Because it is God's word, the Bible is able to accomplish wonderful things among men. It is able to do many things, among these are the following:
1. The Bible is God's word and thus reveals God's will to man.
II Peter 1:20,21 states - "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." There is no one today who knows anything of God's plan of salvation except what he has learned from the Bible.
2. The Bible is God's limitation for man.
The apostle John said - "Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God..." (II John 9). Whoever dares to believe and practice that which is not authorized by the Bible does not have God in the doing of it. The Bible has the power to limit man, to set out the boundary lines inside of which he must walk in the daily activities of his life. Consider carefully Leviticus 10:1,2 in this regard where two priests (Nadab & Abihu) were struck down by God for doing that which He had not authorized. Though God had not explicitly forbidden their actions, their behavior was presumptuous. They did that which God "had not commanded them" and they paid dearly for their mistake. The word of God limits man's behavior.
3. The Bible is God's mirror for man.
As such it enables man to see his weaknesses, to see his needs. We learn that the Bible is God's mirror from James - "For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does" (James 1:23-25).
4. The Bible is God's seed.
Jesus specifically referred to the word of God as seed in Luke 8:11. Seed always yields "according to its kind" (Gen. 1). Thus, since the Bible is God's seed, it is able to produce children of God. Paul also declared - "For you are all sons of God through the faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Gal. 3:26,27). Men become sons of God when, through the influence of God's seed (i.e., "the faith" or the word), they are baptized into Christ.
5. The Bible is God's "dynamite" (power).
To the Romans Paul said - "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation..." (Rom. 1:16). As one commentator has well said, "The gospel is God's power for saving men. God's power has been, and is, manifested in many ways for many purposes. In creating the world, He used His creative power; in saving men He uses His saving power. The power by which God saves men is His gospel. If men are saved, they will be saved by God's power. Paul was not ashamed of the gospel, for it is God's power for salvation."
We will continue this study in our next lesson.