The Living and Abiding Word

Peter writes, “‘All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.’ And this word is the good news that was preached to you.”

Peter is quoting from Isaiah 40. Peter was also aware of the words of Jesus: that heaven and earth will pass away, but his Word will never pass away.[1] And we come to this subject in the awareness of the fact that the Bible is the infallible revelation of the truth of who God is, of the world in which we live, and regarding ourselves and our place in that world. The Bible is “living and active.”[2] It’s light in the darkness. It’s hope for the hopeless. It is right, and it’s true. It’s “breathed out by God,”[3] and it accomplishes the purposes of God. It is the Word of eternal life. It is the living and abiding Word.

Jesus endorsed the authority of the Old Testament as he used it in the temptation,[4] as he explained it to the disciples. And he also made provision for the New Testament by authorizing the apostles to teach in his name. And quite strikingly, in that amazing disclosure of himself to the two disciples on the Emmaus Road, when they are clueless as to who he is, he does not then simply say, “Listen, look more carefully; it is me,” but he gives to them a Bible study, a great survey of the Scriptures—all of the Scriptures and the things concerning himself. And their reaction, of course, you will recall. In Luke 24, they said to one another, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked [with] us on the road, [and] while he opened … the Scriptures [to us]?”[5] They were not saying, “Isn’t it amazing that we got to see him close up?” but “Isn’t it wonderful that he taught us the Bible?”

Now, rather than tackle this subject by way of explanation, what I would like to do is to tackle it by way of exhortation. I want to issue, if you like, a fivefold pastoral plea in relationship to the power of the Word of God.

Study It Diligently

Number one: to study it diligently. To study it diligently.

That speaks to the issue of our gathering with God’s people in the context of public worship. The Book of Common Prayer begins both the morning and evening prayer with the reminder as to why it is we have come together: to offer praise and worship to God, to pay attention to the Scriptures, and to confess our sins, and so on.

The Bible is the infallible revelation of the truth of who God is, of the world in which we live, and regarding ourselves and our place in that world.

Now, when you think about the state of diligence in relationship to this, in terms of contemporary America—which is where most of us find ourselves—we stand in marked contrast to, for example, the sixteenth-century Geneva. When you read there of the events in Geneva, you read as follows: that each Sunday a sermon at Saint-Pierre and Saint-Gervais was to be preached at break of day and then at the usual hour of 9 a.m.; and then, at twelve noon, a catechism for the children; and then, at 3 p.m., the second sermon of the day; and at the church of Saint-Pierre during the workday week, sermons on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—the diligent, corporate, gathered study of the Word of God.

In the same way, in private, it is not simply enough for us—if we’re going to become students of the Bible, if we’re going to declare the power of Scripture—it is not enough for us to skim through something on a daily basis. To study involves assiduous effort. Diligence means that we are making a commitment to what we’re doing, and it is indispensable to our own progress in the faith. To heed Paul’s exhortation to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly”[6] means that we come to it humbly, regularly, submissively, praying perhaps, as I did as a boy in the words of the little chorus, “Make the Book live to me, O Lord.”[7] “Illumine it. Replenish me. Refresh me. Renew me. Invigorate me.”

There is a country-western song. I think it went to number one probably a hundred years ago. Johnny Cash didn’t have the hit; Tanya Tucker did: “Hold me like you want to, [not] like [’cause] you have to.”[8] And it’s almost as if the Holy Spirit says, “Read the Bible like you want to, not because you have to.” Study it diligently.

Believe It Savingly

Secondly: to believe it savingly. When Paul charges Timothy with the importance of his teaching, he reminds him at the end of chapter 4 that if he keeps a close watch on himself and on his teaching, if he persists in this, then he will save both himself and his hearers.[9]

What do we mean when we say that the power of the Word of God is saving in its impact? Well, you remember the story of Bishop Westcott and traveling on the train, going to some ceremony in all of his robes and finery and sitting in the compartment is a young Salvation Army girl. Looking at this clergyman, she assumes that he must need the story of salvation, and so she says to him, “Excuse me, Bishop, is you saved?”—to which Bishop Westcott reputedly replied, “Young lady, do you mean have I been saved, am I being saved, or will I be saved?”[10]

Now, we don’t have a record of her response. But what was Westcott acknowledging? He was acknowledging that it is the entrance of God’s Word that brings light,[11] that brings to us salvation through faith in Christ, and it is the ongoing work of the Word to save us. So, for example, James 1: “Put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”[12] Peter does the same thing where he urges his readers to “long for the pure spiritual milk” of the Word, “that by it you may grow up into salvation”[13]—the power of the Word of God savingly revealed in the lives of those who trust it.

So, for example, when Paul writes to the Thessalonians, he is able to say to them about the power of the Word of God coming to that community, to a pagan community. And then he says, “You know, what has happened is that your lives have been so transformed by the gospel that we hardly need to say anything at all, because the word of the Lord has sounded forth in Macedonia and Achaia.”[14] And its power was seen in the fact that not only did they study it diligently, but they believed it savingly. They had “turned … from idols to serve the living … God.”[15]

Trust It Entirely

Thirdly: to trust it entirely. Entirely.

Come back to that incident on the Emmaus Road again in Luke 24, when Jesus turns to these men, and he says to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have [written]!”[16] “All that the prophets have [written].” I don’t remember who it was first said to me, but I’ve never forgotten it—probably a Bible class teacher: “Alistair, it takes a whole Bible to make a whole Christian.” And that is why it is important that our study of the Bible and our trust in the Bible is an entire trust. We can trust it entirely—not because it tells us everything about everything, because it doesn’t tell us everything about everything. For example, I was trying to reset my password for ESPN+ so that I could watch Arsenal versus Chelsea, and I couldn’t go to the Bible and find out how to reset your password. It doesn’t tell us anything in the Bible about how to replumb the arteries of the human heart. But it does tell us something about everything.

I wonder: Are you trusting it entirely? You remember, I think it was Augustine who on one occasion said, “You know, if we only believe and trust the parts of the Bible we want to trust and then we reject the rest, it is not the Bible we believe; it is actually ourselves.”[17]

Now, some people stumble over this—even those who are professing the very power of the Bible itself—the idea that the Scriptures are infallible. And we say to ourselves, “On what basis are we going to prove this?” Well, John Murray, late of Westminster Seminary, in a wonderful passage in his Collected Writings, says, “We say Scripture is infallible not because we can prove it to be infallible,” because we can’t. On what basis, then, do we declare its infallibility? “The only ground is the witness of Scripture to itself, to its own origin, character, and authority.”[18] And I think you would agree it makes perfect sense. It is logical to say that if we do not trust the Bible on this matter, why would we trust it on any other matter? Men and women become convinced of the authority of the Bible only by Scripture itself, as the Holy Spirit convinces them that it is the very Word of God. Two highly intelligent fellows go to worship in church. One sits next to the other, listens to the same sermon. One is converted, and the other walks out. One is convinced, one believes savingly, one goes on to study diligently, and the other doesn’t. What is the difference? The level of their intellect? The benefits of the logical presentation? No—the work of the Holy Spirit of God.

Proclaim It Fearlessly

Fourthly, we then are to be encouraged to proclaim it fearlessly. Fearlessly.

Now, that doesn’t mean bombastically. It certainly doesn’t mean arrogantly, but to proclaim it in a way that lets people understand that we are not here to display our own agendas or to proclaim our own opinions, but that the Bible is a living book, and that the Bible actually understands us even before we fully understand it.

Now, if this is to be the case, then there will never be this kind of effectiveness emerging from the pews unless those who are given the responsibility of the pulpit are prepared and courageous enough to proclaim the Word of God—in other words, that those who are teaching the Bible need to be convinced that the Word of God does the work of God by the power of the Spirit of God.

Now, no one is saying that this is an easy task, and it clearly isn’t. Every generation probably thinks, “This is the hardest generation that we’ve ever encountered.” I think we should be wary of such a perspective. Consider what it was like for these early Christians who faced the lions and who were under the domination of Nero and whose lives ended in signs of great hardship and pain. Why? Because they were prepared to say, “Jesus is Lord”—that Jesus is Lord. He is the only Lord. He is the only Savior.

Now, this we are to do in what I might refer to as a collapsing culture. A collapsing culture. We’re at the end of twenty-five or fifty years during which the great stories that have made sense of human existence have collapsed—the grand narratives. We now have raised up a generation that is unable to provide a reasonable explanation for what we’re even doing here, who we are, and where we’re going—born without reason, prolonged by chance, ending in oblivion. What is needed is good news, to be proclaimed fearlessly and faithfully in a collapsing culture—to be proclaimed in faithfulness and fearlessness in light of the fact that we have a confused Church (Church with a big C), men who are “theologically vague,” who are dangerously accommodating in the way they address things.[19] They find that their theology needs to be moderated in relationship to the particular brand of hostility that is being foisted upon us at this time. And the great need, then, is for this great and fearless proclamation.

A collapsing society, a confused church, and (let’s just be honest) cowardly and compromised clerics—pastors who, by their own admission, have lost confidence in the truth and the power and the relevance of the gospel itself. And so what we have dished up to us is a series of anecdotes with a few blessed thoughts. The Bible is not a foundation; the Bible is a trampoline. The pastor jumps up and down on it and amuses people as they listen in the hope that somehow or another, they might catch something. How vastly different from Peter and John: “And when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and acknowledged them to be unlearned and ignorant men, they took knowledge of them; they said, ‘This must be that Jesus.’”[20] Well, of course it was Jesus!

Sing It Joyfully

Well, as I say, I’m not arguing for the power. I’m explaining the challenge that is ours in relationship to making that claim: studying it diligently, believing it savingly, trusting it entirely, proclaiming it fearlessly, and, yes—and you have been waiting for this, no doubt—sing it joyfully. Sing it joyfully.

There is no question about the fact that as a congregation sings, so that congregation goes—that there is a direct correlation between the abiding impact of the truth of God’s Word and the overflow of the praise of God’s people. There is surely a reason why the Free Church of Scotland for the longest time, and in many cases still, sings only the metrical Psalms, 150 of them that are the very Word of God. We may have various views on hymnody and psalmody and accompaniment and so on, but we understand just why it is that they did what they did or do what they do, and that is they realized that what the people of God need to know is the Word of God. So that’s why it is taught faithfully. And then it is to be sung home, so that as people are singing the truth of God’s Word, then God’s Word is abiding in their hearts. Now, that is not an argument for psalm singing, although I think one of the great lacks in much contemporary praise is the absence of the singing of the Psalms. And it would do us all good to include them in what we do.

The same is true, actually, when you read of the history of revival. The little I know of it, in terms of Scotland: I remember when the church that I served for a while as an assistant in the ’70s at the turn of the century had become almost a shadow of itself. The people had lost confidence in the Bible, the pastoral impact was low, and there was talk of simply turning the place into some other kind of theater. And then they called a young man from the borders of Scotland, and he came as a very young man and in fear and in trepidation. It was the kind of thing where people would have thought, “Well, if he doesn’t make it, it doesn’t matter, because it’s going nowhere in any case.” Well, he was stirred in his heart, and he went off to Wales. This is right around, what, 1904, 1905? And off to Wales because he had heard of the work of revival there and the work through this young man, Evan Roberts. And he came back from Wales to Edinburgh, and as he reported on what he had seen and what he had heard, this was one of the things that he said: “The Holy Ghost was in their singing.” “Was in their singing.”

Now, with this in mind and with this as a way to move to a close, I went just in the last couple of days and looked again at some of the record of that revival. And here is just a couple of quotes. Someone who was present as these events were taking place:

On all sides there was the solemn gladness of men and women upon whose eyes had dawned the splendour of a new day, the foretaste of whose glories they [enjoyed] in [a] quickened sense of … fellowship and a keen glad zest … for righteousness, [and] the joy of living.[21]

Incidentally, revival, as we read of it in history, does not come without a revival of holiness. It doesn’t lead us into some form of antinomianism, where our enthusiasm takes over from every other consideration of righteousness and of truth. No: “for righteousness, [and] the joy of [the] living.”

Three-quarters of the meeting consisted of singing. And no one used a hymnbook. If someone speaks or prays, there is silence. If, on the other hand, as it usually happens, the people decide to sing, the chorus swells in volume until it drowns all other sound.[22]

And Joseph Kemp came back, and he said, “My friends, I have encountered something here that has got nothing at all to do with orchestration. It has got nothing at all to do with worship teams. It has only one worship leader—namely, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit. It has got nothing to do with organization but everything to do with divine innovation.”

Well, I put it to you: It’s worthy of consideration, is it not? Surely Colossians 3 is understandably as helpful a comment on this as we have anywhere in the Scriptures. It is, if you like, the parallel passage to what Paul says when he writes to the Ephesians: “Do[n’t] [be] drunk with wine, … but be filled with the [Holy] Spirit”—“filled with the [Holy] Spirit”—“addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, [and] singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, [thankful and] … submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”[23] And then he writes to the Colossians, and what does he say there? He says, “[Well,] let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.”

The Spirit and the Word are working together. When the Spirit of the Lord comes upon the church, then the Word of Christ dwells amongst the church.

You see, the Spirit and the Word are working together. When the Spirit of the Lord comes upon the church, then the Word of Christ dwells amongst the church. That, then, is the source of their teaching, their admonishing of one another. It’s a wisdom that the world doesn’t understand. And so they sing psalms, and they sing hymns and these spiritual songs, and they do it with thanks in their heart to God.

May I say to you very kindly: We don’t need somebody explaining to us why we should believe in the power of the Word of God. We need to believe in the power of the Word of God.

June 2, 1953. I guess I was thirteen months. And there, in the crowning of Elizabeth II, this part comes in the service: “Our gracious Queen, we present you with this book, the most valuable thing the world affords. Here is Wisdom. This is the royal Law. These are the lively Oracles of God.”

So I say to you, I make this pastoral plea: Study it diligently. Believe it savingly. Trust it entirely. Proclaim it fearlessly. Sing it joyfully.

Father, thank you for giving to us your Word. Thank you that when we get to the end of the Bible, when we get a little glimpse into all that awaits us, we find that the company gathers to say, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God.”[24] And so we say to one another, at the end of what has been a great day, “Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and [come,] let us exalt his name together!”[25] For we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.

[1] See Matthew 24:35; Mark 13:31; Luke 21:33.

[2] Hebrews 4:12 (ESV).

[3] 2 Timothy 3:16 (ESV).

[4] See Matthew 4:1–11; Luke 4:1–13.

[5] Luke 24:32 (ESV).

[6] Colossians 3:16 (ESV).

[7] R. Hudson Pope, “Make the Book Live to Me.”

[8] Paul Davis and Bobby Emmons, “Love Me Like You Used To” (1987).

[9] See 1 Timothy 4:16.

[10] Joseph Clayton,Bishop Westcott, Leaders of the Church 1800–1900, ed. George W. E. Russell (London: Mowbray, 1906),110–11. Paraphrased.

[11] See Psalm 119:130.

[12] James 1:21 (ESV).

[13] 1 Peter 2:2 (ESV).

[14] 1 Thessalonians 1:8 (paraphrased).

[15] 1 Thessalonians 1:9 (ESV).

[16] Luke 24:25 (ESV).

[17] Augustine,Contra Faustum17.3. Paraphrased.

[18] “The Infallibility of Scripture,” in Collected Writings of John Murray, vol. 1, The Claims of Truth (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976), 9, 10.

[19] James S. Stewart,A Faith to Proclaim (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1953), 16.

[20] Acts 4:13 (paraphrased).

[21] W. T. Stead, “The Story of the Awakening,” in The Story of The Welsh Revival as Told by Eyewitnesses Together with a Sketch of Evan Roberts and His Message to the World (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1905), 61–62.

[22] Stead, 64–65. Paraphrased.

[23] Ephesians 5:18–21 (ESV).

[24] Revelation 19:1 (ESV).

[25] Psalm 34:3 (ESV).