IS THE BIBLE GOD’S WORD? (2 OF 3)
Unchanging Faith ❧ Part 4
Selected Passages ❧ Pastor, Dr. John Denney
Did you ever notice that as human beings we have what seems to be a tireless and insatiable appetite for communication and information? I was recently reminded of this truth in my reading (Breshears & Driscoll, Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe, p.37). We have an endless desire to know and make ourselves known to others. We see it in our words. Our words are one of the major building blocks of our ability to relate to one another. It is said the English language alone has some 800,000 words. The average person knows about 10,000 words and uses roughly 5,000 of them in everyday conversations. For years there’s been a belief floating around that women use more words per day then men. Turns out, it just isn’t so. They’re about the same. Some of you might disagree with that. But I’ll let you work that one out between you.
We see this same appetite for words in our rapidly changing technology. We have cell phones, HD televisions, email, radios, blogs, books, magazines, newspapers, movies, songs, text-messages, face-to-face conversations, and so on. Everywhere you look people are constantly using words to engage, to relate in some manner or other with the world around them. I imagine if we had the ability to listen to our planet from space, we’d hear a rising chorus of billions of people talking all at once.
Why is that? Well, for one, it is because we’re made in the image of God and God by His very nature is not silent; He is a God of words. He is a God of relationship. He speaks, He communicates, He engages with His creation constantly. Just take the very first chapter in the Bible, Genesis 1. No less than ten times we read, “God said.” The God of the Bible is a speaking God. Turn to the next chapter and we see the first conversation God has with His newly made creation is with man who is made in His image. God doesn’t have a conversation with the trees or the rocks or with the birds or the monkeys. But He does with man. And God doesn’t stop there. All through the Bible, we see Him conversing with man. More than 3,800 times it says, “God said,” or something close to that. The point is unlike all of creation man was made to have a unique relationship with God. So, the God of the Bible is a God of relationship. And because we’re made in God’s image, we too are made to have a unique relationship with Him.
Our problem is not that we don’t believe God speaks. He does. Despite our sin that separates us from God, He still initiates a relationship with us through both the world (General Revelation) and His Word, the Bible (Special Revelation). We touched on this last week. Revelation simply means the way in which God makes Himself known. We also saw that the opposite of revelation is speculation; people dreaming up in their own imaginations who God is and what He says. Our problem is not that we don’t believe God speaks. Our problem is that in the din of all the constant noise of words, how do we hear the voice of God? How do we discern between revelation, the voice of God, and speculation, the voice of man? More to the point: How can I trust the Bible to be the actual words of God?
This morning we’re going to continue in our series: Unchanging Faith: What Every Believer Should Know and Why It Matters. We’re looking at: What the Bible Is: Four Unwavering Statements: 1) It is credible, 2) It is reliable, 3) It is unchangeable, 4) It is indestructible. That’s what it is. And here’s what it does: it makes the lives of those who trust in in like it; credible, reliable, unchangeable, indestructible. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls(Hebrews 6:19, NLT). (Matt. 7:24-27).
Last week we focused on the first unwavering truth that the Bible is credible. It can be trusted that it is what it actually says it is – God’s Word to us. All Scripture is inspired (breathed) by God(2 Timothy 3:16a. NAS). This has to do with the doctrine of inspiration. This verse tells us all the books of the Bible are God-breathed. Just as we continue to hear the echo of God’s voice in the beauty and wonder of our created world, so we hear it in His written Word. And just as God designed the world to sustain and thrive physically, He gave us His Word so we can sustain and thrive spiritually. Jesus reminds us God’s Word is not the mere ideas or inspiration of men, but the very words of God Himself. In Matthew 4:4 Jesus tells people were not meant to live on bread alone (the physical world), but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4). He is saying the Bible is directly from God and as such it is inerrant (it always tells the truth) and it is infallible (it will not lead us astray).
Some people struggle with the idea that when we use the Bible to prove the Bible, we’re just using circular reasoning. The accusation would be true if the Bible were just one book, but it isn’t. The Bible is actually a collection of books (66) written by the independent testimony of more than 40 different authors from varying walks of life, from numerous generations spanning some 1,600 years and from several continents (Africa, Asia, Europe). Many years ago the theologian Henry Thiessen wrote: The Bible is in reality but one book. It has one doctrinal viewpoint, one moral standard, one plan of salvation, one program of the ages, and one worldview(Thiessen, Lectures In Systematic Theology, p.67). What we’re saying is the Bible is not natural, but supernatural; it is inspired; it comes directly from mind and the mouth of God. The Bible is credible – trustworthy.
- It is reliable. Because the Bible is trustworthy, we can fully rely on what it says in order to know Who God is and how to have a right relationship with Him. Paul tells young Timothy thatfrom childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 3:15). In other words, the Bible is a reliable map of how to get to Heaven. There have been many times I’ve sat with people nearing the end of their lives. It’s during those times they’re hungry for hope, for answers beyond this life. I pointed them to God’s Word, to Jesus. Let me give you a couple of solid reasons for this.
Some people might think pointing others to rely on the Bible is misleading. That’s like leading someone who is blindfolded to stand on quicksand while telling them they’re standing on a rock. One of the reasons they believe the relying on the Bible is more like standing on quicksand than a solid rock is because we don’t have the original Bible; it has been copied and recopied so many times over thousands of years. Since we don’t have the original copies, we cannot fully rely on what the Bible says. I mentioned this last week. I want to strengthen our grip on this truth even more.
Let me ask you – have you ever heard someone say that about other ancient works like Plato, Sophocles, Homer, or Herodotus? We don’t have the original copies of their ancient works either. But I’ve never heard someone say, “I don’t know if we can trust the writings of Plato or Sophocles, or even Caesar Agustus.” If you took an ancient literature class, the instructor would probably quote with professorial authority, “Here’s what Plato said,” or “Here’s what Caeser said.” What he or she probably won’t tell you is that there are fewer than ten copies of each of those books, and those copies were made around 1,000 years after the author wrote the original. Now some may tell you there are very few copies and they’re separated by a thousand years, or more, but it isn’t a problem for them.
When you compare the Bible with other ancient literature, the differences are nothing short of breathtaking! Let’s begin with how many copies there are. There aren’t fewer than ten like Plato, or Caesar or others. Of the Greek NT alone there are 5,000 copies plus! (The original copies of the NT were written in Koine Greek). When you add other early languages, the NT was copied in such as Latin, there are some 14,000 copies! Of the Hebrew OT there are more than 10,000 copies!
It stands to reason if all we have are the copies and the copies have been distorted from the originals then we should see those distortions when we compare the copies. What we see is complete harmony! Why? Because the Bible is supernatural. Let me give you a couple of examples. Until the twentieth century the most recent copy of the book of Daniel (written c. 536 BC) came from a period of six-hundred years after Christ. But when the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947 a copy of Daniel was found dating more than hundred years before Jesus. The Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) contained all of the books of the Bible except Esther. When the copy of Daniel from the DSS was compared to the later copy, which spanned more than seven hundred years, and after having being copied many times, there was virtually no difference between the two. The message was exactly the same!
Let me give you one more example – the book of Isaiah. Before the DSS’s were discovered in 1947, the earliest copy of Isaiah dated to 900 AD. The DSS copy of Isaiah dated to about 125 B.C. There was more than a thousand-year difference between the two copies. Logic says with that much time and copies between the two, there had to be a lot of distortions. Gleason Archer, a long-recognized authority, states that the Isaiah copies from the DSS proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95% of the text. The 5% of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling (ETDV, p. 61).
Even Jesus did not have the originals, yet He explicitly entrusted His very life on the copy of God’s Word He had in front of Him. No one had a higher view of the Bible than Jesus. Just how much did He trust the copy of God’s Word? Once the Sadducees came to Jesus to trap Him. They only believed in the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch). They denied the existence of angels, other spirits, and the resurrection from the dead. That’s why they were sad you see. They knew Jesus fully believed in and taught the resurrection of the dead.
The Sadducees posed an imaginary story based on Moses words from Deuteronomy 25:5 which said if a man marries and has no children, his brother should marry his widow in order to carry on the brother’s name (Mtt. 22:4). Suppose, they said, if there were seven brothers, one married and then died leaving his wife a widow. Following what Moses said, one of his brothers marries her, but he too dies leaving no children. Then the next brother marries, and the same thing happens until all seven of the brothers die. At this point, I’m sure the Sadducees were smiling like cheshire cats who’d just trapped a poor helpless mouse. Jesus answer brilliantly exposed their prideful ignorance of God’s Word. “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God. “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. “But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living(Matthew 22:29-32). Jesus tells them they are not only in error by not understanding God’s Word, but they are ignorant of God’s power as well. Their argument is also irrelevant because in Heaven there will be no marriage. Just as there are a fixed number of angels, so in Heaven there will be a fixed number of people. People will not need to marry because there will be no need for babies. But the most important point Jesus brings their attention to is the resurrection – the power of God. Jesus quotes from the second book of the Pentateuch, Exodus 3:6. He reminds them God told Moses, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been dead for centuries. But Jesus is saying they are not dead but alive! God is not the God of the dead but the living. Jesus bases His point on the use of a present tense verb I am. Not, I was. Not I was the God of Abraham, but am right now, this very moment. Why because they are still alive. Meaning there is life after death. With God, there is hope beyond the grave! Jesus believed every word of God’s word could be fully trusted, even the very tense of every word!
Even though we only have translated copies of the Bible, we can be fully assured, like Jesus, when we trust in God’s Word we’re standing on solid rock. We can know our Bibles are the very Word of God.
Let me close with this story. It was 1898 and Ben had left the East 8 years ago to head out West in hopes of making his fortune. Well he wasn’t rich, but he had accumulated over 300 acres of good land and built a comfortable farmhouse on it. He raised wheat, corn, and all of his vegetables. He had managed to build his herd of cattle to over 200 head. Having accomplished all of this in only 8 years, he decided that it was now time.
The ad that he placed in the New York newspaper said, “Wanted: A good woman willing to be a pen pal. Marriage is a possibility for the right woman.” Before long, he began receiving letters from Molly. Their correspondence soon turned into love for each other. Now, here he stood in the Kansas City train station waiting to finally meet her. When the train arrived, there were a lot of women getting off. Suddenly, he yelled, “Molly – over here!”
She looked his way, walked over to him, smiled and held out her hand. He took it for a moment, then let it go. She said, “How did you know who I was?” He then reached into the back pocket of his overalls and said, “From these here letters.” She responded, “But there are no pictures in them.”
He dropped his head a bit and said, “Oh yes there are! There are lots of pictures in your words.” You see, he had spent hours reading every word – looking for every little clue that would tell him who Molly really was. He had fallen in love with her words – words that had painted her portrait.
The God of the Bible is not silent. He is a God of Words. He is a God of relationship. That’s why He gave us the Bible. God’s Word paints a vivid and reliable portrait of who He is. He tells us in His Word, we as believers are His bride. The more we spend time in the Bible looking for the clues that tell us Who God is and what He is like, the more we’ll fall in love with the Bible’s Author.
