Editor's Comments

Walter J. Chantry


'The Word of God is not bound' (2 Tim. 2:9b)! This magnificent world of material objects and spiritual creatures in which we live is a product of the Word of God. 'By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth . . . For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded and it stood fast' (Psa. 33:6, 9). So too has the Word of God shaped the entire history of mankind: 'The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect. The counsel of the Lord stands forever' (Psa. 33:10-11).

Holy Scripture is the God-breathed words of the Almighty in human language (2 Tim. 3:16). Its words are not only a disclosure of God's will to the human mind. The Bible itself is a divine force of awesome dimensions. Holy Scriptures 'are able to make sinners wise for salvation' (2 Tim. 3:15). The word translated 'able' means Scripture is endowed with power to do this. God's words accomplish everlasting consequences in men.

This divine dynamite of God's Word cannot be tamed by man or shackled by human devices. 'My word . . . shall accomplish what I please' (Isa. 55:4), says the Lord! As Paul was being restrained in a Roman prison and kept from apostolic activity, he comforted his heart by the fact that 'the word of God is not bound'. This Word of God needs no human defence. It need only be turned loose and it will change men, nations, and the course of history, and it will shape eternity. By God's Word nations and cultures have been transformed. Mere translation of Holy Scripture into a language, and distribution of The Book to common men, produce holy revolutions. Even now, in such regions as Africa and the Far East, the power of God's Word is proving itself uncontainable and unstoppable by human devices.

The history of every conversion must focus on God's Word having come to us. We have 'been born again through the word of God which lives and abides forever' (1 Pet. 1:23). What text, what preaching of the Word, did God use in your instance? Early Church Fathers spreading the Word in Greek or Latin, Lollards spreading the Word in English, and Luther translating the Word into German were all used as instruments. But the 'living and powerful' (Heb. 4:12) Word of God is the dynamo which cannot be bridled. God has breathed it. All his purposes will be accomplished by the breath of his mouth.


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