Week 33—Sunday John 5:37-40
Week 33—SUNDAY
WHERE IS THE PLACE OF AUTHORITY
IN THE CHRISTIAN FAITH?
The question of where the place of authority rests in the Christian faith is acute in the Christian world today. I am writing this in a section of India where churches are being torn apart by it. Perhaps this viewpoint of Christianity as being the Word become flesh can throw light on it.
To this question of where authority resides in the Christian faith three great historic answers have been given. One group says, the infallible Bible; the second, the infallible Christian experience; the third, the infallible church.
Each of these holds a kernel of truth, with a wrapping of less than truth. The Bible is infallible—vitally infallible. If you take the way it shows you, you will infallibly find God. For it shows you Jesus and Jesus is that Way. Jesus is the Way from God and therefore the Way to God. The rays of the sun are the way of the sun to us, so they are the way to the sun. If you substitute in place of Jesus your thoughts about God, your techniques on how to find God, then you become the way to the Father. That makes you the mediator between God and people. But there is only one Mediator between God and people—Jesus—and the Bible leads you to him.
The Bible is inspired because it is inspiring. It is a revelation because it reveals. God has gone into it, for God comes out of it—God’s Son comes out of it. It is the inspired record of Jesus. The Bible is not the revelation of God; that would be the Word become printer’s ink. But the Bible is the inspired Record of Revelation—the Revelation is seen in the face of Jesus Christ; the Word become flesh. He is the final and perfect Revelation of God.
O Blessed Revealer of God our Father, we are in awe at the Revelation. For it is all beyond our fondest hopes and imaginations. But not beyond our grasp by faith and appreciation. It is too good to be true. But it is true. I’ve found it so. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I love the Bible, for these words take me beyond the words to the Word—the Word made flesh.