- CHAPTER 7: Jesus, the Eternal Word

THE INSPIRED MESSAGE nearly 2,000 years ago to the hard-pressed Hebrew Christians was a moving appeal to place their full confidence in the power of the Word of God. When God speaks, the writer said in effect, all must obey. The writer declared:
The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)
That same message continues throughout the letter with reminders of the relationship of God’s Word to the universe of which we are a part. We are told of God’s Word sounding throughout all of God’s creation, keeping, sustaining, transforming.
The Word of God is more than just the Bible
Christian believers make a great mistake when they refer only to the Bible as the Word of God. True, the inspired Bible is the Word of God speaking to our hearts and to our souls. But in referring to the Word of God, we do not mean just the book—printed pages sewed together with nylon thread. Rather, we mean the eternal expression of the mind of God. We mean the world-filling breath of God!
God’s Word and God’s revelation are much more than just the Old and New Testament books. Nevertheless I invariably rejoice as I discover deep in the urgent appeal of one of the Old Testament prophets a sudden recognition of God’s speaking Word. For example, notice this message from the prophet Jeremiah: “O land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord!” (Jeremiah 22:29).
Think what a change it would make in the world if men and women suddenly paused to hear the Word of the Lord! The Word of God being what it is, and God being who He is, and we humans being who we are, I am sure that the most rewarding thing we could do would be to stop and listen to the Word of God. Whether a man or a woman believes it or not, the Word of God is one of the greatest of the realities he or she will face in a lifetime. He or she may deny the Word and the presence of God, dismissing them both as unreal. But the living, speaking Word of God cannot be escaped. Neither is it negotiable.
The true Christian church has always held that position. There is not a man or woman on the face of the earth but will have to reckon with the authority of the Word of God, either now or later. How surprised some of them will be on that coming day of judgment when God’s eternal Word must be answered to!
God’s Word is the revelation of divine truth that God Himself has given to us. It has come in the message and appeal of the sacred Scriptures. It comes in the conviction visited on us by the Holy Spirit. It comes in the person of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, the living Word of God.
The Word of God is powerful
Now, about God’s power. In this nuclear age in which we live, we have come to think of nuclear weapons when we think of ultimate power. Years ago, we used the word nucleus all the time. A nucleus was the center. We never dreamed the word “nuclear would take on so fearful a connotation as it now possesses.
Christian believers, of all people, should have a sensible view of the “nuclear threat.” What is it that attracts neutrons so irrevocably to the nucleus of an atom? My answer: the living breath of God speaking in His world. It is Jesus, the eternal Son, the express image of God’s person, sustaining all things by His powerful Word (Hebrews 1:3). “In him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).
Few liberals or modernists will agree with me in that view. They dispute God’s sovereignty and His power. But they are scared. Given the world we live in, the most assuring viewpoint a person can hold is the one I hold. The voice of God fills His world, and Jesus Christ, the living Word, holds everything together.
God’s Word speaks to human life—this life so obviously mortal. God’s Word speaks to human conscience—a conscience that is only too aware of sin. God’s Word speaks to human sin, exposing its heinous, offensive nature.
Here may be a helpful thought for you. The Word of God is tuned to speak to man’s inner conscience, but it does not accuse. It does not make charges against a person. Rather, it demonstrates. And it convicts. There is a difference between accusing and convicting.
In court, when an alleged offender stands before the judge, there is a specific charge of violation, there is an accuser and there is evidence intended to back up the charge. Only if the judge is convinced by the evidence and argument will he or she pronounce the alleged offender guilty.
The conviction of the Word of God is different. The Word of God does not single out John Jones or Mary Smith. It does not face up to one or the other and say, “You are a sinner.” Instead, it asserts that all have sinned. John Jones or Mary Smith or any other man or woman will know that he or she is a sinner by the living voice of God.
Go to God’s Word and you will find that sin is the most pressing, the most compelling, the most imperative problem inhuman life and society. The most pressing problem is not sickness. It is not war. It is not poverty. Sin is the basic problem because sin has to do with a person’s soul. Sin does not relate merely to a person’s short years on this earth. It involves that person’s eternal future and the world to come.
No one has ever overstated the seriousness of the sin question. It is a question that continues age after age. It comes to every human being: “What am I going to do about sin?” That question takes precedence over all other questions that we are called upon to answer. Whether we are world famous or an unnamed member of the human race, we must make confession concerning our relationship with sin.
If each of us is willing to be honest, we will answer, “I have been involved in sin. I have played along with it. I have taken it to my bosom and it has stung me. The virus of sin has entered my life stream. It has conditioned my mind; it has affected my judgment. I confess I have been a deliberate collaborator with sin.”
But sin is more than a disease. It is a deformity of the spirit, an abnormality in that part of human nature which is most like God’s. And sin is a capital crime as well. It is treason against the great God Almighty who made the heavens and the earth. Sin is a crime against the moral order of the universe. Each time a man or woman strikes against God’s moral nature and kingdom, he or she acts against the moral government of the entire universe.
How does the balance sheet look?
Sinners are always trying to add things up to see how far they must go to deal with the sin problem in their lives. But their moral conscience, if they would honestly listen to it, informs them that only some great resource of merit outside themselves can ever satisfy the obligation. They are head-over-heels in moral debt to the God who made heaven and earth. Every human has a few things he or she thinks are good enough to be put into the necessary fund of merit, but they are never sufficient to pay the debt.
One word describes the sinner. He or she is a rebel, not just in rebellion against his or her own kind, but against God and His kingdom. Suppose a rebellious criminal, locked in one of London’s prisons, should ask for an audience with the queen. Such a person, who had struck at the safety of all the queen symbolizes, would have to be pardoned before any other arrangements were even contemplated. He would have to change his lifestyle, for a rebel could not enter the presence of the queen.
But something else would be necessary. He would have to exchange his prison garb for proper dress. Only if he were clean and groomed for the occasion could he expect to be presented to the queen.
That illustration, however imperfect, is a picture of the sinner’s plight. If he or she is to stand in fellowship before a holy God, the rebellion must end, there must be forgiveness and pardon, there must be cleansing and the new garments of righteousness. The blood of Jesus Christ was shed for this very purpose. The eternal Son of God has accomplished all this, the just dying for the unjust—an awesome and amazing act by the One who made the worlds and upholds all things by the word of His power.
The writer of the letter to the Hebrews attests that the Son, “after he had provided purification for sins, . . . sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven” (Hebrews 1:3). This is the basic, vital message of Christianity. This is the witness the Christian church, if it is faithful to the revelation God has given it, is proclaiming to the world. Christ Jesus came into the world for the humiliation of death. He came to deal with the sin question as only God could deal with it.
In the Bible we have the ample record of that day, in the fullness of time, when our Lord Jesus Christ hung between heaven and earth on Calvary’s cross. The willing Lamb of God, who had come to bear away the sins of the world, was fulfilling His mission. No one on earth could assist him. In those excruciating hours, after evil men had nailed Him to the cross, the Father in heaven pulled down the blinds; darkness prevailed. It was the eternal Son dying to purge our sins. Alone He suffered. Alone He died. But in that suffering and death He accomplished the sacrifice that has perpetual efficacy.
A once-for-all sacrifice
I need to say something here about the wide difference of viewpoint in Christendom concerning the full meaning of Jesus’ sacrifice. Protestant teaching has always been unequivocal: the death of Christ was one finished sacrifice with perpetual efficacy, never to be repeated. But I have read the writings of other theologians who describe dramatically how the Savior dies over and over each time the Mass is said, each time the sacrament is offered. One group insists the sacrificial death of Christ happened once with perpetual efficacy. The other teaches it to be a perpetual, oft-repeated act.
If your Christ must die every Sunday (or Saturday), then you must conclude that His sacrifice was effective for only a week. But if Jesus Christ performed one efficacious act, alone, by Himself, then that act is good for all time and eternity. Admittedly, there is a vital difference between these two viewpoints.
What do the Scriptures teach? They teach that “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring [us] to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Done once, that efficacious sacrifice can never be repeated.
The death and resurrection of Christ has settled the sin question. In believing the good news, we are now forgiven and cleansed—purified from our sins.
There is more good news
But our forgiveness and cleansing by the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ is only part of the good news. Jesus died, but He rose from the dead. And after His resurrection, He ascended to be seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. In an era of declining morality and open rebellion against God and against His Anointed One, we can take great comfort in this revelation that a majestic, overruling Presence resides in glory.
The Majesty still fills the throne room of heaven. The angels and archangels and seraphim and cherubim continue their celestial praise of “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.” This is not some far-out concept of some fringe cult. This is straight from the Word of God: When Jesus “had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” Jesus returned to the position He had occupied throughout the long, long ages past.
An earnest Christian worker and serious student of the Bible, with whom I have had correspondence, laments the fact that our Christian preaching and teaching does not more clearly identify the risen, ascended Jesus as a Man. He has questioned preachers and Christian teachers, many of them well known, “Do you believe that Jesus Christ, now at God’s right hand, is a man, or some other being?” Very few of these Christian leaders purportedly believe that Jesus is now a glorified Man. They believe Jesus was a man while He was here on earth, but they tend to believe that He is a spirit now.
After Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, He appeared to His disciples. He invited Thomas to feel the wound marks in His flesh. What blessed meaning there is in His words to the fearful disciples: “`Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have’“ (Luke 24:39). Whether modern men and women agree on the exaltation of the Man Christ Jesus, we in the family of God have heard His words and we know the New Testament witness: “`God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear’“ (Acts 2:32-33).
The apostle Paul told Timothy, “There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men” (1 Timothy 2:5). This should be counted as a great victory for Christian believers in our day. Jesus is a Man and He is enthroned at God’s right hand. That is significant!
We are joined to Jesus
Jesus is not said to be the victorious God—God is always victorious. How could the sovereign God be anything but victorious? Rather, we take our position with those earliest Christian believers who saw in Jesus a Man in the heavenlies. He is a victorious man, and if we are in Him, we too can be victorious.