An exciting new book on Scripture

I received Revd Dr Timothy Ward’s Words of Life: Scripture as the living and active Word of God (IVP, 2009), which looks excellent, to review for Ecclesia Reformanda today. Pleasingly, “the Reformation maxim ecclesia semper reformanda” gets quoted with approval on p14.

The blurb on the IVP website, where you can also read an excerpt, is here.

And why bother to read a book before reviewing it?!

I dare not criticise a book which…

Peter Adam calls “… a landmark…. … splendid…. I thank God for it.”

Paul Helm calls “… very fine…. …. well-written, clear-headed, thoughtful and judicious”.

David Jackman says its “important”, so you better read it!

Donald Macleod calls it “a great read and a sterling work of scholarship. … comprehensive … rich … Text-book and treat”.

J. I. Packer calls it “well-informed and thoroughly thought through…. Rarely has a book on this subject stirred me to such emphatic agreement and admiration.”

Jonathan Stephens calls it “brilliantly conceived, academically aware and beautifully written.”

You get the idea! Now get the book! Only £6.59 on Amazon UK.

Fortunately, I’m not anticipating having to disagree.

There’s some stuff on the Bible’s view of the Bible and later on the kind of doctrinal headings you’d expect (necessity, sufficiency, clarity, authority) and it looks like you’ll get interesting stuff along the way (Preaching and a clear Bible; Diverse interpretations and a clear Bible). The book is practically oriented and particularly appealing is the chapter on ‘The Bible and Christian life: the doctrine of Scripture applied’ where there’s stuff on the church, preaching, the Spirit and the aim of Bible reading.

Revd Tim Ward is a Vicar in Leicestershire who trained at Oak Hill, no less!

Dr Ward knows his onions when it comes to the doctrine of the Bible. His 1999 PhD from Edinburgh under Kevin Vanhoozer resulted in Word and Supplement (OUP).

Devoted followers of Dr Ward’s work may wish to know that “earlier versions of some parts of this book have been previously published in” Word and Supplement; The Word Became Flesh; Reformed Theology in Contemporary Perspective and Spirit of Truth and Power. (p10)

Sadly no subject index – though at 186 pages its not a long book and it looks easy to find your way around.

In my copy there’s a sticker which says “ERRATUM Please note that all page number entries in the indexes [author & Scripture, that is] should be increased by 2.”

Ward examines the doctrine of Scripture first from the contents of the Bible, keeping in mind the Bible plot-line of redemptive history and the events of the gospel (what some would call a biblical theological approach), then theologically in relation to the Trinity. He hopes thereby to show that the doctrine of Scripture is more than a mere preface or appendix to theology proper, but intimately related to God and his action in Christ.

Lurking in the background is how the written and incarnate Words of God relate and how evangelicals can avoid bibliolatry (p12).

Ward says he will draw primarily on the work of Calvin, Turretin, Warfield and Bavinck, though Packer also gets an honourable mention (p20).

I fear I may be looking for things to quibble with in this book. This is pedantic in the extreme but what Ward calls “that great slogan from the Reformation, sola scriptura (Scripture alone)” (p19) is, according to Tony Lane, strictly speaking a post-Reformation slogan. See Anthony N. S. Lane, ‘Sola Scriptura? Making Sense of a Post-Reformation Slogan’, in A Pathway Into the Holy Scripture (ed. by Philip E. Satterthwaite & David F Wright; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994).

As I begin reading the book, I find myself wanting to type most of it out! Here are some bits from the introductions and conclusion:

“Throughout Christian history, the overwhelmingly predominant view of the Bible has been that it is itself the living and active Word of God. To say that the Bible is the Word of God is to say, putting it another way, that ‘what the Bible says, God says’.” (p11)

“… the heart of what I am attempting to do in this book: I want to articulate, explain and defend what we are really saying when we proclaim, as we must, that the Bible is God’s Word. In particular, this is how I want to go about this: I am attempting to describe the nature of the relationship between God and Scripture.” (p13)

“… the words of the Bible are a significant aspect of God’s action in the world. The relationship between God and the Bible is at heart to do with the actions God uses the Bible to perform…. Heb. 4:12” (p14)

“Scripture, by which we mean the speech acts performed by means of the words of Scripture, is the primary means by which God presents himself to us, in such a way that we can know him and remain in a faithful relationship to him…. … Scripture is God in communicative action. Therefore to encounter the words of Scripture is to encounter God in action.” (p179)

“Theologically Scripture is the means by which the Father presents his covenant to us, and therefore the means by which he presents himself to us as the faithful God of the covenant. It is also in the words of Scripture that the Word of God, Jesus Christ, comes to us so that we may know him and remain in him. And it is through the Scripture, which he authored, preserved and now illumines, that the Holy Spirit speaks to us most reliably. All this is what we are saying when we confess, simply, that ‘The Bible is the Word of God.’” (p179)