Friday, February 1, 2019
JESUS IS THE WORD -- AN EPIPHANY FROM THE LORD
THE WORLD SAYS . . .
When it comes to the authority of the Bible, the world generally has a "Yours, Mine, and Ours" kind of approach. Some say that the Bible has authority in your life only because that's YOUR interpretation of it. Others say that the Bible isn't really the chief authority, but rather, MY "divine leader" tells me how to interpret it, and therefore, really he or she is the authority. Still some others speak of the Bible without having any authority at all, that it is really whatever OUR interpretation leads us to believe to be true or morally valuable. The world leaves us all looking at the Bible in the same way Pontius Pilate responded to Jesus when He said, "... the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to me." To which Pilate replied, "What is truth?"
THE BIBLE SAYS . . .
Jesus is THE WORD. The Bible reveals this fact in the first chapter of the Gospel of John (John 1:1-2), and goes on to say in verse fourteen, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." In the next verse it says that "John bore witness of Him . . ." this man, this Word, who is true God and who also took on our flesh as true man to save us from our sins. There may be many applications we can make in our lives from the Word of God, but there is only one interpretation of God's Word given to man through the One true God-- the Triune God: The Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. ALL of God's Word is true (2 Timothy 3:16; John 17:17), and it is of that authoritative truth alone that Jesus came as the Word to teach us as He said:
"He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him -- the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak" (John 12:48-50).
