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)
