What do words have to do with Christianity? Almost everything. At every stage in redemptive history—from the time before time, to God’s creation, to man’s fall, to Christ’s redemption, and to the coming consummation—“God is there and he is not silent” [Francis Schaeffer].
God’s words decisively create, confront, convict, correct, and comfort. By his words he both interprets and instructs.
If you wanted to construct a biblical theology of words, you could get pretty far in just the first few pages of your Bible. The early chapters of Genesis are replete with God using words to create and order, name and interpret, bless and curse, instruct and warn.
God commands (“And God said, ‘Let there be . . . ’”), and reality results (“and there was. . . .” “And it was so”).
God names (“God called . . . ”), and things are publicly identified.
We learn later that it is “by the word of his power” that God’s Son, Jesus Christ, continually sustains and “upholds the universe” (Heb. 1:3).
Before God creates man, he first uses words to announce his intention (“Let us make . . . ”). And once Adam and Eve are created, their first experience with God involves words, as he gives them the cultural mandate (Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion), explains their freedom (“You may . . . ”), and warns them against disobeying his command (“You shall not . . . ”).
When Satan slithers onto the scene as a crafty serpent, his first action is to speak, and his wicked words are designed to call into question the very words of God. The first step is to sow the seed of doubt (“Did God actually say . . . ?”). And the second step is the explicit accusation that the Creator was really a liar (“You will not surely die”).
When Adam and Eve rebel against the only restriction they were given, they express for the first time words that are so common for us today: fear (“I was afraid”), shame (“I hid myself”), and blame (that woman—whom you gave to be with me!).
God then interprets their new fallen world for them—and also gives the first words of the gospel, foretelling the time when he will send his Son to save his people and crush the head of his enemy. God uses words to tell of the coming Word made flesh (John 1).
Tomorrow we’ll briefly survey the relationship of Jesus the Word to words.
[Adapted from Justin Taylor, “Introduction,” The Power of Words and the Wonder of God, ed. John Piper and Justin Taylor (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2009), pp. 15-16.]
