Those who have the highest esteem for the word of God––affirming its inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility––can sometimes fail to recognize the power of the word when it is accompanied by the working of the Holy Spirit. Scripture is not merely a religious text to be defended, it is God’s living revelation that works in the lives of God’s people. The written word is the inspired revelation of the living Word, Jesus Christ. Therefore, it is accompanied by all of the divine power with which it is invested. This is true in God’s ad extra works of creation and redemption. The word of God’s power is manifest in His work of creation, and it is made known in the preaching of Christ crucified in the work of redemption.

The Creative Word 

At creation, God spoke the world into existence by the word of His power (Heb. 11:3). God’s word is never a bare word. It is always accompanied with the power needed to accomplish that for which He spoke it (Is. 55:11). This is evident from the very beginning of Scripture where God speaks and brings everything out of nothing “by the word of His power.” God’s speaking the world into existence sets the course for the other examples of the power of His word in producing that for which He sends it. D.A. Carson observes,

“It was by ‘the word of the Lord’ that the heavens were made (Ps. 33:6): in Gn. 1:3, 6, 9, etc. God simply speaks, and his powerful word creates. That same word effects deliverance and judgment (Is. 55:11; cf. Ps. 29:3ff.). When some of his people faced illness that brought them to the brink of death, God ‘sent forth his word and healed them; he rescued them from the grave’ (Ps. 107:20).”

Margaret Clarkson put this truth in poetic form in her hymn, “O Father, You are Sovereign,” in which she wrote, 

“O Father, you are sovereign
in all the worlds you made;
your mighty word was spoken
and light and life obeyed.
Your voice commands the seasons
and bounds the ocean’s shore,
sets stars within their courses
and stills the tempests’ roar.”

There is real power in God’s word to bring about that for which He has sent it. As the Psalmist says, “He spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Ps. 33:9).

The creation account highlights the work of all three members of the godhead. While each member carries out a distinctive role respective to the eternal counsel, the Scriptures everywhere affirm that the Son was active at creation. The apostle John draws attention to the eternal Son and his role in the creation, when he refers to the Son as “the Word.” “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1–3). The link between the creative word of God and the redemptive word of God is that both are brought about by the living Word of God, Jesus Christ.

The Redemptive Word

The connection between creation and redemption by the Son is brought out most fully in Colossians 1:15–20, where the apostle writes,

“By him (i.e., Christ) all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, ans through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

The cosmic Christ, who is himself the eternal Word, spoke the world into existence in the original creation. He then died to redeem a people to God with his blood. In 2 Corinthians 4:6, the apostle ties the work of creation to the work of redemption by telling us that “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor. 4:6).

This word of God’s power over creation is operative in his work of redemption. Jesus’ word carries all the divine and eschatological power of being the word of the eternal Son. The miracles performed by Jesus were signs of the coming Kingdom of God. They were indicators that the king had come and had brought the eschatological blessing of God’s reign into the world and to his people. Among these kingdom signs are displays of Jesus’ word of power over nature, over sickness and death and over demons.

Jesus’ word exhibits His power over nature. This is evident from his first miracle of turning water to wine. The living Word who spoke the world into existence at creation exhibits his power over creation as signs of redemption. He speaks a word, rebuking the winds and the waves, and they are stilled (Luke 9:22–25). Luke tells us that the disciples were astonished, saying to one another, “Who is this that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”

Jesus also reveals His power through his word in his miracles of healing. Perhaps the most significant connection between Christ’s word and His power is seen in his exchange with the centurion whose servant was near to death. By faith, the centurion recognized that Jesus’ word carried with his own divine authority.. As the Savior made his way to his home at the behest of this man’s servant, the centurion sent another servant, saying to him, “Just say the word, and let my servant be healed. For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” Immediately after commending the centurion’s faith, Jesus said to his servant, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.’ Luke notes, “the servant was healed at that very moment.” Jesus put on full display the power of his word by healing the centurion’s servant from a distance.

The Spirit-wrought power of the word that produces the new birth is most fully illustrated in the account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Having let Lazarus die so that he could display his power to bring God glory, Jesus came to his tomb when he had been dead for four days. The Son spoke a word of power when he commanded him saying, “Lazarus, come forth.” Though he was unable to hear according to the material laws of nature, the powerful word of the Savior brought him from death to life. J.C. Ryle summed up this  scene when he wrote, “At the sound of that voice, the king of terrors at once yielded up his lawful captive, and the insatiable grave gave up its prey. At once ‘He that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes.’” This is the power of the word of Christ.

Charles Wesley captured the essence of the power of Christ’s word when he wrote the following lines to his hymn, “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing:”

“He speaks — and, listening to his voice,
new life the dead receive,
the mournful broken hearts rejoice,
the humble poor believe.

Hear him, you deaf! his praise, you dumb
your loosened tongues employ;
you blind, now see your saviour come,
and leap, you lame, for joy!”

God has appointed His word to be an effectual means of grace for the salvation and sanctification of His people. Whether it is in our spiritual birth or in the process of our spiritual growth the word of God is the central means of grace. Of course, the word of God does not confer the grace it exhibits by itself. It does so through the working of the Holy Spirit in the lives of those God is intent on redeeming. The Spirit takes the word and makes it work powerfully in the hearts of God’s people––both for their regeneration and for their sanctification. The Westminster Shorter Catechism captures this truth so well, when it states, “The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching, of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building them up in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation.”

James tells us that God “of His own will brought us forth by the word of truth so that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures” (James 1:18). This is the new birth to which Christ referred when he told Nicodemus, “You must be born again” (John 3:7), if you are going to enter the kingdom and have eternal life. In the great regeneration discourse of Jesus, the focus is on the sovereign working of the Holy Spirit to bring men, women, boys, and girls from spiritual death to spiritual life. He does this when and in whomsoever He will. The new birth is the sovereign working of God on those the Father chose in the Son before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:3). That, however, does not negate the fact that God has also appointed means to bring about that new birth. James has told us that through the instrumentality of the word of God that God produces this new birth in us.

James proceeds to explain that believers, who have been “brought forth by the word of truth” are to now “put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21). The apostle Peter states something similar, when he writes, “Put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. (1 Peter 2:1–3). It is by the ministry of the word that believers are built up in Christ and are being renewed into his image (Eph. 4:7–16).

The Preaching of the Word

If the eternal Son, who is the living Word of God, invests the same power into the word of redemption as he did in the word of Creation, how does he do so now that he is sitting on the right hand of the power on High in glory? Scripture teaches that he has appointed ministers of the gospel to proclaim “the word of the cross” (1 Cor. 1:18). The ministry of the word is the work of the crucified, risen, ascended, and reigning Lord Jesus. The apostle explains the relationship between absolute necessity of preaching the word of God for the salvation of men and the divine call to gospel ministry, when he writes,

“How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written. ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’ But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?’  So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:14–16).

The primary task of the church is the preaching of the word (Matt. 28:18–20; Mark 16:15; Acts 6:2). But how does that word come to work in the lives of those to whom it comes? Quite simply, the power of the preached word is tethered to the proclamation of the kingdom of God (Matt. 4:23; 24:14). The same power that Jesus worked in performing kingdom miracles is the same power that he works in the greater miracle of bringing his people from spiritual death to spiritual life through the ministry of the preached word. This was true in Jesus’ ministry, as it is in the ministry of those he appoints to proclaim the word of the cross. As Herman Ridderbos explained, 

"Jesus' word is not only a sign [of the coming kingdom], it is charged with power; it has the disposal of the matter, the salvation which it defines: it is not merely a word, but 'it will accomplish that which He pleases'. . .That is why at bottom there is no difference between the word with which Jesus casts out devils and his preaching of the gospel. In both cases the word and what it indicates go together."

Of course, this brings us to the work of the Spirit of God as the member of the godhead who takes the word and makes it work in the lives of God’s people. The Westminster Larger Catechism addresses the question, “How is the word made an effectual means of salvation,” by stating,

“The Spirit of God makes the reading, but especially the preaching of the word an effectual means of enlightening, convincing, and humbling sinners; of driving them out of themselves, and drawing them unto Christ; of conforming them to his image, and subduing them to his will; of strengthening them against temptations and corruptions; of building them up in grace, and establishing their hearts in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation."

This list of spiritual benefits God has appointed through the preaching of His word reflects the primacy of the word and the preaching of the word in the application of redemption. Simply put, this is because the Lord Jesus Christ crucified and risen is the central message of Scripture.

Joel Beeke, reflecting on the way in which the Spirit works through the preaching of the word in the hearts of God’s people, writes, “True preaching is God’s brush with which He paints a vivid picture of His Son before the eyes of the soul. By the supernatural grace of the Holy Spirit Christ is not only pictured in the preached word but also present in the preached word. Spirit-filled, Bible-saturated proclamation brings the hearers into an encounter with Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”

Preaching holds the place of highest importance in the ministry and worship of the church because God has appointed it to be the means of the salvation and sanctification of His people. In his celebrated lectures that form the content of his book, Preaching and Preachers, Martyn Lloyd-Jones explained, “The most urgent need in the Christian church today is that of preaching; and, as it is the most urgent need in the church, it is obviously the greatest need of the world outside.” 

Responding to the Word 

In 1 Corinthians 1:18, the apostle Paul explains that the preaching of the cross is the great divider of mankind. D.A. Carson explains, 

“The message of the cross divides the human race absolutely. It is ‘foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God’ (1:18). On the one side are those whose religion, or lack of it, seeks a domesticated God accessible to the informed, the initiated, the wise; on the other side are those who have received the foolishness of the gospel by faith and are saved.”

There are two ways that men will respond to the ministry of God’s word––particularly when the cross is proclaimed. The first is that men and women will be convicted of their sin and respond to the message preached in faith and repentance. This was the response of the great multitude of those gathered in Jerusalem at Pentecost. When they heard Peter preaching the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, Luke notes that they were “cut to the heart” (κατενύγησαν τὴν καρδίαν). They then asked Peter and the other disciples, “What shall we do?” After Peter charged them to repent, believe the gospel, be baptized, and so receive the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit, Luke classifies those who believed as being “those who received his word” (Acts 2:41).

The second way men respond to the preaching of Christ crucified is that they are cut to the heart and rage in malice against those who proclaim the word of the cross. We see this in the account of the martyrdom of Stephen. After preaching Christ from the Old Testament, Luke tells us that those who heard were “cut to the heart” (διεπρίοντο ταῖς καρδίαις) and “cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him” (Luke 7:57).

Here are the two ways men will respond to the ministry of the word. They will either be “cut to the heart” by the proclamation of Christ crucified and turn to him in faith and repentance, or they will be “cut to the heart” and rage in spiritual hostility. The word will always have an effect on the hearts of men—whether for their salvation or condemnation (1 Cor. 1:18–25). The power of the word of God to convict, convert, and conform believers to the image of Christ is the same power of the word that brings a sentence of condemnation on the unbelieving world.