“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
Genesis 1:1
And how exactly did God do this most profound act of creation? He did it with His words. He spoke the world into existence. Unlike our words, God’s words have power to create, change, and destroy. Where we need to combine elements to create or turn on a switch or light a fire to bring a greater light; God simply speaks and things come into existence. We see this familiar refrain throughout the creation account, “And God said…”
But God’s words do not stop at the act of creating. Not only does God speak things into existence He gives them their names. That is, God called the light Day, the darkness Night, the firmament Heaven, and the land Earth. We only name the things we have authority over, the things we are responsible for. God’s naming of creation shows His lordship over creation.
God also determines the bounds and standard of what is good, true, and beautiful by means of His words. At the end of each day, God saw that what He had made with His words was good. God’s words create good things, and not only good in the sense of ice-cream tastes good or a sunset looks good but also in the sense of ontological good, good in its very being. Good things of this sort are also true and beautiful.
Finally, God, with His words, declares what is moral when He commands Adam not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God creates things with His words. He names things with His words. He creates and names good things with His words, and finally, He declares what is moral with His words.
Scripture is all these things to us. It is creative in that it makes new creatures where old things pass away and all things become new. He names us and names sin with the words of Scripture, thus showing His lordship over us and over sin. In point of fact, “confession” is homologew, which is to use the same word as God does about sin. The Scripture produces the good of faith in the heart of the believer via the good of regeneration and continues a good work through the Scriptures via sanctification. Finally, the Scriptures tell us what is moral because God’s words are the standard, the canon of moral judgment.
And lest we forget, the Scripture speaks of itself in these terms in Hebrews 4:12,
“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and shaper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
Hebrews 4:12
The word of God, Scripture, is alive and powerful in itself. It is the good, true, and beautiful sword that pierces even to the soul, and is the discerner of moral thoughts and intentions coming from the very center of a man’s being. In sum, the reason for this is that the words of Scripture are of the same kind as the words God spoke at creation.
Standard Sacred Text.com 