God’s Word is given to mankind to know His will for our conduct and for our salvation; it is altogether clear and sufficient for Christian faith and practice. Through history, poetry, prophecy, and didactic instruction, God speaks to us in His Word in an intelligible manner. That is, God uses language to reveal to us His purposes for His glory and His people’s good.
Having laid a foundation for the nature and authority of the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God in the three opening articles, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy proceeds to define and defend mankind’s capacity to receive God’s Word. The framers of the Statement make the following affirmation in its fourth article:
We affirm that God who made mankind in His image has used language as a means of revelation.
This affirmation tells us something about God: He is our Creator. It also tells us something about mankind: we are made in God’s image. One implication of mankind’s nature as bearing God’s image is that intelligent spiritual relationship between the infinite Creator and His finite creation is possible. The gift of language is a means of revelation. Indeed, language is the means or vehicle of God’s special revelation whereby spiritually vital men and women can know God and His will for our salvation.
At the dawning of creation, God created all things by the power of His Word. Genesis chapter one specifies (and emphasizes) that God spoke all things into existence. On the sixth day, after some spoken deliberation (Gen. 1:26), the one holy, living, and triune “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Gen. 1:27). When He formed the man from the dust of the earth, He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen. 2:7). Thus, God created man and woman, in the words of the Westminster Confession of Faith, “with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after His own image” (WCF 4.2).
Upon opening their eyes, what did Adam and Eve our first parents behold? They saw that all creation showcases the power, majesty, and handiwork of God their Creator.