A Good Word about the Word

I came across this statement about the authority of Scripture in my devotional reading this morning:

I declare, as though before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ, where I expect soon to appear, my unshakable conviction that when Scripture speaks, God speaks.…When Scripture speaks, God speaks. When Scripture proclaims God’s will or the way of salvation or the great doctrines of sin and grace, and of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, what it tells us is no less true and no less certain than if heaven were opened above us at this very moment and the voice of God resounded, as it once did at Sinai, saying these same things to us.

There are no bounds to the trust and submission that we owe the Scriptures, any more than there are limits to the truth and the faithfulness of God.

The words were spoken by Adolphe Monod from his bedside just six weeks before his death from cancer. A series of 26 weekly talks from that bedroom were later transcribed by his friends and bound into a book, entitled Les Adieux (Farewells). It was recently translated from French and published in English under the new title, Living in the Hope of Glory. I stumbled across it recently while parousing the shelves of my favorite local used bookstore. It's proving to be quite a little treasure, taking significant theological themes and expounding on them in fresh and simple ways.