Go Where God Is

Do you desire fellowship with your Heavenly Father, a greater conformity to the likeness of Jesus, and a more fruitful life by the power of the Spirit? There is no better place to begin than with your Bible.

I mentioned this week that as the early church councils met and creeds were formed to deal with heresies, the understanding of Jesus as fully God and fully man was carefully articulated. The following is one such creed, formed as the result of the Council of Chalcedon in 451.

Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body;

of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin;

as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer;

one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation;

the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ;

even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.

Obviously, getting doctrinal clarity on the humanity and divinity of Jesus was important and warrants such and exhaustive consideration and creed. Yet, you probably are not daily thanking God that the Council of Chalcedon got that all straightened out. You may not even know why it really matters if we come to a consensus on such things—but theology matters. All true theology is practical theology.

Consider the correlation to your understanding of the nature of the Bible. Like Jesus, the nature of Scripture is comprised of humanity and divinity—”the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one.” This is one reason the Bible is uniquely capable to speak to the depths of your own soul in ways no other book can. ”The word of God is living and active… piercing to the division of soul and of spirit… discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). The Bible is not only how God speaks to you, it is also the source of your new life ”since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” (1 Peter 1:23).

Kevin DeYoung has a related post, by the same title The Word and the Word where he states:

In all these passages we see that we should approach the words of God as we would approach God himself. God does not just communicate through his word; he is present in his word. God’s speech doesn’t simply describe God; it is the instantiation of God. God is where his word is.

It must be remembered that doctrine is meant to serve us, not just occupy us with theological hair-splitting. The doctrines regarding Scripture and the Savior are no different. If you need to hear from God, commune with God, wrestle with God, find God, be born of God, or transformed by God—then go where God is.