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

Paul answers some questions that obviously raised in his time about how this righteousness of God can be effective to salvation if some of the Jews did not believe. About how God’s grace can abound more to His glory the more sinful we are, suggesting that more sin is better to show God’s grace and why we who believe are still considered sinners. He says everyone is a sinner (3:9) without having the righteousness of the Law. The Law of works (v.27) only shows how sinful we are and how impossible it is by our effort to satisfy it (3:19-20).

Paul cites the Old Testament scripture between vss. 11 and 18 to define sin eight times. This is not an enumeration of only carnal sins, but spiritual ones (not righteous, of no understanding, none that “seeks God,” “out of the way,” “unprofitable,” “none that do good.”). Paul cites the OT that applies to the present time in a way that it could never apply to the past because Christ fulfilled the law and the prophets, therefore using Old Testament passages that we would not consider prophetic as prophetic texts. It suggests that we might be wrong in our consideration of what scripture is prophetic and what is not.

This spiritual righteousness of the Law “without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference” (emphasis mine). Justification by faith without the deeds of the Law is through “faith in his blood” (v.25), “to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (v26). What is clear is from where the knowledge of this sin and curative righteousness comes: Christ and the Old Testament scriptures that speak of the Messiah. Faith in Jesus is through His oracles and in their fulfillments; faith in His blood is not a faith in His actual blood, but the blood represents His prophesied, propitiatory death.

We establish something quite different than our operational conception of this sin as a sin primarily of physical works and the reason why we would commit such sins, or for that matter what righteousness means, how we can have it and why we would follow it. In our way of thinking, sins are primarily of physical expression, and the reason we sin is that we don’t believe in “God” or “Jesus” or the “Bible” like we should. Or, it’s because we don’t know or understand the propositional “doctrines” and apply them. Perhaps because we don’t recognize that we are sinful. But if sin is spiritual, it is sin of spiritual activity. If it is so, it is a sin of not knowing, having no confidence in, relegating, misappropriating, obfuscating, or being primarily unmotivated by or denying the oracles of Christ. Any conception of righteousness coming through the performance of the law is the opposite.

• 3:21–8:39. Righteousness provided (Faith)

Romans 3:21: “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.”

Paul uses 5 OT texts to establish Abraham as the prototypical man of faith, starting in 4:1. What was the basis of Abraham’s faith?

• Romans 4:13: “For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.” This promise was prophetic that he would be the father of many nations (v.17 and 18).
• Romans 4:21: “And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.” He was convinced of God’s faithfulness to fulfill the prophecy.
• Not intended just for Abraham but for us, who also believe in God’s promises concerning Jesus, who is the one that Abraham believed would come to establish such faith: Romans 4:24-25: “But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification.”
• Romans 5:6: “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” “In due time” refers to the oracles.

All of Paul’s arguments use this understanding of prophetic faith as the basis of why it is superior to the law, why there is now no condemnation for those that are in the law of faith in Christ. Why it makes us dead to sin but alive to God, and how God can give us eternal life though we are sinners.

Again, all of our theology comes from the messianic stream of scripture.

• 9:1–11:36: Righteousness vindicated” (The Cross, Atonement)

“So this section is an attempt to explain God’s dealings with Jews as a vindication of righteousness. Paul does it by a clear exposition of the Scriptures. He will show that Israel’s rejection is related to the spiritual pride of the Jews (9,10), that Israel’s rejection is not complete because some are being saved (11), and that Israel’s rejection is not final because it will be reversed before the coming of the Lord (the end of chapter 11).”¹

The problem with the above interpretation is there is no effort to define the scriptural basis of this “rejection” by the Jews. What did they reject, precisely, and what were they arguing was not true scripturally that these Christians believed? Well, their interpretation of the oracles of Messiah as applying to Jesus, of course. We can’t talk about “righteousness vindicated” without knowing what righteousness is and what it is not.

Romans 9:7-8: “Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.”

Paul uses no less than 20 Old Testament scriptures in this section. Ishmael was from Abraham as well, but Isaac was a prophetic type of all righteous Israel. Not all the Jews are saved, but only those of the promise. Paul is using a prophecy of these righteous Jews to argue that all those in Christ are among them. Christ is not merely telling them, “don’t’ worry, I say on my own authority you’re saved” or “if you have confessed your sins and say you believe in me to save you, you will be saved.” Paul used an exclusively prophetic argument that righteousness is through belief in what the prophets said would come in Jesus of Nazareth. You have to know it to believe it, and the more you know it, the more you believe it.

• 12:1–15:13. Righteousness practiced” (Sanctification)

Now, this is a no brainer after the preceding. What sanctifies? Why?

Everything about how we should behave is because of the kind of scriptures above. We are not honest if we say it’s because of anything else. We are not honest if we say the Word of God has anything else in it to accomplish this.

4. What of the Word of God is to be used in NT evangelism?

Again, easy.

In John 1:15 and 5:33, John and Christ use the phrase that John the Baptist “bare witness” of Jesus, the Truth.

We don’t interpret this witnessing just as gushing about how much Jesus loves us, how logical Christianity is, how it is compatible with science, that we had a dream or that we speak in tongues, or simply that “I believe in Jesus.” That is not biblical witnessing. Biblical witnessing is quoting the words of the prophets and proclaiming and explaining how Jesus fulfilled them. Quite a different kind of evangelism we preach today.

John’s witnessing is like this in John 1:23: “He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.” Messianic prophecy from Isaiah 40:3-5. It’s not his biblically and supernaturally disconnected theological proposition. He did not say, “I am John, and I am…” he equated himself with an Old Testament oracle. This Jesus also did:

• John 5:31-32: “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. There is another that beareth witness of me, and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true.”
• John 5:39: “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.”
• John 5:46: “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.”
• The Book of Acts is the best place to see 1st-century evangelism at work. Nineteen verses use Old Testament texts. There is not a glimmer of a case to be made out of a single evangelistic encounter where Paul used our bromidic form of evangelism.

5. What of the Word of God is used as the symbolic meaning of Jesus so that when we talk of one, we talk of the other and nothing else?

We need only to make one point to bring this home. By far, the most obvious and hardly even worth trying to defend.

John 1:1-5: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”

It is interesting how close this statement is to the opening of Hebrews:

Hebrews 1:1-8: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son? And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him. And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.”

What does this tell us? In John, Jesus is the Word. What is this Word? Hebrews clarifies it. Jesus’s place is at the right hand of the Father, the Son of God, not as some angel, but because he fulfilled Psalms 2, Psalms 97:7 and Psalms 45:6-7. He adds in 1:13: “But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool?” That the fulfillment of Psalms 110. That book of John says explicitly that Jesus is the Word of God should close the question. Still, it’s closed even further, if that were possible, when Hebrews says the same thing by quoting the Word of God instead of just making the statement (which, by the way, John subsequently and consistently does throughout his gospel). If Jesus is the Word of God, he is the Word of the prophets quintessentially.

What is the Word of God? Why is it so important?

I beg you to please meditate on this question very, very carefully.

If you are a believer and are at least of the mind to think that apologetics is important, I ask you this. Is occultism, adultery, murder, and any other form of sin you can think of coming anywhere near the importance of one which would allow them to be falsely claimed as ultimate examples, and hide as the mother-of-all-apostasies? Can you think of one more qualified as this one for that title, which allows you to have a relationship with Christ, but only by a useless half?

“But all sin is sin?” Yes, surely, but some represent, indicate another, far more profound and damning one of which there is no forgiveness. Because it’s a sin against the Holy Spirit, that that Spirit is sort of a non-threatening abstract, do you think that it’s rare and you are not a part of it until you know what it is, and before its too late?

If you use the phrase “the Word of God,” be careful that what is demonstrably and unequivocally and emblematically Christ is the same as what you know, or maybe he will say “I never knew you.”

Salvation is not only a matter of Christ knowing you, but 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. https://bible.org/seriespage/vindication-or-god%E2%80%99s-righteousness-his-relationship-israel-romans-91-1021 ↩

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