‘... man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live’ (Deuteronomy 8.3).

Written by Pastor M. J. Harley, a Vice-President of the Society.

When God speaks it is law, because of who He is. He is the triune God who was never created and has always been; His Word is the ultimate expression of His will. As Creator, His Word is law to all that He has made, and authority resides with Him because of His own intrinsic Being. His power to sustain all things and enforce His Word lies in the essence of His Being, the essential part of being the uncreated Godhead. We might also say that what He says stands, because in every age His Word continues to be true, authoritative, and always enforceable.

We do not know every word which God has ever spoken. For example, while we know that the Father covenanted with the Son to save the people which the Father had given Him, we do not know all the exact words between their Persons by which they ratified this eternal arrangement (see Ephesians 1.3–5, Psalm 2.7–8, Luke 22.29, and John 17.2). This is because they are not necessary for us to know.

The Father has authorised the Holy Spirit to put down in writing (that is, the Scriptures) everything which He wishes mankind to know of His words for their salvation and for their continuance in the faith. Commands, promises, and warnings all come from the character of His innermost Being, and are designed for mankind’s benefit. Eve, then Adam, disobeyed God’s Word (a promise, a command, and a warning) and all mankind has fallen by the same inherited error of disobedience.

The Scriptures come with no less authority because they are written. God’s Word is always His Word whether spoken or written, publicly or privately. Neither does it come with any less authority because the Holy Spirit, being authorised to do so, prepared the entirety of the experience of the Scripture writers to declare in writing without error those words which God spoke to them.

We feel pangs of hunger sometimes; the prospect of famine is life threatening because we need food for our bodily subsistence. However, our souls need a different sort of food in order to live. It is indeed frightening when we see those enduring a famine and imagine the prospect, but a famine of ‘hearing the words of the LORD’ (Amos 8.11) is more so. This is because the need of our eternal souls is more precious than the need of our bodies which die; that much greater is the need to feed upon the Scriptures than to eat our food. Each person knows how vital the latter is; so how much more vital is the Scripture, the written Word of God!

The Lord Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8.3 to the devil in Matthew 4.4, ‘It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God’ and in Luke 4.4, ‘It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God’. The context of each of these verses is worthy of in-depth study and meditation. The wilderness experience of our own lives, and our own temptations, will be guided by these words.

The expression ‘every word’ appears in each reference. I expect that many of you will recall when your parents told you at dinner as children to ‘eat it all up’. They may have threatened you with no dessert, or they may have relented and kindly said, despite your fuss, that you did quite well.

Every word of the Lord is life to our souls. Over the years we must become familiar with all the words of Scripture for our good. We need it all. You may have been thinking that the parents who allowed you to leave a little failed of their purpose. Not so. ‘Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little’ (Isaiah 28.9–10). The written Word is assimilated little by little, though we need it all. The aim is to accumulate God’s Word so that the Holy Spirit may bring it back to our memory: words which are not needed today but will be needed for one of our tomorrows. The Scriptures are not written like a manual; they may be better described as a map. But whether manual or map we are to examine them in time of need, as well as to be aware of the contents at all times.

It is very special that we have such a guide. Some have called it ‘a love letter from home’ as it is to a believer, but it is relevant to the whole of mankind, Christian or not. Ignorance of the human law is culpable, and so it is with the Law of God.

The translators of the AV urge their readers ‘Tolle, lege; tolle, lege: Take up and read, take up and read the Scriptures’ (TBS Westminster Reference Bible, page vi). As with the early Reformers they well knew the power of the Scriptures to deliver us from error. In Psalm 119.28 we read: ‘My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according to thy word’ which points us to the Scriptures to overcome all discouragement—to search the map so to speak. Our translators rightly thought that encouragement to read the Scriptures was worthy of repetition, and as TBS supporters we should make this our emphasis too.

First published in Quarterly Record 646. Last updated 7 July 2025.