How can Jesus and the Bible both be the Word of God?

The union of God and man in the Person of Christ is the centre — we may say (now that we know it) the necessary centre of all this, as we have seen. And the inspired word is its expression according to the perfection of God, and (we bless God for it, as the Saviour is the grand subject of the scriptures, "for," said He, "they testify of me") in human forms.

Scripture claims to be the communication of the mind of God to man, not setting aside the character or circumstances of the writers, but giving the full and absolute truth of God in and through all. Such is the doctrine asserted in 1 Cor. 2, 2 Tim. 3; and with this agrees the uniform use of the passages cited for special purposes throughout both the Old and the New Testaments. So above all said He who spoke as never man spoke; and no wonder; for He was God as well as man, and man as truly as God. But it is to be feared that unbelief as to the written word bodes ill for the faith which is professed in the Word, the personal Word of life. In both cases it is the Infinite brought into the finite by grace; of which the ruinous speculations of unbelief would deprive us, as their authors have been themselves deprived of it by an enemy subtler than they are. Thus, if incarnation be the Word made flesh (a divine person yet a real man, "that Holy Thing" born of His mother, and this by the power of the Spirit), revelation is the mind of God in the language of man, but perfectly guided and guarded by the Spirit. It were to lose the truth in both respects, if we accepted the foolish cheat of Satan that the finite drags down the Infinite. Not so; both were given in God's love to meet the finite in its actual state of sin, degradation, and distance from God; and in both the finite is so governed by the Infinite, which has joined it to itself in holy and perfect union, that grace and truth alone exist and appear without the smallest admixture of human evil or error.*

Scripture claims to be the communication of the mind of God to man, not setting aside the character or circumstances of the writers, but giving the full and absolute truth of God in and through all. Such is the doctrine asserted in 1 Cor. 2; 2 Tim. 3; and with this agrees the uniform use of the passages cited for special purposes throughout both the Old and the New Testaments. So above all said He Who spoke as never man spoke; and no wonder; for He was God as well as man, and man as truly as God. But it is to be feared that unbelief as to the written word bodes ill for the faith which is professed in the Word, the personal Word of life. In both cases it is the Infinite brought into the finite by grace; of which the ruinous speculations of unbelief would deprive us, as their authors have been themselves deprived of it by an enemy subtler than they are. Thus, if incarnation be the Word made flesh (a divine person yet a real man, "that Holy Thing," born of His mother, and this by the power of the Spirit), revelation is the mind of God in the language of man, but perfectly guided and guarded by the Spirit. It were to lose the truth in both respects, if we accepted the foolish cheat of Satan that the finite drags down the Infinite. Not so; both were given in God's love to meet the finite in its actual state of sin, degradation, and distance from God; and in both the finite is so governed by the Infinite, which has joined it to itself in holy and perfect union, that grace and truth alone exist and appear without the smallest admixture of human evil or error.*

I believe, then, the Word of God to be the testimony of God from the first with ever-increasing fulness, in the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, by Christ when on earth, and then by the Apostles as empowered for it by the Spirit, and now recorded for us in the Scriptures as completed — the complete revelation of God in them.

It is in the all-inspired Word that the truth as to Christ is found, and He is the perfect revelation of God to men. The Holy Spirit speaks in and through the Scriptures; He is the interpreter of them, and it is by His power alone that the truth is made effectual in men, for it is He alone who can take of the things of Christ and show them to us, for the natural man understandeth not the things of God (1 Cor. 2). So that apart from the Scriptures and the Holy Ghost men lie in the darkness of that ignorance of God into which sin has plunged the race, for God is only known as Christ is known.

In the Gospel by John the Spirit of God opens out to us the glories of the Word. As the Word, He is the universal Representative of all the mind and thoughts and ways of God, both in His own Person and by means of what He says and does. If at any time any revelation required, or requires, to be given of God's thoughts and plans and will, the revealing thereof took place, or will take place, through Him. We are to think of Him as the One adequate, and He alone, to fully disclose all that is in the mind of God, and to bring into being all that the mind of God has planned.

As to the meaning of the term, "the WORD," it brings before us the fact that "He is, and He is the expression of the whole mind that subsists in God." All that God is, is therefore revealed in Him; and hence it was said, "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." (v. 18.) Only here, He who was the Word is spoken of as the only begotten Son. As the Word He is, and He is the expression of the whole mind of God; but as the Son, the eternal Son, He is, in incarnation, the revealer of the Father.

The Scriptures testify of Christ. Our Lord said, "They are they which testify of me." Whatever else they may set forth, it is clear that the great subject of God's revelation to man is Christ Jesus the Lord. In various ways, by many instruments, at different times, and under manifold circumstances, the divine glory of His person, His perfect manhood, His moral excellencies, His infinite perfections, His finished work, His fulness, and His offices are blessedly presented to us in the Scriptures of eternal truth.

For this we must seek to know, and ever better, the truth as to Christ. We could not know Him at all but by revelation: it is by revelation we must still go on to know Him. Texts are the thoughts of God in which He is enshrined for us,—the ministry of the Spirit of God (though not independent of His direct personal energy) to make Christ practically our own. Let us then search Scripture fervently and perseveringly, better to know the knowledge in which eternal life is; and may there be given to us with deepening knowledge a deepening joy in Him which shall be fuller communion with the Father, and power to reflect the brightness that we gaze upon.

336 We are not only brought to God now, but to God revealing Himself, God manifest in the flesh. Christ came declaring the Father. "Believe me that I am in the Father … or else believe me for the very works' sake." What a blessed place we have in Christ, having Him as the revelation of God to us! The mind of God is brought before us in Christ. "The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart." This is what makes Scripture so precious. It is indeed the written word, but the revelation of God. "No prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation." You have got the mind of God in writing, and there it is stable and imperishable - in contrast to traditions merely handed down from one to another. There cannot be the church speaking, without Scripture. If the church can say anything, itself, then Christ's words go for nothing. I have another master over me. I am speaking of authority now, not of gift, which, of course, there is in the church for the bringing out of truth. But authority in the church trenches on the lordship of Christ over His house. It is a great thing to treasure in our souls that we have this revelation of God in Christ; and the beginning of the next chapter takes us up on the ground of possessing it. "Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip." These were Jews to whom the apostle was writing, and they had heard the Lord Himself speak, and afterwards His apostles; and that is the reason why Paul did not put his name to this as to other epistles, when inditing them. You Jews hear what God Himself has said to you. You have heard Him. Thus, the apostle only confirmed what He had said. It is blessed thus to see how Paul drops his own apostleship (he was not, it is true, the apostle of the circumcision), and only speaks of the twelve who confirmed Christ's own words.