The Word of God Is Alive and Produces Life

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One of the many statements that the Bible makes concerning itself is that it is a living Word. In Philippians 2:16 Paul calls it the “word of life.” Hebrews 4:12 says, “The word of God is living and powerful.” 

 Here in 1 Peter 1:23, it is “the word of God which lives and abides forever.” There are no more significant statements that refer to the Bible than these. It is through this living Word that we are born again and made alive spiritually. And it is through the living Word that we grow up into Christ.

The Word of God Is Alive and Produces Life

The Word of God is the only thing we know of, apart from the Trinity itself, that is alive in an eternal sense. In the world around us the things we call “living” are really dying. What we call “the land of the living” is probably better called “the land of the dying” because wherever you look, death is doing its work of decay and destruction. In the final analysis, death is the monarch of this world. Against this background of decay and death, the Word of God stands forth as really being alive. The corruption of this world cannot touch God’s Word; it cannot remove its validity; it cannot deteriorate its reality; it cannot decay its truth.

God’s Word is alive in a truer sense than you and I are alive. As Peter quotes Isaiah 40:6–8: “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the LORD endures forever” (1 Pet. 1:24, 25).

One of the many indications of the life in God’s Word is its perennial freshness. In every generation, to every person who picks it up, the Bible is alive, living, and fresh. Every time I read the Book of Colossians I gain new excitement and fresh insights.

Something else that says God’s Word is alive is that it is never obsolete. In the back of libraries, you can find all of the old, obsolete textbooks. But the timeless truths of the Bible never become obsolete. They are as up to date as the next generation of men and women who need its message so desperately.

And one of the most convincing reasons to call the Word of God alive is its power. The Bible is a discerner of hearts. Scripture has a living insight into me that makes me shake. Through the Bible the Holy Spirit is able to split me wide open and reveal to me my faults, my needs, my weakness—my sins. No wonder Hebrews 4:12 tells us: “The word of God is… sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit,… and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

Most important, the Word of God is alive because it produces growth. As 1 Peter 1:23 points out, “having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.” The great mystery of any living being is its power to reproduce. And reproduce, says Peter, is exactly what the Word of God does. The only way to be a “son of God” is to be born by the Word of God. When the Word of God is truly heard, and sincerely received into a heart that has been prepared by God, that Word, quickened by the Holy Spirit, becomes a spiritual seed that is imperishable or incorruptible. That seed is the germ of a new creation, and it springs into life by making the hearer who believes a son of God.

Jesus illustrates the same concept in His parable of the sower in Luke 8. The farmer goes out to sow, and some seed lands on the path, some on rocky soil, somewhere weeds spring up, and some on good ground that produces much more. As He explains the parable to His disciples, Jesus says: “The seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved” (Luke 8:11, 12).

The one ingredient a person must have to believe and be saved is God’s Word. Naturally, it is the one ingredient that Satan wants to take away. If Satan fails to take it away, life results. Note Jesus’ words in Luke 8:15: “But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.” For one more scriptural confirmation of the power of the Word to bring life, see John 6:63: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” The Word of God, in the hand of the Holy Spirit, is the critical life-giving agent. The Spirit of God, using the Word of God, produces life.


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