According to Bavinck:
“Scripture itself clearly teaches, accordingly, that not the church but the word of God, written or unwritten, is trustworthy in and of itself (autopistos). The church has at all times been bound to the word of God insofar as it existed and in the form in which it existed. Israel received the law on Mount Horeb; Jesus and the apostles submitted to OT Scripture. From the very beginning the Christian church was bound to the spoken and written word of the apostles. The word of God is the foundation of the church”:
Deuteronomy 4:1: Now, Israel, hear the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.
Isaiah 8:20: Consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.
Ezekiel 20:19: I am the Lord your God; follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
Luke 16:29: Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
John 5:39: You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me …
Ephesians 2:20: … built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
2 Timothy 3:14: But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it …
2 Peter 1:19: We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
“The church can indeed witness to the word, but the word is above the church. It cannot confer on anyone a heart-based belief in the word of God. That is something only the word of God can do by itself and the power of the Holy Spirit”:
Jeremiah 23:29: “Is not my word like fire,” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?”
Mark 4:28: All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.
Luke 8:11: “This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God.”
Romans 1:16: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.
Hebrews 4:12: For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
1 Peter 1:23: For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
“And for that reason alone the church appears to stand on a level below Scripture. Consequently, the church and believers in general can learn to know the inspiration, authority, and canonicity of Scripture from Scripture itself, but they can never announce and determine these attributes on their own authority.”
From “Reformed Dogmatics”, Vol 1, pg 458
I would be more simplistic John.
ReplyDeleteConsidering the "origin" of the Word of God comes from the Eternal God Himself and considering the fact that I have buried my Uncle, Father, two sisters, a brother and a number of friends establishing the "way of all flesh" one way or another and the fact the "Righteous" shall live by someone else's "Faith", I conclude the Word of God is the entryway one has to be built upon in order to make it out of this "temporal" world "alive" in into His Eternal Life in and through and by Christ.
Someone did exclaim once there is no other Name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved!
The True New Testament exegete, the Holy Spirit, had written by the Apostle Paul that we are conjoined to Christ and had written by the Apostle Peter that God causes us to be born again and these two spiritual realities converge as one staging place as understood in the Old Testament, that staging place being a dark glass whereby we see these things clearly!
I say it pithy, "if you do not die and go to Heaven before you die, when you die, you do not go to Heaven".
As the Word says: Joh 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Joh 5:25 "Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
Joh 5:26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.
Joh 5:27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.
Joh 5:28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice
Joh 5:29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.