Leaving Beyond – Grounded In Scripture

Written by: April J. Buchanan

Scripture does not change. That is beautiful. It is such comfort. It does not change for me. It does not change for my circumstances. It does not change for my whims and desires.

I am prone to change. Sometimes that is good. Sometimes not so much. But what stands firm, unchanging, unyielding, and never with any consideration for manipulation is God’s Word. It says what it says. It means what it means. It is the same message for the early church as it is for me today.

I am not special. I do not hear God giving me my own word, my own revelation, my own whispers. He has spoken. Clearly, plainly, and finally. That disrupts my sinful heart’s desire to think I need something fresh, something new, something just for me, my own word. What He has said is better, sufficient, final, and unchanging. He said what He said. He means what He said.

I can trust it and submit to it and find the greatest assurance and comfort in it, or I can show myself in rebellion to it and seek something just for me.

I have done both.

I began hearing that there is the logos word and a rhema word, a supposed distinction where one is the Word of God and the other is a private, ongoing revelation from God. But Scripture does not make such a distinction. Logos and rhema are used interchangeably throughout Scripture to describe the same sufficient, final, authoritative, and immutable Word of God. There is no biblical support for the idea of a “personal word” apart from God’s written Word. Scripture does not encourage dissatisfaction with God’s Word or the pursuit of a private message.

It is deeply saddening that many who claim to always hear from God and are faithful and obedient to whatever comes to their mind or heart may never know the true assurance and peace that comes from knowing that God’s Word is final, sufficient, authoritative, and immutable. They may give verbal assent to that, but they functionally disagree.

The Word of God does not only stand outside of the believer as final, authoritative, sufficient, and immutable. It is the means by which the Spirit of God works in the believer, changing us and conforming us to the image of God. We sit under the Word. Not alongside it. Not over it. Not with a word of our own equal to it or standing over it. We have the more sure Word of God. It does not change. It changes us.

That is deeply and profoundly encouraging, even when it is sobering, humbling, and unyielding in what it says about us, showing us our sin, our error, and our need to repent.

We do not need a new word. God has spoken. He has not failed to speak perfectly what we need today. The church today is not special and in need of its own word. The Bible is not outdated. It is just as authoritative today as it has always been. The problem is not with what God has said. The problem is with us when we do not like what He has said or when we desire something more and demand that He give us our own word.

Many will never open Scripture and truly hear God. They open His Word seeking something for themselves, something to affirm what they already feel or believe, and they rip Scripture out of context to support their desires. Some will never hear God because their hearts long for more and are unwilling to trust that what He has said is perfect and needs no additions, not even for them.

Many set themselves apart from the church through the ages, thinking themselves wiser, special, and more anointed than they. They think themselves to have recovered what was lost and to restore what the church needs for this time. They are dissatisfied with the foundation built upon the Apostles and Prophets and seek to build a new foundation with their own apostles and prophets. They do not see that what they are building is in direct opposition to Christ’s church, and He warned His bride of them. She will listen. Even if for a time she may be led astray, He will bring her out and to the truth. He is faithful.

Many men claim to hear God speak to them. They have been trained to listen to feelings, impressions, and inward thoughts said to be God speaking. Many pulpits fail to preach the Word and have compromised in an effort to win the lost by means contrary to Scripture. Many today who claim to love God and His Word functionally deny that claim. In one breath they speak highly of Scripture. In the next they lead men by what they feel God told them.

This “God told me” language and its variations are so common that even the unbeliever has taken it upon his lips with no fear of God as he blasphemes the Lord. There is no correction from those who profess the name of Christ because they fear quenching the Spirit. They think, who are we to say God is not speaking to him?

There is no fear of God, not only among those in the world but among many who profess to belong to Him. It is nothing to them to blaspheme His name, to take His name in vain, bringing it to worthlessness as they speak words in His name that He has not said.

Careless. Reckless.

They speak boastful words of what they profess God told them. They feel special and set apart from those pitiable Christians who only have a Bible. How lowly they think of God’s Word, that which the Spirit inspired and by which Christ sanctifies His bride and God draws the lost.

They are special. They hear God speak to them with such regularity that they boast of the things He has said. It sounds spiritual to them. They feel so special that they believe others need to hear what God said to them. Anyone with a Bible, a regenerate heart, biblical discernment, and a high view of God’s Word and the Holy Spirit cannot bear with the blasphemous foolishness falsely attributed to God.

They do not tremble. They do not fear. They think they do. They do not submit to Scripture and to what God has said. They want their own word. Like Priscilla Shirer they don’t want hand-me-downs. They want something with their name on it. And like Sarah Young, they believe the Bible is good but they “yearn for more.”

It is one of the most devastating and sobering experiences to hear the truth as God has said it and see yourself rightly. To understand that you blasphemed God. You. When you stop resisting the truth and let it speak, you hear the truth about yourself, and it is not all the flattering words you heard in your heart or that others spoke over you. It is powerful. It is authoritative. It says what it says and it means what it means. It is not going to change for you.

It is terrifying. It is sobering. I do not say that lightly. Many are so caught up in false teaching and the music that fuels their constant chase for that high, that when the truth finally speaks and they truly hear it, it is terrifyingly holy and immediately sobering.

And then grace. True grace. It says what it says. It is not going to change. Not even for you. It is perfect.

Perfect holiness. Perfect grace.

God’s Word is perfect. I do not need a new word. His Word is sufficient.