We’re back to our Friday catechism reviews. We begin with God’s Word. And I want to focus on those two words. First, “God’s.” I have often heard people say that believing everything the Bible says is idolatry because you are making the Bible into your God instead of the real God. But such an idea ignores the basics truths of the Bible. This Word, is a word from God Himself about Himself! It’s not something men wrote to describe God, it’s what God wrote to come to us and save us!
A young soldier went away to fight in a distant land. While he was there, his pregnant wife waited anxiously for his return since she loved him deeply. Every day she opened the mailbox in both fear and hope. What would she find there? News of his death or words from his pen? One day, she received both. News came that he had been wounded in battle and died shortly after but before he died he wrote her a letter. In it, he poured his heart out to her. He told her how much he loved her and always would. He told her of the dreams he had had for their life together. And he asked her to tell their child how much he loved her too. She treasured the letter. She kept it all her life and read it often. She shared it with her daughter who loved to listen to her mother read it to her. Why was it so precious to them? Did they love the letter and not the man who wrote it? No. They loved the letter because they loved the man who wrote it. The letter was a part of him, the only part they had left. It told them who he was and how much he loved them.
It’s the same with Scripture. You cannot separate God from His Word. In it, he tells us who He is. He tells us His will. He describes exactly how much He loved us and what He did to save us. He inspired His chosen prophets and apostles to write down the very words that He wanted most for us to hear from Him. And this, His Word, is all that we have of Him in this world. It is the only way to know God. It is the only way to be saved.
Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:15-16, “from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”
God’s Word is pure, perfect, and good. Through law and gospel He saves us by showing our sins our inability to come to Him and then by coming to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. This is His Word. This is the message of salvation, the message of forgiveness. It’s His dearest wish that we would treasure it, find Him in it, and be saved by it.
In Christ
Pastor Ude