A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article appears below. Thomas F. Torrance underlines the centrality of the Word of God written, and the Word made flesh in this article.
The Word of God is the eternal Son who, as Word of the Father, eternally begotten and abiding in the communion of the Spirit within the Holy Trinity, comes to us in human existence and history as the Revealer through whom God in his love makes known the mystery of his own being.
In Jesus Christ; the Word made flesh, God has truly manifested his glory in human form and by mighty acts has reconciled the world to himself. In this man Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, the eternal Son of God has assumed our human nature and existence into oneness with himself in order thus as true God and true man, to become the final Word of God to mankind, and the one Mediator between God and mankind through whom alone we may be saved, enter into communion with God and apprehend his glory.
Within the Church Jesus Christ, by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, bears witness to himself through the witness and tradition of the Prophets, as the coming Saviour, and through the witness and tradition of the Apostles, as the Saviour who has come. Through their written word Jesus Christ, himself the Word made flesh, continues to speak to us in person, testifying to the mighty acts whereby he has redeemed the world, and offering himself to all people – men, women and children – as Saviour and Lord.
The Old and New Testaments of the Bible are acknowledged to be the Holy Scripture, the inspired and authoritative Word of God, because Jesus Christ makes them his own and speaks to us in them. Through the Holy Spirit the frail human word of the Old and New Testaments is elected, sanctified and formed to be the authentic means of divine revelation, and is so conjoined with the divine Word as to be the authoritative written Word of God to mankind. Thus the Holy Scripture as human word is to be distinguished from the divine Word but not separated from it. By means of this Holy Scripture, given to us by God as the exclusive instrument of his self-revelation in human speech, God continues to speak his Word to the Church and through the Church to all mankind.
As the Church listens to the Word of God speaking through the Holy Scripture, and fulfills its commission to proclaim Jesus Christ, God himself is active in the Church declaring his Word through human witness and ministry. Thus through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit the word of the Church in faithful exposition and application of the Holy Scripture is and ever becomes the living Word of God addressed to mankind in all ages and cultures. Just as there is only one Lord God, so there is only one divine Revelation, that which he has mediated to the world through Israel and the Incarnation, the canonical Scriptures which we have received from the apostolic foundation of the Church in Jesus Christ. As the Body of Christ, the one Word made flesh, the Church is essentially a missionary Body, committed to the evangelization of all nations and peoples, and cannot compromise its divine message through “inter-faith” activities that compromise the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, the sole Mediator between God and mankind and the one Saviour of the world.
The Holy Scriptures, with which the Church has been endowed, are continuously sustained and confirmed as the very Word of God through the presence and testimony of his Holy Spirit, and as such they constitute the one supreme rule of faith and conduct. They are the sole foundation upon which all the fundamental doctrines of the Christian Faith rest, and the sole canonical authority in accordance with which the daily life of the children of God is rightly ordered and maintained from nation to nation, culture to culture, and age to age.
Because the Word of God is God himself in Holy Scripture, to despise the Holy Scripture or to depart from its revelation is to sin against the very majesty of God. Any Church which disobeys the teaching of the Holy Scriptures in matters of faith or morals thereby grieves the Holy Spirit and calls in question its own participation in the Body of Christ. Thus any Church which sets aside the doctrine of the Holy Trinity which rests upon the unique self-revelation of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, thereby apostatizes from the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; and any Church which reinterprets and distorts the teaching of the Holy Scripture in order to accommodate itself to debased cultural trends or moral perversions in society thereby brings upon itself the judgment of the holy love of God.