Home Pastors Articles for Pastors Inspired—but NOT Equal: The Bible Is the Witness—NOT the Word

Inspired—but NOT Equal: The Bible Is the Witness—NOT the Word

Scripture as the Witness to the Word

So many of us have almost given the Bible divine status so that it has become a god unto itself. However, the Bible was never intended to be viewed this way. Like John the Baptist, it points us to the Word made flesh and is an inspired witness to this Word, but it is not the Word itself.

We will encounter significant problems when we mix up the order of witness and Word. When this happens, we will confuse one with the other and give the witness a place it was never meant to have. Unfortunately, we have often been guilty of making the witness into the Word.

We read all of scripture through and by the Light and lens of Jesus, God’s Word enfleshed. He informs and shapes the way we read and understand all of scripture precisely because all scripture points to him. When we use any other source to illuminate the Word, we will end up reading scripture improperly.

Without Jesus guiding our reading of the Bible, we will end up misunderstanding much of what we read.

The Word sheds light on the witness and dispels the darkness of our misunderstandings. Jesus takes the message within the witness and gives it meaning and significance. Jesus is the interpretive lens through which we read and understand the entire biblical story.

Jesus is the interpretive lens through which we read and understand the entire biblical story.

Without his Light, we will never be able to truly see. Without Jesus Light, we will give Old Testament laws the same weight as Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. This should never be so.

If we can learn anything at all from the Transfiguration account in Matthew 17, it is this: Moses and Elijah, representing the law and the prophets, have their place within God’s redemptive story, but they were lesser lights that point us all toward the true and final Light of Jesus.

At the conclusion of the account, Peter, James and John saw no one except Jesus. They then heard a voice from heaven say these words, “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5).