“All the ministrations and offices which Christ instituted into His church are centered in the Word. He gave His disciples no worldly power (Matt. 20:25–27), nor priestly lordship (1 Peter 5:3), for they are all spiritual persons (1 Cor. 2:10–16), anointed by the Holy Spirit (1 John 2:20), and together forming a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9).
The endowments and the offices have only this end that those who receive them serve one another by means of them in love (Rom. 13:8–10 and Gal. 5:13). The weapons of their warfare are purely spiritual in character (2 Cor. 10:4); they consist of the girdle of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helm of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6:14–17).
For this reason the Word is also the only earmark by which the church of Christ can be known in its truth and purity. It was by the Word that all true members of the church were reborn and brought to faith and repentance, purified and sanctified, gathered and established; and they in turn are called to preserve that Word (John 8:31 and 14:23), to study it (John 5:39), thereupon to prove the spirits (1 John 4:1), and to shun all those who do not teach this Word. The Word of God is in very fact, to use the expression of Calvin, the soul of the church.
This Word of God was not given exclusively to the church as institute, to the office-bearers, but to all believers (John 5:39 and Acts 17:11), in order that with patience and comfort of the Scriptures they should have hope (Rom. 15:4) and in order that they should mutually teach and admonish each other.
Rome has done violence to this but the Reformation put the Bible back into all hands and so made it possible for the family and the school, for science and art, for society and the state, and for each individual believer, to have access to this source of teaching and instruction.
In addition God provided for an official service of the Word. He gave and continues to give the church pastors and teachers who are to minister the Word in public and in homes (Acts 20:20), to give it as milk to the immature and as meat to the mature members of the church; they are to do this in harmony with the needs of particular people and particular times, of each church and of each believer in particular.
In other words, the service of the Word includes its preservation, translation, interpretation, dissemination, defense, and its proclamation to all men; thus the church remains built up on the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Eph. 2:20), and is, as it should be, the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15).”
–Herman Bavinck, The Wonderful Works of God (trans. Henry Zylstra; Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 1909/2019), 521-522.
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