Don: Please define Logos, the Incarnate Word, the Written Scriptures, the Bible, the Rhema, and Precious Seed.
1. The Logos is Christ, the Word / Seed / Firstborn / Truth / Life. The Word of God is the Seed of all life. He has inherent power (John 1:1-4).
"In the beginning was the Word (logos), and the Word (logos) was with God, and the Word (logos) was God." - John 1:1
"The seed is the word (logos) of God." - Luke 8:11
"For the word (logos) of God is alive and powerful." - Hebrews 4:12
2. The Holy Spirit sowed this Logos / Word / Seed / Firstborn / Truth / Life into the womb of the chosen and prepared vessel, Mary, to produce the Incarnate Word, Jesus.
3. He sowed also this Logos / Word / Seed / Firstborn / Truth / Life in the minds of chosen and prepared vessels to produce/author the Written Scriptures, now canonized for us in the 66 books of the Bible.
4. The Rhema is the Truth communicated to us by the Holy Spirit through the Written Scriptures which calls us into relationship with Christ (this is more than an invitation, but the effectual call). It is the "sword of the Spirit" which penetrates our hearts (the soul) to produce in us conviction (faith) and repentance concerning God's provisions for our redemption, and is manifested as Light in a dark world and as Precious Seed sown in redemptive service to others and bearing fruit.
"So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word (rhema) of God." - Romans 10:17
"And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word (rhema) of God." - Ephesians 6:17
"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word (rhema)." - Ephesians 5:25-26
"If ye abide in me, and my words (rhema) abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." - John 15:7
"He who goes out weeping bearing precious seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying bundles of grain." - Psalm 126:6
5. The Holy Spirit sows this Logos / Word / Seed / Firstborn / Truth / Life into the human spirit of believers to birth in us the Life of Christ, the divine nature of God. This is the new birth.
"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word [logos] of God, which lives and abides forever." - I Peter 1:23).
Don Loy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 7J31
Don: Please explain again your comments on the Logos and the Rhema.
Christ, the Scripture
(the Bible), and the Rhema are each
the "Word of God" but with the following distinction:
Christ is the Living
Word of God, the Seed of God (John 1:1-2) who is Truth (John
14:6) – which was sown by the Holy Spirit into
- the void to produce the Creation (Genesis 1),
- the womb of the virgin Mary to produce the Incarnate (physical body of) Christ (Luke 1:34-38), and also
- the spirit and soul of man to produce the Life of God for regeneration and sanctification (James 1:18; John 17:17).
- first, to the 40 plus Writers through whom the Holy Spirit communicated Truth (the Rhema) to produce the Written Scripture (the Bible) – that which we hold in our hands and read),
- then, to us who read it, and
- also, through sanctified vessels God chooses to communicate it to others.
Don Loy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19E22
The Scripture: Provided by God, A Perfect Human Instrument
Although I have confidence that God protected and preserved for us the integrity of the Scripture so that we have a reliable and useful instrument through which the Holy Spirit can communicate Truth, the translations we hold in our hands (including the KJV) are works of man and not the same as the original manuscripts - which alone were/are inerrant. That is, the Holy Spirit did not guard over and supervise the very selection of words which man used to translate the original manuscripts in the way he superintended over the writers of those originals so that they were without error. (We can only speculate where the originals are. Maybe they are decayed. Maybe God has them archived in Heaven!)
Note: We do not want to miss understanding that The Scripture (the original manuscripts), while it is without error, is still a human instrument. (This, in the same way the incarnate body of Jesus was a human instrument, vehicle or vessel, through which God revealed himself to us [John 1:1-14]. Of course, his body was without sin, but still it was only human, fully flesh, bone, and blood, and not God. Otherwise, he could not have experienced death or pain.)
This means also that the Life of God's Word which is effectual and "does not return void, but accomplishes the purpose for which God gave it" is not the written text, but Christ, the Logos.
All that to say: It is the Rhema (the Word which the Holy Spirit communicates to us through The Scripture calling us into relationship to the Father through Christ, the Living Word or Logos of God), not the data of the text (ink on paper) in a translation or even the original manuscripts, to which we give our most attention to.
It is also the reason I believe we must rely mostly on the work of the Holy Spirit to teach us, and not the wording of a translation, as relevant as it is.
Don Loy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 10H02
Don Loy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 10H02
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