When You Get Right Down To It

[HKHaugan]

When You Get Right Down To It

“Stick with what you learned and believed, sure of the integrity of your teachers—why, you took in the sacred Scriptures with your mother's milk! There's nothing like the written Word of God for showing you the
way to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God's way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us (2Tim.3:14-16 The Message Bible).”

I know all of us revere the Word of God. I know that we look to its pages for meaning, personal direction and the comfort of the Spirit’s penetration into our minds and hearts. I know that from time to time we don’t grasp the understanding of what we see there. But there is something about the Scripture you cannot escape---it works. Try as some people may to refute its moral compass, its revelation of a One God, its
presentation of our spiritual God coming in human form, it stands alone as an immovable fortress of God’s mind, heart and Spirit.

The Bible is more than just a collection of stories, poetry, cultural values, moral law, biographical sketches and historical literature. While those are the methodology of its presentation its real value is found in three things, the person it points to, the mind that revealed it and the open heart that offered it as a gift. Let’s look at those three.

First, the person it points to.

The opening words of Genesis, “In the beginning God…,” point immediately to a spiritual being who page by page makes Himself increasingly apparent. Like an unfolding drama the plot thickens, as they say, until we are brought to a stunning climax in the physical manifestation of God in Jesus Christ. Like an artist
beginning a portrait sketching the outline of a person he wants to become the central focus for the world to view, the image is clear in his mind. Step by step, stroke by stroke, day by day, his brushes dab here and there until the image ripens into the exact likeness he intended. From Genesis to Malachi the brush strokes heralded this likeness. Then in the flash of a moment’s light, the final caress of the artist’s hand brought forth the figure Himself---the clear, articulate perfection of the portrait completed---Jesus, Savior
and Lord, God standing in our midst on the canvas of the universe revealing Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Second, the mind that revealed it.

As you move through its pages a singular mind takes center stage, concise, logical and unique, blending themes that imply a foreknowledge of the workings of the human mind and an immense universe. It takes the complexities of the thinking process and rearranges them in a manner that redistributes them into a unified and stabilizing personal experience. It becomes apparent that as we think the way that mind thinks it is as though we have our equilibrium restored. The mind of God revealed in Jesus is the balance
beam we call Holy Scripture. It truly is the lamp for our feet and the light for our path. It calls us to come, reason and think together with Him at the center. “Seek and you will find, ask and it will be given, knock and the door will be opened.”

Third, the open heart that offered it.

Page after page the words burst forth that indicate there is more than a mind and a spirit. There is a heart that is merciful, loving, forgiving, disciplining, directing, sacrificing, humble, powerful, constant, consistent, willing, patient, kind, steadfast, alert and all the other adjectives that define His very being and
attitude. It is the heart of God that we see in Jesus that cares so much for each of us personally that what He knew in His heart was needed to bring us back to what He had originally intended was
His death on the Cross. Death on a cross made by lost humanity, death on a cross engineered by conspiracy, death on a cross to show us how sin had taken us into fitful personal anarchy,
spiritual rebellion and the clutches of a deceptive force known as the devil and death on a cross to save us from ourselves. He alone had the heart to accomplish that final resolution of our lost condition, our self-centered egos, to take our place and endure suffering and death that would end up in an eternity of separation from God and others. He alone had the heart to see us as His Father saw us and take pity on us and say in His final moments on earth, “Father forgive them…”

I really like the way John Stott expresses his take on Scripture:

“The Bible is the Word of God. He spoke it. It issued from his mouth. The term *inspiration* means neither that God breathed into the human authors in order to heighten their perception of truth, nor that he breathed into their writings in order somehow to change human prose into divine poetry, but rather that the words they spoke were actually breathed out of his mouth.

The emphasis is not on the transformation of truths which were already there (in the minds or words of the prophets), but on the origination of truths which were not there until God thought and spoke them. We cannot escape this. It is the plain teaching of 2 Timothy 3:16 that 'all Scripture is God-breathed'- *theopneustos* - breathed out from his mouth. Hence the familiar prophetic formulas-'the word of the Lord came to me, saying' or 'thus says the Lord'-and the comparable claim of the Apostles to be speakers or bearers of God's Word. (From Culture and the Bible, Downers Grove, IVP 1981 p,6) What else can be said 'when you get right down to it?'