The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum The Doctrine of Scripture Today

Denny,

If I understood Dr. Jones correctly, "both" elements are to be rejected as spurious uses of Scripture. I think he makes this clear in the very next sentence where he writes:

It results in a wedge (philosophical, not biblical) being driven between the written Scripture and the Word of God, the former being a fallible human record to the latter which is the revelatory Word.

What he is rejecting is the idea that the knowledge of God communicated to men throughout history can only understood in part due to the idea that circumstances, personal traits, historical situations, etc., all tend to cloud that revelatory truth. In short, holding to this view, which btw was one of the fundamental ideas of Karl Barth and others who held to neo-Orthodoxy, the "written word" is nothing more than a vehicle through which God actually speaks the inspired "revelatory word". To use their phraseology, "The Bible becomes the Word of God" when God Himself (Spirit?) 'speaks' to the individual at a point in time."

A simple example would be you sitting down reading your Bible and the words you read are initially not inspired but rather the fallible writings of fallible men. However, as you continue reading, something happens to you where a portion of what you are reading is impressed upon your mind and heart and you are consequently "enlightened" and given some insight and/or application of the text. It is at THAT moment that the Bible became the "real" Word of God, because God Himself revealed some "truth" to you. However, you could then pick up your Bible the very next day, read the very same passage and not have that experience of "enlightenment" and thus it would not be the "revelatory" Word of God but remain as it was, a fallible document written as the "witness" of fallible men conditioned by their surroundings, personal traits, etc.

What true Christianity believes in contrast, based upon the Bible's own self-attestation is that it IS; every jot and tittle, is the inspired, infallible and inerrant Word of God. What one reads in the Bible is nothing less than what God Himself would have spoken to you personally; face to face. The Scriptures are therefore God's immutable voice in writing.

I hope that helps somewhat?

In His grace,