5.2 Christ as Every Word
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word (John 1:1 modified). – The words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are life (John 6:63).
Words are Spirit; Spirit comes only as words. God has given me a wonderful illustration to demonstrate that Word and Spirit are not just “always together,” but even more than that, that Word is an essential quality of Spirit and that Spirit is an essential quality of Word. That illustration awaits the next session, however, Christ as a Spirit of Power. Yet by that illustration I can speak far more clearly regarding Christ as every word God speaks.
Hermeneutics
Any good Bible school curriculum should have a course on “Hermeneutics” near the start. Hermeneutics is the term for how we should read and understand the Bible. In considering such a course, I purchased Knowing Scripture by R.C. Sproul, since it was the text of a similar course. My first thought was that I could write a booklet adding my perspective to what surely should be a Godly view of Scripture.
Throughout his book, however, Sproul considered only the intellectual and cultural aspects of obtaining God’s “wisdom for man” from the Bible under the watch of accepted “Christian” doctrine – from the Calvinist perspective. On NO page in Sproul’s book did I find one ounce of life.
Why Study the Bible?
To Sproul, spirit meant two things. First, spirit meant the excess of foolish human emotions, and second, spirit meant a method of discovering further intellectual depths in Scripture.
Sproul began his text with the question – why study Scripture? He thought that it was sad that most Christians hardly know their Bibles. I did not identify with Sproul. If the Bible was nothing more than what was found inside his book, then I can understand why only a handful of religious intellects would ever read it. It could not hold my interest.
Yet from the age of 19 I have devoured the Bible. Why? Treating the Bible as an intellectual edifice is entirely outside of my experience. The Bible has only ever been my LIFE.
The Absence of Life
The words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are life. I’m not saying that Sproul’s book was filled with death; I’m saying there was NO presence of the Holy Spirit upon it and NO life in it. Death is the absence of life.
An honest book on hermeneutics would contain these words from John 6:63; nothing more is needed. Anyone who picks up a Bible must read it through these words, otherwise, they should just leave it alone. UNLESS – knowing that we do not know John 6:63, we store every word in the Bible in our hearts, waiting for that moment when the Spirit makes those words LIFE inside of us.
Only One Place
The words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are life. At this time in my life I am well able to explain these words as applied to the Lord Jesus Christ coming forth from the Father into us as every Word God speaks. But I am incapable of causing anyone to know these words.
But I can tell you the only place where you will know them – On your face on the floor in the presence of the Almighty with your heart wide open and your mouth tightly shut – until God Himself causes you to know Spirit and Life.
Those who are taught “by the Bible” are not taught by God. God is Spirit and His Words enter us as Life.
They Testify of Me
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing (John 6:63a). Human intellect reading the Bible profits NOTHING.
We will add a few other verses in order to widen our view.
You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life (John 5:39-40). Note the words these are they which testify of Me. Some use this verse to throw out the Bible; I do not. Yes, we must come to Jesus Himself in Person to obtain life, but we do so only through the testimony of every Word God speaks, including every word in the Bible.
The Letter Kills
If it ain’t word, it ain’t Jesus.
The new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6). And if it ain’t Spirit, it ain’t Jesus.
This is the verse Sproul used to support his definition of “spirit” as being a slightly deeper intellectual approach to Bible verses. Inside his entire book was NO thought of a Personal and Very PRESENT Holy Spirit who by miraculous power causes us to KNOW something our brains cannot know. – Unless that Holy Spirit causes those words to become Jesus Himself alive inside of us.
By Every Word
So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word (Jesus) that proceeds (Spirit) from the mouth of the Lord (the ekenosis of Father) (Deuteronomy 8:3 and Matthew 4:4).
He humbled you and allowed you to hunger – – He humbled you and allowed you to hunger – – He humbled you and allowed you to hunger. The face on the floor with the mouth tightly shut. That He might make you KNOW – by EVERY Word.
In Control of “God”
I see no difference between those who live by word only, rejecting all measure of Spirit and those who insist on “Spirit only,” and dispense with the words on the pages of the Bible. Both parties use intellectual words without the Holy Spirit to remain fully in control of “God.” In the next session we will see exactly how childish both mental delusions really are.
I… did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God… Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were… in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:1-5 condensed).
In Much Trembling
In weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. I have always had an unusual problem. I have always believed two things at the core of all that I am. I have always believed that I will stand naked and alone before the Almighty, who will require of me a full account (WORD). And I have always believed that I am not smart enough or strong enough to create my own “God” by whom to be judged.
I know I am weird, but I have found only one thing to do with my great vulnerability. I place my face upon the floor, in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling, that God Himself might make me know what He means by what He says.
Food Indeed
And until God causes me to know (Spirit) what He means by what He says (Jesus), I hide His word in my heart. On this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word (Isaiah 66:2b).
Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life… For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. (John 6:54-56). Sproul did mention this idea in his book, but only inside an intellectual discussion of the meaning of the communion symbols and the debate between Luther and Calvin. The problem, of course, is that the disciples who heard these words took them literally – as Jesus intended them to do.
A Ton of Bricks
You see, if we don’t take Jesus’ words literally, then we will think, “Well, I’m born again; I’m saved and on my way to heaven; I partake of the communion ritual. So, hey, I guess these words mean nothing more for me.”
We are speaking of Jesus as every Word God speaks. Yes, the word “literal” comes from the word “letter,” as in, “the letter of the word.” But that is NOT what the word “literal” means in any English spoken today – except among those who cling to the KJV. Literal means real, actual, substantial.
Jesus’ words hit his disciples like a ton of bricks. Nothing could have been more evil or blasphemous.
The Same Ton of Bricks
And if Jesus’ words do not hit us as that same ton of bricks, then we are not hearing Him. NO, NO, NO, we are not drinking a sip of wine and swallowing a bit of bread and wondering whether the Catholics were right or Luther was right or Calvin was right.
Man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord – Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you (John 6:53b). In the cultural knowledge of Jesus’ disciples, planted in their brains since infancy, there was no more diabolical practice, contrary to all that is holy, than the claims of a false “god” that if a person wanted to “live,” they had to cannibalize him.
Desperate Young Men
From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:66-68).
You see, these people HEARD Jesus, and Peter’s words were the words of a desperate, desperate group of young men who, having tasted of something they had never before known, LIFE, were willing to blaspheme, rather than lose these WORDS being spoken into them. Jesus was not feeding his disciple’s intellects; He was busting them wide open, splitting them apart, that they might see what was really inside their core.
Pierced to the Core
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account (Hebrews 4:12-13).
You see what I’m talking about. The Word does not come for us to discuss or to have opinions regarding it. The WORD comes to pierce into our very core, to place us on our face on the floor before an All-Consuming Fire with our hearts split apart and our mouths tight shut.
Blaspheme or Perish
This is the setting into which Jesus spoke John 6:63 – a group of confused and desperate people who KNOW they have tasted, just a tiny bit, of LIFE, and yet, in their reeling vulnerability, with every religious bone in their body shocked to its core, they know that they will not find that Life anywhere else, but Jesus. They know they must blaspheme or perish.
You see, I really am talking about Biblical hermeneutics, about “studying” the Bible. I am talking about Jesus as every Word God speaks. I am talking about every word on the pages of the Bible. It’s not a question of what we do with the Word; it’s a question of what the Word does with us.
The Procreation of LIFE
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.
Jesus was not giving us a method of Biblical interpretation; He was offering us LIFE. The ENTIRE Bible is built on one over-arching and ruling metaphor – the reproduction, the procreation of LIFE. The entire Bible is built, I guess there is no more direct way of saying it, on the concept of sex, the mystery of a man with a maid.
Unless one is conceived again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God (John 3:6). Procreation, the bringing forth of LIFE.
Let It Be To Me
BUT – it is not enough to “see” the Kingdom. Many see the Kingdom, but few enter into it. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is conceived of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God (John 3:5).
The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. “I” is the Personal and Present Jesus; “speak to” is the act of procreation; “you” is the human us, entering our faith; “words” are the sperm of God, again, Jesus Himself in Person. AND – those words are two things: Spirit AND Life. Let it be to me according to Your word.
My Only Life
The words of the Bible, whether on the page or stored in my heart, come into me BY the same Holy Spirit through which they were spoken and written. And when I say, “come into me,” I mean that the miraculous Presence of the Holy Spirit causes me to KNOW that those words are TRUE, that God is telling me the truth.
And as I KNOW that God is telling me the truth (faith), that same Holy Spirit does something a trillion times more wonderful than Spirit-Knowing. That same Holy Spirit conceives and forms the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, personal in me, Daniel Yordy, as my very and only life.
And by that Jesus as my only life, that same Holy Spirit leads me into all the Kingdom of God.