Concerning the Scriptures

The Holy Scriptures are in¬spired of God (2 Tim. 3:16-17) and are authoritative for the daily life of the Christian. Their authority stems not only from specific teachings but also from general principles permeating their tone and spirit. The authority of the Scriptures resides primarily and ultimately in the Person revealed in the Scriptures. Jesus Christ, God incarnate, is the Word and breathes life into the words of the Scriptures. The Bible explains how individuals can be and how persons are to live.

In regard to the latter there is a two-fold emphasis: the vertical or right relation to God and the horizontal or right relation to others. Examples of this two-dimensional emphasis are the Ten Commandments, which represent a summary of the basic moral law of the Old Testament (Exod. 20:1-17), love for God and mankind as the summary of the law and prophets (Mart. 22:23-40), and the relation of faith and works (Mart. 7:16, 20; Eph. 2:8-10; James 2:14-26). When these two dimensions are mentioned together, the vertical is prac¬tically always stared first. A right relationship to one’s neighbor is a derivative of a right relationship to God. This is so inevitably true that one’s relation to his fellowman is proof of his relation, right or wrong, to God (1 John 4:20).