51 And suddenly, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword, struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his ear. 52 But Jesus said to him, "Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish ^f by the sword. ×

53 Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels? 54 How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus?"

Jesus knew He must die at the hands of sinful men. As the end approached, more and more “word” was being processed by the Father into His memory. He could see the whole picture now, and He knew exactly when someone was trying to take Him off course.

This same Word is our guide today. Word-filled people know when the Enemy is trying to divert or distract. They rebuke him and move on to their intended destiny.

We speak not of only these isolated passages. They are not exceptional, but rather indicative of Jesus’ entire way of operating. What we call the walk of the Spirit is closely identified with the walk of the Word. The Word is the instrument that the Spirit uses to guide and direct. Those who insist they shall run by their feelings shall run amuck. They will eventually fall into the ditch without clear guidance from the Word that gives us light. See Jesus’ insistence on this matter in the following passages:

John 10:33-36

33 The Jews answered Him, saying, "For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God." 34 Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your law, 'I said, "You are gods" '? ^c ×

[Psalm 82:6]35 If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), 36 do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God'?

He mentions this concept only in reference, but what an insight! In the Mind of our Saviour the Scripture must all be fulfilled. His audience already believed this, by the way. The prevailing leadership of the day truly believed that the Scriptures were from God. But they were blind as to the fulfillment of those Scriptures. May God guard our own hearts from a pride that will cause us not to see before us the spiritual realities of Scripture. When we divorce Scripture from worship, it will be said of us, “In vain do they worship me. Their heart is far from me.” Without the Holy Spirit, someone said, we may as well burn the Bible.

Note in passing that Jesus equates “the word of God” with “Scripture.” This one who died with Scripture on His mouth, who submitted to the Word of God all His life, lets us know here that there is not one corrupt unnecessary word given by God to His people. Plenary inspiration, it is called. Every word of God unbreakable!

One more note, and then we move on: the word “Scripture” is in the singular. Everything that God has given to his men to write is considered one unit of revelation. We still refer to the revelation in the singular when we say “the Bible”, the Book.

Confirmation of this is given in the early part of the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 5:17-18

17 "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot [iota, smallest letter] or one tittle [dot, serif] will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

How could any law, any word, be so powerful as to be indestructible? How could any man know the future of that law? Impossible, unless the written words of men are also the written Word of God, and the man is not merely a man, but the Son of the Father in Heaven.

The closeness of identification of Jesus with His Word is perhaps no better exemplified than in Luke 4:18, 19, a quotation directly from Isaiah 61:1-2:

18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, ⁱ To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; ×

19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." ^j

He knew the Scripture applied to Him, for the Father reminded Him that He was the One Who had spoken these very words to Isaiah 700 years before, through the Holy Spirit. There is a sense in which that same Spirit comes upon us and lets us know that the Jesus in us is still preaching to the poor, healing brokenhearted, setting captives free, preaching the salvation that is in Jesus. The Word is eternal and centers in Christ.