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 argue it may be the most critical question for Christians—and for the world. But it becomes the wrong question when we no longer use it to seek an honest answer. Instead, we employ it as a placeholder for pious intention, where no real answer is expected—unless it offers yet another red herring that pulls us further from the Messiah.

It’s mere rhetoric when posed to those who already claim to know the answer. And rhetorical questions are fine, even necessary, for the most consequential matters—if the answer they’re meant to evoke is real. Otherwise, they’re careless, empty, haughty, and misleading, exposing more about our desire for appearances than our hunger for truth.

Take this mock-serious query: “Is it true that scientists on Fox News said a two-kilometer asteroid will strike Earth in one week and destroy all life?” “Yes, and our saviors, the spacemen, will arrive Tuesday to ferry us to Zeta Reticuli.”

That’s not a real question. It’s a parody of one—meant to sound serious, but clearly designed to provoke laughter or absurdity. The same applies to our contemporary use of “What is the Word of God?”—not as comedy, but as a disarming expression of reverence. We ask it to evoke a comforting response, to force a particular answer, to silence the threat lurking just beneath it. And so we receive a holy sentiment in place of holy truth.

It’s the wrong question, not because it shouldn’t be asked, but because we no longer intend to answer it truthfully. We need to ask it again—but differently—so the real, eternal, potentially damning or saving answer can’t be sidestepped or dressed in conceptual evasions.

As Berkhof inadvertently illustrates, some questions—like asking what something essentially is—shouldn’t need to be asked. If someone asks, “What kind of car do you drive?” and you say, “A Chevrolet sedan,” you’ve given a clear and specific answer. But in Christianity, when faced with exclusivist claims in a necessarily exclusivist faith, we dodge. We speculate: “Is it made of metal or wood?” “Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?” “Is it subjective or objective?” All to avoid acknowledging the obvious: it’s a Chevrolet sedan.

Or worse, the response we hear from the average pew-sitter: “Car.” When asked, “What is the Word of God?”—a question demanding specificity—we get answers like “the whole Bible” or “a sacred document compiled by ancient cultures in the Middle East.”

Yes, there are countless scriptures claiming divine origin. The ones that avoid supernatural confirmation are especially attractive in an age that finds such claims uncomfortable or implausible. But if your religion is defined by the “whole” rather than the miraculous part, like much of our culture-war Christianity, you’ll feel pressure to defend everything instead of letting the leading edge defend itself.

To us, both “Go to the ant, thou sluggard” and “He was wounded for our transgressions” are equally the Word of God. And they are. But why do we imagine we must identify something else as the central defining edge, when Christ and the apostles made it unmistakably clear: the Word of God is messianic prophecy.

Talk about dissociation.

The issue isn’t whether the Word of God is spoken or written, past or present. These are misleading categories. Such questions seek only the outer form, never the core content. What we need is a question that presses inward, toward the content that Jesus and the New Testament writers assumed was at the heart of revelation.

Try this instead: “What within the Word of God must serve as the collective symbol of the whole?”

We all do this. We all hold some conceptual image when we hear “Word of God.” The question is: does that image conform to the Christ who revealed himself, or does it comfort us at his expense?

The sharper question still: What in Scripture—what stream of revelation, no matter the speaker, whether addressing the will or the intellect, fact or image—did the New Testament writers treat as the essential witness to Jesus as Messiah? If Jesus is not the Messiah, some god may still exist, but it is not Jehovah—and we have no reason to believe he cares for us. If Jesus is not the Messiah, we remain in our sins. Christianity dissolves into just another tribal myth. But Messiah is an exclusive concept of Scripture. If Scripture had a second name, it would be Messiah.

Since Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith (Heb 12:2), what makes him the Christ should be treated first as the Word of God—the gatekeeper of all true knowledge of him. So it’s not even a question of which parts of the Bible might be the Word of God, but whether we treat the part that centers on Jesus as Messiah as primary.

This reframes the question.

1. What was the only plausible referent of the phrase “Word of God” in the mouths of the NT writers?

Easy: the Old Testament. The NT was not yet canonized. When Jesus and the apostles quoted “Scripture,” they were quoting the Hebrew Bible. And overwhelmingly, they quoted messianic prophecy.

2. Does this quoted content align with our own definition of “the Word of God”? See: http://www.bible-researcher.com/nicole.html

254 NT verses cite 231 OT verses. Of these, 137 are overtly prophetic, 30 support prophetic arguments—167 in total. The NT consistently treats messianic prophecy as the epistemic key.

In John, of 423 verses in which Jesus speaks, 362 either cite prophecy, declare its fulfillment, or assume its eschatological logic. That’s 85.5%. John 6:44–45 and John 3:14 are case studies in how one statement can carry multiple prophetic referents—fulfilled, ongoing, and still to come.

This is why Jesus died—to fulfill the prophetic Word. Not merely to show sympathy, but to confirm Isaiah 53:3 and Jeremiah 9:1. When we interpret “Jesus wept” primarily as emotional identification, we miss the greater truth: he wept to fulfill prophecy. And this prophetic stream is what the NT writers meant when they said, “Word of God.”

3. What kinds of texts does the NT use to build theology?

Romans is a perfect example. Its four movements—sin, faith, atonement, sanctification—are saturated in OT quotations (41 total, 8 in Rom 3:10–18 alone). Paul starts the letter by declaring that the gospel was “promised beforehand by the prophets in the holy Scriptures” (Rom 1:2).

Paul treats sin not as moral failure alone, but as rejection of revelatory truth. The sin is against prophecy. Even faith itself is faith in the prophetic Word concerning Christ. That’s why Abraham’s belief is valid: because he trusted in what was promised. Prophetic.

Romans 9–11—the vindication of righteousness—is built entirely on prophetic argument. Paul doesn’t say, “God told me Jesus is Lord.” He says, “This was written. And now it is fulfilled.”

4. What is used in NT evangelism?

Messianic prophecy. John the Baptist (John 1:23) defines himself by quoting Isaiah 40. Jesus (John 5:39, 46) says the Scriptures testify of him. In Acts, 19 evangelistic verses quote OT prophecy. Modern evangelism—focused on emotional experience, abstract doctrine, or philosophical appeal—has almost nothing in common with the NT model.

5. What of the Word of God is used as a symbolic title for Jesus?

John 1:1–5 and Hebrews 1:1–8 both declare it: Jesus is the Word. But what kind of Word? Not merely abstract reason or divine speech. He is the fulfilled prophetic Word—the one the prophets wrote of, the one through whom God now speaks.

What is the Word of God? And why does it matter?

Because getting this wrong is not like getting some minor doctrine wrong. It is the difference between a living Christ and a fabricated one. Between knowing Jesus and merely imagining him.

If Jesus is the Word of God, and the Word of God is the fulfilled prophetic revelation, then not knowing that Word—or replacing it with something else—is no small error. It is a sin against the Spirit who authored it.

So beware when you speak of “the Word of God.” Make sure that what you mean is what the apostles meant. Make sure it is what Christ himself meant. Or he may say, “I never knew you.”

Salvation is not just a matter of Christ knowing you.

It is a matter of you knowing him.

Christ and the Norming of Transcendence: Passing by Nehushtan

Prophesying, Preaching, and the Prophetic: Passing by Nehushtan

Matthew 5 and the Adultery of the Heart: Passing by Nehushtan

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