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256 How Are the Christian Scriptures Confirmed by the Peculiar Glory of God?
probably have a significant advantage over those who were there, because
we have the whole inspired apostolic interpretation of the events
in the New Testament, whereas they were seeing things much more
incrementally.
We should never think that Paul thought of his inspired portrayal
of Christ (1 Cor. 2:13) as limited to a fraction of his message called
“the gospel.” In one sense, Paul saw all that he did as unfolding and
clarifying aspects and implications of the gospel (1 Cor. 2:1–2). And
it is clear from the way he spoke of his own authority that he saw all
of his official teaching as God-given and having final authority (1 Cor.
14:37–38). When he was leaving the Ephesian elders, he said their
blood was not on his hands—that is, if they failed to see and believe
the truth of Christ, he was not responsible—because “I did not shrink
from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). It was
not some part of his message that they were responsible to believe but
the wholeness of it.
Therefore, when I say that “beholding the glory of the Lord” happens
through “the word of the Lord” (1 Sam. 3:21), I am referring to
all of God’s inspired word. That is where the miracle of 2 Corinthians
3:18 happens: “Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed
into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”
Are We Made New by the Word or the Spirit?
The next step in pondering how the Scriptures are shown to be the word
of God by the way they display and create the glory of God in people’s
lives is to clarify something that may have been misleading in the previous
chapter on the miracles of Jesus. I argued that unless the human
heart is brought into tune with God’s will, it will never recognize the
truth and beauty of God’s peculiar glory in the miracles of Jesus. Jesus
said as much: “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether
the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority”
(John 7:17). If the human heart is in love with the praise of man,
it will not be able to see and believe in a Christ who lives and teaches a
radically different way of life. “How can you believe, when you receive
glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the
only God?” (John 5:44).