Referring to himself as incidental there.
John 5:37-39 is about the Scriptures:
". . .you have neither heard his (the Father's) voice nor seen his shape. And you have not his (the Father's) word (Scripture) abiding in you, for you do not believe the one he has sent. You diligently study the Scriptures. . .These are the Scriptures that testify about me. . ."
The word of God in the Scriptures was not in them--in their hearts and minds, it was only among them--in Israel, in the scrolls in the synagogues. And the proof that the word of God in the Scriptures did not abide in them is that they did not believe in the word of God in the flesh, Jesus.
Jesus refers to himself incidental to the Scriptures.
On the contrary, there is an obvious Christological reading they had not His Logos in them, which is to say, Jesus Christ. Note that he uses a different word for referring only to the Scriptures, which underscores the semantic difference between the Divine Logos, which is the ultimate source of the Truth Scriptures, being Truth in person, and the Scriptures themselves.
Hebrews 4:12 is about the word of God in the Scriptures, which like a two-edged sword will judge those new Hebrew professing Christians if they return to Judaism, which they were considering for whatever reason, instead of entering into full salvation rest through faith in Jesus Christ.
Here, a non-Christological reading such as you present does not even make sense; it is actually eisegesis. The Word of God is alive and active because it is Jesus Christ, and it is He, the Only Begotten Son and Word of God, who will judge all of us as Christ Pantocrator on the dread day of judgement at the end of the world. And He is like a double-edged sword, in that He penetrates us to the core. The Christological context is much clearer if we read the verse in the context of the subsequent verse:
12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Furthermore, if we read these exegetically in the context of John 1:1-18, there can be no doubt that verse 12 is talking about the person of Christ.
I guess "tends" gets you off the hook here, because in both John 5:37-39 and Hebrews 4:12,
not only language, but also context is speaking of the Scriptures there.
Aside from the fact that I completely disagree with the idea that the context of Hebrews 4:12-13 is not speaking of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, for reasons stated above, the goal was not to “get me off the hook”, for there is no hook for me to be impaled upon; I am a senior presbyter of an independent high church liturgical Congregationalist mission, and my doctrine is in complete agreement with every facet of the ChristianForums statement of faith; rather, my objective was to outline that there are some places where there is both a Christological and a Scriptological interpretation that are both exegetically valid and which even work well together.
This in general also refers us back to a principle I frequently stress on ChristianForums, which is the importance of an exegesis which relies on the approaches of both of the ancient catechtical schools of the early church: the Antiochene literal-historical method, and the Alexandrian typological-prophetic method. We start to see an integration of the two approaches in the fourth century with St. Athanasius, an Alexandrian who also used Antiochene literalism, St. John Chrysostom, who hailed from Antioch but did not remain aloof from Alexandrian interpretation, and the Cappodacians (St. Basil, his brother St. Gregory of Nyssa, and his best friend St. Gregory Nazianzus), where we see an increasingly even balance of the two approaches. This is in contrast to Origen, who relied on a purely Alexandrian interpretation, or Theodore of Mopsuestia, who relied on a purely Antiochene interpretation, both of whom can come across at times as being a bit off course*. Of course, there is a lot more to it than that, and I am simplifying greatly the concepts of the Alexandrian and Antiochene schools, and there were and are other approaches and methods that are relevant.
However, a common thread linking all appropriate and valid forms of scriptural interpretation together is exegesis, the principle of not reading verses in isolation, and the related concept of intertextuality, which is in a scriptural context relates to the connections between different pericopes in different books, different pericopes in the same book, and different verses in the same book. Lectionaries, which liturgical churches use to arrange scriptural lessons, for example, the Revised Common Lectionary*, are generally arranged to as to emphasize the visibility of intertextual connections. Furthermore, it is generally accepted that scriptural verses often have multiple layers of meaning.
I believe, based on John 1, that any exegesis that altogether rejects Christological interpretations of the verses you cited above, is eisegetical, because it is not taking into account John 1 in the reading of other verses which use language that precisely corresponds to John 1, inexplicably, I might add, and thus lacks the prerequisite intertextuality of any valid system of interpretation.
I guess I will have to, because it says exactly that, except the Scripture from Genesis which Jesus is quoting is 2:24 and not 12:27 as I posted.
"Haven't you read (in the Scriptures) that at the beginning the Creator "made them male and female" and said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." (Genesis 2:24)
God did not speak those words in Genesis 2:24, they are the words of the penman (Moses). Jesus' sees the words of the penman of Scripture as the words of God. . .all Scripture is the word of God.
For Jesus, what Scripture says, God says; i.e., not just God's own words, but also what the penman states apart from God's own words is also what God says.
The problem there is that it doesn’t say what you assert it says. Our Lord, for example, does not refer to a “penman” (nor would He - pens did not exist in ancient Rome; scribes did). I believe you are going by a popular commentary on the Scriptures which does talk about Moses as the penman for what God is saying.
Also, once again, why are you referring to God and Jesus separately? It really needs to be stressed that Jesus Christ is God Incarnate. He is God the Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity, fully God and fully Man, who without change, confusion, division or separation of His natures, took on our humanity from the blessed Virgin Mary, who can properly be called the Theotokos, literally, the Birth-giver of God, because she did bear God and was His mother in His incarnation.
Just as I get concerned when I see people referring to Sacred Scripture as “The Word of God” in a manner which seems to come close to, or actually entail, a contradiction of correct exegesis based on John 1, I also am concerned whenever I see God and Jesus being talked about and repeatedly mentioned in such a way as to suggest to someone not well catechized, that Jesus and God are not the same.
Not to my way of thinking. . .there can be absolutely nothing disadvantageous to staying with what the Scriptures present; i.e., all Scripture is the word of God.
I get what you are trying to say, but the syntax is simply wrong. Scripture is not the Word of God, Jesus Christ is, but all Scripture reveals Jesus Christ, who is the Only Begotten Son and Word of God. This is the message I am seeking to convey on this point.
To be honest here, your reason for disliking Scripture as "the word of God" feels weak and just not real to me.
Well, I can’t help that. My opposition to referring to scripture as the Word of God is precisely because of the stumbling block it creates surrounding John 1, and also, for that matter, other passages where the Logos, Jesus Christ, is clearly referenced, and not Scripture. We have to stress that Scripture reveals the Word of God, but the Word of God is Jesus Christ.
1) In my neck of the woods, that is what it has been traditionally called.
2) Why should what it has been traditionally called trump what Scripture also calls it--the word of God?
I'm just not seeing a real problem there,
I will answer these points in reverse order, because the first one is not a question but a statement, which requires some degree of analysis.
Now, on the subject of your second point, your question - Scripture refers to itself in Greek as
graphe in all cases where Scripture is the only intended definition of the phrase in question. Any time you see Logos or Logon, one should assume at least a secondary interpretation which is related to 1 John.
Now, moving on, I don’t know in which neck of the woods you reside, other than it is, I would assume, in the United States, because you and I are of common political orientation (I am a lifelong supporter of the Republican party, although I don’t advertise my personal politics, as I need to be able to minister to people of different political parties and ideologies, and I think it is inappropriate for clergy to involve themselves in politics except in the most extreme and important issues of moral theology and the preservation of the freedoms of Christians to worship, so the only issues I comment on are those such as the urgent need to ban abortion and euthanasia, impose appropriate protections for families from the real danger to children posed by the LGBTQ movement, and the restoration and protection of prayer in public schools).
However, I will say that, since the prevailing Bible edition in the US has historically been the KJV, which I do love, and make use of in my ministry, by the way, because most Americans did not benefit from a classical education where they would learn Koine Greek and be able to read the New Testament in its original form, and because of the very large scale and influence of certain Restorationist churches in the United States that presented novel and unwarranted interpretations of scripture, we do have a crisis of catechesis in the US around certain Biblical words and phrases. The confusion surrounding the correct use of the phrase “The Word of God”, which of course is just one example.
The decision of the KJV to use the word priest, which is an Anglicization of Presbyter, to refer to the Jewish sacerdotal priesthood, the priesthood of all believers, and the hieratic “priests and priestesses” of Pagan religions, has of course become a cause of great confusion, even though it was not when the KJV was originally published, because, the KJV was of course translated specifically with the needs of the Church of England in mind, and the Church of England like all Anglican churches does refer to its presbyters as priests, which is fine, but then when you have non-Anglican Christians who are unaware of the historical context of the KJV or the actual meaning of the word priest read the KJV, and then encounters Anglican churches, inevitably, this scandalizes them, because the way the KJV uses the term could lead a non-Anglican to falsely assume Anglican churches do not uphold the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, which is of course completely untrue.