OUR BIBLE IS LIKE NO OTHER BOOK ever written or printed in all of mankind’s history on this earth. It blends oral history with recorded history in its progressive revelation of the self-revealing God. This is a remarkable development that parallels mankind’s stumbling journey from inception as hunter-gatherers into our gradually refined cultures, from feudal kingdoms to nation-states. It tells the authentic story of creation and purpose, and this from the beginning to, not the end, but a new beginning. It proves its own veracity through realized prophecy for certain people at certain times, and is for all people of all times to discover experientially. In the orthodox canon of scripture it starts with, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen. 1:1) It ends with, “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.” (Rev. 22:20-21)
There are any number of important themes in the bible. But the overarching essential message is this: Between the beginning and end of time as we know it, God has purposed the redemption of a people who are/become his through/into the mysterious other-realm of the kingdom of heaven. There are only shadow-like glimpses of what has always existed before and after this creation, but so that we would be drawn to discover God, he “set eternity in the human heart” (Ecc. 3:11b) so that we would try to find out about him. And since, in the O.T., “no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end” (Ecc. 3:11c), he revealed himself and his purposes more fully in the N.T.
In the N.T., the apostle John considers God’s purpose, promises, prophecies, and person starting with the creation event. He writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.” (John 1:1, 4) In all the gospels, Jesus is revealed as God; and in all the gospels, his story is one of awakening people’s inner spirit to this transcendent truth. It is John who gives us the words of Jesus’ own testimony: “Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.” (John 3:11-13)
This eye-witness testimony—not of John seeing Jesus for who he is, but Jesus’ description of his other-realm pre-and-post existence—is an astounding singularity. He is unique in all of human history, and because of this, only he can say “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) The ever-present and on-going challenge presented in the bible is for us to come into a transformational personal, experiential, and core-identity acceptance and submission to God’s truth revealed in Jesus.
How we do that becomes, for each of us a uniquely personal but not idiosyncratic spiritual journey that is guided by the bible, the holiest of scriptures. We must open the book, and turn the pages. The way in which we do that is perhaps a bit different for each of us. Some of us are auditory learners, and so we have access to the same orality that the scriptures began with. In our time, we can listen to the exposition of the Word in a church, or through media in our homes. These same learning methods apply to visual learners, even down to the tiny screens on our smartphones. We can also pick up in our hand, literally, the printed word of God in the form of a leather-bound bible or a digital screen. The point is this: by whatever means we are capable of apprehending this precious knowledge, we do so in all due diligence.
But all these modalities of learning may still fall far short of our actual ability to perceive past information to transformation. All we have done at this point is to open the scriptures—they have not yet been opened to us, for while they may be understood at various levels with our minds, they have a singular guard posted at the doorway of true understanding. Paul informs, “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness.” (1 Cor. 2:14) Something else is necessary for opening the door of access into sacred treasures. It is Jesus, the one from heaven, who expresses this to us in tantalizing heavenly language. “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’” (John 3:5-7) It is not by the eye of the mind that the key is grasped with which to unlock the door, but by the eye of the heart: “For we live by faith, not by sight.” (2 Cor. 5:7)
The sacred truths are revealed only by the Spirit. Paul encourages us in this. “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.” (Eph. 1:18a) And once that has happened, once this change has taken place and become a pattern in our lives, John says “The anointing you received from him remains in you. His anointing teaches you about all things.” (1 John 2:27) But our question remains—how does this happen?
The answer to this all-important question lies hidden in this O.T. scriptural key: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jer. 29:13) But the hidden aspect to the answer, due to God’s great grace, is revealed fully in this N.T. verse. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
The opening of the door to the treasure-house of scriptures does not come about from the prying of the mind, but through impassioned leverage of faith centered in the deepest part of our hearts. Scripture itself underscores this through the power of story. Soon after his crucifixion, two of Jesus’ discouraged disciples are leaving Jerusalem on the seven-mile road to the village of Emmaus. Jesus joins them in his glorified physical/spiritual state, but they do not recognize him. In response to their dejected statements of broken hope, he asks, “Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” (Luke 24:26-27) He joined them for their evening meal, broke bread with them, “and began to give it to them.” And suddenly, they see: “Their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.” They exclaim, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:30b-32)
For each of us to open the scriptures in a way that we can perceive these truths requires us to eradicate our former ways of learning. It is not that the head does not engage and inform, but that the heart must lead through faith. So for each of us, as we ‘seek God with all our hearts,’ in the Word, the light of scriptures streams out of heaven in Jesus, in whom is ‘the light of life.’ He is the penultimate revelation at the leading edge of the new beginning, both now and to come. And so, with Paul, we ‘pray that the eyes of our heart may be enlightened.’
Q. Does my heart burn within me as I open the scriptures and “tremble at his Word?” (Psa. 119:12).
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