And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testified about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’” For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. (John 1:14-18 NASB)
A few small groups I’m a part of were preparing to study the book of Romans. As a prelude to our study, I asked them what they thought about the Bible and its claim of divine inspiration. The words inerrant and infallible were offered immediately as synonyms for inspiration. However, the scriptures themselves do not make these claims about themselves. The testimony of scripture is that it is inspired by God. Translators have arrived at the word inspired by way of the Greek word theopneustros, meaning literally, the wind, or the spirit, or the breath of God. After we went around the room sharing, a person asked me what inspired meant to me. I would like to share what I said along with an additional thought I had early this morning.
Last night I shared that the Bible was one of the first books I read. Sadly, I was 23 when I started reading. I had tried to read the Bible in college, and it just didn’t click. But when I surrendered my life to Christ, something happened in my heart. When I picked up the book this time, I found my heart saying “yes.” I didn’t understand all I read, but there was something new in me that was strongly agreeing with at least the spirit of what I was reading. The words of Paul helped explain this phenomenon.
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God. (1 Corinthians 2:12)
I explained to my friends that before Christ, I thought my heart was probably like an unformatted disc. This is one way I have viewed our fall (in Adam). When we sinned and died (as God promised we would), our hearts became unformatted, incapable of receiving and comprehending Light. However upon receiving Christ, God imparted the Spirit to us and re-formatted our hearts, giving us himself as our light, enabling us to receive and comprehend his Word. This is one of the ways we know we have been born again. As a new reader and a new Christian, I was blown away when I read in 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (NASB)
I wish everyone could share the unbounded joy of my Light-deprived heart when I discovered that the same Spirit that had breathed the words of scripture into life had also just breathed into me, imparting a Life of like kind. I was no longer a lost, lonely, increasingly drug dependent waste of a person. I was a brand new creation! I lived in an intense and perpetual OMG-state of mind for at least 2 years. To say the least, the Bible was (and is) a big deal to me. Light had been restored to my spirit, and I now had the capacity for personal relationship with God. It still blows me away. After my reformatting, I soon came across Hebrews 4:12-13:
For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.
Hmmm. That sounds intrusive. Actually, it sounds painful. About that time, I also discovered Psalm 139:
O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
You understand my thought from afar.
You scrutinize my path and my lying down,
And are intimately acquainted with all my ways…
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
And see if there be any hurtful way in me,
And lead me in the everlasting way.
(First and last verse of Psalm 139 NASB)
Within a short time I had grasped that my heart was a big deal to God, and that if I was to call him Lord, I would have to live knowing that I must say yes to his word even when—no, especially when—it painfully intruded upon my understanding and agenda. Yes, It is true that Thy word is a lamp unto me feet and a light unto my path, but it can also be, when necessary, a scalpel unto my heart. In reading 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, I grasped why my heart was such a big deal to God. I had become his residence on earth!
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. (NASB)
And my heart, (a bit meekly) prayed, “Alright Lord, I guess I had best ask—what do those words mean? Romans 12:1-2 began making impressions on my heart:
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. (NASB)
I began thinking in those early years that it is an understatement to say that fairy tails really do come true. A frog becoming a prince is a watered down reality compared to my story. I was a hopelessly lost and clueless spirit, plagued with doubt, bound up in a self destructive lifestyle, condemned to die when (rather suddenly) God breathed his very own life into me, releasing me from my slavery to sin, transferring me from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. I was no longer a slave to sin; I was a son of God!
I have been blessed to live for 4 decades with these eternal values operating in my spirit. Everything that has happened to me since has had to pass (often as great messes) through these filters.
The thought I awakened with this morning (which I didn’t share with my group) is related to Isaiah 55:11:
So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. (NASB)
God breathed out His Word and the cosmos appeared. God’s Word is the DNA of creation, holding everything together. Simultaneously the Word and the Spirit are working in tandem to reconcile all things back to God, establishing his Kingdom. Both in the cosmos and in our hearts, it is true that his Word:
Will not return to Him empty, without accomplishing what He desires, and without succeeding in the matter for which He sent it. (NASB)
So, as my friends and I embarked on this Bible study, I prayed that the spirit of His Word will make the living truths of Romans comprehensible, applicable, and ultimately transformational, not (God forbid) just more Bible-data to store up in our heads. I pray that as the Spirit of God blows over our own spirits with His Word, that we too shall:
Go out with joy and be led forth with peace; that the mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before us, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands; that instead of the thorn bush the cypress will come up, and instead of the nettle the myrtle will come up, and our hearts will be a memorial to the Lord—an everlasting sign which will not be cut off. (Isaiah 55:12 NASB)
May our hearts tell their own stories of how His Word:
Living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword has pierced as far as the division of our own souls and spirits, of both our joints and marrow, and has judged the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. (Hebrews 4:12 NASB)
Then perhaps the world will look upon us as children of Light, seeing that our claims regarding the light of God’s Word are true, noting that our own transformed hearts have become evidential light in themselves to those remaining captives to darkness.
In Genesis 1, the climax is the creation of humans made in God’s image. In John 1, the climax is the arrival of a particular Human – the Word made flesh. At creation the Word challenged material chaos and darkness, bringing out of it order and purpose. Now the Word challenges spiritual chaos and darkness which is bound up within creation itself. The Word is now bringing into being the new creation, in which God says once more, ‘Let there be Light!’ (from N.T. Wright’s John for Everyone)
Father, help us to not lose sight of the fact that you have never lost sight of us, that nothing and no one are hidden from Your sight. All things (especially our hearts) are open and laid bare to Your eyes, the One with whom we have to do. Amen.