Words. We think words, hear words, speak words, sing words, write words, and read words. All the time. Every day.
What do words have to do with Christianity? Almost everything. At every stage in redemptive history — from the time before time, to God’s creation, to man’s fall, to Christ’s redemption, and to the coming consummation — “God is there and he is not silent”(a title of a 1972 work by Francis Schaeffer). God’s words decisively create, confront, convict, correct, and comfort. By His words, He both interprets and instructs.
The Opening Scenes of the Bible
If you wanted to construct a biblical theology of words, you could get pretty far in just the first few pages of your Bible. The early chapters of Genesis are replete with God using words to create and order, name and interpret, bless and curse, instruct and warn.
God speaks (“And God said, ‘Let there be …’”), and reality results (“and there was …” “And it was so”). He names (“God called …”), and things are publicly identified. We learn later that it is “by the word of his power” that God’s Son, Jesus Christ, continually sustains and “upholds the universe” (Heb. 1:3).
Before God creates man, He first uses words to announce His intention (“Let us make …”). And once Adam and Eve are created, their first experience with God involves words, as He gives them the cultural mandate (Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion), explains their freedom (“You may …”), and warns them against disobeying His command (“You shall not …”).
When Satan slithers onto the scene as a crafty serpent, his first action is to speak, and his wicked words are designed to call into question the very words of God. The first step is to sow the seed of doubt (“Did God actually say … ?”). And the second step is the explicit accusation that the Creator was really a liar (“You will not surely die”).
When Adam and Eve rebel against the only restriction they were given, they express for the first time words that are so common for us today: fear (“I was afraid”), shame (“I hid myself”), and blame (that woman — whom you gave to be with me!).
God then interprets their new fallen world for them — and also gives the first words of the gospel, foretelling the time when He will send His Son to save His people and crush the head of His enemy. God uses words to tell of the coming Word made flesh (John 1).
Jesus, the Word Made Flesh
When God’s Son eventually enters human history as the Godman, He lives by God’s Word (Luke 4:4), keeps God’s Word (John 8:55), and preaches God’s Word (Mark 2:2). The Father gave Jesus words, Jesus gave them to His followers, and His followers received them (John 17:8).
Jesus’ words are inseparable from His person (Jesus frequently refers to who He is and what He says as a package deal in passages such as Mark 8:38, Luke 6:47, John 12:48; 14:24) and thus can be identified as having divine attributes. To be ashamed of Christ’s words is on the same level as being ashamed of Christ Himself (Luke 9:26). His words are eternal: Unlike heaven and earth, Christ’s words will remain forever (Matt. 24:35). They have power: Jesus could cast out spirits with “a word” (Matt. 8:16); He merely had to “say the word” and someone could be healed (Matt. 8:8). Jesus’ words are “spirit and life,” “the words of eternal life” (John 6:63, 68). Jesus’ words dwell or abide in those who are united to Christ and abiding in Him (John 8:31; John 15:7; Col. 3:16). Only those who hear and keep Jesus’ word receive blessing and eternal life (Luke 11:28; John 5:24; 8:47, 52).
Those who heard him were “amazed at his words” (Mark 10:24), hanging on every word and marveling at His gracious speech (Luke 19:48; 4:22). They recognized that His words possessed a unique authority (Luke 4:32). But Jesus critiqued those who used the words of their prayers to conceal the hypocrisy of their hearts, heaping up “empty phrases” and wanting to be “heard for their many words” (Matt. 6:7). He accused them of using their traditions to make “void the word of God” (Matt. 15:6). His own words found no place in their hearts — some couldn’t bear to hear His words, and some heard His words but refused to keep them (John 8:37, 43; 14:24). In response, Jesus’ enemies “plotted how to entangle him in his talk” (Matt. 22:15).
Jesus warned that how one hears and responds to His words reveals the ultimate dividing line within salvation history: On the day of judgment, we will each give an account “for every careless word,” being either justified or condemned by our words (Matt. 12:36–37), for “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart” (Matt. 15:18). If you hear and practice Christ’s words, you are like a wise man building a house on a rock-solid foundation that can remain standing even during a torrential storm. But hearing Christ’s words and failing to do them is like building a house on sand, which will crumble to the ground amid the storm (Matt. 7:24–26).
Words and the Gospel
In the Book of Acts and in the Epistles, the gospel message — the good and glorious news that “another true and obedient human being has come on our behalf, that he has lived for us the kind of life we should live but can’t, that he has paid fully the penalty we deserve for the life we do live but shouldn’t,” (Graeme Goldsworthy, “Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture,” pp. 83-84) with all of the personal and kingdom implications that that entails — is referred to as “the Word.”
As you read God’s Word and consider the deep implications of the gospel for your life, you’ll begin to discern a pattern: (1) God has holy standards for how we are to speak words and listen to words. (2) This side of heaven, we will never fully measure up to God’s holy standard regarding the use of our tongue. (3) Jesus fulfilled what we (along with Adam, Israel, and every prophet, priest, and king) failed to do: His words were perfect words, without sin. By His punishment-bearing, substitutionary death, His words can become our words. (4) Our day-by-day failure to use our tongue as we ought — for God’s glory and for the good of His people — comes from a functional rejection of Christ the Word. It is only as we look to Jesus, rejoicing in Him and in His atoning provision, that we are freed to walk — and talk — in His way. (I am indebted to Tim Keller for this four-fold way of thinking about applying the gospel.)
— Justin Taylor is executive vice president for book publishing and publisher for books at Crossway. He blogs at Between Two Worlds and Evangelical History. This article is an adapted excerpt from The Power of Words and the Wonder of God (Crossway, John Piper and Justin Taylor, eds., 2009).