth and a real possessor of truth is that its meant to be a kind of ruse, prepared for an emotionally motivated disarming of the whole idea of spiritual threat by discharging it into something inert and harmless. “What is the Word of God” is asked today for no other purpose than misleading not for comedy, but feelings of piety. Asked so that a certain answer is forced, so that the implied threat about that Word, which is well known subconsciously, gives up a Holy turd instead of a Holy, but very uncomfortable truth.

That’s how it’s the wrong question. Not for the question itself but because of a wrong asker and receiver. What you need is the same question formulated so that the crucial, eternal, potentially deadly, and potentially saving answer cant be avoided and lost in manipulated conceptual generalities.

As Berkhof unintentionally demonstrates above, some questions—like what something is essentially—should not even need to be asked when the answer is self-evident. It’s like someone asking, “What kind of car do you drive?” and you reply, naturally, “A Chevrolet sedan.” But in Christianity, we’re uncomfortable with the most deeply exclusivist claims in what is, by nature, an exclusivist faith. So instead, we veer into rhetorical evasions and dissociative speculations: “Is it made of metal or wood?” “Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?” “Is it objective or subjective?” All the while, we never actually face the obvious: that it is, in fact, a Chevrolet sedan—something specific, defined, and unavoidable.

Another way is that of the common pew sitter. “What kind of car do you have? The answer is “Car.” In such a manner do we ask “what is the Word of God”: something demanding a certain model, but we get either “the whole Bible” or “a document purported to be from a supernatural source developed over time by a certain culture in the ancient Middle East.”

We know and believe there are all kinds of claimants to “the Word of God” type of scripture in the world. The unattested versions are very attractive when the idea of supernatural proofs scare us, or we just can’t accept them in any case. But if you think you’re in a religion that is represented primarily by its whole instead of its miraculous part,  like in our Christian “culture war” idea of us against the World, you will be inclined to circle the wagons and want to defend the whole instead of allowing its leading edge to defend itself. To us, “go to the ant, thou sluggard” and “he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities” are both the Word of God, and so they are. But for what reason in our consciousnesses do we dare to think we are obligated to choose something else as this leading-edge of the Word of God when Christ and the apostles certainly, unequivocally, demonstratively, all day and all night, made it messianic prophecy?

Talk about a  dissociate disorder.

The question is not crucially whether the Word of God is spoken or written, or whether it is that which was spoken in the past or spoken now. They are misleading questions, especially the one about whether the Word of God is historical or contemporary. Such genera of questions about the Word of God will not give you the answer to what is the Word of God because this is asking for only for its exterior categorical qualities. What we want to do is construct a question that forces an answer that goes to its particular content, and that content in which the New Testament writers, particularly Jesus, took for granted as being at its heart.

Here is our question: “what of/in the Word of God is required to use as a collective symbol of the whole thing?”

We all do it. We all have a conceptual point of contact in our minds with the idea “Word of God,” so this question is appropriate on a lot of levels if we ask honestly and are willing to answer honestly. But let’s not excuse ourselves for the corrupt natural tendency of defer-deny-misdirect-reconceive when the results of our natural tendencies are supposed to be 180 degrees opposite from what we are supposed to love.  It’s about the single superior thought or impression we get when we ask or think about the Word of God and if it aligns with Christ as he revealed himself.

The far better question, again, is “what in the Bible, what scriptural stream of revelation, regardless of who is speaking, whether it is addressed to the will or the intellect, verbal of factual, is that which the New Testament writers took as what best represents the credentials of Jesus as the Messiah.” I beg you to remember that if Jesus is not Messiah, there may be some god out there, but he’s not Jehovah, and there is no indication that he cares about us or is not more inclined to come down and start plunking us with his cosmic pellet gun for just fun. If he’s not Messiah, then you’re still in your sins. If he’s not Messiah, there is no Christianity, only another podunk world faith. This question for the Church is perfect because the “Messiah” is an exclusive propriety possession of the Bible. If you were to pick one name for “Bible,” that would be it.

Since it is Jesus who is the author and finisher of our faith (Heb 12:2), what about Jesus makes him the Christ to our faith is what should also first be treated as the Word of God in the capacity of an informational gatekeeper to our faith, without which knowledge and faith we miss in Jesus, the person. So, it’s not even about whether something in the Bible might not be the Word of God, but to what extent can we say what we first give attention to in the Word of God is Jesus.

Along this line, here are some questions to consider that will give us our answer.

1. What was the only possibility for the “phrase “Word of God”  being used as one-part-of-the-whole according to the NT writers by the historical timing of their writings?

This one is easy, and we all know it.

We use “Word of God” as the whole of the Bible, but it’s not used that way in the Bible.

To the extent that the New Testament is primarily about merely reporting on the operational success of messianic prophecy in fulfillment and through that the clarification of previously unsettled questions, this is the extent to which the Word of God is single stream, namely, messianic prophecy. In other words, the extent to which it can be said the New Testament is following these prior prophecies instead of creating out of whole cloth new ones for own truth narrative is the extent that we can say that “the Word of God” is a single stream. Quintessentially, the words of the prophets fulfilled by Christ.

For the NT writers, the corpus of the NT was not written yet and established canonically. For all the writers of the NT, when they spoke of the Word of God, they were speaking about the Old Testament. The New Testament does not much explicitly quote itself. When the NT writers and Jesus quoted, they quoted the Old Testament, and they overwhelmingly quoted Messianic Prophecy. They referred not to its own unattested authority, neither does Jesus (John 5:31-32, 37, 39) to His own, but to the ability of the Tenach to prove their reports are not self-serving and their faith as divinely inspired by the worlds of the prophets.

2. What of this Word of God is quoted, and does it align with our operational definition of the Word of God?²

Bring up my web page here. Look at what of the Old Testament was quoted, and for what purpose was it quoted.

• 254 separate NT verses citing 231 OT verses
• 190 Combined OT quotations in the NT, conflating repetitions
• 137 OT verses are marked clearly prophetic, 30 are used in a strong prophetic argument, making a total of 167 out of 231 OT verses strongly prophetic.

Bring up this web page here. This page is a collation of Jesus’s words in the Gospel of John, giving an example of the pattern also found in the other gospels. Here is a more meaningful interpretation of the true NT prophetic content (Note: “PW” in the document, as I used it, stands for Prophetic Word, an appellation I give as a more instructive alternative to “Bible” or “Scripture,” or even Word of God if it is used in a sense too general to make messianic prophecy its heart).

“In John, there are 879 verses. Jesus speaks in 423 verses. Jesus cites OT prophetic scripture 33 verses. He states or implies a fulfilled prophecy in 120 verses.  In other verses, he speaks eschatologically or speaks of prophecy yet to still set for fulfillment. This is 209 verses of the 423. The total is 362 of the 423.  The total is 85.5%. The missing collation is in the verses where he expounds on a prophetic theme, explains how it works to faith, speaks of its importance, or generally where it is the root topic of discussion. In this category, all can fall into. All are essentially about Christ, His Word, its fulfillment, its application to faith, and its future.  Speaking conservatively, these verses alone are at least 345. Most of these verses combine one category with another, making every verse in the service of the prophetic subject.

For example, in John 6:44, Jesus says: ‘No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.’ This combines the M category with the F category since it speaks of the future resurrection and also that no one will take part in it but those who believe the PW/Person of Christ.

The next verse, 45, we have: ‘It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man, therefore, that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.” Jesus cites OT prophecy and states that this faith in the word of the prophets is the way to Him, meaning that it is in the M-S category. To this could easily be added the F category as well, since he still speaks of future fulfillment by future believers.

John 3:14 combines all four categories:  It refers to Numbers 21:8 (S), cites it as prophetic and fulfilled by Christ (E), speaks of the supreme present and  future importance of the PW and faith requirement in the PW (M and F)”

Now, this is my own work following my perspective, but I ask you to use the same model and come up with your numbers.  Any way you do it, the Word of God, whether OT or NT, is the messianic, prophetic phenomena of God.

What is more than natural is that the Person of messianic prophecy would put it of first importance, found all his arguments on it, predicate all His theology on it, speak it almost exclusively and then die to fulfill it? That is because the Word of messianic prophecy is Christ.

That is what the NT writers called the Word of God. Unlike our view of the Word of God, it’s not pithy proverbs, philosophical principles, motifs and themes, stories, an instruction manual about how to pray, or even mainly about how to treat your fellow man or a dictionary of theological ideas. It’s not mainly about  “Jesus entered and passed through Jericho.” It’s not about us. It’s about Jesus, but not about the Jesus we want Him to be or even only about the person of Jesus. It’s about Jesus the Messiah, and if it’s about Jesus Messiah, it is about how the prophets foretold Him and how he fulfilled that Word of God.

Every verse in the New Testament, including “Jesus wept” (John 11:35), is recorded for some kind of teaching of that truth long before we apply it to our own lives. An example of the deprioritized interpretation is this one: “Jesus Christ tenderly and deeply sympathizes in human sorrow” (Family Bible Notes). I don’t mean that the Bible is not for us, that it’s not showing Jesus demonstrating a mandatory capacity for human emotion or care for us, I mean that “Jesus wept” is for the main purpose of recording Jesus’s fulfillment of Isa 53:3 and Jer 9:1; 13:17; 14:17. The spiritual power of fulfilling Isaiah 53:3 and the implications for our faith through it is far more important than “Jesus Christ tenderly and deeply sympathizes in human sorrow.” But this kind of thing is what we like to call the main meaning of the “Word of God.”

3. In the NT, what kind of texts are used, and from where are they taken for positing theological arguments?

The better question is, “what of the fundamental theological NT propositions don’t come from Old Testament prophetic texts?” The answer is none. We will use an example from the Book of Romans.

For example, there are about 41 direct OT quotations in Romans (Romans 3:10-18 quotes directly eight total OT texts). There are many doctrines, but a good way to divide it by “righteousness needed” (Sin), “1:18–3:20; righteousness provided” (Faith), “3:21–8:39; righteousness vindicated” (The Cross, Atonement), “9:1–11:36; righteousness practiced” (Sanctification), “12:1–15:13.”³ If not prophesied, then it’s not theology.

• 1:18-3:20 Righteousness needed (Sin)

Paul established the doctrine of sin and what cure is needed. Paul here seems to be making a statement about the sin problem without stating what this sin is. Perhaps he is speaking of sins of performance? But that is not what he is talking about as the most important kind of sin.

Overlooked is that Paul opens the letter with a scriptural predicate that is to remain to establish his doctrine of sin by contrast. In Romans 1:1-4, we read, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures). Concerning his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” That is a wholly, unabashedly prophetic statement.

He even says that the gospel was prophesied, and is, therefore, a prophetic gospel. It defines the basis for the new righteousness through a prophetic knowledge that sin is against (knowing and believing is righteous, not knowing, and not believing is the opposite).

Starting in 1:18, being that holding this knowledge of the truth unrighteously is the real sin, the baseline example for this sin against revelational knowledge is a sin against natural revelation “professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” In man’s religious history, this led to a fundamental corruption of something so basic as the knowledge of the divinely established form of sex between men and women, effectively what we might call a kind of intellectual and biological inbreeding (as opposed to looking outside the human sphere for knowledge).

Paul continues not to talk about sin as ultimately against natural revelation, but by its example talking about the sin against Christ and his prophetic revelation.

In Vss. 29-31 Starts to talk more directly, using examples closer to home. He lays out a list of sins that flow from, as indicative symbols, of the great one. The problem is those deceived into thinking that they will not be judged by the Law when they are religious (circumcised). Not judged according to the law, but who judge those who are committing the same sins they are. But those who are not circumcised will be counted as righteous who keep the law these people are not following, which is true “the righteousness of the law” in v.26.

What is this? There is the false righteousness that comes from bodily movement around religion and natural affections and the true righteousness of the Law that is spiritual and faith in the prophetic revelation of Christ. Here is the whole of the thing Paul is talking about, that spiritual one, not any other primitive form.  Its opposite is, again, quintessential sin, not the basic sins that Paul mentioned against the basic knowledge of God. (In Romans 8:4 he says the righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in us who live not according to the flesh but to the Spirit)

He says that this righteousness is not carnal but spiritual: Romans 2:29: “But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” The advantage between the gentile and Jew is that the Jew is superior in that “unto them were committed the oracles of God” (3:2). The Jew has a better foundation upon which to be properly instructed. That is, by fulfilled messianic prophecy. Now we know what this inner, essential, righteousness of the Law is.

Continue to the next page…

1. http://www.bible-researcher.com/berkhof1.html ↩

2. http://www.bible-researcher.com/nicole.html ↩

3. http://www.gotquestions.org/Book-of-Romans.html ↩

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