The Day of New Beginnings

What is a Living Word?

 

What is a living word? I suppose there are as many answers to that as there are Christians who think they are speaking one. A living word is not simply an utterance from God. It’s not what some would call an anointed word. It’s not just the Scriptures. It’s not speaking revelation given by the Holy Spirit. What then is a living word? A living word is the word made flesh. We speak a living word when we have first become that word. When we become the word, its Christ life, His very nature, ministering through us. 
 
John 1:
1 ¶  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2  He was in the beginning with God.
3  All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
4  In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
 
Christ didn’t just speak the word, He was the word. All of the creativity of God is released when a living word is spoken. “All things came into being through Him.” Only a living word can impart the life of the Lord. There are many levels of utterance. The vehicle of prophecy can teach and reveal the mysteries of God to us. We can receive instruction, guidance and many things through prophetic utterance. But it takes a living word to begin the creative processes of His nature being formed in us.
 
14  And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
 
The word must become flesh in us if we are to move into this higher realm of utterance. In John 6:63 Jesus said, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” The words Jesus spoke were spirit and life. In verse four from our above text, it says, “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.” The life was in Him, that’s why His words were spirit and life. 
 
In the realm of spirit, we minister what we have become. Let’s look at this from the negative side. In speaking to the Pharisees, Jesus said:
 
 
John 8:
44  "You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
45  "But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.
 
Jesus said that the devil is a liar and the father of lies. He then said that when he speaks a lie he speaks from his own nature. This is very revealing. When the devil speaks, in this case through the Pharisees, he speaks from his own nature. He speaks from what he is. From this we see that whatever we are as to our nature, our words become an expression of it. "The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart (Luke 6:45). Ultimately, who is the good man but Christ? Who is the evil man but Satan?  This verse is speaking of two natures. The evil nature we have through our natural birth. The good nature is created in us through a living word operating in our lives.
 
2nd Cor. 3:
1 ¶  Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you?
2  You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men;
3  being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
 
Paul spoke a living word. It carried the very nature and life of Christ in it. The Corinthians were being created into Christ’s image by the word Paul spoke to them. Paul says, “You are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” This corresponds with Jer. 31:33-34, and is also referenced in Heb. 8:
 
33  "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
34  "They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the LORD, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."
 
These passages show us that we cannot become all that God has provided for us without first partaking of a living word. 
 
It was stated earlier that there are many levels of prophetic utterance. They are all in accordance with how much of God has been appropriated into the life of the speaker. In 1st Cor. 14 Paul teaches that prophecy is given by the Holy Spirit primarily for edification, exhortation and consolation. But there is a higher realm of prophecy in which Christ is speaking in us. Paul alludes to this in 2nd Cor. 13:
 
1 ¶  This is the third time I am coming to you. EVERY FACT IS TO BE CONFIRMED BY THE TESTIMONY OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES.
2  I have previously said when present the second time, and though now absent I say in advance to those who have sinned in the past and to all the rest as well, that if I come again I will not spare anyone,
3  since you are seeking for proof of the Christ who speaks in me, and who is not weak toward you, but mighty in you.
 
Christ was speaking in Paul on such a high level that his very presence among the Corinthians was going to produce judgment. By this we see a living word is not only conveyed through speaking, but emanates from what we have become in Christ.
 

Moving into the ministry of a living word does not come overnight in our lives. It is the sum total of all God’s dealings in us. We move from level to level in prophetic utterance as we grow in maturity. As the cross has its way in our lives, crucifying the Adamic, flesh nature, the expression of Christ in us takes progressively higher forms.

 

Rev. 19:

9  Then he *said to me, "Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’" And he *said to me, "These are true words of God."

10  Then I fell at his feet to worship him. But he *said to me, "Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus; worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
 
The nature of Christ so dwelt in this messenger sent to John that he was literally indistinguishable from Christ Himself. It was by the expression of Christ through the word the messenger was speaking that John mistook him for the Lord. The messenger confirms this by telling John, I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus; worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. On its highest level, prophecy is synonymous with the nature of God Himself. It ceases to be just utterances, but an expression of His life in us.