What then does it mean when we say that God speaks to us through Holy Scripture? It means that God has accepted the risk of being revealed to us through words, through texts, through literary genres, through the weaknesses and fallibilities of human authors, the errors of scribes and translators, and all the flaws, fallacies, and fantasies of human speaking and human hearing. It means the willing vulnerability of God who here and now, in the pages of a book I can hold in my hands, as in the blessed sacrament, as in Mary’s arms in Bethlehem, as before the Sanhedrin and on Calvary, does not think Godhead a thing to be exploited, but humbles himself, being obedient in all things, even to death on a cross (compare Philippians 2:5-11). It means what our fathers and mothers in faith called condescensio Dei, the marvellous ‘condescension of God’—the act of one who deliberately abandons power and privilege, in order to identify with the weak and the deprived. Nevertheless—and how important that biblical ‘nevertheless’ always is!—nevertheless, this same Bible also tells us that God raised Jesus from the dead, and through our baptism promises to raise us, if we will have it so. And that means that this same God will not allow even stupidity, overconfidence, and disobedience as great as ours to have the last word, unless we insist on it.
Christopher Bryan, And God Spoke, pp.48f.
