Board index ‹ Bible

[Yummy Yummy]

Is the Bible a message (whether direct or indirect) from God?

This is a straightforward question that I’ve always understood to be a simple yes.

Please explain if you say no. And if you say yes, can you explain whether it is a direct or indirect message?

[jimwalton]

Yes. (a simple yes)

The Bible is God's revelation of Himself. God has a plan in history that he is sovereignly executing. The goal of that plan is for him to be in relationship with the people whom He has created. It would be difficult for people to enter into a relationship with a God whom they do not know. If His nature were concealed, obscured, or distorted, an honest relationship would be impossible. In order to clear the way for this relationship, then, God has undertaken as a primary objective a program of self-revelation. He wants people to know him. The Bible (through the covenant, Israel, and eventually Jesus) is the mechanism that drives this program of self-revelation.

> can you explain whether it is a direct or indirect message?

It's both. Sometimes God communicates directly (a voice, a theophany, the person of Jesus), and sometimes God communicates indirectly (through acts of history, through people's decisions, etc.).

[Loser]

Does this mean that God has or had no relationship with his creation up to a certain point in time?

And why does God need a plan? I mean, he could just do things without much preparation, right?

[jimwalton]

> Does this mean that God has or had no relationship with his creation up to a certain point in time?

Thanks for asking. No, it doesn't mean that God had no relationship with His creation up to that point. God *always* has a relationship with His creation. On the 7th day, when God came to "rest," (Gn. 2.1-3), it means that God came to live there and to engage His creation. In addition to that, Hebrews 1.3 says that God continually sustains (maintains) all creation. God never stops interacting with creation, nature, and people, and always is in some kind of relationship with everything He has made.

> And why does God need a plan? I mean, he could just do things without much preparation, right?

Time and matter necessitate both process and progress. In a dynamic environment such as our cosmos (matter and time), change, motion, and development are inevitable. Because things are always in a state of flux, if God is truly intentional and purposeful, along with being omniscient, a plan of at least some import (not everything has to be planned) is essential to carrying out one's will or intent.

[Loser]

Then the concept of a "plan" is a mere anthropomorphic term and concept, isn't it?

[jimwalton]

No, I wouldn't say so. The plan is legitimate and not just a human-like way of describing God's actions. I don't read the Bible as saying that everything is God's plan (I read it to be saying quite the opposite), or even that He has a plan for everyone's life, though there a places and pieces where He obviously does have a plan.

But to me the most obvious plan God has is the plan of salvation, and that's a river that courses through the whole Bible. From the Garden of Eden to the New Jerusalem, via the covenant and through the blood of Christ, God initiated and executed a plan to save people from their sins, and that plan will not be thwarted. This is not just some anthropomorphic expression but instead is a genuine plan that has been so from creation and He will bring it to completion in the eschaton.