Genocide, Biblicism, And Why We Need to Stop Insisting That The Bible Is The Word Of God

I’ve said this before and it’s gotten me into some trouble, but CS Lewis said it too as have a bunch of other people so come at me, HA! - the Bible isn’t the Word of God, but Jesus is.

Read that again:

The Bible isN’T the Word of God.

BUT.

Jesus is.

It seems like a radical statement, but follow me here. Growing up I was taught that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God - maybe you were too?

You know …

It’s perfect.

It’s written by God.

It’s literal.

It’s never to be questioned.

In other words, it’s a perfect book written by a perfect God and it records the perfect words he spoke, the perfect ways he acted, and the perfect and wonderful things he did and still does or can do today. It never contradicts itself and if it does it’s because we’re reading it wrong - end of story.

In my experience in a private Christian school, Bible college, seminary, and a bazillion years of Sunday school, Vacation Bible School, Youth Group … it was almost like the Bible was elevated to the 4th place of the Trinity so that we had the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit AND then the Bible hovering above them all like a Magical Puppeteer dictating how we’re supposed to live and what we’re supposed to believe regarding God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, faith and … all the things.

But.

I don’t know.

I think those of us living in that world or with that sort of view of the Bible have it all wrong. The fancy word for someone who aligns with the above description of the Bible is a “biblicist”, and I used to be one. I used to be the person who believed all the stuff I just said about the Bible and then some.

I believed the earth was 6,000 years old (don’t hate me).

I believed that Adam and Eve were real people and the human race came from them.

I believed that Noah really had an ark.

David really killed Goliath.

Elijah really went up in a Chariot of Fire.

Jesus really walked on water.

The there really is an Anti-Christ who is going to brand us with 666.

Yeah, that was me. And on top of all of that I memorized my systematic theology books and apologetics books, I believed that the Bible was the perfect and inerrant and infallible Word of God. I believed it contained no contradictions and that it was literal and perfect in every way. And if you came at me with any sort of disagreement to any of those things I had enough verses memorized and books stored in the rolodex of my brain that I could dismantle your argument in about 30 seconds.

Now, though … I’ve grown and evolved and changed and as I look back on that older version of me I cringe a bit, bless that young me’s soul, and can’t help but wonder if a staunch Biblicist can actually be a Christian? And if he or she can be a Christian (that was a little harsh, I know), I’m not too sure it’ll be a very good one.

Why?

Because as a Biblicist I believed the that the Bible was the Word of God as opposed to Jesus, whom (ironically) the Bible calls the Word of God.

Right?

Like, the Bible never calls itself the Word of God. Did you know that? That might sound weird and unbelievable, but go ahead and read it or do a Google search - you’ll never a find a place where the Bible refers to itself as the Word of God.

BUT.

It most certainly does refer to Jesus as the Word of God (John 1 is a good place to start) and it never gives that title to anyone or anything else.

And so as I reflect back on the days when I believed that the Bible was the Word of God, I realize now how it became very easy for me to elevate the Bible to a place that was equal to or sometimes higher than the words that came from the mouth of Jesus.

After all, Jesus only gets the stage in 4 books, right?

Matthew.

Mark.

Luke.

And John.

There’re 62 other books and so if those 62 other books show God behaving in a way that’s even slightly different than the way Jesus behaved.

Well.

It’s still the Word of God, it’s still on the table, and it’s still a holy and godly way to behave - no matter how un-Jesus-like it might be.

And this is dangerous, right?

Because there are places in the Bible where we see God commanding genocide and we see places in the Bible where God is demanding sacrifice, and demanding bloodshed, and acting in ways that are, quite frankly, very different from the ways in which we see Jesus carrying himself in the Gospels.

To put it plainly, as a Biblicist every action that the Bible says God took becomes an action that God actually took and very well might take again if he so well pleases and so if God, for example, commanded genocide in the book of Joshua as he told Israel to march into Canaan and slay all the men, women, children, and animals, then God might very well command us to do the same today.

He might command us to march into Iraq and kill all the Muslims.

He might command us to march into the streets and put an end to BLM protests.

He might command us to __________.

… “That might sound horrible”, a Biblicist would say, “but it is in the Bible, so … “

You see, when you read the Bible like a Biblicist where the Bible is elevated to the place that it only reserves for Jesus, you can justify keeping all sorts of Anti-Christ cards in your back pocket such as war, genocide, murder, the death penalty, patriotism, and more.

And so what if the Bible isn’t so much an inerrant rule book that was written by the divine hand of God? What if it’s, instead, a collection of stories that reflect the journey of a people trying to figure out what it means to walk with the Divine? And what if the culmination of what it looks like for humanity to walk with the Divine is found in Christ, the very Word of God … the one that the Bible points us to again and again and again?

Let’s keep going with the What Ifs …

What if God didn’t actually command the Israelites to march into Canaan and kill all the men, women, children, and animals?

What if, instead, that’s what they thought God told them to do?

And what if they thought God told them to do that because all of the nations around them believed that the gods were gods of war and violence and bloodshed?

And so what if it was only natural for the people of Israel to assume that their God would act in the same way as the gods of the neighboring nations?

And what if when the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us (John 1), what if the Word (Jesus), then, came to show us that such a previous understanding of God was way off base?

And what if you and I can actually be somewhat encouraged by all of that because a lot of times we act just like the Israelites and make God in our own image, insisting that he fits into and acts and behaves in the same way that we do in this world?

Like.

What if we can find ourselves in the pages of the Bible …

As we go about making God in our worldly image to satisfy our worldly purposes and acts of war and violence?

As we make him lobby for our presidential candidate?

As we force him into boxes he doesn’t quite fit in?

… What if this can be encouraging because it shows us that we’re just like the Israelites and need the Word to become flesh just as they did so that we can see who God really is as opposed to who we think he is?

Yes.

And what if that great need can draw us deeper into the Gospels, deeper into the stories of Jesus, to see things and learn things and grasp things that just might forever change the world and move the whole inverse forward?

What if we stop reading the stories of Jesus through the lens of the Old Testament and the writings of Paul and the prophets and we, instead, start reading the Old Testament, Paul, and the prophets through the lens of the Word of God? What if we stop forcing Jesus to submit to the larger context of the Bible and make the larger context of the Bible submit to Jesus, the Christ, the Word of God?

What if?

What might change?

How might we read the Bible differently?

Might this be a better and more faithful way to engage the texts of the Bible? I think so.

Much love,