Q. What is the Word of God?
A. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, are the Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.
Commentary
This answer establishes three essential truths about the Bible: its identity, its origin, and its authority. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are identified as the Word of God. The Bible is not a human record of religious experience or a collection of wise sayings, but the very Word of the living God committed to writing. By specifying both Testaments, the catechism affirms the unity and completeness of the biblical canon. The whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, constitutes one unified Word from one divine Author, progressively revealing His redemptive purposes culminating in Christ.
The phrase given by divine inspiration points to the supernatural origin of Scripture. The Bible did not originate in the will or imagination of man. As Peter declares, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:21). The word “inspiration” communicates the idea that Scripture is “breathed out” by God Himself, so it is His Word in the fullest sense (2 Tim. 3:16). Yet this divine authorship did not bypass the human authors; God sovereignly employed their personalities, backgrounds, and writing styles while ensuring that every word written was exactly what He intended. This dual authorship means that the Bible carries the authority of God Himself. What Scripture says, God says, and therefore it is without error (inerrant) in all that it affirms.
Finally, the catechism declares that the Bible is the only infallible rule of faith and practice. It is the sole standard by which all doctrine must be measured and all conduct evaluated. No creed, confession, council, tradition, or personal revelation may stand above or beside it as an equal authority. Creeds and confessions are useful in serving the church as subordinate standards, but they are always subject to correction by Scripture. The sufficiency and finality of the Bible as the rule guards the church against the twin dangers of adding to God’s Word through human tradition and subtracting from it through cultural accommodation. The Bible is the sole infallible rule for what Christians believe and how they live.
Scripture Proofs
“To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn” (Isaiah 8:20).
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17).
“For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).
2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689
1.1: The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience, although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and His will which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord at sundry times and in diversified manners to reveal Himself, and to declare His will unto His church; and afterward for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan, and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which makes the Holy Scriptures to be most necessary, those former ways of God’s revealing His will unto His people being now completed.
1.2: Under the name of Holy Scripture, or the Word of God written, are now contained all the books of the Old and New Testaments, which are these: [Genesis through Malachi; Matthew through Revelation]. All of which are given by the inspiration of God, to be the rule of faith and life.