Scripture is holy because God, its ultimate author, commissions just these texts to play a vital and authoritative role in the triune economy of covenantal communication whereby the Lord dispenses his light (i.e. revelation, knowledge, truth) and life (i.e. redemption, fellowship, salvation). The Father initiates, the Son effectuates, and the Spirit consummates the discourse that Holy Scripture preserves in writing. Scripture is a means of God’s self-presentation, a collection of diverse forms of discourse that, taken together, are ingredient in the extraordinary ministry of God’s Word by which the risen Christ announces the gospel, administers his new creational kingdom, and imparts his light and life to readers made right-minded and right-hearted - fit for communion with God - through the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

Vanhoozer then quotes Packer’s rather crisper summary: Scripture is “God the Father preaching God the Son in the power of God the Holy Ghost.” Dogmatics, he adds, “is the attempt to give an orderly account of the biblical logic of God’s ‘gospel preaching’.” Nice.