Christ and the Scriptures

E. Stanley Jones was a missionary, a theologian, and a prolific writer. In his devotional book titled In Christ he brings out how the Scriptures point to Christ and how they must dissolve and become a Person in order for Him to be lived out through us:

"Jesus emphasized His own centrality in Scripture: 'You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me.' (John 5:39.) You think you find eternal life in the words, but out of the words comes the Word--they 'bear witness of me.' Eternal life is in Him. He points it with 'yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.' (vs. 40.) The business of the Scriptures is to take us by the hand and take us beyond the words to the Word. The Scriptures are not the revelation of God--that would be the Word become printer's ink. The Scriptures are the inspired record of the Revelation--the Revelation is seen in the face of Jesus Christ, the Word become flesh. Every day I go to these words and say to them: 'Hast thou seen Him Whom my soul loveth?' These words take me by the hand and lead me beyond the words to Him Who is the Word.

"The opening sentence of the book of Revelation says: 'The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him.' (1:1.) This is interesting and important. For in the rest of the Scriptures Jesus is revealing God, showing us in concrete, human terms what God is like: 'He who has seen me has seen the Father.' What a revelation of God we find in Him! There can be nothing higher, and there can be nothing other--this is It! Here, however, the roles are reversed: God reveals Jesus! That is a fulfillment of the law laid down by Jesus: 'Whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life . . . he will save it.' Jesus lost His life in revealing the Father and found it again in the Father's revealing Him. And the Father is revealing Jesus--He is growing upon us, amazingly."