At odds with God. . .

There are those seem intent upon driving a wedge between Christ and His Word.  It is a curiously strange idea that has somehow become almost normative among those who like the tools of higher criticism.  But it is also surely a rather Don Quixotic task that will end in unbelief and apostasy.  For everything the Lord does is to identify Himself as the Word who fulfills the Word and whose Word speaks His voice still.  If anything, Jesus insists that there is no reason to have the Word or pay any attention to it unless it speaks with His voice.  So in this way the outcome of higher criticism is to end up with no Jesus at all -- or at least one unrecognizable to Scripture or the Father from whom the Son is eternally begotten.

As we approach the season in which we recall and rejoice in our Lord's incarnation, it is precisely the written Word that shines light upon the stable and manger to know who was born there and what His birth means.  The work of the angels sings in confession of that Word made flesh.  The shepherds come to meet Him who is born, the Word in flesh.  The Magi show up from Gentile origins to meet Him who in flesh fulfills the promise once given that through the offspring of Abraham shall all the nations of the world be blessed.  The written word always directs us to its author -- the Word made flesh.

The Scriptures are either the cradle of Christ or they are words of nonsense and confusion.  Christ is not ancillary to the Word but He is the key through which the darkness and veiled is enlightened and lifted.  How odd it is, then, for those who think themselves servant of the Word either to encourage or demand a distance of the Christ from Scripture.  It is clear that our Lord envisions no such distance.  He opened the Scriptures on the Emmaus Road and to the apostles as He ascended by showing that they spoke of Him.  Pay attention to that.  The Word made flesh opened the written Word to show that they testify to Him.  

The legacy of introducing such distance between the historical Jesus and the Christ of the Scriptures is to leave us with questions and doubts about who Jesus is and to wonder if we can ever answer that question.  For those churches for whom Scripture is not the authority, it is perhaps a relief not to have to bother with the written Word and to invent a Christ aloof and distinct from -- even against -- the Word on the page.  But for orthodox Christianity, the Word is how we know who Jesus is, what Jesus has done, and come to faith (by the Holy Spirit working through that Word).  Put any distance between Christ and His Word and faith itself is rendered uncertain.  The higher critics have placed such distance between Christ and His Word precisely so that the Word can be treated as any earthly book and its truth made subject to the reason and preferences of the moment.  Only in this way can any justification be found for modernity and its support for everything from same sex marriage to the gender fluidity/identity curiosity that has captured the imagination of the liberal churches.  Indeed, the outcome of distancing Christ from His Word is to turn the focus of that Word from Him and His salvation and onto us and our desires.