Meditation – The Living Voice of Christ
by Isaac Overton
I love books. I also enjoy browsing other people’s bookshelves, I think it tells you a little bit about another person to see what’s on their bookshelves! I can’t quite remember where he said it, perhaps it was in one of his letters (from the collection published by Banner of Truth), but I believe that A.W. Pink once said something like: “It’s better to have a small library well-read than a large library unused.” I think that there’s an important insight there, there are only so many books you can read in a life time!
What’s on your bookshelf? Do you have one? Is it a single shelf in the living room with a Bible Customs dictionary and a few books on golf? Is it a small shelf in your bedroom full of novels? Perhaps you have a proper bookcase, with a few volumes of theology and some Encyclopedias? Perhaps you have a book shelf in every room and your house is bursting with books! Perhaps your books fill up a single wall in your house somewhere, and they are finely balanced selection of theology, history, literature, commentaries, and topical studies – your library is a well-oiled machine with everything you need right at your fingertips!
Whether you love books or not, it’s worth considering further: What is your attitude toward books? How do you treat them? Our attitude towards books generally is one thing, but of far greater importance is our attitude toward the word of God as contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. What is your attitude toward the Bible? I think that one common problem for Christians when it comes to the Bible is that we de-personalise it. We know it to be the word of God, authoritative and unlike any other book on earth. And yet we look at our Bibles, and – in one sense – all we see is a book. Pages, ink, dust. I have two very old (and majestic) Bibles on the bookcase above my desk at home. They are frayed at the edges and gilded with golden imprint and intricate designs (I believe they were published in the 1800s). There is a spiderweb between these Bibles and the brickwork behind them. Not a fresh spiderweb, but the kind that gets dust and looks like it’s been there for almost a century. And yes, the Bible is a book. But we must not let that physical fact rob us of a sense of the personal nature of the Bible.
My thesis is simply this: that the Bible is the voice of the living Christ in the Church and the world. If Jesus were to walk through your door right now, how would you react? I daresay we would be flustered, not knowing quite how to make sense of the situation. I think we would be amazed and awestruck. When the Bible is read, how do you react? As I read the Bible this morning in family worship, one of my sons began blowing a little straw whistle – that was his reaction! (or distraction, as it were). As I have read the Bible, many a time I have been drowsy and my mind has wondered. There is an obvious disparity here, and it represents a real problem: I do not revere and give my attention to the Bible as though it were Christ speaking. And yet, through the word of God, the living Christ speaks to us.
J.I. Packer articulates these truths in the following way: “evangelicals stress that Scripture is a mystery… that is, that the identifying of the human and divine words…was a unique creative divine act of which we cannot fully grasp either the nature or the mode or the dynamic implications. Scripture is as genuinely and fully human as it is divine… There is a true analogy between the written Word and the incarnate Word” (Packer in Geehan, Jerusalem & Athens, p.145). An analogy, which is the term Packer uses here, is – according to Noah Webster – an agreement or likeness between things in some circumstances or effects, when the things are otherwise entirely different. In other words, there is an agreement or likeness between Christ, the incarnate word, and the scriptures as the written word. The two are not identical, and your Bible is not a divine person of the Trinity, but it is the thought of God recorded in human words. It is the heart of Christ expressed in our own language. It is not Christ, but it is the voice of the living Christ for the Church and the world.
It follows from this that, in the words of Calvin, we owe scripture the same reverence that we owe to God. In effect, we must treat the scriptures as though they are Christ who has just walked into the room. Scripture itself teaches this to us in the way that it speaks about the divinely inspired and written word of God. The word of God is spoken of as being the direct means of communication between God and his people (e.g. Deut 13:3). We must therefore listen to his word as though it were direct speech. Christ spoke of his own words as having life-giving power, and being spiritual in nature (Jn 6:63) – as the Godhead indeed itself is (Jn 4:24). The word of God is spoken of as being active and alive (Heb 4:12-13). C.H. Dodd expresses these things helpfully when he says: “the uttered words of Christ…(are) the medium through which He gives Himself to men” (Doddin Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority Vol III, p.80). His word is said to be “true”, a divine attribute (Ps 18:30); his word is inextricably linked to the work of the Holy Spirit as a divine person of the Trinity (Jn 3:34; Acts 4:31; Eph 6:17). The words of scripture are said to be invincible–another token of divinity (Jn 10:35); it is said to have the ability to make that which is unholy holy – another divine property (1 Tim 4:5). We could multiply many more such examples, but the word of God written is inseparably and personally linked to the Triune God of scripture. The Bible is and remains the voice of the living Christ to the church and the world. So, how do you treat your Bibles?
SDG.