Prophetic Word of God

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 – “λόγος lógos, 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 – ῥῆμα rhēma, 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 – γραφή graphḗ, 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.

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.

Grace and peace to you in Jesus name.

Stop what you’re doing.

Walk outdoors and take a look around. See the trees, the birds, the flora and fauna that’s all around you.

Let your eye rest on the first thing that captures your gaze. Meditate on that and then… listen.

Hear the still small voice of the Lord.

He speaks and he grants ears to hear his Word.

Do you hear Him? What hath the Lord said to you today?

The Law of the Lord Is Perfect

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

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.

Psalm 19

Father, we love you.

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.

We have heard your voice and believed your Word.

Indeed, the heavens declare your glory.

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.

This morning was the third day that my wife and I started our day with prayer, scripture reading and communion.  Each morning we’ve started by praying and then asking the Lord to direct our hands to the texts that he would have us read and meditate on.  This morning my wife read from Psalm 36:5-37:7 and I read from Exodus 12:1

When I was just a boy I started trusting the Holy Spirit to guide me when I would go to read the scriptures.  I would simply plop open my Bible and then start reading from whichever passage the pages fell to.  Sometimes I would flip around first, left or right a little or a lot.  The point being I just would kind of “feel” it out.  When I felt like I came to the place that the Holy Spirit was asking me to stop and read I would stop and read.

If you’ve never tried this you may want to pray about it and ask the Holy Spirit if he’d like you to do this.  I can’t begin to tell you how much it has done to increase my reliance and dependence on the Holy Spirit always and continually leading me throughout my day.  I truly believe this is what is meant by “abiding in the vine”.  We seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance as if we actually believe what the Bible says about him.  Namely, that he is a PERSON (John 15:26) and that he teaches you ALL things (John 14:26, John 16:13, 1 Cor 2:10-16, 1Thess 4:9, 2 Tim 2:7, Hebrews 3:15, 1 John 2:20-27)

⁷ How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
    The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
⁸ They feast on the abundance of your house,
    and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
⁹ For with you is the fountain of life;
    in your light do we see light.

¹⁰ Oh, continue your steadfast love to those who know you,
    and your righteousness to the upright of heart!
¹¹ Let not the foot of arrogance come upon me,
    nor the hand of the wicked drive me away.
¹² There the evildoers lie fallen;
    they are thrust down, unable to rise.”

He Will Not Forsake His Saints

^[b] Of David.

37 Fret not yourself because of evildoers;
    be not envious of wrongdoers!
² For they will soon fade like the grass
    and wither like the green herb.

³ Trust in the Lord, and do good;
    dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.^[c]
4 Delight yourself in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

⁵ Commit your way to the Lord;
    trust in him, and he will act.
⁶ He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
    and your justice as the noonday.

The Passover

12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ² “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. ³ Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. ⁴ And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. ⁵ Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, ⁶ and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.^[a]

⁷ “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. ⁸ They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. ⁹ Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. ¹⁰ And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. ¹¹ In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord‘s Passover. ¹² For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. ¹³ The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

¹⁴ “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. ¹⁵ Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. ¹⁶ On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. ¹⁷ And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. ¹⁸ In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. ¹⁹ For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. ²⁰ You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.”

²¹ Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. ²² Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. ²³ For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lordwill pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. ²⁴ You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. ²⁵ And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service.²⁶ And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ ²⁷ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord‘s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped.

²⁸ Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

The Tenth Plague: Death of the Firstborn

²⁹ At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. ³⁰ And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. ³¹ Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as you have said.³² Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!” – Exodus 12:1-32