Person or Book? Christ or Bible?

Although it’s a very wrong-headed way of thinking, it sometimes seems to be supposed that we must choose between a Christianity that is focused on a person or a book, Christ or the Bible.

Tim Ward describes the way in which the orthodox Evangelical doctrine of Scripture might sometimes be seen to represent an implicit challenge to the supremacy of Jesus Christ, the subject-matter of Scripture, who is actually present in its reading and proclamation. Ultimately it might be thought, one cannot serve two masters; one must choose between Christ and Scripture, between Christology and the doctrine of Scripture as the content of God’s speech.

John Barton puts it simply:

‘Christians are not those who believe in the Bible, but those who believe in Christ.’

People of the Book? The Authority of the Bible in Christianity (London, SPCK, 1988), p83

Ward, Timothy, Word and Supplement: Speech Acts, Biblical Texts, and the Sufficiency of Scripture (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002) p289

This is a false dilemma. Jesus rules his people by his word. The Bible is God speaking. God's people believe the speaking God and trust in the real Jesus who is the Christ of history and of Scripture.

Warfield seems to have anticipated the sort of criticism Barton seems to be making and which Ward is describing. Warfield’s response is convincing:

Christianity is often called a book-religion. It would be more exact to say that it is a religion which has a book. Its foundations are laid by apostles and prophets, upon which its courses are built up in the sanctified lives of men; but Jesus Christ alone is the chief corner-stone. He is its only basis; he, its only head; and he alone has authority in his Church. But he has chosen to found his Church not directly by his own hands, speaking the word of God, say for instance, in thunder-tones from heaven; but through the instrumentality of a body of apostles, chosen and trained by himself, endowed with gifts and graces from the Holy Ghost, and sent forth into the world as his authoritative agents for proclaiming a gospel which he placed within their lips and which is none the less his authoritative word, that it is through them that he speaks.

Selected Shorter Writings, ed. Meeter, John E., vol 2, (Nutley, NJ, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1973) p537