Language: from the mouth of...

In the course of my search for blogs about language/linguistics and faith, I came across this very interesting post about whether the human language in which the Bible is written limits God’s ability to communicate with us. The discussion was based on Article IV of the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy – a statement of affirmations and denials prepared following an intensive 3-day conference of about 300 evangelical pastors. The Article in question reads as follows:

We affirm that God who made mankind in His image has used language as a means of revelation.

We deny that human language is so limited by our creatureliness that it is rendered inadequate as a vehicle for divine revelation. We further deny that the corruption of human culture and language through sin has thwarted God's work of inspiration.

There are two points I would like to make about this now, but I might return to it in a later post after I’ve thought and read some more.

Firstly, God ‘made mankind in His image’ (see Genesis 1:26) and I take it that, as part of his creation of humans, God created language also. God, who is a relational God, created us in his image to be relational creatures, and it seems to me that God has given us language so that we can relate to each other, but also so that we can relate to him.

I was recently reminded of the way humans reflect God’s image in terms of communication when I read Psalm 94. The psalmist cries out to God to bring justice and judge wrongdoers, who keep doing what they are doing, thinking that God can’t see them. In verses 8-11, the psalmist then goes to address these wrongdoers:

 ⁸ Understand, O dullest of the people!
Fools, when will you be wise?
⁹ He who planted the ear, does he not hear?
He who formed the eye, does he not see?
¹⁰He who disciplines the nations, does he not rebuke?
He who teaches man knowledge -
¹¹ the LORD - knows the thoughts of man,
that they are but a breath.

This reminded me that our ability to see, hear and reflect on the world in thought is a reflection of God’s ability to do all these things, since we are created in his image. The ability to hear (v.9) particularly struck me: what is God hearing (and, we assume, understanding) here but the cries and prayers of the people he has made? The characteristic of being communicative must also be a reflection of God’s communicative nature. Jesus’ testimony about God helps us see that God is communicative within the Trinity: there is communication between God the Father and God the Son (e.g. Matthew 11:27, John 14:10, 15:15; Matthew 26:39,42; John 14:6-7, 16), God the Son and God the Spirit (e.g. John 15:26), and God the Father and God the Spirit (e.g. John 14:16, Romans 8:26-27).

And so, because we have been created as relational, communicative beings, ‘God has used language as a means of revelation’. So all three members of the Trinity also communicate with people at different times (e.g. the Father in Genesis 1:28-29, Exodus 3:3-6; the Son in any of the gospels, also Acts 9:4-6; the Spirit in John 15:26, Acts 2:4).

God’s use of the human phenomenon of language to communicate with us reminds me of another beautiful way in which God used a human phenomenon to reveal himself - about 2000 years ago, in the form of a human, Jesus Christ. Because we are humans who use language, God uses language to speak to us through the Scriptures. Because we are humans who have physical, frail and mortal bodies, God sent his Son, Jesus, as a human, to point us back to God, and used his human mortality to demonstrate his love for the world. It was the ultimate communicative act.