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Hello to all!

As we continue on with our Assembly discussion, we come to The Pledge to the Bible. See the words below…

I pledge allegiance to the Bible
God’s Holy Word
I will make it a lamp unto my feet
And a light unto my path
I will hide its Word in my heart
So I might not sin against God

Again, we don’t pledge allegiance to an inanimate object; rather a living God! The line is that we pledge allegiance to the Bible, but then it is followed up with “God’s Holy Word.” This is quite important as it allows us to understand and distinguish exactly what, or in this case who, we are pledging allegiance to!

Look briefly to John 1:1

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

Not only was the Word with God, but the Word actually WAS GOD! Go back to our pledge momentarily…We pledge allegiance to the Bible which is then defined as God’s Holy Word…well, of course it is! The Word actually IS GOD!

But does that mean the Bible itself is God? Of course not! But let’s continue. Look now to John 1:14

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us

Interesting…so somehow, the Word becomes “flesh” and lives among us. Clearly the Word was already ALIVE because it was able to live among us and merely had to become flesh. So what sort of flesh did the Word take on? Look to the rest of John 1:14

and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Ok! So now we’re getting somewhere, right? This Word, which was already alive, became the sort of flesh that we (humans in the first century) saw! Humans saw this Word-became-flesh! And this flesh had glory as begotten from the Father full of grace and truth! Wow…so directly from God the Father…Let us continue to verse 15 and 16

John testified about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’” For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.

A human! This is pretty clear indication that the Word-became-flesh is a human! John, meaning John the Baptist, compares Word-became-flesh to himself and then contrasts with himself because Word-became-flesh is of higher rank. Verse 17 now

For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.

So very interesting here. Word-became-flesh is described in verse 14 above as “full of grace and truth” and then verse 17 that “grace and truth” is defined as Jesus Christ! So the human in questions who is the Word becomes flesh and lives among us and is, in fact, Jesus the Christ.

Go back up to verse 16 and notice that John says Jesus existed BEFORE John did! How is this possible? John was born before Jesus was born! If you re-read Luke 1 you’ll realize that John the Baptist’s mom was Elisabeth and she was 6 months pregnant before Mary announced that she had conceived. And John was born prior to Jesus so it’s a bit strange, yes, that John now says Jesus existed PRIOR to John! But it’s only weird if Jesus was MERELY a human. But Jesus was GOD! And since Jesus is God, then He has ALWAYS existed. And if He always existed, then he certainly existed before John. Remember, back to John 1:1, Jesus was with God and Jesus was God.

So, we have John 1:1 that the Word was WITH God and WAS God, and then in verse 14 and following we find that this is actually Jesus Christ!

So we pledge our allegiance to Jesus Christ! We say “the Bible” because Jesus Christ is revealed to us in the Bible.

Next in the pledge we say we will make “IT” a light unto our feet and a lamp unto our path. What is the “IT”? Well, just prior to that it says “God’s Holy Word.” So the Word, which is Jesus, is now a light unto our path and a lamp to our feet. That’s good! Jesus is our example. The example is in the Bible.

And finally,

I will hide its Word in my heart
So I might not sin against God

We are to read and memorize and understand the Bible…and to follow Jesus’ example…and love Him with all our heart so won’t sin against God. Jesus lived a sinless life. That is the example. It’s an impossible example, of course, but that is also why God ordained the cross…infinite and perfect, Jesus was killed to pay for our sins. When we sin, we sin against an infinitely existent and infinitely holy God. The payment has to be enough to pay for the crime. That is why no money, no mere human sacrifice, can pay for our sins. It’s an infinite payment; paid by the infinite God who also loves us.

And so we pledge. We pledge to our country. We pledge to Christ. We pledge to the Bible where Christ is revealed.

Soli Deo Gloria