Three main views of Scripture are:
The Bible
is the Word of God (held by most Fundamentalists / Conservative evangelicals, eg. BB Warfield, early Berkouwer)
"Scripture is the Word of God in the sense that the human words as God-breathed are a divine product. As such they are true, trustworthy, infallible, inerrant, and authorative in every pronouncement they make, in every subject matter they address, and in every area in which they speak - as well as being fit to be the means of regeneration, justification and sanctification."
The Bible
contains the Word of God (most Liberals)
The Bible is a human witness to the acts and teaching of God.
The Bible
becomes the Word of God (Neo-orthodox, eg. Karl Barth, Emil Brunner)
"Over against a schema that views the Bible as the Word of God in esse, the Neo-orthodox school located the objectivity of the Word of God uniquely in the Person of Christ. He alone embodies or incarnates the Word. Revelation occurs as the Spirit speaks to us through the instrument of Scripture. Scripture is not itself revelation but is a vehicle of or witness to revelation. It becomes revelatory as the Spirit speaks through it. The Scripture, then, is a vehicle of the divine-human encounter. Without the activity of the Spirit the Scripture cannot be viewed as objective revelation.
For Calvin the testimonium results in a subjective acquiescence to an objective revelation. The Bible is the Word of God with or without the internal testimony.
For Neo-orthodoxy, the Bible is not the Word of God in essense but only a vehicle of revelation. It may or may not be the Word of God, depending on the testimony of the Spirit. Objectivity is restricted to Christ and does not extend to the Biblical writings."