“Dual Supremacy”

(Friends, I believe the theme of this particular message concerns perhaps the most important understanding we can embrace as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and the Scriptures.  Thanks, Glen).

"Dual Supremacy"

   

    Truth involves emphasis, particularly regarding two primary realities that must form our understanding and convictions.

    "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminence" (John 1:1; Colossians 1:18).

    "Thou hast magnified Thy Word above all Thy name… Thy Word is truth" (Psalm 138:2; John 17:17).

   We must exalt the Word of God, that is,  the living Word, the Lord Jesus, and the written Word, the Bible.  This is why our Lord called us to "worship Him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24).  God calls us to know Him in personal terms, as revealed to and within us by the Holy Spirit.  "The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God" (Romans 8:16).  We must also know Him in doctrinal and propositional terms, as proclaimed by the Scriptures.  "Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path" (Psalm 119:105).  Failure in either devotion to Christ or the Bible inevitably results in weakness regarding our relationship with God and subsequent walk in faith and faithfulness.  We must know Him and His Word in order to accurately and adequately worship the Lord, as enabled by the Holy Spirit's indwelling and instructing presence. 

   Maintaining the supremacy of both the living and written Word constitutes the greatest challenge we face in our walk with the Lord.  The Savior preeminent and the Scriptures paramount - we can measure devotion to God in ourselves and others by these dual parameters.  Indeed, a proper focus on the Lord Jesus will inevitably lead us to the Scriptures.  The Scriptures rightly received and interpreted will lead us to exalt the Lord Jesus.  Such emphasis not only serves as a barometer of our own walk with the Lord, but as a necessary lens through which we view communicators of Christ and the Word.  Any preacher, teacher, or writer who does not affix and maintain devotion to the preeminence of the person and work of the Lord Jesus must be avoided.  Moreover, any preacher, teacher, or writer who references Christ apart from the authority and doctrine of Scripture must also be given wide berth.  "In Thy light shall we see light" declared David (Psalm 36:9).  We see the light of Christ in the Bible, and we comprehend the Bible in the light of Christ.  The living Word.  The written Word.  The Word in all its glory, His glory, and the glory of God.  The dual supremacy of the living Lord Jesus and the light of the Bible must form and inform our concept of Truth and a life lived according to God's eternal purpose in Christ, as revealed in the Scriptures that exist to glorify and reveal the Son.

"Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of Me."

(John 5:39)

Weekly Memory Verse

   "In Him we live and move and have our being."

(Acts 17:28)