The Relevant Authority of the Word of God*

Part I

by A.W. Tozer

From his book “Reclaiming Christianity: A Call to Authentic Faith”

 

And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.

Hebrews 1: 10-12

 

In the Church, supreme authority resides in God and in Him alone. This is emphatically declared in both the Old Testament and the New and has been the unanimous belief of christians throughout the centuries. Nothing has changed to negate this in any degree.

God possesses supreme authority for certain reasons. He possesses supreme authority because of His eternity. God was before all authorities.

I do not say that there are not authorities; I well know there are. But God was before all authorities. Lords, kings, emperors and potentates have certain authority, but that authority is late in time and is borrowed from God, and therefore is temporary. And whatever is temporary cannot be final and supreme.

then there is another kind of authority with prophets and apostles and popes and bishops and religious sages. If they are good, they have borrowed their authority; and if they are bad, they have usurped it. they have authority all right; nobody can doubt it.

Bishops have authority. They can say, “Don’t you do so-and-so,” and the little preacher does not dare do it. then there are popes and apostles and prophets. Now I say again that if they were good men, they borrowed their authority from God; and if they were bad men, they usurped it from God. So either way they got it from God. But they had to surrender their authority and die.

That is the oddest thing that those who admit it do not live as if they were going to die. But we are all just little boys that nature is going to put to bed one of these days. The little fellow has keyed himself up with excitement; he wants to stay up, and nature says,”No, you’ve got to go to bed, Junior.”

And Junior says, “Oh, just a half hour yet.”

“No, it’s time now; in fact it’s past time.” And nature says, “I’ve made up your bed and it’s all ready now, and you go to bed.”

He does not like it and fights it until he cannot keep his eyes open. Finally, he crawls in and goes to bed over his own protest. So it is with nature. It has all its boys; some of them just plain people like you and me with no particular mark of distinction. And then, of course, there are some who have the insignia of greatness. They wear on their shoulders or foreheads proof that they have some authority, and there they are – the king with his crown, the president with his constitution, the bishop with his hat, the cardinal with his red skull-cap – playing with their toys. They all want to play with their toys, but nature pays no attention to how important they are when it says, “Go to bed now.”

The Pope says, “No, I want to stay up a little longer, nature; I want to make some more inane speeches.”

Nature says, “No, go to bed now.”

And the Bishop says, “No, I want to stay up and move my men around. I’m playing with my men. I want to stay and move my men some more.”

Nature says, “You’ve moved all the men you’re going to move. Get off to bed now.”

They all have to do it, and my contention is that anything you cannot keep cannot be final. You can have it for a little while but not for very long. We all surrender to man’s final fate, which is death.

Over against the transitory, passing, relative and tentative authority of  prophets, apostles, kings, popes, emperors, bishops and presidents, and all the rest, stands these awesome words: “Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: they shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail” (Hebrews 1: 10-12). Before the world was, God was; and when the worlds have burnt themselves out, God will remain the supreme authority.

Some of God’s attributes – love, kindness, compassion, pity, holiness and righteousness – He can share with His people. But there are attributes so divine that God cannot share them. Self-existence, sovereignty, omniscience and all-wisdom – these declare God to have all the authority there is.

I once saw a cartoon in a religious magazine showing Martin Luther standing up with great dignity saying, “I can do nothing else; here I stand.” Then it showed a whole herd of little creatures running toward Rome saying, “Here we go.” Luther said, “Here I stand,” and they said, “Here we go.” And as they go, they are trampling the 95 theses under their feet. I tell you, it is hard to stand and say, “Here I stand,” but it is easy to follow the crowd. All you have to do is keep the holy neck of the pastor in sight just ahead of you. Keep right after him; pay no attention to where he is going.

God Almighty is a sovereign God because He is self-existent. He is sovereign. He is omniscient and He stands absolutely. It would be great if we Protestants would remember that now.

 

How God Utters His Authority

The Bible is a vehicle of God’s authority. The book is called “the Book of” – the Book of the Lord, the Good Word of God, the Holy writings, the Law of the Land, the Word of Christ, the Oracles of God, the Word of Life and the Word of Truth. These are descriptions of the Word through which God utters His authority. And this Word is said to be God-breathed, indestructible and eternal.

In the Word, we have that unique thing. The Book of the Lord, the uttered Word of God, is that unique things that always ought to be spelled out in capitals. It is different from and above, and transcending all others of its kind. It is uncompromising, authoritative, awesome and eternal. And it is through this Word that God exercises His supreme, self-bestowed authority, for He never took His authority from men. The Lord never kneeled before anyone who touched His shoulder with a sword and said, “Rise, sovereign God.” There is nobody who can bestow sovereignty upon the sovereign God.

“The word that I have spoken,” said Jesus, “the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12: 48). Is it any wonder then that the prophet says, “O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord” (Jeremiah 22: 29). God’s uttered Word , this is what we have here, and it is through God’s uttered Word that He exercises His authority. He utters Himself forth. It is the nature of God to express Himself. And so He utters Himself forth, and what He utters originates in the mind of an infinite Creator and comes to mind of a finite creature.

Some people are so ponderously intellectual that the idea that God speaks to man bothers them. But it does not bother me at all. I believe that the infinite God can speak to finite man. I do not believe there is any bridge that cannot be crossed when the infinite Creator determines that He is going to utter forth His authoritative Word to finite man. He can do it; and in this uttered Word is sovereign authority with the power of life and death. That is not too strong an expression. The Scripture declares it to be so, that the gospel is the Word of life, and the day will come when every “t” will be crossed and every “i” will be dotted, and there will not be one iota of God’s mighty Word which will not come to pass.

There is a beautiful expression taken not from the sacred Scriptures but from that which is very close. It bears the same relation to the holy, inspired, unique thing that a good devotional book bears to the New Testament. I refer to the Wisdom of Solomon. There, he says this about the Word of God: “For while all things were in quiet silence, and that night was in the midst of her swift course, Thine Almighty word leaped down from heaven out of thy royal throne, as a fierce man of war into the midst of a land of destruction, and brought thine unfeigned commandment as a sharp sword, and standing up filled all things with death; and it touched the heaven, but it stood upon the earth” (Wisdom 18: 14-16).

When I read it, I marked the words “Tine Almighty word leaped down from heaven,” for it dramatizes the way the Word came to man from the royal throne that never was built because it was always there. The throne upon which sits the Almighty God. And this Word comes down like a fierce man of war into the midst of the land of destruction.

that is why I do not like to see man tinker with the Word of God. That is why I do not like to see editors, annotators and translators who, in irreverence and carelessness, and sometimes for money, make up new translations.** This Almighty Word leaped down from the royal throne, and I have to be careful because it is that unique will of God revealed to me. It is God uttering forth His sovereign authority through printed words that I can get hold of.

These words are said to be lively, dynamic and creative. When God spoke, it was done; and when He commanded it, it stood forth, and creation came by His Word. For that we should never think of God as getting down on His knees and working on a piece of clay like a potter. All that is beautiful figure, but the fact is, God spoke back in the first chapters of Genesis. “And God said, let there be light; and there was light…And God said let the earth bring forth…and it was so” (Genesis 1: 3-11). And whatever God said, happened. There will be a day when we will see that every word that God speaks will come to pass. This Almighty Word that leaped down from heaven out of the royal throne is a fierce man-o-war filled with life, and dynamic with created power. And God is creating new men through the truth. The day will be when Jesus Christ will call all the nations before Him, and He will do it by His Word.

To be continued…

Part II – Life and Death in the Word; A Word of Warning & A Word of Invitation

* I sincerely apologize for not being able to capitalize certain characters of words that should be capitalized. The template and theme I am using will not permit capitalization when making a heading bold – Ken Pullen, administrator of “A Crooked Path.”

**Mr. Tozer died in 1963. Since that time the rise in abominations passing themselves off as the Word of God has escalated at breakneck speed as wickedness and false teachings have risen and begun to consume the inhabitants of this earth.

We now have specific translations of the Bible for homosexuals and lesbians so it appeals to and appeases them and their sin. We have translations that omit much of God’s spoken truth. We have translations that no longer refer to Jesus Christ as the Son of God. We have a translation to appeal to Muslims perverting the truth of God’s Holy Scriptures. As evil increases so, too, do the number of supposed Bible translations. All under the guise of making the Word more accessible and easier to understand – which is a cunning lie which originated with the father of lies, Satan himself. Do not be led astray. Do not be misled. Do not use the excuse of ease of comfort, or one of the perverse translations helps you to better understand and relate to God in reading a perverted translation of God’s Holy Word. Relate to the relevant authority of God on your knees in humble reverent submission and read His Word as intended and given to man. Translated from the Hebrew and Greek without compromising the truth.

Link to just some of the over 150 current Scriptures translations

Link to “Why the King James Version” of the Bible

I can only imagine what Mr. Tozer and those of his generation would say or write concerning the great surge in printing false doctrine under the pretense of printing the Holy Scriptures – Ken Pullen, administrator “A Crooked Path.”