1.
“Scripture as a Witness to Divine Revelation”
In
the doctrine of Holy Scripture, we recognize the Bible as our normative witness
to divine revelation. This statement indicates a distinction between the Bible
and revelation. However, there is a unity between the two as well. As the
normative witness to God’s revelation, we not only hear of God’s lordship in
the Bible, but that lordship becomes real for us through the Bible. This is
because our Lord, even as the primary subject of the text, remains sovereign in
relation to both the text and us. God can and does reveal himself to us through
the written human words of the Bible when he so desires. In doing so he restrains
our desire to dominate the text. He keeps us from falsely determining for
ourselves the relation between the witness of the text and his revelation of
himself through the text.
2.
“Scripture as the Word of God”
Scripture
is a written human witness to God’s revelation. When God chooses, these written
words become the living Word of God. There is only one Word of God and that is
the Word who became flesh to reconcile us with the Father and is present now by
the power of the Holy Spirit. When we call the Bible the Word of God, we mean
the miraculous presence of Jesus Christ with us through these very human words
which testify of him by the power of the Spirit. For our part, we must be ready
daily to read, understand, and explain the biblical witness. Primarily,
however, we must pray to God the Father that, by the work of the Spirit, the
human words of the Bible might be for us here and now the Word of God.
The
Scripture which is the normative human witness to divine revelation consists of
those books which the Church recognizes as canonical. The Church did not choose
which books would be given this authority. God, as Lord of both his Word and
the Church, chose the books which would serve him as his normative witness and
instructed the Church to accept them as such by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Scripture
witnesses to God’s revelation as a whole. Both testaments shed light on the
witness to Christ contained in each book. Conversely, the witness to Christ in each book of
both testaments contributes to our proper understanding of all the others.
The
Bible bears unique witness to Jesus Christ because it alone witnesses to the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. The resurrection itself was God’s own witness to
Christ’s divinity by the power of the Holy Spirit. Also, the Bible alone is the
witness of the prophets and apostles chosen by God to receive his
self-revelation. And they alone were commanded by God to share with authority
what they heard him say.
Copyright © 2019
by Steven Farsaci.
All rights
reserved. Fair use encouraged.