John 1:1 declares, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." This verse indicates that God and the Word are not separate but one.¹ Christ is the living Word of God (John 1:14), and the Bible is the written Word of God. Although Christ is not physically with us, He is the Spirit, embodied and expressed in the written Word of God.

The Word is God.... It is the embodiment of God Himself. This does not mean that we consider the words in black and white as the living God. What we mean is that the words in black and white contain God Himself.²

The Word is the definition, explanation, and expression of God; hence, the Word is God defined, explained, and expressed. God is mysterious. He needs the Word to express Him....This Word is actually God Himself, not God hidden, concealed, and mysterious, but God defined, explained, and expressed.³

The Bible is God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16). His Word is His speaking, and His speaking is the breathing out of Himself. When we touch the breath of God in the Bible, we touch the spirit of the Bible, which is nothing less than God Himself (John 6:63). We not only touch God by reading the Bible, but because the Word is God, when we get the Bible into us by receiving it with our spirit, we get God into us.

God's Word is God's breathing out (2 Tim. 3:16)....To God it is a matter of breathing out; to us it is a matter of breathing in. Through God's breathing out and our breathing in, God's word enters into us and becomes our life and life supply...full of spiritual breath.⁴

As Christians, our greatest joy, or shall we say, our greatest blessing, is to be able to contact God and taste Him daily through the word of His breath.⁵

We must read the Bible to know God's revelation to man. In addition to revealing God's person to us, the Bible also reveals God's plan to accomplish His heart's desire. God's heart's desire is expressed in His economy, which is His plan to dispense Himself as life into us so that we can become His expression. The center of this plan is Christ, and the goal of this plan is the church. The Old Testament contains types, shadows, and figures that show us God's economy. All these types, shadows, and figures are fulfilled and realized in the New Testament.⁶ When we read the Bible, we not only see more of this revelation, but this revelation becomes a part of us, a controlling vision that guides our entire Christian life. Reading the Bible brings us into God's economy.

The Bible, composed of two testaments, the Old Testament and the New Testament, is the complete written divine revelation of God to man. The major revelation in the entire Bible is the unique divine economy of the Triune God (Eph. 1:10; 3:9; 1 Tim. 1:4b). The centrality and universality of this divine economy is the all-inclusive and unsearchably rich Christ...The goal of the divine economy is the church as the Body, the fullness, the expression of Christ (Eph. 1:22b-23; 3:8-11)...The accomplishing of the divine economy is revealed in the Bible progressively in many steps...⁷

By reading the Bible, we come to know the truth. The Lord Jesus said that God's word is truth (John 17:17). Truth brings us the knowledge of all the realities in the universe, particularly the reality of Christ and the church, and reveals God in His person and economy. First Timothy 2:4 speaks of coming to the full knowledge of the truth. By this verse we see that there is an aspect of progression in fully knowing the truth. The Bible always has more to speak to us concerning the truth. Therefore, we must regularly read the Word so that we can be filled more and more with truth and revelation.

Truth brings us revelation and knowledge of all the realities in the universe, such as the reality of God, the reality of man, the reality of the universe, the reality of the things of the present age, the coming age, and the eternal age, and in particular, the reality of the Christ appointed by God and the church chosen by Him....The Lord Jesus indicates that God's word in the Bible is truth; it reveals the reality of God Himself and of His economy for us to obtain.⁸

The Bible is also life; when we read it with our spirit, we get life. The Lord said, "The words I have spoken to you are spirit and are life" (John 6:63). Life is God Himself coming to be our life. By our reading the Bible, which is the embodiment of God, He comes into us as life. The more this divine life grows within us, the more we become His expression. Hence, we need to read the Bible so that we may continually receive God as life into us that we may express Him to fulfill His heart's desire.

The Bible is a book of life. This life is nothing less than the living Person of Christ.⁹

Life is God coming to be our life that we may be regenerated, grow, be transformed, and be conformed into the image of Christ, who expresses God, that we may become the expression of God....Since the words [of the Bible] contain life, they are able to supply life, and this life is God Himself. This proves that the main content of the Bible is not only truth but also life.¹⁰

Now that we understand more of what the Bible is, we can see that it is a book we can actually realize and experience. The Bible is a book of divine revelation, truth, and life. What other book is filled with life—life that we can obtain and enjoy? The Bible is unique among all books in that it is experiential. By God's mercy, we have a very tangible book that opens the way to all spiritual experience. By reading the Bible in a habitual and proper way, we can enter into the depths of this reality. Read further to see the experiential characteristics of the Bible.

In Our Initial Experiences of God

In our initial experience of God, the Bible testifies concerning the Lord Jesus, makes us wise unto salvation, and causes us to be regenerated.

It is these [the Scriptures] that testify concerning Me [Christ]. (John 5:39)

The sacred writings, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. (2 Tim. 3:15)

Having been regenerated not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, through the living and abiding word of God. (1 Pet. 1:23)

Some came to know the Lord and received Him just by reading John 14:6, which says, "I am the way and the reality and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me." This kind of salvation experience attests to the power of the Bible as the embodiment of God to make a person "wise unto salvation" and to regenerate a person with the divine life it contains.

Being Our Food

We must read the Bible because our spiritual life depends on it. As with all life, if our spiritual life does not receive nourishment, it will weaken and wither. The Bible is our spiritual food. It is both our spiritual milk and bread of life. We must daily nourish our spiritual life by reading the Word.

As newborn babes, long for the guileless milk of the word in order that by it you may grow unto salvation. (1 Pet. 2:2)

Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God. (Matt. 4:4)

Just as our physical life needs nourishment, so also our spiritual life needs nourishment. The nourishment of our spiritual life can only be supplied by the word of the Bible. In order to be living and strong before God, we cannot depend on bread alone, but on every word, that is, the word of the Bible, that proceeds out through the mouth of God. We must take the word of God as food and eat it (Jer. 15:16)...Otherwise, our spiritual life cannot grow.¹¹

Many verses speak of the Bible being our food and of ones who took in the Word as their sustenance:

Your words were found and I ate them, / And Your word became to me / The gladness and joy of my heart. (Jer. 15:16)

I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my apportioned food. (Job 23:12)

In the same way that our physical food becomes a part of us metabolically, our taking in the Bible as food produces a change in our constitution. The more we eat God's Word, the more we are filled and constituted with Him.

Just as the food we eat and digest nourishes us from within, metabolically changing and transforming us, so the Word of God transforms us by inwardly teaching, reproving, correcting, and instructing us.¹²

According to the entire revelation in the Holy Bible, God's words are good for us to eat, and we need to eat them (Psa. 119:103; Matt. 4:4; Heb. 5:12-14; 1 Pet. 2:2-3). God's word is the divine supply as food to nourish us. Through the word as our food, God dispenses His riches into our inner being to nourish us that we may be constituted with His element. This is a crucial aspect of God's economy. When we eat God's words, His word becomes our heart's gladness and joy.¹³

If we don't eat physical food our bodies will grow weaker until we eventually die. In the same way, when we neglect the Word, we feel spiritually weak, dry, and dead. But this unhealthy situation can be reversed when we return to take in the proper nourishment. When we eat the Word, we are revived, supplied, and strengthened spiritually.

Giving Us Light

Psalm 119:105 says, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." Verse 130 goes on to say, "The opening of Your words gives light." Thus, our reading of the Word produces a result:

When God's word is opened or unfolded to us, it gives us light, shining inwardly over our heart and our spirit to impart wisdom and revelation to us.¹⁴

When God's word says, 'God is light,' it carries God as light in it.¹⁵

Many times we have the experience that when we spend time in the Word, we receive the shining of God as light in our being, making us clear and full of light and revelation.

Watering and Refreshing Us

When we live apart from the Lord and His Word, or when the dust of the old and common things settles on us as we go about our daily activities at work or in school, we feel dry and stale. But because the Word is living and new, when we read it we are watered, refreshed, and invigorated.

Let my teaching drop like the rain; / Let my speech distill like the dew, / Like raindrops upon tender grass, / And like abundant showers upon herbage. (Deut. 32:2)

God has sent forth His Word to water His people...¹⁶

Enabling God's Instant Speaking

Without God's written word, it would be difficult for us to have His instant word. The Greek word for Word used in John 1:1 is logos, which denotes the constant word, the eternal and unchanging word of God. This constant word is necessary in order for us to have the rhema, the Greek word for words used in John 6:63 denoting the instant and present spoken word.¹⁷ While the logos word is outside of us, when we receive it into our being it becomes the rhema word within us; this word is spirit and life. Often we experience the word that we read before moving within us as the Spirit, speaking to us, teaching us, reproving us, and correcting us. This speaking is the instant word of the indwelling Christ, the rhema word, which issues from our receiving the logos word. We need to let the constant word of God inhabit us richly (Col. 3:16) so that the Lord's instant word can also abide in us (John 15:7). The more we have God's instant speaking, the more we enjoy His presence, see His revelation, and have His leading.

God's speaking to man today is based upon what He has already spoken in the past. God rarely speaks things which He has not already spoken in the Bible....If a person does not know what God has spoken in the past, it is difficult for him to receive His revelation in the present because he lacks the basis for God's speaking. Moreover, if God wants to speak something to others through us, He will also do it on the basis of what He has spoken in the past. If we do not know what God has said in the past, He cannot speak through us to others, and we are useless in the eyes of God. This is why we need to let the word of God dwell in us richly. By letting His word dwell in us richly, we know His past ways and hear His present speaking.¹⁸