[AI translation] Let me remind you again: at Christmas it was said among us that in Jesus of Nazareth the living God himself walked this earth, but in an empty, lowly, servile form, hiding his divine glory. Last Sunday we spoke of the fact that this lowly, poor, unadorned form in which God continues his work on earth is seen not only in the manger at Bethlehem and the cross at Golgotha, but is also characteristic of those who represent the cause of Jesus, through whom he continues his work among men: his Church, his followers. And now I want to say that the same quiet, unassuming, lowliness, full of human frailty and imperfection, is also characteristic of the Bible, of the way in which God communicates what He has to say, His word to the world. In the Bible, just as in Christ and in the life of his Church, God reveals himself in human form.Let me now say something about the hidden glory of the Bible.Those who take a stand against the Bible usually sum up their objection by saying, "The Bible was written by men!" Yes, that is true. The Bible was written by men. The Bible really is not a miracle book dropped from the sky, as the followers of Islam believe, that Mohammed, the prophet, received the Koran directly from angelic hands, after it had been written and prepared in heaven. No! The Bible was indeed written by men, men of flesh and blood, men who were children of their own time, of their own people, of their own culture. To this day, differences in style and spiritual characteristics can be identified between individual writers. The scientific vision of the world of that time was very different from our own. The writers of the Bible, of course, lived and wrote in that old vision of the world. The words of Jesus Himself do not break through this ancient worldview, and show no sign that He was already thinking in terms of modern knowledge. Indeed, from a natural scientific point of view, we find in him many views that are obsolete according to modern scientific knowledge. Today we have a very different and much more realistic view of the world, the Earth, the stars, the whole universe, than they had. And it is also true, as is also criticised in the Bible, that there are sometimes inaccuracies and even contradictions in the historical data, for example, descriptions that do not correspond to the research of modern historiography. It would be wrong to think that the Bible is 'scripture' in the sense that all its words and data are independent of the imperfection and infallibility of human thought and communication! It would be wrong to seek at all costs to force biblical data into harmony with modern science and history. Yes, the Bible, like every other book of world literature, was written by men, weak, fallible men, and men of far from perfect knowledge.
Let us go one step further. Let us now try to look at the Bible from the point of view of the spirit that flows from it, whose spirit is behind the writers? For example, it is possible to play the greatest melody on an instrument, or the most worthless melody on an instrument. The instrument will not deny its own character, like a piano or a violin or a flute. But the decisive factor will ultimately remain the great or feeble spiritual inspiration that is sounded on that instrument. In the Bible, too, real people speak and write, and in doing so they cannot switch off their human characteristics, their limited nature, their spiritual peculiarities. But the decisive factor here too is the inspiration under which they write, the spiritual reality that stands behind them and speaks through these temporally and personally limited means.
Let us ask the apostle Peter, as one of the authors of the biblical writings, what he would say to this question. For when the Father received from God the glory and honour of having received unto Him this word of majestic glory: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: this voice from heaven we heard, being with him on the holy mountain. And very sure also is the prophetic word with us, which ye do well to hearken unto, as a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the morning star rise in your hearts; knowing first that no prophetic word in the scriptures is of its own interpretation. For the prophetic word never proceeded from the will of man; but the holy men of God spoke from the Holy Spirit." (2Pt 1,16-21) Peter also, in full agreement with the other authors of the Bible, says: we do not speak from ourselves and not of ourselves, we do not want to describe what thoughts we have formed in ourselves about God, the world, people, eternal life, but by all that we say, by the way we live, we want to bear witness to what God Himself has shown and said to us in some very special hour of encounter with Him. That which He Himself has made so powerful and certain for us that we cannot escape it, we are compelled to say it, to write it down.
Indeed, that the biblical revelation is not an expression of general human religious genius, not of human ideas, is evident from the way in which individual men are called to this service. Often, they themselves do not want to be the instruments, the bearers of a divine mandate. They are reluctant, they want to evade the mandate that is weighing on their hearts and consciences in every way possible. Moses, for example, was in no way willing to undertake to lead his people out of Egypt. He bargained with God until he finally surrendered. Jeremiah was terrified of the task God was about to send him on. He felt unfit. He pleads with God, who says to him, "Send someone else, someone more suitable. And he had to go! He had to go, even though it cost him his life. Someone, a spiritual reality above him, overpowered and forced him. And that is exactly what happened to Paul, Peter, John, the evangelists. They too, under the influence of this higher compulsion - Peter says: "they spoke by the Holy Spirit" - wrote, proclaimed what a gift Jesus is to the world from God and how human life is renewed through him.
This is the true secret of the Bible and the invincible life-force of the Bible. Of course, it was actually written by men, and these men carry with them all the limitations of their age, language, social and cultural progress, but what they say and write is not a religious fantasy or desire, but a testimony born of a divine encounter. That is why they could suffer, struggle, even sacrifice their lives for their words thus spoken with joy. So their writings are not about human wisdom, but really about the word of God and the truth of God. No matter how different the writers may be in age, education, dialect, understanding and spirit, it is always the same living God who testifies to himself through the writings, full of human frailties, as the Holy One, as the sovereign power over the world, as the Lord of history, as the eternal Judge and the merciful power, as the one who works for the good of humanity. As Peter says, "the holy men of God have spoken, prompted by the Holy Spirit." (Pt 1,21b)
The servile form of which we have been speaking is expressed precisely in the fact that God clothes what He has to say in the robes of lowly human words. The very fact that God is forced to clothe Himself in the narrow garments of a certain human language is in itself an emptying and limitation of God. For it is true that every language has its beauty, its richness of expression, but every language also has its limits, its ambiguity, its ambiguity of words, its difficulty. Especially when it comes to expressing the thoughts of God. How can there not be unintelligible passages in the Bible? Then, when copying any text, there are errors, omissions, insertions, mistakes - including the Bible - so it is a good thing that science should also examine this book with the tools of modern critical research. If God has given his message to this world, he has also made it available to human fallibility and imperfection. But that He did so, that He even undertook to do so, is precisely the testimony of His great, overbending love. Yes, it is one of the deepest mysteries of the divine stooping down that God puts His holy word on the lips of sinful men, men who are always willing to soil the message they receive. Thus the Bible bears the same lowly, servile form that Jesus himself came to earth in. Martin Luther likened the Bible to the Christmas story: as the divine Child lay wrapped in a poor manger in a miserable stable, the manger, so the word of divine truth is in it in a very poor garment, in human speech, in writing. A poor and cheap swaddling-cloth, but a precious treasure it hides. And only he who hungers and thirsts for life and righteousness will find in the broken and often patched words of the Bible the lifestream of eternity and the shining glory of God.
In this world, God reveals Himself in servile lowliness. He prefers to bind Himself to the inadequate forms and ambiguities of human speech, so that His word may penetrate our world. This divine word may suffer some damage in the process in this feeble world, but the main thing is that it reaches us, the voice of eternity rings out in time and wins human hearts for God. And that is the secret of this wonderful book. That is why it has survived to this day, for thousands of years. Nations, world powers, cultures have changed and disappeared, but the Bible remains. And it speaks to the people of every new age with ever-renewing freshness and compelling power. Even today. Through it, God continues to let mankind know what His will is for us, how He feels about us, how much love He has for us, what great plans He has for the future of human history.
The Bible is not an infallible textbook to satisfy human curiosity. Anyone who wants to find out how the world came into being, who is looking for reliable geographical, astronomical or historical data, will always find something to find in the Bible. But anyone who wants to know what is in his own heart, how to free himself from the burden of his sins, how to fill his life with a meaning that goes beyond death and beyond the grave, how to find peace with himself, with man, with his destiny, does not search the Bible in vain. For the Bible tells a powerful, harrowing story of the depravity of the human race and of the wonderful divine reality of Jesus who, in his life, death and resurrection, broke into this fallen world and began a new history with humanity.
What one expects from the Bible and the attitude one takes towards it is decisive. He who seeks only human things in it will find only human things in it. But he who seeks more will find more. Let us try, just once, in an hour of difficult inner struggles, to pick up the Psalms or the Gospels with a desire for healing and reconciliation in our hearts. We will experience that here indeed flows the life-force of eternity, which quenches all our thirsts.
It is good to see the frail, fragmentary human shell of Scripture, but that is no reason to lose confidence in it, and it is in it that we can recognise the love of God that bends towards us, that has come deep into our human world of faults and errors, to be with us in His Word. Let us rather pray, each time we take our Bible in our hands, for open ears, so that behind the human words of times long past we may perceive the call of God, his claim on us, who wants to take us into his hands today with his powerful word. Let us pray for enlightened vision, so that in the garment of human words we may glimpse the figure of the living Jesus Christ, who wants to lead us by his word into all truth.
Yes, let us seek God in him, and then a word from the Bible will be of unspeakable help in the problems and struggles of life. Then a chapter, a story or a letter will have such an overwhelming blessing on us that we cannot imagine our lives without this faithful companion, this intimate friend. Then we will find a wonderful source of eternity from which we can always draw strength, comfort, peace, joy, blessing, life. Eternal life.
Amen
Date: 19 January 1964.
Lesson
Jer 1,4-9