July 3, 2024

Isaiah 40.8 (NIV)

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.

Nothing is eternal but that which springs out of the eternal.*

Flowers don’t last long. I live in Florida where the grass is green longer than in most places – but with the hot sun and no rain, it can turn to hay pretty quickly. God’s word, on the other hand, is indestructible.

When God’s Word is mentioned in the New Testament, we might assume it is the Old Testament that is referred to. But only a fraction of the Old Testament (as we know it today) was available to Isaiah.  When we find this passage quoted in I Peter 1.25, another layer of meaning is added. Peter widens the scope of the message from its immediate context and gives it a “universal application.”* But even Peter couldn’t be referring to the written Word of God found in our Bible today. At that point, there was no New Testament, either. He was actually in the process of writing part of it!

So what is the “word of God” that Isaiah refers to? In his case, it is the message that God charged him with delivering. In the broadest sense, we find the answer in John 1.1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

 

“The word of God is as abiding as himself”* because the word is God!

God’s Word accomplishes God’s purposes.*