Spiritual Life Through The Word

by G. Prasher, Jr., Lagos, Nigeria | Category: The Holy Scriptures | Jun 1966

The truth of the verbal inspiration of the Bible is not merely of academic interest. It is of intense practical importance in the purposes of God.

"As the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud1 and giveth seed to the sower and bread to... the eater... so shall My word be that goeth forth but of My mouth..." (Isaiah 55.10-11).

All spiritual life in this world derives from the word that goeth forth from the mouth of God. As there could be no natural life apart from the moisture from above, so the world would be a spiritually arid desolation if God had not granted to men His lifegiving oracles. Originally given "by divers portions and in... divers manners", these oracles have in God's overruling providence been enshrined in permanent written form, well known to us in the sixty-six books of our. Old and New Testaments'. The fascinating plan of revelation which brought this about has been considered in recent issues of Needed Truth. This month we wish to focus attention on the inseparable connexion between the "living oracles of God" and spiritual life in the ~believer. For by means of God's word this life is imparted, and by God's word it is nourished and sustained.

The reader will be well aware that other factors ate involved in the imparting of spiritual life There is necessarily the work of the Father, who of His own will brought us forth by the word of truth, to be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures (James 1 18) There is necessarily the reception of the Son by faith for as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name (John 1 12) There is necessarily the power of the Holy Spirit for that which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3.6). For the moment, however, let us specialize on the remarkable truth that the triune God has chosen to use the divine word as the agency through which men may have spiritual life, and have it abundantly.

A Parallel with Natural Creation

The harmony of Gods ways in creation and m redemption has often been explored Drummond 5 Natural Law in the Spiritual World" is a classic exposition of this line of truth. Our subject reflects one facet of it. For the Scriptures reveal to faith that the worlds have been framed by the word of God so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which do appear (Hebrews 11 3) This verse declares in principle what Genesis 1 presents in greater detail, for with each phase of creation we are told that "God said"; and it was so. Psalm 33.9 forcefully confirms the power of the divine word in creation:

"He spake, and it was done;

He commanded, and it stood fast".

Furthermore, creation is maintained by the same word of divine power that brought it into being, as it is written. "Upholding all things by the word of His power" (Hebrews 1.3). Although such truth lies beyond the reach of human understanding, faith delights in the prominence given to the operation of God's word in the creation of the material universe. This is seen to dove-tail into the ways of God in spiritual re-creation.

The Life-Giving Word

"He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna ... that He might make thee know that man doth not live by. bread alone, but by every thing that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lo~ doth man live" (Deuteronomy 8.3).

Israel stumbled from crisis to crisis of murmuring unbelief in the wilderness, slow to learn the lessons that God was impressing on their hearts. The waste howling desert, the monotony of unvaried diet, the austere conditions, all conspired under God's hand to bring into truer perspective the essential life of the spirit. That life derived from the word of God. Jehovah's Servant, centuries later, knew in deeper intensity than Israel the rigours of wilderness hunger. Yet in perfect appreciation of the value of the life-giving word, He countered Satanic temptation by renewing the mighty dictum of the law:

"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Matthew 4.4).

This is fundamental to all God's ways with men. The principle abides in every age. As Moses put it so solemnly to Israel,

"Set your heart unto all the words which I testify unto you this day... to do all the words of this law ... because it is your life" (Deuteronomy 3.46,47).

How remarkably this was confirmed by the Greater Prophet whom God raised up like unto Moses!

"Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If He called them gods, unto whom the word of God came (and the scripture cannot be broken), say ye of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?" (John 10.34-36).

They were called "gods" "unto whom the word of God came"! The godly Israelite, receiving the living oracles by faith, knew an effect on his spiritual life which distinguished him from all to whom God's word had not come; So that down the ages of Israel's privileged holy nationhood the principle found its powerful outworking. When at last the Living Word 'was manifest in flesh among them, He ascribed to His own words the same vital life-giving principle which had characterized the Spirit-imparted oracles of God through the Old Testament prophets.

"He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God" (John

3.34).

"The words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life" (John 6.63).

Sadly He added, "But there are some of you that believe not". So it has always been. Unbelief barricades the human spirit against the life-giving word of God.

The Word as the Seed

Our theme finds simple yet illuminating illustration in our matchless Teacher's parable of the Sower and the seed. The Spirit has chosen to include this parable and its interpretation in three of the gospel records, so emphasising its importance. Indeed this parable discloses to us the divine method of working on through the centuries of the present dispensation until the time of the end. The salvation of millions of souls from Satan's power, the sanctification of believers, their separated testimony in churches of God, the immense conception of the church which is the Body of Christ-all these mighty purposes of God during the present age were to be effected by means of the "seed" which is the word of God. The parable is eloquent. Man knows himself to be utterly dependent upon the life germane m the seed he sows. Apart from this all toil is vain. Would he wish to use his life in advancement of God's spiritual purposes? Then let him learn his equal dependence upon the spiritual life germane to the word of God. Apart from the power inherent in that word, all effort for spiritual progress will be equally vain. So God has ordained it; so it has been proved in experience. The progress of the work of God has been in proportion to the sowing of the seed of the word of God.

The marvels of natural creation are legion. Research increasingly opens up the intricacies of God's handiwork, and the mysteries of the "tree bearing fruit wherein is the seed thereof" have been explored with amazing results. In bewildering variety the Creator has devised means by which seeds are propagated, causing the devout student to exclaim with the Psalmist, "0 LORD, how manifold are Thy works! In wisdom hast Thou made them all". In the spiritual realm the ways of God are no less wonderful. The mystery of the effect of the word of God in the human heart is past tracing out. It is a fact of spiritual experience, a law which operates as definitely as the laws of God in natural creation. "The seed is the word of God"!

Old Covenant Writings and New Covenant Revelation

What then comprised the seed of the word of God in the time of the Lord? Quite clearly the Lord Jesus revered the written word of the Old Testament as the word of God. He appealed to those writings as the ultimate authority in spiritual matters (see Matthew 21.16; 22.31-32; 37-40). He defended their integrity to the last jot and tittle (Matthew 5.17-19; John 10.35). He drew vivid contrast between the wheat of the word. and the chaff of human tradition. mere "precepts of men" (Matthew 15.1-9). Yet He also exposed the fallacy of unspiritual men with only a mental grasp of the written oracles. Through pride and hardening of heart such men thought to find eternal life in their self-righteous observance of God's commands (John 5.39-40). They would not yield to its humbling power which would have disclosed their own sinfulness and revealed the Person of the Messiah who was in their midst. To such the word of God became an instrument of lifeless formality instead of a medium of new, abundant spiritual life. They were blind to the Living Word through a merely intellectual engagement with the form and teaching of the law.

But if the law was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. If God had spoken to the fathers in the prophets, He was now speaking in His Son. If Christ confirmed and fulfilled the written word of the Old Covenant revelation, He also introduced a fulness of further revelation beyond all that had been formerly known. "Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets:

I came not to destroy, but to fulfil" (Matthew 5.17). During His wonderful discourse in this chapter He repeatedly referred to some aspect of the law, and then added, "But I say unto you...". What He said went beyond the Mosaic revelation; God was speaking in His Son. The sayings of the Son were "spirit and life" (John 6.63). It transpired then that within the years of the Lord's ministry a new wide range of truth was revealed. This in due course would be preserved in written form by the same process of inspiration that had given to Israel the written Word of God in the Old Testament. The scope of revelation was expanded to meet the needs of God's world-wide purposes following the death and resurrection of His well-beloved Son.

The Apostles and the Word of Life

"Stand and speak to the people... all the words of this Life" (Acts 5.20). This instruction to Peter and John epitomizes their responsibility in witness. Their duty was to "hold forth the word of life". They recognized that this included those portions of the written word of the Old Testament relevant to the gospel message (e.g. Acts 2.25-28; 34-36). As promised by the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit also brought the Master's words to their remembrance (John 14.26) and taught them what they should speak. In the Acts of the Apostles we repeatedly encounter this blend of Old Testament quota ti6n and freshly revealed truth concerning Christ. There is a helpful passage in 1 Peter 1.23-26. The disciples are reminded that they have been begotten again of incorruptible seed-through the word of God which liveth and abideth. The metaphor of the incorruptible seed strikingly conveys the thought of spiritual life inherent in God's living, abiding word. Peter makes reference to the written word of Isaiah 40.6,8, including the declaration that the word of the LORD abideth for ever. He then adds, "And this is the word of good tidings which was preached unto you.

So the good tidings of saving faith in Christ embodied the written word of the Old Testament prophets and truth newly revealed through the Son and the Spirit. Each was complementary to the other. There were widening horizons of revelation which in other generations were not made known to the sons of men, but were now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit. God bore witness with them by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will. It was overruled that by about the end of the first century the New Testament Scriptures had been written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, enshrining in permanent, form all aspects of revealed truth which would be necessary for the spiritual experience of believers in succeeding generations. The writings of the New Testament bear the same stamp of divine authority as those of the Old Testament. In their nature they too are "living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Hebrews 4.12).

The Word Bearing Fruit and Increasing

Several references to the word of God in apostolic witness give a vivid impression of its central importance to their work.

"The word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem exceedingly" (Acts 6.7).

"He (Herod) was eaten of worms ... But the word of God... grew and multiplied" (Acts 12.23,24).

"So mightily grew the word of the Lord and prevailed" (Acts 19.20).

There is intimate association between the growth of God's work in the souls of men and the active agency of the living word. In a notable passage of his letter to the Colossians the apostle Paul ascribes that same essential quality to the word of life - its inherent principle of life after the manner of natural seed:

the word of the truth of the gospel, which is come unto you; even as it is also in all the world bearing fruit and increasing, as it doth in you also, since the day ye heard and knew the grace of God in truth" (Colossians 1.5-6).

What then shall we say to these things?

"Preach the word!" (see 2 Timothy 4.1-4). As in the first, so. in the twentieth century, Paul's laconic exhortation touches the kernel of our need. There are many today who will not endure the sound doctrine but having itching ears heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts. What profit can there be in such teachings? Spiritual life is given and sustained only through God's word. The preacher with this conviction will earnestly wait upon God in prayer, pondering the written word to be assured of a message for his hearers. He will feel it his main responsibility to bring to bear God's living oracles upon the consciences of his hearers, knowing that by this means alone can there be conviction, repentance and saving faith in Christ. The authoritative tone of apostolic preaching sprang from assurance that their message was not after man, neither was it received from man, nor were they taught it by men, but it was received through revelation of Jesus Christ. We are told that the Thessalonians received the message not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God". Only as a result of clear conviction as to the verbal inspiration of the Holy Scriptures may we know true spiritual assurance and power in preaching. The student will delight in discovering fresh wonders of detailed accuracy as he pursues his study of the word, based on the conviction that it is indeed inspired of God. The evangelist will marvel, as he preaches with a similar conviction, that these ancient writings have still in modern times the same living power to bring about spiritual life and fruitfulness.

Life and Growth

Indispensable as it is to the new birth, the word of God is equally necessary for continuing spiritual growth.

"As newborn babes, long for the spiritual milk which is without guile, that ye may grow thereby unto salvation" (1 Peter 2.2).

Whether the "milk" for those without experience in the word of righteousness, or the "solid food" for those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil, the Scriptures provide all that the believer needs for vigorous spiritual health. Only "let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom" (Colossians 3.16). There is serious danger in neglecting daily feeding on the word of God. So much else may occupy our time and thoughts that we fail to assimilate the living oracles through which we were begotten again. Little wonder then that spiritual weakness results! The blessedness of the man who enjoys spiritual fullness through the word is fittingly illustrated in the first Psalm:

"His delight is in the law of the Lo~;

And in His law doth he meditate day and night.

And he shall be like a tree planted by the streams of water,

That bringeth forth its fruit in its season,

Whose leaf also doth not wither."

Does God see us as such trees, beloved, amidst the increasing aridity of the world in these last days?

G. Prasher, Jr., Lagos, Nigeria | Jun 1966
The Holy Scriptures