Our regular series was interrupted by a series of articles on hell. Though I don’t like leaving one doctrine half-baked to focus on another, circumstances necessitated the temporary switch. We are now able to return to our discussion of the necessity of Scripture. For your benefit and mine, we will review some of what we found in the previous articles.
Divine Revelation
In order to understand the necessity of Scripture we must first appreciate its divine source. God gave us Scripture by revelation. That is, He made known to us that which was otherwise unknown and unknowable. The Greek apokalupsis means a disclosure or an unveiling, in the case of Scripture the revelation of the truth. For example, Paul says in Galatians 1 that the gospel as he understood it came “through the revelation (apokalupsis) of Jesus Christ.” He says much the same thing in Ephesians 3, where he speaks of the gospel as a mystery now revealed (apokalupsis) by the Spirit. Divine revelation is God’s willing self-disclosure, His pulling back the curtain that hides His glory.
The common thread between divine revelation and the necessity of Scripture is that both recognize our human limitations. Without God’s revelation in Scripture, we are lost. We don’t have even the essential truths necessary for salvation unless God makes those truths known. We can’t reason ourselves to God, pray ourselves to God, worship ourselves to God, work ourselves to God—nothing we can do can overcome the gap between our human limitations and God’s divine glory. As such, if we are to know God at all it must result from God’s telling us about Himself. We can’t discover Him on our own; only through revelation can God be known.
We are limited in the sense that we cannot discover God unless He makes Himself discoverable. Alongside this is the truth that we can’t understand the world—or even ourselves—unless God gives us divine light. So it’s not just that God Himself is inaccessible outside divine revelation, but in fact that the whole world only makes sense if we see it from God’s perspective, a perspective only available to us in Scripture.
This presupposes that we lack something if we don’t have divine revelation. And that is in fact the case. God’s revelation of Himself through Scripture is necessary for two reasons: (1) Our limitations. We cannot bridge the gap between us and God on our own. (2) Our lack. We don’t know what we need to know apart from Scripture. The problem is compound. Not only do we not know what we need to know, we can’t discover it on our own. We lack right knowledge, and cannot gain what we lack on our own.
So then, we are not in the position of discovering God as much as we are in the position of receiving what He gives. This makes revelation a prerequisite for knowing God, necessary for relationship with Him. As such, Scripture is essential to our relationship with God. Our lack is met by God’s provision in the inspired Scriptures. Without this, relationship with God is impossible. In fact, both relationship with God and knowledge of Him are only possible if God speaks to us in His word. Theology—the knowledge of God—is predicated on revelation.
With this in view, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of God’s revealed word for the Christian. Scripture is more than just a helpful support for the Christian faith. It is more than a guidebook, more than a reference manual, more than an addendum. Scripture is essential to all true faith.
Without Scripture we would hopelessly flounder in search of the truth. We must realize, though, that we suffer the same when we neglect the word of God. We in the 21st century have more access to the word of God than any other generation. This is a privilege, but it leads us to underappreciate what we have. This deluge often produces apathy toward what we have. Our ready access to Scripture can, ironically, cause us to neglect it. We may have it nearby, but do we read it? Do we use what we have, or are we content to drift along with no more than a foggy notion of gospel truth? Though we have the word of God, we only move from ignorant darkness into God’s marvelous light if we actually read God’s word. This gift of Scripture will only benefit us if we use it.
Revelation in Church History
In the early years of the church, if you wanted your own copy of the Scriptures, you copied it yourself by hand or paid a significant sum to have it copied for you. Christians were martyred rather than revealing the location of written copies of Scripture. Access to the Scriptures in written form was a rare privilege, from the early church until well into the 16th century. If you wanted to access Scripture as a commoner, you went to church.
One effect of this is that, historically, Christian life and growth was centered on the church. The gathered assembly was where people heard the word of God read and taught. Spiritual growth primarily happened within the corporate context. Since few of the laypeople had access to the Scriptures—or had the education necessary to read them—they depended on the public ministry of the church for their spiritual growth. As Scripture became available to more and more people, they were free to study and draw their own conclusions privately.
This had both positive and negative effects. Access to Scripture was one of the catalysts of the Reformation, a movement of which we Anabaptists are stepchildren. Scripture was propagated in the common languages (a return to the nature of Scripture in the early church), catalyzing the rediscovery of the gospel. The Anabaptist movement sprung from the commitment to believe and obey all that Scripture clearly teaches. This was predicated on their ability to access Scripture readily and in their own language. When Scripture was again uncovered and brought to the common people, gospel Christianity flourished.
But not all effects were positive. While this brought a rediscovery of true Christianity, ready access to Scripture outside the stability of the local church broadened the spectrum of Christianity. Individual interpretations led to asynchronous movements divergent from historical Christianity. Churches tend to be more stable and move more slowly than individuals, at times a barrier to gospel reclamation but also a barrier to heresy. As Scripture became more available, Christianity morphed from a corporate practice to an individual one.
While this is certainly desirable in many ways, it has some undesirable effects. I believe this has led to a general loss of appreciation for the church. In past generations Christians gathered to worship twice on Sunday and often at least once through the week. In segments of the early Reformation, church services were at times held every day of the week. We should note alongside this that when the early church was being established in Jerusalem, they continued “daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house” (Acts 2:46). But in our day, Sunday evening services are often viewed as unnecessary or inconvenient. Midweek services are interruptions to our work schedule. Modern Westernism is fascinated with the individual, many times at the expense of the community. In our individualism, we have lost our love for the gathered assembly of believers. This affects not only the Christian community but also our Bible knowledge, which is often deficient as a result of our neglect of the church.
This means that, though we have the word of God before us and with us, many of us yet lack what God has provided in Scripture. Scripture is necessary for relationship with God. But are we actually using what God has given us and entering into relationship with Him? Or are we content to remain in the dark? In Scripture, God reveals Himself to us. In Scripture, we discover the gospel.
So then, our neglect of Scripture puts us in the same place all of us would be if God had not revealed Himself to us. Without revelation, we are prevented from knowing God by our human limitations. We cannot know God unless He discloses Himself to us. But we are again prevented from knowing God if we do not use what He has given us in Scripture. This, though, is not due to our limitations but instead to our laziness, our neglect of that which God has provided. Though we may excuse ourselves before God if He had not made Himself knowable, we have no excuse for neglecting His word now that He has spoken. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” (Heb. 2:3). Scripture is necessary for all aspects of the Christian life. Let us not fail to use it.