When history exalted the Bible above Jesus—and how we can set it right.

For centuries, many Christians have spoken as if the Bible is the “Word of God,” the “perfect revelation,” and the “final authority” for faith and life. But here’s the truth: Scripture never makes these claims about itself. Those titles belong only to Jesus Christ.

This is not a small mistake. It is one of the most damaging theological errors we have inherited. And it didn’t come out of nowhere — it came from a mix of propaganda and misplaced reform.

How We Got So Far Off

In 1539, King Henry VIII authorized the first English Bible. Propaganda art at the time depicted him handing this Bible down to the people with the Latin phrase Verbum Dei — “Word of God.” This was not a theological discovery. It was politics. The king used the Bible to consolidate his authority over the church. The living Word — Jesus — was sidelined, and a book was elevated in His place for the sake of royal power.

Then came the Reformation. The Reformers rightly rejected the corruption of Rome and the misuse of papal authority. But in the process of tearing down the pope as the ultimate authority, they unintentionally replaced him with Scripture itself. Sola Scriptura was meant to liberate the church from human tyranny. Instead, it enthroned the Bible as a kind of “paper pope.”

From there, the language hardened. We began to speak of the Bible as the Word of God, as inerrant, as the final authority. But these titles are never claimed by Scripture for itself. They are titles Scripture reserves for Jesus Christ alone.

1. Word of God → John 1:1–14 calls Jesus, not the Bible, the Logos, the Word of God made flesh. Revelation 19:13 repeats the same: His name is “the Word of God.”

2. Exact representation of God → Hebrews 1:3 says this of Jesus, not of any text.

3. Wisdom of God → 1 Corinthians 1:24 names Christ as God’s wisdom, echoing Proverbs 8.

4. All authority → Matthew 28:18 gives all authority in heaven and on earth to Jesus, not to the Scriptures.

In other words: we gave to the Bible what belongs to Christ. We treated the servant as if it were the Master. And in doing so, we have often lost sight of Jesus Himself, the Logos of God made flesh.

Jesus: The Perfect Revelation of God

The Bible itself points beyond itself. It tells us plainly that Jesus, not the text, is God’s ultimate revelation.

John opens his Gospel with these words:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind…

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1–4, 14)

Paul echoes this in Colossians:

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible…

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

…For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1:15–20)

And Hebrews drives it home:

“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways,

but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son,

whom he appointed heir of all things,

and through whom also he made the universe.

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being,

sustaining all things by his powerful word.” (Hebrews 1:1–3)

This is the hierarchy Scripture itself presents: the prophets and writings are holy and valuable, but they are partial. Only Jesus is the exact imprint of God’s being. Only Jesus is the fullness of God revealed.

Jesus Reveals God as Love

If Jesus is the perfect revelation of God, what does He reveal? The answer is stunningly simple: God is love.

“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” (1 John 4:16)

This isn’t an optional metaphor. It’s the very essence of who God is. Jesus embodies this in His life, teachings, death, and resurrection. And because God is love, Jesus gives us love as the hermeneutic for all of Scripture.

When asked the greatest commandment, He replies:

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37–40)

“All the Law and the Prophets” was a Hebrew idiom for the entire Tanakh — the whole of Scripture as Jesus knew it. In other words: the entire Bible hangs on love.

Paul repeats the same truth:

“For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Galatians 5:14)

“Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” (Romans 13:10)

Love is not just the greatest commandment. It is the lens, the key, the hermeneutic by which the whole of Scripture must be understood.

Jesus’ Way of Reading the Bible

And Jesus doesn’t just say this — He models it.

In the Sermon on the Mount, He repeatedly says: “You have heard it said…but I say to you.” He takes old laws and reframes them, not to condemn, but to reveal God’s deeper intent: reconciliation, mercy, and love (Matthew 5–7). In Luke 4, when He reads Isaiah, He proclaims release to the captives and good news for the poor — but deliberately stops before the line about vengeance. He reframes the text around grace. In Matthew 23:23, He calls out the Pharisees for obsessing over minutiae while neglecting “the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness.”

Over and over, Jesus reads Scripture allegorically, through the lens of love, mercy, and grace. He shows us that any interpretation that fails to reveal God as love has missed the point.

The apostles followed His lead. Paul interprets the story of Sarah and Hagar allegorically (Galatians 4). The author of Hebrews reads the temple and sacrifices typologically, fulfilled in Christ. The early church fathers read the Old Testament Christologically and allegorically, always through the hermeneutic of love.

This is not a modern invention. It is the way Jesus and the earliest Christians taught us to read the Bible.

The Hierarchy Scripture Itself Gives

Put all of this together, and the hierarchy is clear:

1. Love as the hermeneutic. God is love (1 John 4). Love fulfills the law (Rom 13, Gal 5). Jesus says all Scripture hangs on love (Matt 22).

2. Through the lens of Jesus. He is the Logos, the Word made flesh, the exact imprint of God’s being (John 1; Col 1; Heb 1). He alone is inerrant.

3. The New Testament. Written in light of Jesus, it reflects the Spirit-led witness of the early church to Christ.

4. The Old Testament. Read allegorically and through the lens of love, as modeled first by Jesus, then by the apostles, and then by the early church.

This is not flattening Scripture into one level. It is honoring the hierarchy Scripture itself gives us.

Why This Matters

If we make the Bible our ultimate authority, we will justify violence, exclusion, and cruelty — because the text contains all of those things. But if we make Jesus our ultimate authority, we see God as He truly is: love, mercy, forgiveness, compassion.

This doesn’t diminish Scripture. It restores it. The Bible is holy because it points us to Christ. It is not the final destination, but the signpost.

The Call

Friends, we must wake up. We have inherited centuries of distortion. We have called the Bible what only Jesus is. And in doing so, we have risked losing sight of the living Word Himself.

Our faith does not rest on a book. It rests on a Person. A King. The Logos of God made flesh. The One who is Love.

So let us recenter our theology, our preaching, our discipleship, and our very lives. Let us stop exalting the servant above the Master. Let us see Scripture for what it truly is: a precious witness pointing us to Jesus Christ, the true Word of God, who reveals the Father’s heart of love.

This changes everything.