Thursday, May 28, 2020

G. Walter Hansen on "the Word of Life" (Philippians 2:16)

 

Holding forth to the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain. (Phil 2:16)

 

Some Protestant apologist, in an attempt to support Sola Scriptura, engage in what I call “The Word of God = the Bible” fallacy, wherein “Word of God” and similar terms are said to be one-to-one equivalent to “the Bible.” There are many problems with this, and I discuss this in the section commenting on Prov 30:5-6 (cf. Psa 119:89) in Not By Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura (cf. Adolf Von Harnack on the meaning of “The Word of God”). As one Protestant apologist wrote against this apologetic:

 

[T]here is a difference between the Word of God, which is eternal (Psalm 119:89, 152, 160), and the Bible, which is not. The Bible is the Word of God written. If one were to destroy one paper Bible, or all paper Bibles, he would not have destroyed the eternal Word of God. One such example is given in Jeremiah 36. The prophet was told by God to write His words in a book, and to read it to the people. Wicked king Jehoiakim, not comfortable with what had been written, had the written Word destroyed. God then told the prophet to write the Word down again. The king had destroyed the written Word, but he had not destroyed God's Word. God's Word is eternal propositions that find expression in written statements. (W. Gary Crampton, By Scripture Alone: The Sufficiency of Scripture [Unicoi, Tenn.: The Trinity Foundation, 2002], 156)

 

In his commentary on Philippians, Protestant G. Walter Hansen wrote the following about “word of life” in Phil 2:16:

 

[Paul] often refers to the word as a synonym for the gospel he preaches (see 1;14; 1 Thess 1:5, 6, 8; 2:13; 1 Cor 1:18, 2:4; 2 Cor 2:17; 4:2; 5:19; 6:7). The word is about the life of Christ and generates life in all who hear and believe in Christ. The immediate reference of this expression in this context is the Christ hymn. Paul calls for the attitude of believers to be transformed by focusing on Christ (2:5-11). He urges the church to demonstrate their firm grasp of the message about Christ by the way they live out the life of Christ in their relationships with one another. This is another way of saying that believers in Christ are to live in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ by striving together with one accord for the faith of the gospel (1:27). Since the word of life is the source of life for the church, the existence of the church depends upon a firm grasp of the word of life. If the word of life is lost, the church will be like a black hole rather than a shining star in the world. (G. Walter Hansen, The Letters to the Philippians [The Pillar New Testament Commentary; Nottingham: Apollos, 2009], 184-85, italics in original)