Holy Bible: I would imagine that most of us have a Bible nearby, preferably close at hand. As I glance over at mine, resting at the end of a small coffee table, I can make out the familiar words stamped on its spine: HOLY BIBLE. The phrase has become so ordinary to us that its significance is easily overlooked. The word “holy” is not decorative; it is declarative. It means that this Book is set apart, distinct in its origin, its authority, and its purpose. The Scriptures are holy because the God who speaks in them is holy. Leviticus 11:44. When we speak of the Bible as holy, we are confessing something about how it must be approached. Holy things are not handled casually; they demand reverence. Leviticus 10:3. The Scriptures are holy because God has sanctified them as the means by which He speaks, reveals Himself, and makes His ways known. Psalm 19:7-9.
What are our thoughts as we reach for that book each day? What do we assume we are holding when we open it? For many of us, the motion of opening the Bible has become second nature. We turn its pages almost by instinct, seldom pausing to consider the wonder of what we are holding. Hebrews 2:1. The Bible is so accessible, so present, that we can forget how astonishing it is that God has spoken at all, much less that He has preserved His words and placed them into our hands. Psalm 119:89.
Our treatment of Scripture reveals far more about us than our profession ever could. In principle, where God is truly feared, His speech is never treated as common. In practice, even where God is truly feared, believers frequently handle His Word with familiarity rather than reverence. To tremble at the Word is to believe that the living God stands behind every word He has spoken, though no visible sign compels us to think so. Such fear is not natural to us; it is the fear of faith, faith acknowledging an unseen reality and resting upon the conviction that God is truly present and speaking, even when nothing outward confirms it to the senses. To fear the Lord at His Word, then, is to approach Scripture with holy seriousness, with reverence, care, and an awareness that we are not dealing with mere ink and paper, but standing before God Himself in the act of reading. Habakkuk 2:20.
When the fear of the Lord has faded, the Word of God loses its gravity. The Scriptures are handled loosely, quoted selectively, and sometimes spoken of in ways that betray a lack of reverence. What once commanded silence now invites commentary. This loss of weight is seldom deliberate; it is the subtle fruit of unguarded familiarity. Perhaps those who stand most frequently before the Word are in danger of forgetting that they stand beneath it. The problem is not a lack of knowledge, but a dangerous comfort with sacred things. Isaiah 48:1.
The holiness of God’s name and the holiness of His Word cannot be separated. In Scripture, a man’s name represents his character, authority, and revealed identity, and this is supremely true of God, who has chosen to make His name known through His Word. Because God has bound His self-revelation to His Word, our posture toward Scripture is never neutral. God’s Word is not detached information about Him, but the appointed means by which He makes Himself known, so that our response to Scripture is, in truth, our response to God. I Thessalonians 2:13.
The unity of God’s name and God’s Word finds its fullest expression in the Person of Christ. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1. The Word is not merely something God speaks; it is the ONE whom God has sent. “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” John 1:14. Christ does not simply convey divine truth; He is the living self-disclosure of God. In Christ, the Word is no longer only written or spoken but embodied. Revelation 19:13. This same truth is echoed in our Lord’s prayer in John 17, where “name” and “word” are again inseparably joined. “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me,” John 17:6, and again, “I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me.” John 17:8. Christ reveals the Father’s name precisely by delivering the Father’s Word. To hallow God’s name and to tremble at His Word is, in the end, to bow before the Son in whom both are perfectly revealed. Hebrews 12:1-2. MPJ