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THE QUESTION, though perhaps rarely asked, is an important one. Why has God chosen to communicate with us by means of a written Word? What, in other words, are the reasons which lie behind the role of the Bible in the Divine process of salvation for men and women today?
The psalmist tells us that God has "magnified [His] word above all [His] name" (138:2), and it is clear from the record of Scripture itself that God’s ‘Word’, from the earliest times of His dealings with men, consisted of spoken, visual and written communications. God spoke directly and personally to Adam and Eve through the medium of the angelic Elohim (Gen. 3), as He did to Noah (Gen. 7), and to all the patriarchs (Gen. 12, 26, 31, etc.). He also communicated audiovisually, as it were, with many of these, as He did with others in both Old and New Testament times, by visions, by dreams, and by visible and tangible signs and wonders. The references to such ‘communications media’ are too numerous to mention here, but they are perhaps neatly comprehended in what Hebrews describes as the "divers manners" by which God "spake in time past unto the fathers [of the Jewish nation]" (1:1).
Written messages from God, too, clearly played their part in instructing mankind in Divine ways; men as early as Abraham had some kind of recorded version of God’s Word, as is shown by the words "scripture... preached... unto Abraham" (Gal. 3:8), and the Jewish nation as a whole received the ten commandments on "tables of stone" which were "written with the finger of God" (Ex. 31:18).
But why (given all these different possible means of communication from God, so many of which are described in words for us within the pages of the Bible) should God ultimately choose to channel His message for the post-first-century world into a single Book? Why did He determine to focalise the Word of His salvation into written form, in the pages of what we now know as the Bible?
The following series of points—to which many more could no doubt be added—will, it is hoped, go at least some way towards finding a satisfying and reasonable answer to these important and fascinating questions. What follows, too, should also help to explain and justify the pride of place which all true servants of the Lord Jesus Christ will always give to the written Word of God in their hearts and minds, and in their daily living.
God has chosen to communicate with us, and to reveal His purpose, through the pages of the Bible BECAUSE:
1. In written form, His Word can be studied carefully, and read repeatedly.
Daniel, though a prophet who himself received God’s Word through a variety of means, was enabled to understand the will of God in relation to Jerusalem and the Jews in captivity with him in Babylon only by reading the Divinely inspired prophecy of Jeremiah, which had been written down many decades earlier in Jerusalem. As Daniel puts it, he "understood by books" (9:2). The Apostle Peter was able to refer his own readers to the Word of God which had come through Paul only because that Word was still available for them to read in written form (2 Pet. 3:16).
In effect, therefore, while God’s Word in spoken form could be—and was—powerful to affect its hearers (and never more so than when spoken by God’s Son), that powerful influence could be most effectively shared by others through those same words being written down, to be read and reread on subsequent occasions. As the Apostle John was inspired to remark about the signs in his own written Gospel record: "these are written, that ye [the readers] might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God" (20:31). A written version of God’s Word is thus one of the principal means by which God ensures that His Word does "not return unto [Him] void" (Isa. 55:11).
2. A written Word can be more effectively understood and absorbed.
While the living presence of the prophets of God could be powerful to influence those of their contemporaries who heard them speak the Word of God, the verbal retelling of their prophecies would inevitably be subject to attenuation, to uninspired elaboration, and, over time, to human forgetfulness. This was clearly the main reason why so many of the prophets were also moved by God to write down their principal messages. Luke, for example, was inspired to write down a record of the key facts of the Lord’s earthly ministry, which had until that time been circulating largely in oral form. His written Gospel was designed, as he himself explained, that his interested reader Theophilus might "know the certainty of those things, wherein [he had] been instructed" hitherto (1:4).
"Whoso readeth, let him understand" (Mt. 24:15), was the Lord’s advice to his contemporaries about the best way to arrive at a proper understanding of what was written in Daniel 9:27. Not for nothing, either, was Joshua commanded to read on a regular basis his own copy of God’s Law to Israel. By that means he would not only become increasingly familiar with what God had said to Moses in detail, he would also be guaranteed "good success" in his great work of leading Israel to salvation in the Land of Promise (Josh. 1:8). The kings of Israel were to be commanded to write out their own copy of that same Law, with very similar beneficial ends in view (Deut. 17:18-20). The psalmist, too, experienced the personal advantages which still come from such familiarity with the Word of God (119:97-104)—something which would not have been possible for him without having that Word to pore over in written form.
3. In written form, God’s Word has greater longevity, and can be preserved and handed on intact.
Associated with the above, it is a fact that a written Word self-evidently has a longer ‘shelf life’ than a spoken one, or of one which is communicated in nonverbal forms. In written form, the Word of God itself became a tangible object—an artefact with an enduring physical presence. Such was clearly the purpose which lay behind the Divine command to Moses to write "the words of this law in a book, until they were finished" (Deut. 31:24). And the point of taking that book and storing it for safekeeping "in the side of the ark of the covenant of the LORD" was not only that the "testimony" should be understood as being intimately associated with eternal things, but also that it might "be there for a witness" on an enduring basis (v. 26).
As a physical entity, therefore, God’s Word was capable of lasting longer, with its influence being preserved in its pristine form; as when, for example, the scroll of the Law, ‘lost’ for generations, was rediscovered in the temple in the time of Josiah, with such dramatic consequences (2 Chron. 34), or when the Apostle Paul charged the Colossians to share his letter to them with the ecclesia at Laodicea (Col. 4:16), in order that they too might hear the same ‘undiluted’ Word of God from him.
4. A written Word can be faithfully copied and more effectively and widely broadcast beyond its initial context.
The only reason we are able, in the providence of God, to hear His Word today is because God saw to it Himself that His Word was put into writing. The Truth of God has come to us across the world and down the ages because of its being first written down and then faithfully copied; no other medium would or could have achieved this Divine objective. Though we do not have any of the original manuscripts of the Bible, their transmission in written form has been the Divinely providential means of our enlightenment in spiritual things.
Men and women may forget what they have heard, but a permanent record of what God has said has proved to be a successful way of spreading a knowledge of it through space and time, as well as a means of overcoming human forgetfulness. Even today, in a world where so many other new media exist, the written Word remains the effective means of communication it has always been. In this, as in all things, our God knew very well what He was doing when He caused "holy men of God" to be "moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Pet. 1:21).
5. A written Word can be authenticated as to its origins, and its existence cannot be denied.
Whereas the spoken Word of God could be disregarded or forgotten once it had been uttered, the very presence and form of the Bible in our modern world provides firm evidence of the existence of the God Who caused it to be written. The Bible is; and because it exists, it cannot easily be explained away, not even by its most serious gainsayers. And if it is looked at objectively in its entirety, it can be seen to contain the very proof of its own authenticity. As Gladstone described it, it is in that sense an "impregnable rock". And, as another honest textual scholar (Paul Barnett) has written about the New Testament’s witness to its own authenticity: "In a criminal trial, such a unity of independent testimony would certainly persuade a judge and jury that what is said is the truth".
6. In written form, the Word of God in the Bible can be seen to constitute a complete and harmonious unity, with all its various parts being internally consistent when compared with each other.
Like any book, the Bible has a beginning and an end; and the Word itself declares that it is complete as a written record: "If any man shall add unto these things", says the inspired writer of Revelation, "God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book" (22:18). And that complete record not only reveals its own internal thematic consistency at every turn to those who will take the trouble to read it, but one part casts valuable light upon another, and thus the careful reading of the whole book becomes the very means by which its readers are able to understand it aright, to their eternal spiritual benefit—what the Apostle Paul calls "comparing spiritual things with spiritual" (1 Cor. 2:13).
7. As a permanent medium of record, a written Word is an appropriate analogue to the eternal God Who created it.
"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever", Isaiah tells us (40:8), and this is a claim which we are able to substantiate for ourselves, thousands of years since the prophet penned the words. With the open Bible continually before us, we are privileged to hear the eternal God still speaking to us. And as we are confronted with the evidence of His very existence in our reading of that Word, so we are drawn more closely to Him, to our own everlasting benefit. As the Apostle Paul declared, in a different context: "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift" (2 Cor. 9:15).