Watching the crucifixion, could you have worked out what was happening?
That question is the reason God gave us words as well as deeds.
‘Leave man to guess God’s mind and purpose, and he will guess it wrong.’
Power and Teaching, Together
The gospel brings us a genuine verbal Divine revelation — an unveiling of God through his own speech, from his own Word, the Son, who has spoken and continues to speak through the prophets and Apostles, the writers of both Testaments.
It is an overwhelmingly positive spoken Word from the infinite-personal God who communicates, creates, rules, judges and saves.
And here Packer explains exactly why words are indispensable rather than optional:
’[A]ccording to Scripture, God reveals himself to men both by exercising power for them and by teaching truth to them. The two activities are not antithetical, but complementary. Indeed, the Biblical position is that the mighty acts of God are not revelation to man at all, except in so far as they are accompanied by words to explain them. Leave man to guess God’s mind and purpose, and he will guess it wrong; he can know it only by being told it. … This being so, the inspiring of the authoritative exposition of his redemptive acts in history [i.e., the Bible] ought to be seen as itself one of those redemptive acts, as necessary a link in the chain of his saving purposes as any of the events with which the exposition deals.
The need for verbal revelation appears most clearly when we consider the Person and work of Christ. His life and death was the clearest and fullest revelation of God that ever was or could be made. Yet it could never have been understood without explanation. Whoever could have guessed, without being told, that the man Jesus was God incarnate, that he had created the world in which he was crucified, that by dying a criminal’s death he put away the sins of mankind, and now, though gone from our sight, he lives forever to bring penitent sinners to his Father? And who can come to faith in Christ if he knows none of this?’1J. I. Packer, “Fundamentalism” and the Word of God (Inter-Varsity Press/Eerdmans, 1958), 92.
Sit with that question for a moment. Nobody watching the crucifixion could have worked out what was happening. The event alone doesn’t interpret itself.
Acts and Words Together
So the gospel involves both redemptive actions by God and revelatory words from God about those actions.
It is essentially — though not exclusively — verbal as well as personal: God speaking in Person.2Sanders, The Triune God, 66.
In the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, God’s saving deeds and events are bound up with explanation, a verbal communication concerning their meaning and significance. God does things for us and talks to us about them, speaking about their saving implications.
In the gospel, ‘salvation is [both] accomplished and explained; the understanding follows the achieving. God shows and tells, speaking forth the meaning inherent in what he does.’3Sanders, The Triune God, 68.
A God Who Talks
A trademark feature of the Bible’s God — who created everything, and who reveals himself definitively in the gospel of Jesus Christ — is that he is a speaking God.4Initially guided by Mark D. Thompson, ‘The Speaking God,’ in The Doctrine of Scripture: A Short Introduction (Crossway, 2021), 61-86; and Carl R. Trueman, Crisis of Confidence: Reclaiming the Historic Faith in a Culture Consumed With Individualism and Identity (Crossway, 2024), 37-46. More briefly, see also Mark D. Thompson, ‘What is the Bible?,’ in NIV Proclamation Bible, ed. Lee Gatiss (Hodder & Stoughton, 2013), xxi-xxvi. Other good short-ish discussions of the nature of Scripture include Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Abridged (Baker, 2010), 1.5:73-81, 90-110; idem, Our Reasonable Faith (Eerdmans, 1958), 95-115; Gerald Bray, God is Love (Crossway, 2012), 29-66; Paul Helm, Just Words? (Evangelical Press, 2019); Michael C. Horton, Pilgrim Theology (Zondervan, 2011), 51-72; Jensen, Life of Faith, 37-78; Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics (Wakeman, 2000), 12-42; John MacArthur, Biblical Doctrine (Crossway, 2017), 69-142; Bruce Milne, Know the Truth, Second Edition (IVP, 1998), 39-66; J. I. Packer, Concise Theology (Tyndale House, 1993), 13-18; R. C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith (Tyndale House, 1992), 15-30. Good longer treatments include Joel R. Beeke, Reformed Systematic Theology, Volume 1 (Crossway, 2019); Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 2, Second Edition (Baker, 2003); D. A. Carson ed., The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures (Apollos, 2016); Jensen, Revelation of God, 145-230.
In fact the Bible starts and finishes with God saying things (Gen 1:1-30; Rev 21:5-8). ‘From the beginning … God is revealed as a God of words.’5Jensen, ‘Revelation,’ 747.
God created the heavens and the earth by speaking: ‘God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light’ (Gen 1:1, 3). He keeps the world in being through his word (Psa 119:89). He talked to Adam and Eve (Gen 1:28), to Cain (Gen 4:6), to Noah (Gen 6:13), to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Gen 12:1; 26:2; 31:3), to Moses (Exo 3:4-22), from the mountain (Exo 20:1), and through the prophets (Dan 9:6; Hos 12:10).
Scripture provides a record of God being the original language-user, the first speaker. It also portrays him as supreme teacher, instructor, author, writer, publisher and distributor.
But certainly, in the Bible, God is the first communicator — using words to address human beings in all kinds of forms: sentences, statements, assertions, blessings, laws, commands, covenants, questions, descriptions, propositions, promises, narratives, stories, proverbs, parables, letters, prophecies.
‘[T]he God who is described in Scripture is the God of speech, of promise and command. Revelatory theories that do not account for this are in grave danger of distorting the Christian doctrine of God. … Divine speech reveals the truth about God, as the one who never lies, who is righteous and trustworthy, who keeps his covenantal promises, and whose law reveals his holiness. Not surprisingly, humans are invited to know God through faith, since this is the appropriate response to the one who speaks. We receive his promises and keep his commands by trusting him.’6Jensen, ‘Revelation,’ 747-48.
A Word-Based World
God’s Word, whether spoken or written, comes from God, is about God, and about humanity in relation to God.
Because in Scripture we live in a God-based world, we also live in a Word-based world. Words appear as the medium of personal relationships. Speaking is an essential part of what it means for God to be personal and relational.
And for human beings, made in God’s image, articulated speech is likewise baked into our being personal and relational creatures. God is communicative; so are we.
Throughout Scripture the reality, power and effect of God’s words is unmistakable. What God says is utterly integral to achieving his goals (Isa 55:11).
It’s within that broad context — God’s expression, revelation and action through speech — that the Lord Jesus Christ is said to be the Word of God in human form (John 1:1-18; 1 John 1:1-4; Rev 19:13). The eternal Word through whom all things were created came into the world, added humanity to his Divinity, assumed ‘flesh and dwelt among us … full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14).
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- 1J. I. Packer, “Fundamentalism” and the Word of God (Inter-Varsity Press/Eerdmans, 1958), 92. ↩︎
- 2Sanders, The Triune God, 66. ↩︎
- 3Sanders, The Triune God, 68. ↩︎
- 4Initially guided by Mark D. Thompson, ‘The Speaking God,’ in The Doctrine of Scripture: A Short Introduction (Crossway, 2021), 61-86; and Carl R. Trueman, Crisis of Confidence: Reclaiming the Historic Faith in a Culture Consumed With Individualism and Identity (Crossway, 2024), 37-46. More briefly, see also Mark D. Thompson, ‘What is the Bible?,’ in NIV Proclamation Bible, ed. Lee Gatiss (Hodder & Stoughton, 2013), xxi-xxvi. Other good short-ish discussions of the nature of Scripture include Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Abridged (Baker, 2010), 1.5:73-81, 90-110; idem, Our Reasonable Faith (Eerdmans, 1958), 95-115; Gerald Bray, God is Love (Crossway, 2012), 29-66; Paul Helm, Just Words? (Evangelical Press, 2019); Michael C. Horton, Pilgrim Theology (Zondervan, 2011), 51-72; Jensen, Life of Faith, 37-78; Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics (Wakeman, 2000), 12-42; John MacArthur, Biblical Doctrine (Crossway, 2017), 69-142; Bruce Milne, Know the Truth, Second Edition (IVP, 1998), 39-66; J. I. Packer, Concise Theology (Tyndale House, 1993), 13-18; R. C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith (Tyndale House, 1992), 15-30. Good longer treatments include Joel R. Beeke, Reformed Systematic Theology, Volume 1 (Crossway, 2019); Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 2, Second Edition (Baker, 2003); D. A. Carson ed., The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures (Apollos, 2016); Jensen, Revelation of God, 145-230. ↩︎
- 5Jensen, ‘Revelation,’ 747. ↩︎
- 6Jensen, ‘Revelation,’ 747-48. ↩︎