One of the amazing things about the Scriptures is that they are complete, by this I mean, they lack nothing to achieve the purpose for which they were written. Of course, as I wrote elsewhere, that purpose can be actualized only when the written word transmutes itself into the spoken word. Then, and only then, do they carry revelational power. Hence we have: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4), for only the word uttered by God Himself, i.e., what He will reverbalize to us, has the ability to reshape our mind and, consequently, our conduct.
A healthy desire
Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, 2 as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious (1 Peter 2:1–3).
Here the second verse says that the pure milk of the word—in the context in which it is written—has the capacity to promote growth, that is, it can cause a baby to mature and reach adulthood. It is so because the word is an efficient cause. A cause is called efficient when it produces the desired effect upon a specific existent. Here the existent is the newborn babe, the desired effect is growth, and the efficient cause is the word.
The second phase
Not only the word is efficient to turn a baby into a youth, but it can also—in a second phase—strengthen him at the point of stability. That’s what the apostle Paul asserts when he writes:
So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified” (Acts 20:32).
Here Paul insists that the word of God has the ability to build us up, that is, it can lead us to stability and permanence. It is so because God is one with His word. The apostle John could not have expressed it any clearer when he wrote:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
Granted that these words refer to the logos, no one could deny that the word reported in the Scripture was also in the beginning with God. In fact, it was one with God then as it is one with Him now, for God doesn’t think one thing and say another. His word is one with His thoughts, and His thoughts are one with Himself. This is one of the differences between the ungenerated and God. The once born—and at times the twice born—may utter words that are dissociated from his thoughts. The Scripture testifies of such discrepancy when it says:
Do not eat the bread of a miser, nor desire his delicacies; for as he thinks in his heart, so is he. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you” (Prov. 23:6,7).
And again: “The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords” (Psalm 55:21).
Here the thoughts of the heart go one way and the spoken words another. In short, the words are not one with the speaker. This is precisely what insincerity is. But it is not so with God, for God is sincere. Hence He says what He thinks, and thinks in function of who He is. Consequently, the person who comes to know something of God’s word comes to know something of God. Actually it goes beyond this, for when the reader experiences the life of the word he experiences—in actuality—the life of God. When Jesus says: “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63), He is affirming the animated nature of the divine word.
It follows that when the Spirit reverbalizes the written word to us, it passes from mere letters to a flow of life able to vitalize the human heart. No wonder the psalmist could write: “This is my comfort in my affliction, for Your word has given me life” (Psalm 119:50). It is this dynamic communication that has the ability to build us up, not a passive reading of words as truthful as they might be.
Touching the Life
It must be understood at this point that all this is the result of faith, for the life of the word will never be contiguous to unbelief.
For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe” (1 Thess. 2:13).
So here we have an effective working, but only in those who believe. And the effectiveness of the working resides in the following fact:
…the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12).
Actually we were brought to life through the living word: “ … having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever” (1 Peter 1:23).
It is the life of the word that can work miracles, and it can be touched only by those who trust the Speaker enough to do what He says. Jesus nails it down when He avows: “My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it” (Luke 8:21).
The God who knows the intention of every man’s heart knows beforehand who will take action and who will not, and only those who will take action will touch the life emerging from the word.
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