THE THREE DANGERS OF DEFINING "THE WORD OF GOD" AS "THE BIBLE"
1) THE OBJECTIFICATION OF GOD. God becomes an "IT" rather than a "YOU." God becomes a "literal commandment" rather than a "personal presence." When we objectify any living being, we fail to behold them in our minds and hearts as subjective beings with thoughts, histories, mysteries and emotions. We end up reducing them exclusively to the level of an object.
Imagine a table. A table is a collection of molecules, an "object" in other words. "It" does not care if you look at it, love it, hate it, compare it to other tables, pick it up, or even damage it. There is NO true subject-to-subject interaction with that table. The table is a clinical "IT" which leaves US as the only living "I" in the situation.
Like a lonely cave explorer who yells in empty caverns just so he can hear his own echo, we wrongly read "caverns" of Scripture just to hear the echo of our own empty opinion bouncing back at us about what the proper reading of God's rules are and what they mean. We end up worshipping our own opinions about the Bible.
When we objectify God, we are really killing Him from being a living presence in our minds and hearts. This leaves US as the only "I" in our relationship with God. We end up viewing God as nothing more than a table, except that this table has rules carved all over it with a pen knife, rules which we have allowed to become "the word of God." The Old Testament might call it a "ta-baal" rather than a "table," because we end up worshipping the table/Bible as a dead wooden idol. These idols in the Old Testament were called "Baals." Or we might call the Bible a "Bi-baal" IF the reading of it OBJECTIFIES our image of God into mere "dead letter" RULES.
But these RULES don't hear us, don't Father us, don't forgive us, don't smile at us. Rules don't love us, hold us, comfort us or exhort us. They don't weep tears of compassion for us. They don't rejoice over us with laughter and dancing. All RULES do is snare us into pigeonholing everything we encounter with quick and shallow judgments, opinions or doubts. We substitute rules for relationship, literalism for love, and opinion for illumination.
We end up worshipping a dry document instead of a dynamic personality. How do we tell if this error has infected us to any degree? Right now, without pause, what comes to your mind when you hear the term "the word of God?" IF the Bible comes to your mind before Jesus does, before the indwelling Holy Spirit does, before God's anointing does "according to the power which worketh is in us," then you are infected to some degree.
Habakkuk 2:18-19 and Daniel 5:23 speak of how anything, even Temple objects, can become idols which listen not, speak not and help not. They end up keeping us from giving true glory to God. Consider the Nehushtan example in Numbers 21:5-9 and 2 Kings 18:4. What once had been an instrument of God's deliverance, the pole with the bronze serpent affixed to it, eventually became an OBJECTIFIED idol which the people trusted in RATHER than the presence of the living God. King Hezekiah saw that it had to be destroyed so that the people could reconnect with the dynamic presence of God.
Really, idolatry is, at its root, the OBJECTIFICATION of God into some lifeless object which we are then ultimately unable to interact with in any meaningful way. It can be a holy relic like the Nehushtan, or a holy ritual like repetitive liturgy, or a holy place like high church buildings, or even, and perhaps especially, a Holy Bible. Whenever a "thing" becomes our focused priority over and before the Spirit who indwells us, then we have OBJECTIFIED God and are engaging in some form of IDOLATRY.
2) THE IDOLATRY OF THE BIBLE. We worship the "dead letter" of Scripture over the "living Spirit." 2 Corinthians 3; Isaiah 28:13; John 5:39. The Bible becomes a "PAPER POPE" whose written rules form the ring we must continually kiss to prove our love for God. The Bible is there to point our souls to God, not to replace Him as the OBJECT of our devotion, focus and faith.
3) THE EXALTATION OF NATURAL THINKING. The Bible calls the man ruled by natural thinking a "SOULISH MAN" ruled by doubt, opinion, conclusions and reason. This man is ruled by rules ----- his own or others. Rules are prejudgments that preempt the participation of the Spirit. "Rules thinking" ends up blocking and replacing the fellowship and communion of the Spirit. 1 Corinthians 2:12-16; James 3:15; Colossians 2:20- 3:1-2 (read carefully).
HOW TO AVOID THE DANGER
"Let the WORD of Christ DWELL IN YOU richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." Colossians 3:16. In other words, prioritize your use of the term "THE WORD OF GOD" to ALWAYS refer to "CHRIST IN YOU." Start here. Finish here. And never again will you objectify God into a holy book, holy building or holy ritual.
Scripture is great. Buildings can be a blessing. Rituals can help us remember the Lord. But these things are NOT the Lord. Jesus is Lord! Jesus is the Logos! Jesus is God in us, the hope of glory. The Bible, when rightly read, points only and always to the indwelling Spirit. Buildings, when used for God, remind us we are all individual temples of the Holy Ghost. Rituals, when performed in faith, ALWAYS stir us to remember the Kingdom of God is "within" us. Hallelujah!
