JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

72
The Neoorthodox View (Karl Barth and Emil Brunner) and to some extent the
Neoliberal View (Rudolph Bultmann) sees the Bible as a thoroughly human book. Yet unlike
the old or classical liberal view the Bible is not only the record of subjective, human experience;
it is primarily the witness to the revelation of God in the person of His Son Jesus Christ. As
"witness" the Bible is merely a human document and thus is fallible (though Karl Barth found
great reluctance in pointing out any errors and proposed that such an enterprise was too difficult,
too subjective and useless), yet when God's Spirit uses this witness and brings it "home" to us,
this human and fallible witness becomes God's Word, God's revelation to us. The Bible, then,
becomes rather than is, God's Word.
This means that the authority of the Bible is relative and absolute at the same time. On
the one hand its authority is relative since it is a human witness to revelation. On the other hand
revelation takes place when it pleases God to speak through this witness by His Spirit. Thus
authority is absolute when God Himself addresses us.
Barth has correctly warned conservatives of finding in the Bible a mere textbook of
dogmatic truth rather than a living attestation of Jesus Christ. He has justifiably warned against
losing sight of Jesus Christ as the true theme and center of the Bible and pointed out the tendency
of fundamentalists and evangelicals to show little interest and appreciation for the
illumination of the Holy Spirit and His work.
Barthian expert Geoffrey Bromiley points out that Barth's resistance to any static
conception of Scripture whereby the written text is abstracted either from God or from His Word
shows that Barth tends to ascribe
". . . more validity to the present inspiring of Scripture by the Spirit in its reading
and hearing, although he finds satisfactory objectivity both in the person of the
Holy Spirit and also in the authors as the unique witnesses to Christ who are
given a place in the event of revelation itself."2
Thus Barth finds "inerrancy" (without error) both irrelevant and misleading. Yet, while
he believes in the possibility of error, he sees no absolute position, no superior platform, from
which to establish actual errors and gives no place to conjecture about alleged mistakes or
difficulties. Therefore, as Bromiley points out, he really does "not follow his own rule and
deduce the possibility of error from its reality!"3
The evangelical or classical view sees the Bible as the Word of God. Although it is the
Word of God in the words of men, God Himself speaks to us in these human words. One of the
clearest expositions of this view is given by B. B. Warfield of Princeton Seminary earlier in this
century in his volume The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible. The Bible is not "man's report
to us of what God says, but the very Word of God itself, spoken by God himself through human
lips and pens."4