THE UNITY OF GOD’S WORD

By Ivan Maddox

West End Bible Fellowship

Atlanta, GA

Is God’s written word less reliable than His spoken word? Does His word somehow lose force or integrity when it is committed to writing? Or does it deteriorate or lose its strength or truthfulness over time? This idea has gained popularity in recent years, particularly among some involved with prophetic ministries.

Their arguments vary. Some urge us to seek out "fresh" word of God, giving the impression that God’s word goes bad or becomes stale with age. Some try to pit the "letter" against the "spirit", not understanding that in New Testament writings where the two are contrasted, the "letter" refers to the Law of Moses, not to written scriptures in general, while the "spirit" refers to the ministry of grace made available to mankind through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The contrast in scripture is not between audible revelation and written revelation, but between law and grace.

Some argue that the written word is merely a means to an end; our "schoolmaster," to borrow an analogy from Galatians, to bring us to the point where we can listen to our master’s voice directly, and outgrow our need to follow the written word of God so closely, because we are following instead the word spoken in our ear by Jesus Christ. Others argue that God cannot be limited by what He has said in scripture, but is free to add new, even contradictory revelation at a later date. Some have suggested that walking by the written word of God is walking by the flesh, or walking by sight, as opposed to walking by audible or visual revelation, which they call walking by the spirit, or walking by faith. Some have gone even further, suggesting that their new revelations are of a higher order than the written word of God, because they were received by visions or trances, rather than by the supposedly less reliable method of "holy men of God [speaking] as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (II Peter 1:21).

Is the written word of God really less reliable than the spoken word of God? Can anything God has declared in writing be superceded or even flatly contradicted by what someone believes God has spoken to him this morning? What is the relationship between God’s written word and his spoken word?

For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, God has answered this question for us in dramatic fashion in the pages of scripture. The answer is found in the Book of Exodus.

The first time God committed His word to writing for man, He did it in a way that drove home in a powerful fashion what He was doing. He spoke His words from heaven, so that the people could hear Him; then, at the people’s request, He gave more of His word directly to Moses to give to the people; then He had Moses write these words in a book.

When the children of Israel came to the mount in the wilderness of Sinai, God called Moses to him and explained to him what He was about to do.

Then God spoke audibly to all the people, giving them His commandments.

What was the reaction of the people when they heard God’s voice from heaven? They were terrified.

Chapters 21-23 of Exodus record the rest of the words God gave to Moses on this occasion, to give to the people. Then Moses spoke these words to the people, and wrote them in a book.

How did God transmit His words to His people? He first spoke His word audibly to the people of Israel. He then wrote His word down, not on paper or animal skins, but on stone, with His own finger.

But Moses destroyed these tablets in a fit of anger when he returned from the mount to the people.

So once again God wrote His words on tables of stone, and gave them to Moses. What is the significance of this? Why would God speak His words audibly to the people, then give them to Moses to write in a book, then write them Himself on tables of stone? To drive home a point. God’s Word is God speaking. Whether God chooses to speak to us directly from the heavens, or gives His words to a "holy man of God" to write down for us in a book, or whether He writes them down Himself for us, God’s word is still God speaking to us.

When we try to pit the spoken word of God against the written word of God, miss the whole point. Regardless of how God chooses to speak to us, it is still God speaking to us.

But the matter is more serious than this. The reason this conflict between the written word of God and "fresh" word of God has arisen in the first place is because all too often there is clear and open disagreement between what God has said in his written word, and what has just been said to a believer by a spirit he or she believes to be the spirit of God. All too often, the solution offered is to reject the written word of God in favor of the new revelation.

The apostle John warns us in one of his epistles that not everything that claims to be the spirit of God IS the spirit of God.

Paul elaborates on this problem in II Corinthians. He points out that we are dealing with an enemy whose specialty is deception, and who is quite capable of disguising the darkness he offers us as light.

The danger is not only from outside the church. The apostle Peter warned that there are those who have been bought by Christ who try to lead people away from him.

The apostle Paul echoed these warnings about dangers from without and within.

So how are we, as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, supposed to know whether what we’re hearing is the spirit of God, or another spirit?

Some have suggested that the answer is found in the very same passage in I John that we were looking at.

Those who support this solution suggest that all we have to do is check to see whether the spirit who is speaking confesses that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. However, a quick look at the gospels suggests that this might not be an adequate solution.

These spirits, which Jesus recognized as evil spirits and cast out of people, would have passed this test! Some devils were so eager to confess that Jesus Christ, who was present before them IN THE FLESH, was the Messiah that Jesus had to command them to keep quiet! Something else must be meant in I John by "confessing that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh."

At the time John was writing, gnosticism was gaining a foothold in the church. One teaching of the gnostics was that the flesh is evil, while the spirit is good. Since Jesus had no evil in him, the gnostics taught that he was not really a man of flesh and blood, but was a spirit being who only appeared to have a physical form. John’s test was designed to protect believers from gnosticism and related errors. It was not designed to be the sole test for determining whether a spirit is from God or not.

Others suggest that we "try the spirit by the spirit"; that is, that we rely on revelation from God to tell us whether the revelation we, or someone else, received from God, is really from God. A moment’s reflection will expose the flaw in this argument. If what we’re trying to determine is what revelation is from God and what is not, more unconfirmed revelation is not a good solution; it merely magnifies the problem.

A related method is to rely on prophets in the church to judge what is genuine revelation from God, and what is not.

This is all well and good if we have genuine prophets with unquestioned spiritual credentials in the church. But most churches today have no functioning prophets at all; and all too often, where there are prophets in the church, they are part of the problem instead of a reliable solution to the problem. Until we are certain that a prophet is a genuine prophet of God, his judgment on another’s revelation is worthless.

Fortunately, God has left us with more practical solutions to this problem. Paul gives a simple and very effective method in Galatians for telling which spirit you are dealing with.

Paul’s test is simple: If the good news that was revealed to you or someone else differs from the good news that was revealed to Christ, Paul and the apostles — and which was communicated to us in the New Testament scriptures — then it is a counterfeit gospel, regardless of its source, and is to be rejected. This gives us a critically important piece of information about any fresh revelation we might receive from heaven today: it will not contradict the revelation already given to the church at the time of Paul.

James offers a second test, equally practical.

The point James is making is that God’s wisdom, which is what is expressed in God’s word, both written and spoken, reflects the character of God. Any "revelation" that is not consistent with God’s character, then, cannot be from the true God.

When we apply this particular test, we need to keep a few things in mind.

A third test is found in the response of the Berean believers to the teaching of the apostle Paul, who was presenting new doctrine that seemed to be radically different from anything they had been taught in the Law and the Prophets. What did the Bereans do? Did they accept Paul’s revelation unconditionally because he identified himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ? Or did they reject Paul’s teaching out of hand, because it was different from what they already knew from God’s word? They did neither.

11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

The Bereans checked the new revelation they had received from Paul against the written revelation they already had from scripture. What did they find? The scriptures confirmed Paul’s revelation! And why not? If the revelation was genuine, the same God had revealed both the scriptures and the new revelation. The Bereans found that there was no conflict, no contradiction between the two; and on that basis, they accepted Paul’s teaching.

But the Bereans did not stop there. They "searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." Even after they had determined from scripture that Paul’s doctrine was lining up with God’s written word, and even after they were convinced that he was a genuine apostle of Jesus Christ, speaking God’s revealed word, they continued to search the scriptures to verify that what Paul was teaching them was consistent with what the scriptures taught. And the scriptures continued to verify Paul’s teaching.

And what was Paul’s reaction? Was he upset or insulted that the Bereans questioned his integrity or his ministry? Not at all. He never once discouraged them from searching the scriptures to confirm or refute what he was teaching them by revelation. He knew his words were genuine. He had no fear that they would not pass the test of scripture in the hands of believers who honestly wanted to know the truth.

When we try to pit God’s revealed or spoken word against His written word, we are missing a very important truth: God’s word is a whole. If one part is broken, the whole is broken. If one part lacks integrity or reliability, the whole lacks reliability. If the written word of God cannot be trusted as true, then neither can fresh revelation from God. Everything God has said must stand or fall together.