9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders,10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false,12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. – 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12
Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians are incredibly interesting.
In both First and Second Thessalonians Paul addresses the eventual return of Jesus Christ for his people, the church, and what will happen before he comes to take them home.
In Second Thessalonians Paul says two things that have always struck me as particularly odd.
First, he mentions the coming of the “lawless one” being by the “activity” of Satan and that it will come with “all power and false signs and wonders”.
What do you believe these things will be? What kind of power, false signs and wonders to you think Satan is going to use to deceive so many?
Second, he mentions “God sends them a strong delusion”. So God himself will be sending unbelievers a strong delusion. The word delusion here in the Greek is “plane” and it means, “πλάνη plánē, plan’-ay; feminine of G4108 (as abstractly); objectively, fraudulence; subjectively, a straying from orthodoxy or piety:—deceit, to deceive, delusion, error.”
So God will be deceiving or deluding those who refused to love the truth. What has the Holy Spirit said to you about this? What do you hear him reveal to you about this delusion?
I see the news of abortionist Ulrich George Klopfer keeping the remains of thousands of aborted babies in his home as some sort of trophies and I can’t seem to think anything but to plead to Jesus Christ for mercy.
Lord have mercy. Have mercy on us all.
If you’ve ever read the book of Revelation there is a passage in chapter 8 that refers to there being “silence in heaven for about half an hour” after the Lamb (Jesus) opens the seventh seal, as a part of his righteous wrath against all sin and ungodliness.
Frankly, it’s terrifying.
In the midst of all the horrors that are taking place on earth as the Lord rightly judges his creation for sin, there is silence in heaven. I don’t know that I understand correctly why there is silence but right or wrong it’s always been my faith that it’s simply a sign of solemn sober mindedness about the gravity of the things which are about to take place. It gives a weight to the wrath of the Lamb that I’m not sure anything else could. All the heavenly host stand in silent awe of the wrath that Jesus Christ himself is about to release on the world because of sin.
There is nothing hidden from his sight. He sees everything. And he detest sin. He specifically detest the shedding of innocent blood and he will not let these things go unpunished. When Jesus Christ returns he will be bringing his recompense (repayment) with him and it will be a fearfully awesome thing.
And so I pray to the Lord, “Lord please have mercy. Have mercy on us all Lord. Have mercy on the abortionist, have mercy on those who have had abortions, have mercy on me a sinner who because of my own rebellion toward you I partook in sexual sins that lead to the greater sins of abortion and the shedding of innocent blood. Lord please have mercy on us all. Lord shelter us from the wrath that is coming.”
If you’re reading this I want you to know that the wrath of the Lamb is a very real thing. It is coming and it will be so awfully terrible I just want to be honest with you. These sins we’ve committed will not go unpunished, they will be dealt with by a righteous and holy God who detest sin and will put a complete and utter end to it.
But there is good news. There is shelter for you from this approaching judgement, from the wrath that is to come, and that shelter is Jesus Christ himself.
When Jesus Christ was crucified the full wrath of God the Father toward sin was poured out on him full force. Nothing was withheld from him. All the righteous and glorious anger that God has toward sin was totally and completely placed on Jesus as he suffered on the cross. The full weight and penalty for the sins of all mankind were born by the Son on the cross. The chastisement that was rightfully mine and yours, was placed on Him.
And so now there is a chance for you. There is a way out from the wrath that is to come.
You must trust in Jesus.
You must believe in his life, death and resurrection for the remission (forgiveness) of your sin. If you do this, if you repent and believe the good news of Jesus Christ he will spare you from his wrath that is to come.
Know that He is patient, He is kind, He is long suffering and steadfast in his love. He will forgive you of your sin. No matter how long your list of transgressions is the Lord will wipe the slate completely clean. He requires nothing of you but repentance and belief. He does not ask you to get your act together and even if you thought you could it wouldn’t be acceptable to him anyway.
He wants your faith. Trust him. Secure yourself in Jesus. Accept the free gift of salvation from your sin that he now offers you. Hide yourself in the cleft of the Rock who is to judge the world. Believe that while you were yet a sinner God demonstrated his love for you in this, that Christ died for you.
While the wrath of the Father against sin has been satisfied in the cross of Christ, know that the wrath of the Lamb is to come. Jesus is now offering to you his own broken body and shed blood as a covering for your sin. A shelter from the wrath to come.
But know this. For those who do not clothe themselves in the blood of the Lamb there is unspeakable wrath still coming for you. The King is coming and he is bringing his recompense for sin with him but before his does he has offered terms for peace. They are very, very generous terms. Repent of (change your mind concerning) your sin and trust in the shed blood of Jesus Christ to be your only shelter from the righteous wrath of God toward sin.
Accept the King’s terms. They are so incredibly good. Don’t harden your heart toward him. If you hear the Lord calling you now, repent and believe. Don’t tarry. Believe today. Trust on the Lord Jesus Christ.
“Lord I pray that you would have mercy on anyone who would read this and believe the good news of Jesus Christ. Lord you are so kind, so merciful. Long suffering and stead fast in your love. Bring glory to your name Jesus. Have mercy on us all, rebels though we are. Grant us ears to hear your voice, grant us repentant hearts and minds about our sin, grace us with a changed mind that acknowledges our sin before you and joyfully accepts the free gift of salvation from our sin by the shed blood of the Lamb. Lord have mercy, have mercy on us all.”
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life,[a] and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. – John 1:1-5
When we use or hear the term “the Word of God” spoken what do we understand that to mean? Typically, when someone mentions the “Word of God” they are making a reference to the Holy Scriptures, the Bible. But is that what John was referencing in the first chapter of his gospel? In a word, no.
It’s plain to even a casual reader and it’s orthodoxy to understand “The Word of God” John references in the above text is not the Bible, but Jesus. (See John 1:14-17)
So then is it wrong to call the Bible the “word of God”? Or is Jesus the Bible? Or is the Bible God? Well, no, to all three questions. The Bible is the “word of God”, Jesus is not the Bible nor is the Bible God but both are the “word” of God.
Confused? That’s okay, you’re in good company.
So what is the “Word of God”, what is it not and how do we know one from the other? To understand what the “Word of God” is we’re going to need to really clearly define some things and have a talk about semantics.
Semantics is simply a study of languages, words, and what those words mean. But before we can talk about the meaning of some of these word we first need to understand the differences between the words we read in our English Bibles and the Bible (the New Testament at least) as it was written in its original language, Greek.
Before we do that though, I want you to take a minute, stop reading and pray. Talk to the Lord. Ask him to speak to you, ask him to reveal to you the truth of what may or may not be said in this article. Ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate your understanding so that by the Spirit you may receive understanding in spiritual things. Remember, “the flesh is no help at all.” If you go at this spiritual subject as an intellectual endeavor, a pursuit of the flesh, I suspect you will greatly struggle with it. However, if the Holy Spirit leads you I believe He will lead you and teach you perfectly, in perfect accordance with the Scriptures, that you might have the mind of Christ and know truth from error. So take a minute and pray. Really, just stop, and talk to the Lord for a bit and then we’ll pick this up again.
Great, so now that we’ve talked to the Lord and asked him to teach us, I believe he will, I hope you do too. So back to Greek and English.
Look, I’m not a Greek scholar or even an English one, but I don’t need to be to understand and explain some of the things I’m going to share here.
If you’ve ever studied a foreign language from your own native tongue what you’ll quickly realize is that while most words have a perfect translation in another language, meaning a word for word match, there are many words or expressions that simply don’t have a perfect translation, there’s not a match across the languages of what the word is attempting to describe.
For instance, “blue” in English is “azul” in Spanish. They mean the exact same thing. They mean a very specific color and there is no disagreement between the two words.
On the contrary there are words in Spanish that tend to have more nuance than their translation in English. Consider “Te amo” and “Te querio”. Both translate into English as “I love you” and while they do mean this, they actually have very specific nuances that if the two words were used inappropriately, the hearer might get the wrong idea. “Te querio” is more casual and typically used for friends and family while “Te amo” is more serious and romantic and typically intended for one’s spouse or romantic interest.
Even within the same language words can have very different meanings. In English, “football” means a particular sport in England where players use their feet to kick a round ball into a net to score points and a totally different thing in America where players throw an oblong ball and catch and run with it across a goal line in order to score points.
So the point is, words have meaning. And sometimes that meaning is “lost in translation”. So it is with the word “word” in English Bibles. The English word “word” simply isn’t sufficient to explain the nuance between the Greek words “logos” or “rhema” for which the English word “word” is used in English Bibles.
So when a person refers to the Bible, they’re referring to the Holy Scriptures. Well the Greeks had a word for the the “Scriptures” or the “Holy Writ” as it’s sometimes called. And the Greek word they used was “graphe”, which is the same Greek word we get the English words “write” or “written” from. “Graphe” in the Greek means a “a document, the Holy writ, Scripture”. And that’s all that it means. That’s the words plain meaning and it doesn’t have another meaning.
Most English Bible readers have no knowledge of the Greek word “graphe”. And did you know that the Greek word “graphe” is never (not once) translated into the English word “word” in any Bible? Ever. The “graphe” in Greek is always translated into English Bibles as the “Scriptures”. Take a look for yourself here.
So when we call the Bible the “word” we do something that not even the Bible itself does! The Bible never refers to itself as the “word” but always as the “scriptures” (the “graphe”).
But does that mean the Bible isn’t the “word of God”? Well, no. The Bible is absolutely the “word of God” but what we mean when we say that is that the Bible is a collection of writings that God himself spoke/wrote through human authors by divine inspiration. (2 Peter 1:20-21) So the Bible is certainly the “word of God”, it’s absolutely God’s words that he spoke and that he had his servants write, perfectly I might add, as his own personal testimony concerning himself and his creation. So the Bible can be correctly understood to be the word of God. It’s God’s own testimony, that’s why we call it the Old Testament and the New Testament. God, in his own words, is testifying here and his testimony is true, it is holy and it should be believed by anyone who would read it.
So what am I getting at? Well my point is this. There is still much confusion when most Christians use the term “the word of God.” Most of the time they’re using it to refer to the Bible when they really should be using it to refer to something else, namely, Jesus Christ or the indwelling voice of the Holy Spirit.
In short, what I’m saying is that the “Logos”, the “rhema” and the “graphe” are different words and they have very different meanings and because of the limitations of the English language we have really departed from a correct understanding of what’s being said in the Bible about both the Bible and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and these misunderstanding have incredibly important implications in the life and practice of any who would love and follow Jesus Christ as a disciple.
You’ll notice that whenever I write on this blog I try to use very specific language or words when referring to a particular thing. I rarely use the word Bible and most often refer to it as the Bible itself does as the “Scriptures”. My hope is to avoid this confusion that so much of Christendom has entered about this subject.
Personally I think it would be beneficial if Bible translators would simply stop using the English word “word” for the Greek words “logos” and “rhema” because even those two word have different nuances. So going forward I’ll simple refer to the “logos” as the logos and the “rhema” as the rhema and the “graphe” as the scriptures.
Below are the definitions of these three words according to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance. As you’ll see for yourself, the three words each have different meanings, that’s why there’s three of them! Ha!
“Logos” – Strong’s Word G3056 – “λόγοςlógos, log’-os; from G3004; something said (including the thought); by implication, a topic (subject of discourse), also reasoning (the mental faculty) or motive; by extension, a computation; specially, (with the article in John) the Divine Expression(i.e. Christ):—account, cause, communication, × concerning, doctrine, fame, × have to do, intent, matter, mouth, preaching, question, reason, + reckon, remove, say(-ing), shew, × speaker, speech, talk, thing, + none of these things move me, tidings, treatise, utterance, word, work.
While the “logos” is an incredibly deep word with multiple entendre it can be best understood to mean “the Divine Expression” or God expressed as he’s chosen to reveal himself to his creation. Simply, the person, God the Son, Jesus Christ.
“Rhema” – Strong’s Word G4483 – ῥῆμαrhēma, hray’-mah; from G4483; an utterance (individually, collectively or specially),; by implication, a matter or topic (especially of narration, command or dispute); with a negative naught whatever:—+ evil, + nothing, saying, word.
Likewise, “rhema” is a word with deep meaning but it can more simply be understood to mean “an utterance, that which is uttered by a living voice“.
“Graphe” – Strong’s Word G1124 – γραφήgraphḗ, graf-ay’; from G1125; a document, i.e. holy Writ (or its contents or a statement in it):—scripture.
Finally, we see the Greek word “graphe” means “scripture” in English. So the Bible. So the word the Bible uses for the Bible is “graphe” and that word is never transliterated as the English word “word” in any English Bible. Ever. The “graphe” is always, correctly I would say, translated as the “scripture”.
In summary, the “logos” is the Divine Expression, Jesus Christ, the “rhema” is a thing uttered by a living voice (typically used in reference to the Holy Spirit speaking) and the “graphe” is the Holy Scripture, ie the Bible.
Now, why does all this matter? Why are these semantics significant? As I said above, because of this confusion most Christians unknowingly err when they use the term “the Word of God” and apply it to the Bible and not Jesus Christ or the utterance of the Holy Spirit and this is a very serious problem as it manifests itself in a whole host of problems in the life and practice of most believers.
My concern here is not semantics but rather the reality that so many Christians have unknowingly replaced the living Word (logos) of God, Jesus Christ, with his testimony the Holy Scriptures/Bible (graphe) and this is a tragedy.
We’ve replaced the living God with his letter. The man with his testimony. And so, instead of truly abiding in Jesus, the living Word of God, we are looking for the life only He can provide in a dead letter, the Holy Scriptures.
3 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you?2 You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our[a] hearts, to be known and read by all.3 And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.[b]
4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God,6 who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. – 2 Corinthians 3:1-6
We’ve become like the Jews who sought to kill Jesus in John, chapter 5.
39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. – John 5:39-40
The life of Christ can’t be found in the Scriptures apart from the illumination of the Holy Spirit. We MUST head his voice (rhema) to have his life (logos), then and only then, will the Bible (graphe) benefit us in any real way.
Come back for Part 2 of “The Word of God, Part 2” as I hope to go into some examples of how all of this applies in the way many of us read and understand the Scriptures and therefore live out our faith in Christ.
Do you need a sign? Something to prove to you that Jesus Christ is Lord?
Do you want wisdom? Perhaps a persuasive argument to convince you that Jesus is worth believing in and following?
You’ve already received both.
Repent and believe the good news of Jesus Christ crucified and risen for the remission of sin.
“18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” – 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
19 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above[a] proclaims his handiwork. 2 Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. 3 There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. 4 Their voice[b] goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, 5 which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. 6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
7 The law of the Lord is perfect,[c] reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; 8 the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; 9 the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules[d] of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. 10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. 11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
12 Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. 13 Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.
14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
We worship you for your deeds are mighty and bold and full of wonder and majesty.
Father, there is none like you.
You alone cause the sun to shine, to pour forth its power, that the trees might stretch out their branches and the grass of the field bear the fruit of spring.
In John 6 Jesus proclaims He is the bread of LIFE.
44 I am that bread of LIFE.
45 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is m flesh, which I will give for the LIFE of the world.
Later in John 14:6
. . . I AM the Way, the Truth, and the LIFE.
By the witness of these two verses, among many others, we reckon Jesus proclaiming that HE (the Divine person and very God) is THE WHO. . . of LIFE.
Yet when Jesus, the Truth, stood before Pilate, the Truth said, in John 18:
37 Pilate, therefore, said unto HIM, Art THOU a king, then? Jesus answered. Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for the cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the TRUTH. Everyone that is of the TRUTH HEARETH MY VOICE.
38 Pilate saith unto him, WHAT is truth?. . .
When Jesus testified in John 6:45 that Your fathers did eat manna . . . and are dead. He referred to the account in the Old Testament in Exodus 16:15
And when the children of Israel SAW it, they said one to another, It is manna, for they knew not WHAT it was. And Moses SAID unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat.
According to Strong’s Concordance manna means ‘WHAT IS IT’?
Both Pilate and the children of Israel were concerned with WHAT they were seeing, rather than the WHO that was speaking.
So we are back in the garden, again. For we find we are dealing with the Tree of Knowledge (WHAT) of good and evil and the Tree of Life (Jesus, the speaking WHO), guarded by a flaming sword of fire. The fruit of one leads to death in our efforts to be like God, the other requires a death/cross that leads to eternal resurrected LIFE by faith in Christ Jesus.
