1.1. A vision of the Word

And God said, let there be light
By José Bernardo

The Scripture says that ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ (Deut 8:3; Mat 4:4). The reason of our existence is the Word of God, which is his ‘manifest will’. This is also the reason for the existence of everything. So, what will we see when we look through our spiritual telescope?

The Prophet Daniel. Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel.

The Book of Hebrews was written to help Jews keep the Christian faith, even if they were going through extreme trials and being lured to return to Judaism. The key to accomplish such an ambitious goal is faith. So, we can say that Hebrews is specialized in faith and chapter 11 is its highest peak. In this chapter, faith is meticulously described and its dynamics are abundantly exemplified. First, the primary example of faith is our knowledge of the arrangement of the eons: “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” Hebrews 11:3. The Word of God formed the universe we see. To explain that, the author uses the Greek word rhéma, which means a spoken word or a command, as we see in the very beginning of Genesis.

Evoking Genesis, Hebrews states that everything we see is formed by the Word of God. Therefore, it is correct infer that what we see is the Word of God, in the sense that it is the result of his commands and of his good, pleasing and perfect will. The psalmist echoes this idea saying: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” Psalm 19:1-4. What we see is what the Lord said must be; what we see is ‘the manifest will of God’.

The Word of God is the light that will hit our spiritual telescope. John takes us even further: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.” John 1:4. Again, what we see is made by nothing other than the Word, and the Word is Jesus. Nature was made through Jesus and the Bible teaches about him. The fact is that if we look to Jesus we’ll see the Word, and when we see the Word of God we will have seen everything. Nature is a register of what God has done; the Bible is his active word that interprets everything. The word of God is enough!

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Jose Bernardo is the OneHope vice-president for lusophone countries. OneHope is a global agency of the Bible that has worked in 145 countries giving the Word of God to every child.