The Authority of the Word

 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 8
“Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father” (1 John 2:2424Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. (1 John 2:24)).
Whoever hinders the direct authority of the Word of God upon the heart is meddling with God’s rights. If I send a message to my servant and someone prevents his getting it properly, it is not merely hindering my servant, but it is meddling with me. We are told to read the [church] fathers, but they were not “from the beginning”; that would be what God said and taught, and then I know from whom I have learned it. To say the fathers were “very early” is more or less true, but that is not the “beginning.” I have God’s warning about it, and I must stick to that, or I shall not “abide in the Son and in the Father” (vs. 24 JND).
J. N. Darby