object it is, in actuality, a living re- ality, because this building grows and it is a community of people in whom God dwells. It is why in 1Cor. 12:27 Paul could refer to the church as the body of Christ. But how exactly does this body grow? 2 John 9-11 gives us insights into this while also illumining us to the nature of Christian doctrine. The most fascinating connection that John stresses is the one between the teaching or doctrine (the term could be translated either way) of Christ and the very being of God. Here we are right to conclude that by the “teaching of Christ,” John does not merely refer to the doctrine about Christ, but Christ’s teach- ing or doctrine. Not only does the phrase allow this way of reading it, but by implication, it could not be otherwise. After all, all of Christian doctrine is intimately and organi- cally related to Jesus, for he is the Creator and Redeemer, the Second Person of the indivisible Trinity. Still, John goes further by telling us that this doctrine does not merely give us teachings, but gives us God the Father and God the Son. “Who- ever abides in the teaching (or doc- trine) has both the Father and Son” and by implication the Holy Spirit. actually gives us God! This is an astonishing claim! Is this how we think about Christian doctrine? Do we recognize what is happening as we teach and preach God’s word? his word. Throughout Scripture, we read God identifying himself with his word. Of course, the clearest text on the matter is John 1, where we are told that Jesus is the word that be- Word is God, and we see this not merely in John 1 but in numerous places in which the term for scrip- ture or a reference to scripture is used interchangeably with God himself. Consider Matt. 19:4-5 and Jesus quoting Gen. 2:24. In Matt. 19:4-5 we read Jesus stating that
March/April 2024
“he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his simply what Moses wrote, and Moses did not write it as him quoting what God said; it is merely presented as what Moses wrote. Do you see what Je- sus communicates with his words? Jesus is telling us that what Moses wrote God said.
In Galatians 3:8 and Genesis 12:3, we have the same kind of connection made. When Paul explains that the Christian life is a supernatural real- ity brought about and sustained by the living God, he tells us that “the Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’” Paul is quoting Genesis 12:3. Moses wrote Genesis 12:3 and he tells us that God spoke its words to Abraham. Paul tells us that this is the Scripture preaching the gospel. Not only does this clearly teach that the gospel is the Abrahamic promise, but also that Scripture and God are synonymous. Notice, too, who preaches—God or the Scriptures. Herein lies the high and exalted view of Christian preaching—that when the Scriptures are rightly preached, God is preaching, and not merely a man. To the degree that we can identify Christian doctrine with the Scriptures, then to that same degree we can identify Christian doctrine with God himself. Indeed, this is John’s point in 2 John 9-10. Among other questions that could be asked, surely this one should be: Have we taught this to the people to whom we preach and teach the Scriptures? Furthermore, does this determine how we think about what we are doing when we preach and teach Scripture? Consider also Romans 9:17 and Exodus 9:13-17. In speaking of God’s un- “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, that my name might be proclaimed Moses would tell it to Pharaoh. Once again, we have God identifying him- self as the Scripture. God is Scripture. Scripture is God. To have Scripture is to have God- ranted by Scripture, is to have God. This is John’s point in 2 John 9-10. Those who do not have this view, according to John, are not to be welcomed into the church. From among the many texts we could cite, we learn of the personal, pow- erful, and productive nature of God’s word and Christian doctrine from Romans 1:16-17; Heb. 4:12-13; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; Isaiah 55:10-11; and 1Thess. 2:13. Our Christian doctrine is the knowledge of God that God implants in sinners, that is eternal life, that regenerates and renews sinners, that is at work in the sinner’s soul, the power of God for salvation that is expressed in truths regarding what God has revealed about himself as Triune, and about man, salvation, the church, and last things. Our Christian doctrine is an organism that has an intellectual component but can’t be reduced to this intellectual component because to depart from Christian doctrine is to no longer have God. Yet, this also means that to fail to abide by the doctrine, as John warns, must be something much more than an intellectual issue. This suggests that if pastors are to abide in the doctrine and help others abide in it, then we must do much more than merely ad- dress their thinking and beliefs. supernatural revelation “does not terminate upon the intellect” because God did not give it “to merely enlighten the mind” but gave the Scriptures
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