GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 1:2
2 just as the eyewitnesses and servants of the word handed them down to us from the beginning.
Luke’s term, “servants of the word,” is the first hint of his medical background the Gospel. The term he uses is not deacon (διάκονος, 1 Tim. 3:12) or slave (δοῦλος, Jude 1) as we might have expected, but hyperetes, a physician’s assistant. This is the same word he will use later to describe Mark as the “assistant” to Paul and Barnabas (Acts 13:5). Luke uses this same word to describe the assistant of the synagogue ruler in Nazareth (Luke 4:20). The preacher (or Gospel author) is nothing more than the assistant to the Word of God. He is a delivery system; a loudspeaker or the page of a book. If he does his duty well, the people receive the word of God and not very much of the preacher. If people remember the preacher but not the word of God, then he has failed.
This verse brings up the question of verbal inspiration. What is inspiration? Paul assures us that all Scripture (which is therefore a unified work, not a loose collection of unrelated ramblings) is “God breathed” (2 Timothy 3:15). How did this happen? Peter explains this even as it is taking place with him, personally: “Holy men of God spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). The Bible makes at least six clear points about inspiration.
1 ) Inspiration is not merely of a subject matter or of a person, but of the written words of the Bible. It is the things that people wrote which are the inspired text. For example, Paul wrote things that were not included as part of the inspired word of God, such as the Epistle to the Laodiceans (Colossians 4:16), but he wrote thirteen epistles which are included in the inspired canonical text. There are theologians who maintain that the subjects of the Bible were inspired, but the specific words they used were not. This is not possible. Anyone who writes is only able to convey his or her message through the words they use. A speaker might also convey something through body language, tone, etc., but a writer cannot. Since God speaks to us through his word, the words we have are God’s words, and indeed, God’s word, since the body of work is not disjointed but a single document, the Bible. Jesus said, “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). It is a complete entity. And Jesus binds us to Scripture: “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples” (John 8:31).
2 ) Inspiration is not simply guidance from God (and protection of the written text from error), but it is God supplying the very message which the inspired author presents. At the same time, it pleased God to allow the human personalities, experiences, vocabulary and style to shine through in the writing of every author of the Bible. So Moses has his style, Isaiah has his, and John has his. Jude is fond of grouping everything into threes. Nahum is terse. Malachi likes the question and answer style of the catechism. Jeremiah begins beautiful illustrations and then abandons them in favor of plain, almost graphic explanations.
Quenstedt describes this as the “divine assistance and direction… (which) makes the Bible ‘God-breathed.’” Jesus binds us to Scripture as the message—the written text—given through his apostles: “I have given them your word and the world has hated them… sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:14, 17).
3 ) Inspiration does not apply merely to a portion or theme of Scripture, not even the chief matters and doctrines, but to every portion, every word, and every syllable. “It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law” (Luke 16:17). The purpose of the Scriptures is that “by them you possess eternal life” (John 5:39). John says candidly to his readers: “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). So even such small matters as who has Paul’s cloak at Troas (2 Timothy 4:13), or that “alpha” is written out (῎Αλϕα) throughout Revelation and “omega” is just spelled with its letter (῏Ω, Revelation 1:8; 21:6; 22:13), or that the headings of the Psalms (and of Habakkuk 3:1) are all given as the word of God. They are all part of the original, inspired text of the Bible. Some are more useful for us for teaching (2 Timothy 3:16) than for correcting and rebuking, perhaps, but all of these things are part of “training in righteousness.”
4 ) Some things in the Bible could not be known to any human, even through extensive research such as that used by Luke (Luke 1:1-4) or Ezra (4:8-24; 5:7-17; 6:2-12). The account of the creation up to the making of Adam (Genesis 1:1-26) and the conversations between Satan and God in Job (Job 1:6-12; 2:1-7) could only have been received through divine guidance, since they are not presented as visions or dreams, which fall into a similar category but which still involve the transmission of the text through an intermediary.
5 ) Scripture is perfectly inerrant in all of its words, which is to say, in every single one of its words. When Jesus appeals to a single difficult word in Psalm 82:6 (אֱלֹהִים, ‘gods’) he says “the Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). LCMS Professor Georg Stoeckhardt said: “When Christ and the Apostles appeal to Scripture, they adduce not merely general Scriptural thoughts, they are not even satisfied to quote single passages, but they often lay their finger on a single word of Scripture to prove their point (he cites Galatians 3:16 and the use of the singular ‘seed’ from Genesis 22:18).” And the number of words of the Bible—its text—is closed. There will never be “another gospel of Jesus Christ” as the Mormons and Muslims claim. Scripture warns not to add anything to it nor to take anything away from it (Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; Proverbs 30:5-6; Revelation 22:18-19). While on trial for his faith, Paul said: “I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the law and written in the prophets” (Acts 24:14). And Jesus warns: “Not a [Greek] iota nor a [Hebrew] yod will pass away from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:18-10).
6 ) The inspiration of Scripture also includes the impulse and the command from God to write. It’s necessary to add this seemingly trivial point, first of all, because Scripture makes it (“I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!” 1 Corinthians 9:16). Second of all, opponents to the truth have said that the Apostles and Evangelists wrote by inspiration and according to God’s will, but not according to God’s command. Why would anyone take this position? It is done to lower the value of the Scriptures and to exalt the value and necessity of “the unwritten Word of God,” by which they mean human traditions. Pieper explains: “The Christian doctrine (they say) is preserved purer by tradition than by Holy Scripture; the Church could exist well without Holy Scripture, but not without tradition” (Christian Dogmatics I p. 225). In this way tradition is maintained by Reformed churches above the authority of Scripture, especially under the guise of human reason. And tradition (not always the same traditions) is maintained by the Catholic church as something to be administered, controlled, manufactured and manipulated by the Pope. Luther calls this the Pope’s Gauckelsack, or “magician’s bag.” Lutherans are well-armed against the obscene and outrageous claims from Rome, but we are not always prepared to defend against the equally mad claims from Reformed churches. For example, one theologian (Kaftan) says, “The modern theology I stand for bows to no mere external authority.” By this he means that on the one hand, he will not bow to the text of the Bible: the Prophets and Apostles. But on the other hand he says that he will in fact “bow” to “God’s Word as an authority,” and we note the word “an,” which means that he really subjects the Word of God to his own reason and understanding. This is the quagmire into which too many pastors and teachers have led their people, so that the poor people throw their hands into the air and quote Pilate’s “What is Truth?” (John 18:38) over Christ’s “Your Word is Truth” (John 17:17).
What we have been handed down in the Scriptures is the word of God, and the power of God (Jesus, Mark 12:24). By this word, we have life, forgiveness, salvation, and the certainty of the resurrection to eternal life. So we study the Scriptures, put our trust in them, and take them to heart. Even the angels long to look into the Scriptures, and they are the ones who see God’s face (1 Peter 1:12). There is nothing that even the angels know that would change the Gospel of Christ (Galatians 1:8). He is only way to the Father, and the Holy Bible is our only means to learning about him.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota