Dr. Bingham’s Lesson for July 11, 2010
Series on The Nature of Scripture
“God Talks” – Genesis 1
What would it be like if the Creator of all things chose to keep silent? What would it be like if God gave us the silent treatment?
This would be the exact opposite from the God we encounter in the Holy Scriptures. We find out in the very first chapter that the Creator of all things is a talking God. To be silent is entirely contrary to God’s nature. In fact, we see in the first chapter of Genesis that God brings everything into existence by speaking it into being. All through Genesis we find that God cannot keep silent. He is a speaking God.
God even calls His Son “the Word of God.” (John 1:1)
2 Timothy 3:16 – Everything you need to do every good work that God expects of you is to be found in the scriptures. You don’t need private dreams or visions or a private word or for God to whisper something to you. Everything you need is between the beginning of Genesis and the end of Revelation. Because God is a speaking God, His words become for us our very life, strength, and breath to live the life that He intends for us.
2 Peter is a broadly addressed letter, to all Christians. Chapter 1 tells us that what we need to be complete in Jesus Christ is a God speaking, revealing, manifesting, prophesying, declaring God. The body of the letter begins in verse 3 and sounds very much like 2 Timothy 3:16. We have been supplied with everything we need for life and Godliness. Peter declares that everything originated from God’s divine power, but it is by our knowledge of Him through His word that we receive His promises and through them “participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world.” It is our comprehension of God and His Son that gives us everything we need for life and Godliness. In this chapter, we find the apostle to the Jews in agreement with the apostle to the Gentiles, that everything we need for life and Godliness has been given to us. Peter and Paul both bring us back to the word of the prophets and God’s promises through them.
Peter further reveals that God’s mere words have the power to transform our lives. Conversely, we also know that a single word withheld or spoken in thoughtlessness or malice can drive a person to utter despair, death, or even hell. The power of the promises of God is life-giving. His words can ween you from your evil desires and cause you to escape the corruption of the world and participate in the divine nature which enters your life and transforms you from what you were to what you should be because words are powerful. If you have a time in your life when you think God is giving you the silent treatment, remember it is not God keeping silent but rather you not inquiring of the words God has already spoken.
Because of God’s promises to us we can and must add to ourselves the virtues listed in verses 5 and 6.
In verses 12 – 15, Peter is anticipating his death, which tradition says took place in Rome as a martyr’s death. This is the same situation in which Paul wrote in his second letter to Timothy; Paul was anxious to impress on Timothy that the scriptures are able to give him everything he needs for life and godliness. And that is exactly what burdens Peter’s heart in his second letter. In verse 16, Peter reminds his listeners that he and the apostles did not deliver to them any kind of cleverly invented story or fable but they spoke the words of Jesus as they heard them and presented the things Jesus did as they saw Him do them. On the day of Jesus’ transfiguration, Peter heard God declare Jesus to be His son and the words God spoke are in Psalm 2:7. In the same way that the promise of Psalm 2 was fulfilled, you can depend on every other promise and every other word spoken by God to be fulfilled. Psalm 2 also points to Isaiah 42.
In verse 19, Peter declares that we have “the word of the prophets made more certain” and that we ought to pay attention. Their words are more certain because the apostles have seen them fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Furthermore, in verse 21, we find that the words of the prophets are reliable because they did not speak out of their own will but they were moved by the Holy Spirit to speak the very words of God. The reason the scriptures can transform you out of your evil desires and from corruption into incorruption is because they do not find their origin in human beings but in the One divine being, God, who through the third Person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit, makes sure that when the prophet writes or speaks his words do not come from within himself. Everything the prophets spoke are the very words of the God whom we see speaking in the first chapter of Genesis. The words of God are just as powerful in your life as they were to bring light into being, just as powerful to free you from your evil desires as the word of God was to separate the water from the land, and just as powerful in your life to change you and transform you from a corruptible thing into an incorruptible thing as the word of God was to fill the heavens and the earth. God’s word is life-giving. The word of God is sanctifying as well as saving. You have need of nothing else.
