God has Spoken
Joel Van Hoogan
The stewards of God’s Word must shake off a lazy approach to understanding. They must re-affirm that truth is not relative and subjective but eternal and objective. The relativism of postmodernism has left behind it a justification of power as its only truth. Under this cultural persuasion studying the Word of God becomes an exercise in confirming personal narratives of influence. And communicating the Word of God degenerates into the art of controlling the messaging of those narratives. Influence becomes more important than intellect. Image and intuition trump word and understanding. Click baiting dominates clear thinking. And arguments are strung together by one emotional appeal after another. It is time to take a stand. The servant of God upholds a counter cultural position. With Jesus he proclaims, “Your Word is Truth (John 17:17.) As such he opposes the pernicious effects of relativism. We can’t feel our way to truth. We will need to start tracing with thoughtfulness the foundations of our faith. So be attentive. We must gather ourselves up and consider the Word of God before we dare step out to teach it to others.
A firm grip on the Word of God is required to guide others in sound doctrine. To advance and steward the doctrines and Christocentric distinctives historically upheld within the C&MA a new generation of young leaders and pastors must commit to biblical exegesis and faithful expositional preaching. Their hold on the Bible must begin with a confident and committed hermeneutic that enables them to hold out the original intent of the Scriptures.
Just as a house is only as strong as its foundation, any hermeneutic is only as strong as the assumptions it begins with.[1] Scripture should mold those assumptions. Because it is truth it can speak for itself and give the foundation stones upon which to build an interpretive framework (John 10:34-35). Consider the following six foundation stones and their implications.
God has spoken. Idolatry is based upon images. Christianity is based upon the words that the invisible God has spoken. It is by His word that God creates and by His word that He addresses us. Made in His image we are a word answering and word speaking people called to respond to a God who has spoken (Deuteronomy 8:3, Matthew 4:4).
Be a listener before His Word - “He who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. (Rev. 2:7)” In a true listening posture, you come under the voice of the speaker. You surrender your sovereignty to determine the message for yourself. Your task is to analyze and understand what the speaker is saying.
Questions that enable faithful listening - The question is not, “What does this mean to me?” But instead, “What does this mean?” After deciding upon its meaning, consider how subtle but sweeping the difference is between asking “What does this mean to me?” and “What does this mean for me?”[2]
God has spoken clearly. The born-again man or woman has the Divine author of Scripture living within them. He is the ‘anointing which you have received’ which ‘teaches you concerning all things, and is true…’ (1 John 2:27). We approach God’s Word with a confidence that we can clearly comprehend its meaning and import with the aid of the Holy Spirit’s illumination.[3]
The Scripture does not belong to experts –There is a role for sound scholarship that may unlock the Hebrew and Greek texts for those who do not read it. However, Scripture has an ability to make its meaning known to any believer who studies it. Luther understood that this power in the Word rescued Scripture from ecclesiastical orders and delivered it up with clarity to the priesthood of all believers. For this reason, the Christian need not bow to ‘religious authorities’ who appeal to the Scripture’s complexities or mysteries as a basis for imposing extra-biblical or selective applications of the Scripture.
God has spoken comprehensively. God’s message encompasses all of Scripture and His voice resonates in every single word of it.
Locate the particulars – God spoke, at particular times, through particular authors, in particular cultures and to particular seasons, and all that He has spoken is for the believer’s instruction (1 Corinthians 10:11). Thus, to come under the authority of Scripture, the believer must interpret it literally, which doesn’t mean interpreting scripture “as it literally hits your 21st century western ears.” Rather, it means studying the historical and grammatical contexts into which and through which it was given, and applying it within the principles of the original, literal intent of the One who spoke it.
Let Scripture speak for itself - It is difficult to understand the cultural influences that rested upon the authors of Scripture and upon the words they wrote from the distance of 2000 plus years. For this reason, we must let Scripture interpret Scripture as the ultimate context for understanding it. Because the Scriptures ultimately have a single Divine author, it will be found to be consistent and without contradiction. There is a Divinely determined unity in Scripture in which the clearer passages help us understand the less clear passages.[4]
God has spoken conclusively in His Son. The story of redemption, beginning in Genesis and ending the book of Revelation, culminates in the work of Christ our Savior and the reign of Christ our King (John 5:39). For example, the Old Testament introduces the concept of a Kinsman-Redeemer (Ruth 3:9) and a Kinsman-Avenger (Numbers 35:19) with the use of one word for both, Go'el. The book of Revelation concludes Scripture exalting Christ who sheds His own blood to redeem us and sheds the blood of the wicked to avenge us.
The Bible is commanding – Christ presides over all Scripture to instruct and command His people by it. Its instructions and commands form an ethic (an overarching moral system) that is as binding on the church today as it was for the early church.[5] The essential meaning communicated, and the essential application made does not change from one generation to the next.
The Bible tells a story – Jesus is the hero of Scripture from the Old Testament into the New. We speak of the plenary inspiration of the Bible to emphasize that the whole of it is authoritative. The story of redemption is discovered in the overarching narrative of Scripture when viewed through the revelation of Jesus Christ and His gospel.
Biblical theology is systematic - We also speak of the verbal inspiration of the Bible, meaning that every word of it is God’s. This truth guards against an overly generalized understanding of Scripture guided by selective narratives. Instead, a broad understanding of the Word should be reinforced (though imperfectly) through a systematic understanding of it. We must dig deep into the particulars of Scripture to form and inform our understanding of it. All the pieces do, in fact, fit to make a whole picture.[6]
God has spoken independently. Culture does not provide the grounds for asserting the biblical ethic of redemption. Scripture doesn't need you or your culture to be true or relevant.
Culture must submit to Revelation – Every culture must align itself to God’s revealed Word and become a medium for faithfully applying its command.[7] As an example, the command to ‘greet one another with a holy kiss (Romans 16:16)’ remains unchanged though the method may be expressed according to culture. As to method, a kiss may be culturally translated as a handshake. But the principle remains, that of engaging people with the honest integrity of personal holiness.
Culture must not presume to judge God’s Revelation - The danger of asserting the biblical ethic from the vantage point of culture is that everyone, via their culture, has blind spots and with them, false illusions of progress. When we presume to interpret God’s word by estimating its redemptive trajectory, we often subject it to those cultural illusions.
God has spoken to you. When coming before His Word come without an agenda. Approach God’s Word with a motivation to know God and obey His will. Like Samuel come saying, “Speak, for your servant hears (1 Samuel 3:10).”
Desire only to hear His voice - Come to Scripture because God has spoken. Desire to discover His will. Do not come seeking the affirmation of personal or cultural prejudices. Hermeneutical and exegetical work should not be accompanied with an appeal to feeling, personal or corporate history, nostalgia or as a search for pragmatic solutions.
Know your biases – In the present hour it is not uncommon for personal desires and feelings to be offered in order to strengthen one’s arguments for a certain truth. There was a time when acknowledging these biases was for the purpose of overcoming prejudice when seeking truth. This should remain the burden of the student of God’s Word. He must ask, “Am I setting aside myself and any desired outcome of my study of His Word? Do I want only to submit to His truth? Or am I looking for range in which to unpack my own preferences?”
Make your appeal to the revealed Word of God. It was spoken through the ages for our age. This calls for a careful exegesis of God’s Word and warns against the tendency of eisegesis where we read into the text our own personal and cultural predilections. God has spoken. God has spoken clearly. God has spoken comprehensively. God has spoken conclusively. God has spoken independently. And God has spoken to you.
We must submit to listen to Him before we presume to speak for Him.
Joel Van Hoogan - Church Partnership Evangelism - Boise, Idaho
[1] David L. Wolfe, Epistemology: The Justification of Belief, (Downers Grove, Intervarsity Press, 1982) David Wolfe offers four criteria for justifying your belief or 'assumption' in this case. Our assumptions have to be tested and in the test they have to answer four things… Is it internally consistent? Does it achieve coherence? Is it comprehensive with respect to all experience that it avows to speak for? Is it the most congruent explanation with respect to all experience that it avows to speak for in relation to other explanations?
[2] John Stott, Romans, God’s Good News for the World, (Downers Grove, Intervarsity Press, 1994) “But it is never wise to bring to a passage of Scripture our own ready-made agenda, insisting that it answers our questions and addresses our concerns. For that is to dictate to Scripture instead of listening to it. We have to lay aside our presuppositions, so that we can conscientiously think ourselves back into the historical and cultural setting of the text. Then we shall be in a better position to let the author say what he does say and not force him to say what we want him to say. It is of course legitimate to seek secondary applications to contemporary questions, but only after the primary task of ‘grammatico-historical exegesis’ has been diligently done.”
[3] Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation, (Grand Rapids, Baker, 1970) “Catholicism had maintained that the Scriptures were so obscure that only the teaching ministry of the Church cold uncover their true meaning. To Luther the perspicuity of the Bible was coupled with the priesthood of believers, so that the Bible became the property of all Christians.
The competent Christ was sufficient to interpret the Bible, and the Bible was sufficiently clear in content to yield its meaning to the believer.” pg. 55.
[4] R.C. Sproul, Knowing Scripture, June 22, 2023 www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/knowing-scripture “At the time of the Reformation, to stop unbridled, speculative, and fanciful interpretations of Scripture, the Reformers set forth the fundamental axiom that should govern all biblical interpretation. It is called the analogy of faith, which basically means that Holy Scripture is its own interpreter. In other words, we are to interpret Scripture according to Scripture. That is, the supreme arbiter in interpreting the meaning of a particular verse in Scripture is the overall teaching of the Bible.
Behind the principle of the analogy of faith is the prior confidence that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.”
[5] Tom Schreiner, Review of William J. Webb, Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis. “We should follow the pathway of Jesus and the apostles in teaching that the OT scriptures point to Christ and are fulfilled in him. The NT is the fulfillment of the OT. We have the final and definitive word that God has spoken to his people in the last days (Heb. 1:2). In the NT we have the faith that has been transmitted to the saints once for all (Jude 3). We expect no further revelation until the coming of Jesus Christ when we will meet God face to face. ... The culmination of the fullness of time in Christ (Gal. 4:4) means that we need no further word or instruction to understand how to apply the scriptures.”
[6] There is a reasonable criticism of any systematic theology but at its base is a conviction that the Bible records a complete and integrated revelation of God’s saving work which incorporates all its parts.
[7] Smothers, “Both egalitarian and gay-affirming interpreters are committed to a particular construal of past and present cultures, and the perceived ethical “progress” between the two. Complementarian interpreters, on the other hand, deny this extra-biblical construct. We are not committed to the moral norms of any culture, including the more patriarchal culture of the Bible’s provenance—which like our present culture was morally corrupt. Instead, we are committed to the ethics revealed in Scripture, not beyond. One’s perception of where Scripture is leading is, by definition, subject to change. But God’s revelation in creation and Scripture will never change, and this divine revelation alone provides solid enough ground to build a life, an ethic, and a bulwark against worldliness.”