QQ89-90. How is the Word made (read and heard, that it may become) effectual to salvation?

A (89). The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching, of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building them up in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation.

A (90). That the Word may become effectual to salvation, we must attend thereunto with diligence, preparation, and prayer; receive it with faith and love, lay it up in our hearts, and practice it in our lives.

The classic passage summarizing both sides of the coin are Paul’s words to Timothy.

“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:14-17)   

Here we see imperatives for Timothy (and for all who read)—action items, things to do with the word—and the reason for doing this with the word is because of what the word is and what the word does. 

Mastricht comments on this passage,

“For the text does not express the perfection of man so much as the perfection of Scripture. And even if it does express the perfection of the man of God, it does not express an actual and absolute perfection that he could possess in this life, but rather the potential and conditional perfection that the Scripture could confer, and that he also could achieve, if he would follow Scripture perfectly.”1

The Spiritual Means of the Word

Two main means are listed here: READING and PREACHING, and of preaching it says “especially.” Both are in view in a great Old Testament passage,

“They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading” (Neh. 8:8).

There are many texts in the New Testament that imply the preaching office, its event, its content, its necessity, and so forth; but I know of no single verse that more clearly and concisely defines and therefore justifies that act of expositing Scripture, together with its public reading, than the Nehemiah 8:8 text.

As to the reading element, we must divide this under two heads: the public reading of Scripture and then individual Bible-study. Where one places small group Bible-studies on that spectrum matters little, because the main point of what is often called “public reading” is its function in the worship service. So, Paul told Timothy,

“Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching” (1 Tim. 4:13).

It is also said, “I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers” (1 Thess. 5:27), and then in that last book of the Bible, in the very difficult apocalyptic genre no less: “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near” (Rev. 1:3). But it all has to start with the reading. Focused liturgy typically gets you more Bible.

What then of preaching? Paul says, “it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.” (1 Cor. 1:21).

While this is said in the commissioning of Paul as an Apostle, the job description itself is a model for the preaching ministry:

“I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:17b-18).

Now one may ask why reading (or private study) is not sufficient. In fact, if were not sufficient, then does that not imply that the word itself is not intrinsically sufficient? No, it would not imply that; and two basic reasons can be given. First, Scripture itself teaches God’s use of means as being necessary—not to God in Himself, but to the process He has ordained—“And how are they to believe in him uof whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” (Rom. 10:14)

Second, it is a matter of common sense that sums are more difficult to get our minds around than parts, and Psalm 119:160 says, “The sum of your word is truth” and Paul speaks of a “whole counsel of God’s word” (in Acts 20), so that the function of a teaching ministry concisely summarizes what most Christians would not even think to get through in a non-concise way. Think box-top versus turning over a puzzle piece at a time. 

The Spiritual Ends of the Word

Four ends are specifically listed here: CONVINCING, CONVERTING, BUILDING and COMFORTING. It is important to note about all four of these effects that they are effects of the Holy Spirit through the means of the word. 

Calvin says about this internal testimony,

“Let it therefore be held as fixed, that those who are inwardly taught by the Holy Spirit acquiesce implicitly in Scripture; that Scripture carrying its own evidence along with it, deigns not to submit to proofs and arguments, but owes the full conviction with which we ought to receive it to the testimony of the Spirit.”2

This teaching of Calvin is famous for its place both in discussions about apologetic method and the doctrine of Scripture. For the Reformer, the indicia (objective signs) and the testimonium (subjective authentication) went together. Crucial in understanding this idea is that neither Calvin nor the Westminster Assembly, which very much followed this line of reasoning, were saying that the Spirit creates something out in the world that was not there before, or which is true only for the believer, but rather that the Spirit creates a new principle in the soul that now loves the truth that was already true, and He removes the obstacles that our sin had set up in the way.

The word is a divine power for its chief end in the soul, which is first to save: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16).

It operates on the whole soul. Where the Psalmist says, “the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes” (Ps. 19:8)—here we have the word operating both on the mind and therefore also on the affections. Light and heat—causing to see and causing to enjoy what we see. 

And this means edification, or building up in the faith, or maturing.

 “And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified” (Acts 20:32)

“For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4).

The Christian’s Spiritual Use of the Word

First, there is diligence and preparation mentioned in our answer. Sometimes dilligence and preparation are taught by figures of speech, such as the words: “Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors” (Prov. 8:34). Here in the Proverbs, Wisdom is the speaker; yet that is already a figure. So to “listen” to wisdom and even to watch and wait for her arrival is obviously a metaphor for doing those things which take time but which increase God’s truth in the soul. 

But what is such dilligence and preparation? Study. Corporate study. Good theological conversations including being challenged, where iron sharpens iron. Going to sleep on Saturday night.

I would add to individual diligence and preparation elements of church life that consistently apply that word. When I was a new church planter, I would always hear, from the many influences from Old and New Calvinism, that the Word would “do it all.” Is that not how Luther answered to the secret of the success of his reformation? I did nothing—the word did it all! In one sense that is true, if by “all” we mean the formation of that DNA of spiritual life. However, what if the situation is total resistance for years on end by one’s fellow leadership? Based on the lessons I thought myself to be learning, I reasoned, “Well, I’ll preach my way out of this.”

All of that is to say: Do not take the lesson of the means in the wrong way. There is nothing deficient in the means; but there are other means that need to be joined to the word. Sometimes those means are church discipline, or at least some good old fashion rebuke to prevent matters from accelerating to the need for corrective discipline.

Getting back to the individual life, and then moving on the corporate life of the body, chief among the spiritual means accompanying the word is prayer. Therefore our answer includes it.

The word is spiritual. It takes the Holy Spirit to illuminate it. Jesus’ promise in John 15 that He will lead us into all truth, or the prayer of Psalm 36:9, “In your light, we see light.” 

There any many prayers in Scripture. “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Ps. 119:18).

What about where Paul says that he prays, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know …” (Eph. 1:17-18)

Then, it says, there is faith and love joined to the word.

We saw last time that the means of grace would be mere objects in the world if the Holy Spirit did not cause inward grace to be united to outward means. So, specifically about the word we are told,

“For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened” (Heb. 4:2).

Likewise with love. You cannot take truth into the soul unto eternal life without love. When Paul spoke of those who would be deceived by antichrist, it explains the reason in this way: “because they refused to love the truth and so be saved” (2 Thess. 2:10)

There is an anticipation for the word that can only grow by use: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Pet. 2:2-3).

Application

By “application” here I mean both internally and externally, as it says in our answer here: lay it up in our hears and practice it in our lives. 

Use 1. INSTRUCTION. The nature of the word and its imperatives show us why the word is the primary means of grace over the sacraments, over prayer, and over church discipline, or anything else in the life of the body one could name. This was the case for Paul where he said, “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel” (1 Cor. 1:17). The sacraments may dramatize the gospel, but the word is the script. 

As G. I. Williamson said about this, 

“A man who had never known about Christ could witness the sacrament of baptism and still know nothing about Christ, if he did not also hear the word with the sacrament. The sacraments depend upon the word. But the word is intelligible in itself.”3

This is crucially important as well for church discipline, church government, evaluating marks of the church, worship. The word structures these and determines what is most true in these. 

Use 2. ADMONITION. The word of God is a preventative against sin. We read it and hear it specifically to crowd out the allure of sin: “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you” (Ps. 119:11). That “two-edged sword” of Hebrews 4:12 comes to mind here. 

Use 3. EXHORTATION. The word is for doing. We’ll see this in the sermon today as well with the two sons—not just I WILL, or I GO, but to have that mind-change that goes. Where does that come from?

“As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience” (Lk. 8:15).

“But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing” (Jas. 1:25).

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1. Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, I:116-117.

2. Calvin, Institutes, I.7.5.

3. Williamson, The Westminster Shorter Catechism, 288.