The Case for the Bible as the Word of God

Introduction

We have been appealing to the Bible simply as a generally reliable account of certain events. We have spent several studies trying to show that we know the text of the Bible, and that there is no good reason to think it is not what it appears to be.

But could it be more than that? If Jesus was "declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead" (Rom. 1:4), then we are justified in appealing to His authority in regard to the nature of the Biblical writers and their writings. Once we know exactly Who Jesus is, we can learn more about these source documents for the faith we often call the Bible. So, still using the N.T. as a generally reliable report of things like the teaching of Jesus, what do we discover?

Jesus’ view of the Bible

Jesus declared the O.T. (that is, those sixty-six books of Jewish scripture) to be the word of God.

Matt 15:6 "Thus you nullify the word of God [He has just referred to the O.T.] for the sake of your tradition." So according to Jesus, when you read the O.T. scripture, you are reading the word of God. If you think about that carefully, it is a very significant statement. For Jesus, scripture is the word of God written.

John 10:35 "and the Scripture cannot be broken." Here Jesus has made an appeal to the words of what we call the O.T. to make a point in a dispute. With these words He reminds his opponents of something they probably already accepted in principle - an appeal to scripture, rightly made, settles a matter - because scripture cannot be incorrect.

What Jesus says about the O.T. is incompatible with some of those negative views of the O.T. we examined earlier. Remember how the negative critics of the O.T. often considered it a collection of inaccurate, non-historical documents pasted together by an later editor? It is interesting to contrast this view with the view of Jesus.

Jesus treats the O.T. as a statement of fact. He refers to Able (Luke 11:51), Noah, Abraham, circumcision, Sodom and Gomorrah, Isaac and Jacob, the manna in the wilderness, events in the life of David, Solomon, and Jonah.

Jesus makes a very clear allusion to Gen. 1:27 in Matt. 19:4-6. Remember that Genesis was one of the parts of the Bible first and most frequently attacked as to its accuracy.

Jesus promised that the words of the Apostles would be Jesus' own words delivered to them by the Holy Spirit.

John 16:12-15 "I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you."

This is one of the most neglected parts of the Bible, especially given its key importance in understanding scripture and the Christian faith. Notice that Jesus is saying that the teaching of the Apostles will in fact be His teaching, delivered to them by the Holy Spirit.

This means that those "red letter" Bibles are a bit deceptive. If you pay attention to the red letters only, you will miss much of the teaching of Jesus! There is now even a group connected to the leftist organization Sojourners that calls itself "Red Letter Christians." Their whole program is to attempt to derive their social ethics from the "words of Jesus" as the supreme source. They of course come to very inaccurate conclusions because they ignore most of the "words of Jesus" found in the teaching of the Apostles. This is especially ironic because in John 16 these red letter words of Jesus make it very clear that the words of Jesus in the gospels are NOT all the words of Jesus!

This makes all the more significant the fact that the Apostle Peter calls the letters of Paul "scripture" and then in one of his letters, the Apostle Paul quotes the gospel of Luke and calls that "scripture."

So with all this in mind it becomes worthwhile to see what some of these official spokesmen for Jesus had to say about the nature of scripture.

In Romans 3:2 when Paul is talking about the fact that the Jewish people were the original recipients of what we call the O.T., he says that they were entrusted with "the very words of God."

In 1 Tim. 3:16 when Paul is talking about the uses of scripture, he says it is (according to some translations) "inspired." But what the Greek word really indicates is that it is EX-pired. The NIV translates this "God-breathed."

In 2 Peter 1:20-21 we are told "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." So, did the prophets - from either the O.T. or N.T. era - just "dream up" the things they wrote? No, says Peter. And notice from the context that Peter, when talking about the origin of scripture, puts forth the same idea that Jesus used in John 16. Either the revealing, or the superintending, (or both) activities of the Holy Spirit are always involved in the production of scripture. In John 14:26 Jesus said to the Twelve, "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."

If they didn’t know something needed for teaching or writing, the Holy Spirit would teach, or reveal, this to them.

Some things were already known to the Apostles. These items the Spirit would simply "remind" them of.

So, whether just remembering something, or delving into something new, the Holy Spirit would make sure they got it right. Note: this promise is directed to the Apostles. Context makes this very clear, and if we ignore that we will misunderstand.

There are a couple of theological terms often used for all this.

Revelation - the process whereby God delivers new information

Inspiration - the process whereby God insures that such delivered information is accurately recorded - remember that "scripture" is a written product

So there is good reason, based on the authority of Jesus, for thinking that anything rightly called "scripture" is the word of God.

Since the Bible is scripture, scripture is the word of God, and God cannot lie (Titus 1:2), then the Bible is true.

All of this is part of the reason why we can appeal to the picture of life and reality presented in the Bible (call it the "Christian faith" or the Christian worldview) to be the correct way to understand things.

This is why scripture can be useful for the things Paul mentions: "teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." (2 Tim 3:16)

Scripture can be useful for these things if we also understand (interpret) it properly, and then apply it properly. But before any of those things can be done usefully, scripture must be true.

Is the Bible completely true?

Some want to stop where this study began. They contend that the Bible is generally reliable, but that it is NOT completely true.

This has been a big debate throughout recent history within Christendom, which might seem rather strange in light of what I just said. In the 1970s the "Battle for the Bible" raged throughout many segments of Christendom. (This battle never really ended. In essence, two separate countries were formed, with people emigrating to the one that best fits their view.)

The typical approach is to claim that while scripture is generally accurate, it is often incorrect in the details, especially the details relating to history, the natural world, and so forth. But it is still considered accurate for "spiritual" matters.

Beyond the fact that this contradicts what Jesus said about all this, it ends up having the odd result that where the Bible can be checked (historical matters, for example) it is NOT trusted, while in matters where it cannot be checked (doctrinal teaching, for example) it IS trusted.

There are specific items that have been claimed to be inaccuracies in the Bible. We can’t begin to cover all those here. But what you find when you examine these is that they stem from:

not understanding the Bible correctly - missing figures of speech and styles of writing

not knowing enough about the historical circumstances of the Bible to make an accurate judgment

not understanding the true nature of an inaccuracy - not understanding what makes for a true contradiction, for example: Matt. 20:30 (two blind men) and Mark 10:46 (blind man named Bartemaeus)

But the biggest problem with an "almost all true" Bible is this:

If some statements in the Bible are true, while others are false, we can’t trust any of it unless we have an infallible rule by which we can sort out the true parts from the false parts.

That would leave us with no reliable way to know what to believe or how to worship and live. We cannot appeal to the Bible as the way of knowing the content of our faith unless all of the Bible is true.

The idea that the Bible is infallible (incapable of error) and thus inerrant (not having any error) is indispensable to the Christian faith.

Some would like to "balance" the Bible with other sources of authority. It is common to think that the Bible contains much myth, mistake, and so forth. So appeal is made to somewhat equal foundations of Bible, tradition, views of other living Christians, and inner conviction. But in the end one of these must trump the others. But such an approach is useless unless we know by what rule one of these elements should trump the others.

So, if you have other sources for the content of your faith, or even if you take the Bible alone as the source for your faith but you think it is not all true, you can never know what to believe.