Sola Scriptura - THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF SCRIPTURE
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Introduction
Introduction
In recent decades, an endless stream of books and articles has affirmed the infallibility, inerrant, and authority of the Holy Scriptures. These doctrines are essential to the church’s confession of the truth and authority of God’s Word. It is both necessary and comforting for the Christian to know and believe that all Scripture is “God-breathed,” that every word of every sentence is exhaled by the living God (2 Tim. 3:16). The believer would have no authority for declaring “Thus says the Lord” in belief and practice if God had not superintended the entire process of the composition of Scripture down to every jot and tittle (Matt. 5:18). To be trusted wholly, Scripture must be wholly true.
THE CALL TO TRANSFORMATION
THE CALL TO TRANSFORMATION
It is the “good, acceptable, and perfect” will of God that His people be transformed. It is the high calling of God in Christ Jesus that believers be conformed to the image of His incarnate Son (Phil. 3:14; Rom. 8:28–29). This transformation or “metamorphosis” is to be accomplished by the renewing of their minds; so Paul writes in:
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
What begins as a transformation of the mind is one day to be completed in the transformation or changing of our bodies
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
The New Testament ascribes this transformation of God’s people to two great divine and supernatural agencies: the Spirit of God and the Word of God.
On the one hand, the apostle Paul says plainly that believers are “changed … from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” But this happens when, under the preaching of the gospel, they are enabled to see God’s glory revealed in Christ.
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Consequently, it is not simply by the Word, but by the working of the Spirit with the Word that the transformation of God’s people is accomplished.
On the other hand, care must be taken lest anyone be led to think that the Word by itself has no transforming power. It is a great blasphemy to exalt the Spirit at the expense of God’s Word, for God has magnified His Word above His name (Ps. 138:2).
Rather, God transforms through a combination of these two great powers, each indispensable to the other, and both inseparably joined together, so as to accomplish all of God’s purposes for His people.
Therefore, the Scriptures describe the Word as a well-formed tool for a master workman’s use, a weapon of war for the hand of one mighty in battle, and good seed to be sown in soil well prepared by a diligent husbandman.
In each case, the one is fitted for and indispensable to the other; so it is with the Word and the Spirit. Stephen Charnock put it this way:
No sword can cut without a hand to manage it, no engine batter without a force to drive it. The word is … instrumental in itself, efficacious by the Holy Ghost.… The word declares Christ, and the Spirit excites the heart to accept him; the word shews his excellency, and the Spirit stirs up strong cries after him; the word declares the promises, and the Spirit helps us to plead them; … the word shews the way, and the Spirit enables to walk in it; the word is the seed of the Spirit, and the Spirit the quickener of the word; the word is the graft, and the Spirit the engrafter; the word is the pool of water, and the Spirit stirs it to make it healing.
THE TRANSFORMING OPERATIONS OF GOD’S WORD
THE TRANSFORMING OPERATIONS OF GOD’S WORD
The Word of God operates as a transforming power in various ways. In Scripture, these are described by the use of various similes or comparisons, such as a lamp, a hammer, a sword, and a seed.
First, God’s Word is described as a lamp.
The entrance of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple.
And in a more personal vein,
Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.
So the psalmist expresses the way in which God’s Word acts as a source of spiritual illumination, understanding, and guidance. This light is important both in the regeneration of the sinner and in the daily life of the believer. On the one hand, the natural condition of fallen man is one of darkness, ignorance, and blindness (Eph. 4:18); on the other hand, even God’s people must at times walk in a condition of spiritual darkness in which only the light of God’s Word can afford them any comfort or hope (Ps. 130:5–6; Isa. 50:10).
“Unless God’s Word illumine the way,” wrote John Calvin, “the whole life of men is wrapped in darkness and mist, so that they cannot but miserably stray.”
Second, God’s Word is described as a hammer.
“Is not My word like a fire?” says the Lord, “And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?
There is no more ugly or dismaying aspect to the condition of fallen man than stiff-necked rebellion produced by persistent sin.
Scripture speaks of men hardening their hearts, their minds, their necks, and their faces in a determined effort to present to God in body and soul the stoutest show of resistance to His will for their lives.
Such is the weight and force inherent in the Word of God that one blow struck by the Spirit wielding the Word as a hammer is sufficient to break rock-like, hardened hearts in pieces. In this manner, the most resistant soul may be conquered and the strongholds of sin may be pulled down.
Third, God’s Word is described as a sword.
In his description of the whole armour of God given in Ephesians 6, the apostle Paul lists only two offensive weapons.
The one is described as “all prayer” and the other is “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:17–18)
These are the weapons of Christian warfare, and Paul says they “are not carnal, but mighty in God to the pulling down of strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4).
Hebrews 4:12 likewise describes God’s Word as something like a sword, but even more effective as a weapon, because it is “sharper than any two-edged sword.”
The point of comparison here is the use of the sword to thrust at and to pierce a foe with deadly effect.
So the Word of God can pierce and penetrate the heart of man. It pierces so deeply, and cuts with such sharpness and accuracy, it divides soul and spirit, and “joints and marrow.” In so piercing and dividing, the Word of God exposes and brings under its righteous judgment “the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
The experience here described is well known among Christians. It is by no means an uncommon experience among those who sit under faithful preaching of God’s Word to hear from the pulpit words that speak so accurately and so poignantly of the condition of their hearts and lives that they are left feeling utterly exposed, shamed, and condemned.
Fourth, God’s Word is described as a seed.
“The wages of sin is death,” writes Paul in Romans 6:23. Man’s spiritual condition, as a fallen creature in bondage to sin, is one of deadness in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1).
If he is to be delivered from such a state of death, he must be made alive.
This enlivening is described in Scripture as “being born again.” This new birth or regeneration is the work of the Spirit (John 3:5) using the “incorruptible seed” of the Word of God
having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,
In a similar way, James declares that God is the Father of all Christians, saying,
Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.
In these passages, the Word is compared to a seed with its precious cargo of life, a great potential laid up in store, awaiting only the right conditions for germination, growth, and the bearing of much fruit. All of this is confirmed in detail in our Lord’s parable of the sower. Luke records Him as saying explicitly, “The seed is the word of God” (Luke 8:11).
The Word is the means by which, in Henry Scougal’s phrase, “the life of God” is planted “in the soul of man.” Miraculous is the result and many are the fruits when this precious seed is sown in the “good soil” of the hearts of those “when they heard...ordained to eternal life” (Acts 13:48).
Such is the depth and extent of the transformation effected by the Word of God in the lives of God’s people. They are called out of darkness into light. Their hardness of heart is broken and overcome. They are brought to see and know the depths of their own sin and misery. They are born again to eternal life. God’s Word is exalted as the lamp of His truth, the hammer of His righteous wrath, the sword of His Spirit, and the seed of life eternal.
THE PERFECTIONS OF GOD’S TRANSFORMING WORD
THE PERFECTIONS OF GOD’S TRANSFORMING WORD
What are the particular traits or characteristics of God’s Word that render it so useful a tool and so powerful a weapon in the hand of the Holy Spirit?
Hebrews 4:12 and Psalm 19:7–9 address this question directly. From Hebrews 4:12, we learn that God’s Word is living and powerful. From Psalm 19:7–9, we learn that God’s Word is perfect and sure; right, pure, and clean; true and righteous altogether.
First, God’s Word is living and powerful. This life of the Word is no less than the life of God Himself, for as God is, so must His Word be. This life is also power or energy, power harnessed for work.
The life of God’s Word is ordered and applied to the accomplishment of His purposes: “My word … shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it” (Isa. 55:11).
As living seed, God’s Word has power to bring forth fruit in the lives of believers, as described in the parable of the sower, where “the seed is the word of God” (Luke 8:11). Because the Word of God “lives and abides forever” (1 Peter 1:23), its vitality and potency remain both unexhausted and undiminished through time. Believers discover with Martin Luther that “the Bible is alive, it speaks to me; it has feet, it runs after me; it has hands, it lays hold on me. The Bible is not antique, or modern. It is eternal.”
Second, God’s Word is perfect and sure. On the one hand, God’s Word is perfectly complete. It is everything God intends it to be. This is the organic perfection of the rose and not the mechanical perfection of, say, the internal-combustion engine. The one is perfect and complete at every stage of its unfolding; the other is the result of much trial and error by way of inventive effort. The unfolding history of redemption is also the unfolding history of revelation. At every point, God’s Word furnished believers with all they needed for faith and life.
God’s Word is also free from any imperfection or blemish introduced by the hand of man. Because it is perfect, God’s Word is also sure. As a testimony or witness, it is true and trustworthy. God’s Word is sure as a revelation of what man is to believe concerning God and as a rule of what God requires of man. As Jehovah “changes not” (Mal. 3:6), so His Word stands forever sure as truth unchanging and unchangeable. “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven” (Ps. 119:89).
Third, God’s Word is right, pure, and clean. Here is the Old Testament statement of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. The Word is said to be right or straight because it does not deviate from perfect conformity to any just standard by which truth is measurable. The Word is pure as a pure light is clear and bright. Here is a lamp whose flame does not flicker and whose rays pierce to the depths of man’s darkness. The Word is clean because it is free from all corruption and from anything that corrupts or defiles.
Fourth, God’s Word is true and righteous altogether. More precisely, God’s Word is truth (Ps. 19:9, marginal note; cf. John 17:17). It is a book of truth, with no admixture of falsehood or error. It is likewise a book of righteousness, through and through. It is righteous in what it demands from man as God’s creature and servant, righteous in the judgment it pronounces against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, and righteous in the promise it holds forth of justification by faith and peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
USING GOD’S WORD AS THE MEANS OF TRANSFORMATION
USING GOD’S WORD AS THE MEANS OF TRANSFORMATION
How does the believer experience the transforming power of the Word of God? The answer of the Reformation is by making use of the Word as a means of grace. First, by the reading of God’s Word; Second, by the hearing of God’s Word; and third, by singing God’s Word, that is, by singing the Psalms.
The Reading of God’s Word
The Reading of God’s Word
The first means is the reading of God’s Word. Scripture teaches us that the Word of God must not only be read publicly in worship (Acts 15:21; 1 Tim. 4:13), but also serves as a blessing when privately read, heard, and obeyed. “Blessed is he that reads, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein” (Rev. 1:3).
But how must we read? Many writers have provided us with ample direction. One of the most helpful early Puritan works on how to read the Scriptures was penned by Richard Greenham (c. 1535–1594) under the title A Profitable Treatise, Containing a Direction for the reading and understanding of the holy Scriptures.
After establishing that the preaching and reading of God’s Word are inseparably joined together by God in the work of the believer’s salvation, Greenham focuses on our duty to read the Scriptures regularly and privately.
Becoming more practical, Greenham asserts that men sin not only when they neglect to read the Scriptures, but also “in reading wrongly: therefore the properties of reverent and faithful reading are to be set down, which are these that follow.” He then lists (1) diligence, (2) wisdom, (3) preparation, (4) meditation, (5) conference, (6) faith, (7) practice, and (8) prayer.
The Hearing of God’s Word
The Hearing of God’s Word
A second means by which the Word of God transforms us is the hearing of it. Much of what Greenham said above about the reading of Scripture applies to the hearing of the Word as well. Thomas Watson offers specific help with regard to hearing the preaching of God’s Word. Here, then, are “ten commandments” for hearing the Word of God preached. As we read this list, we would do well to ask after each item: Am I really hearing the Word of God? Am I a good listener of the proclaimed gospel?
1. When you come to God’s house to hear His Word, do not forget to prepare your soul with prayer.
2. Come with a holy appetite for the Word (1 Peter 2:2). A good appetite promotes good digestion.
3. Come with a tender, teachable heart , asking, “Lord, what do you want me to do?” (Acts 9:6). It is foolish to expect a blessing if you come with a hardened, worldly-minded heart.
4. Be attentive to the Word preached. In Luke 19:48, we are told that the people “were very attentive” to Christ. Literally translated, the text says, “they hung upon him, hearing.” Lydia evidenced a heart opened by the Lord when she “heeded” or “turned her mind” to the things spoken by Paul (Acts 16:14). Such attentiveness also involves banishing wandering thoughts, dullness of mind, and drowsiness (Matt. 13:25). Regard the sermon as it truly is—a matter of life and death (Deut. 32:47).
5. “Receive with meekness the implanted word” (James 1:21). Meekness involves a submissive frame of heart—“a willingness to hear the counsels and reproofs of the word.”
6. Mingle the preached Word with faith: “The word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith” (Heb. 4:2). Roland H. Bainton, summing up Luther’s view, wrote: “Faith is not an achievement, it is a gift. Yet it comes only through the hearing and study of the Word.” If the chief ingredient of a medicine is missing, the medicine will not be effective; so be sure not to leave out the chief ingredient, faith, as you listen to a sermon. Believe and apply the Word. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ as He is preached (Rom. 13:14); apply the promises as they are spoken.
7. Strive to retain and pray over what you have heard. Don’t let the sermon run through your mind like water through a sieve “don’t let it drift away”(Heb. 2:1). “Our memories should be like the chest of the ark, where the law was put.” As Joseph Alleine advised, “Come from your knees to the sermon, and come from the sermon to your knees.”
8. Practice what you have heard. “Live out” the sermons you hear. Hearing that does not reform your life will never save your soul. Doers of the Word are the best hearers. Of what value is a mind filled with knowledge when not matched with a fruitful life?
9. Beg God to accompany His Word with the effectual blessing of the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:44). Without the Spirit, the medicine of the Word may be swallowed, but it will not result in healing.
10. Familiarize yourself with what you have heard. When you come home, speak to your loved ones about the sermon in an edifying manner: “My tongue shall speak of thy word” (Ps. 119:172). Remember each sermon as if it will be the last you ever hear, for that may be the case.
Under the Spirit’s blessing, if these “ten commandments” for hearing the Word are conscientiously obeyed, the preached Word will be a transforming power in our lives. If, on the other hand, these directions are ignored, and the preached Word is not effectual to our salvation, it will be effectual to our condemnation. Watson rightly concludes: “The word will be effectual one way or the other; if it does not make your hearts better, it will make your chains heavier.… Dreadful is their case who go loaded with sermons to hell.”
The Singing of God’s Word
The Singing of God’s Word
The music used in our Sunday morning worship services should be chosen and prepared with these reasons in mind. Therefore, we seek to draw the head and heart together by selecting and singing “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Col. 3:16) that teach God’s Word, express our response to that revelation, and encourage and exhort one another to persevere in the faith. Our focus is both vertical (addressing God, declaring his worthiness, extolling his name, and rejoicing in his glories revealed in Jesus Christ) and horizontal (addressing one another, declaring the promises we have in Christ, comforting each other through trials and temptations, and reminding and encouraging one another to respond to God with faith, repentance, love, hope, joy, reverence, obedience, and gratitude).
THE FRUITS OF TRANSFORMATION
THE FRUITS OF TRANSFORMATION
What are some of the fruits or effects of the transforming power of the Word? We shall consider four: true conversion, wisdom, joy, and light for the dying.
First, true conversion is a fruit of the Word’s transforming power.
First, true conversion is a fruit of the Word’s transforming power.
“The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul” (Ps. 19:7a). Here God’s Word is described as “law” or “instruction” (or “doctrine”). Under the instruction of Jehovah given in His Word, the inner life of man is changed and redirected. God’s Word evokes in the heart a sincere sorrow for having provoked God by our sins, inspires a holy hatred of those sins, and awakens an urge to flee from them. At the same time, God’s Word fills the heart with joy in God through Christ, and imparts a new love and delight to live according to the will of God in the obedience of faith.
This is what is meant by the conversion of the soul. The character and direction of the inner life of man are revolutionized. This new direction, however, is actually a return to the path in which God commanded Adam to walk at the beginning. The apostle Paul describes it in these terms: “Be ye renewed in the spirit of your mind; and … put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:23–24). Such conversion is truly a restoration of the soul (Ps. 19:7a).
Second, a new knowledge or spiritual wisdom concerning God is a fruit of the Word’s transforming power.
Second, a new knowledge or spiritual wisdom concerning God is a fruit of the Word’s transforming power.
Scripture identifies sin with folly or foolishness, and there is no greater foolishness than the folly of unbelief. “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God” (Ps. 14:1). This folly is reprehensible because it flies in the face of the evidence supplied in the “most elegant book” of the creation itself.
“The heaven declares the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork” (Ps. 19:1). “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood from the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead” (Rom. 1:20).
Speaking of some of the greatest intellectuals and philosophers of mankind, people who have denied the existence of God despite their brilliance, Paul declares: “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Rom. 1:22).
Such folly can be conquered only by the testimony of Holy Scripture, confirmed by the witness of the Spirit in the heart. True wisdom, and life eternal, is to know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (John 17:3). The folly of unbelief is banished when men receive and rest in the sure testimony of God’s Word: “The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple” (Ps. 19:7b).
Third, joy is a fruit of the Word’s transforming power.
Third, joy is a fruit of the Word’s transforming power.
Modern man is plagued with unhappiness, anxiety, depression, and despair. Our age of material abundance has become a dark age of the soul, an era of spiritual poverty and dearth. The emptiness, barrenness, and ugliness of modern art, music, literature, and philosophy all bear witness to the sad plight of modern (and postmodern) man. It is no mere coincidence that this era of cultural barrenness and degradation has been accompanied by a culture-wide abandonment of biblical Christianity and the overthrow of the standards of conduct taught in the Word of God.
How different things are for those who hold fast to God’s Word! “The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart” (Ps. 19:8a). Statutes are standing laws, universal standards, abiding norms; God has provided His people with such laws, standards, and norms in His Word.
Such obedience to God’s law is far from burdensome to the Christian. “His commands are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3b). On the contrary, they are a way of joy and rejoicing as spiritual poverty gives way to spiritual wealth.
Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; For I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.
I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies, As much as in all riches.
Fourth, light for the dying is a fruit of the Word’s transforming power.
Fourth, light for the dying is a fruit of the Word’s transforming power.
“The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes” (Ps. 19:8b). Here God’s Word is characterized as commandment; the use of the singular reminds us of the divine origin, the organic unity, and the supreme authority of Holy Scripture: “the commandment of the LORD.”
The words of the psalmist reveal their deepest meaning when viewed in the context of death and dying, the most fearful and universal of all the problems of human existence.
As Joseph A. Alexander wrote: “Enlightening the eyes is understood by some of intellectual illumination with respect to spiritual things. But it is more agreeable to Hebrew usage to suppose an allusion to the dimness of the eyes produced by extreme weakness and approaching death, recovery from which is figuratively represented as an enlightening of the eye.”
In the face of impending death, man’s wisdom fails and human authority must retreat. A dying man is left without help or comfort as the light fades and the darkness deepens around him. Modern men and women can without shame discuss fully the most intimate details of human sexuality, but lapse into embarrassed silence when the subject of death and dying is raised. Because they reject the Scriptures, the unsaved have nothing to live by and consequently have nothing to die with.
Only God’s Word sheds light on these dark matters. “This God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death” (Ps. 48:14).
If as a standing law God’s Word serves us well in living our lives from day to day, it serves even better as a guide when we enter the “valley of the shadow of death” (Ps. 23:4).
For those who receive God’s Word as their lamp of truth, this light shines with unfaltering and unfailing brightness, a pure light revealing the secrets of the invisible world.
On the one hand, we are warned of the everlasting burnings, the outer darkness, and the worm that dies not; such is the judgment prepared for the wicked. The torment of dying is to be prolonged into a perpetual death. On the other hand, we are told of the safety, blessedness, and rest bestowed on those who die in faith, holding fast the promises.
Best of all, we learn that “to be absent from the body” is “to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). Only those who know and believe by grace what God’s Word reveals can say with Paul that “to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21).
John Flavel summarized it well: “The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying.”
Conclusion
Conclusion
The battle for the Bible has been raging since the beginning of time. Satan, the great enemy of souls, began his assault with a question: “Hath God said …?” Eve, by stating that God had told her not to eat or touch the forbidden tree, added to what God had said; the first round went to Satan.
The slugfest goes on. Roman Catholics add tradition to what is written in Scripture and place it on an equal plane with Scripture. Some go even further. Cardinal Cajetan pronounced to Martin Luther that the pope was above Scripture.
Many charismatics and evangelicals place their personal experience on par with Scripture, thereby adding to God’s written revelation. We hear many tell us that “God said to me.…” Surely anything that God has said is authoritative and binding, so we add to Scripture in that way.
Jesus is our example, When Christ was tempted, He quoted the written Word, not oral tradition.
Sadly, modern evangelicalism is only slightly less culpable. While still professing that God’s revelation in Scripture is sufficient for salvation, it has nearly, if not virtually, abandoned it in favor of modern psychological theories and techniques for sanctification. As one caller to a talk show in Pittsburgh stated, “Therapy saved my life; but God helped too!”
But the apostle Peter gave the final word, I believe, when he wrote that
as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,