Tagged: systematic theology

February 5, 2009

How do I know the Bible is true (part 4)?

bible7 This eight-part series addresses common objections to the Bible as the Word of God.

Objection 4: It’s silly to assume that one book – the Bible – contains all of God’s truth and that other great writings, from the Vedas to the Book of Mormon, do not come from God.

In addressing this objection, we must begin with the claims of the documents themselves. The Bible specifically and repeatedly declares itself to be the written Word of God, while the Vedas do not. Even the Book of Mormon is called “another testament of Jesus Christ,” dangerously ignoring a Biblical mandate not to add to or take away from the Scriptures (Rev. 22:18-19).

While many religious writings contain moral and ethical truths, some of which are consistent with Scripture, only the Bible claims to be God’s written and complete revelation to mankind. “To begin with,” writes Paul E. Little, “the Bible itself claims to be the inspired Word of God. While these claims alone are not final proof, they are a significant body of data that cannot be ignored” (Know Why You Believe, p. 75).

Consider as well that the Bible answers life’s most important questions: Is there a God? How did the universe come to be? What’s my purpose in life? Why is there so much evil in the world, and what’s being done about it? Is there life after death? Are heaven and hell real? Can I know my eternal destiny? And so on. The Bible’s claim to be the Word of God is backed up by unparalleled textual, archaeological, and historical evidence. Most compelling, however, is the testimony of the Holy Spirit, who authored the Scriptures and who confirms in our human spirits the truth of God’s Word.

It’s also important to keep in mind that God has revealed Himself to mankind in three primary ways: creation, Christ, and Scripture. All people can observe creation, as the Psalmist did, and conclude that there is a divine designer behind all things (Ps. 8:3-4). And the apostle Paul wrote that God will hold us responsible for the revelation He has given us of Himself in nature (Rom. 1:18-23). At the same time, God became flesh in Jesus the Christ and declared not only to have the truth, but to be the truth (see John 1:1-3, 14, 17; 14:6). The testimonies of creation, of Jesus, and of the Bible are in complete harmony in declaring the truth of God’s revelation to us.

Four attributes of Scripture

In Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem writes that the ways in which the Bible teaches us about itself may be classified into four attributes:

1. The authority of Scripture. “The authority of Scripture means that all the words in Scripture are God’s words in such a way that to disbelieve or disobey any word of Scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God” (Grudem, p. 73).

All the words in Scripture are God’s words. This is what the Bible claims for itself. In the Old Testament, for example, the phrase “thus says the Lord” appears hundreds of times. Sometimes God is quoted directly; at other times, a prophet speaks at God’s command. In the New Testament, several passages indicate that all of the Old Testament writings are God’s Word (2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Peter 1:20-1). In addition, there are two places in the New Testament where New Testament writings are called “Scripture” (1 Tim. 5:18; 2 Peter 3:16). The Bible employs the phrase “The Word of God” 394 times in the Old Testament to refer to itself, plus it uses various synonyms such as law, statutes, precepts, commands, ordinances, and decrees, according to J.D. Douglas in The New Bible Dictionary.
Jesus recognized the Scriptures as authoritative. To cite but two examples, He states emphatically in Matt. 5:18, “For I assure you: Until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all things are accomplished.” And in John 10:35 He says “the Scripture cannot be broken.”
We are convinced of the Bible’s claims to be God’s words as we read the Bible. The Holy Spirit, who inspired all of Scripture, speaks in and through the words of the Bible to our hearts and confirms their truth. Writes Grudem, “In a world free from sin, the Bible would commend itself convincingly to all people as God’s Word. But because sin distorts people’s perception of reality, they do not recognize Scripture for what it really is. Therefore it requires the work of the Holy Spirit, overcoming the effects of sin, to enable us to be persuaded that the Bible is indeed the Word of God and that the claims it makes for itself are true” (p. 79).
To disbelieve or disobey any word of Scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God.
God cannot lie of speak falsely. Paul writes in Titus 1:2 of “God, who cannot lie.” And Heb. 6:18 says “it is impossible for God to lie.”
Therefore all the words in Scripture are completely true and without error in any part. Since the words of the Bible are God’s words, and because He cannot lie, we may be confident that there is neither untruthfulness nor error in the Bible.

The authority of Scripture includes the inerrancy of Scripture. “The inerrancy of Scripture means that Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact,” writes Grudem (p. 90). Put another way, “In the original manuscripts, the thoughts God wanted written were written. The words the writers used were guarded by God” (Little, p. 83).

Since the Bible is God’s Word, it always tells the truth. “God is not a man who lies, or a son of man who changes His mind” (Num. 23:19).
The Bible is inerrant yet speaks in the ordinary language of human beings. The Holy Spirit inspired 40 men over a period of more than 1,200 years to record His written revelation to mankind. These men used their own thoughts, expressions and writing styles yet were so guided by the Holy Spirit as to record exactly what God placed upon their hearts. “God worked through the instrumentality of human personality but so guided and controlled the people that what they wrote is what he wanted written” (Little, p. 77).
The Bible is inerrant yet includes “loose” or “free” quotations. For example, written Greek at the time of the New Testament had no quotation marks or equivalent kinds of punctuation, and an accurate citation of another person needed only to include an accurate representation of the content of what the person said.
To the charge that the Bible is only authoritative for “faith and practice” it may be argued that the Bible repeatedly affirms that all Scripture is profitable for us and all is God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16-17); it is pure (Ps. 12:6); it is perfect (Ps. 119:96); and it makes no restrictions on its application to our lives.

2. The clarity of Scripture. “It would be a mistake to think that most of Scripture or Scripture in general is difficult to understand. In fact, the Old Testament and New Testament frequently affirm that Scripture is written in such a way that its teachings are able to be understood by ordinary believers” (Grudem, p. 105).

The Bible frequently affirms its own clarity. Moses, for example, tells the people of Israel: “These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deut. 6:6-7).
The New Testament writers frequently state that the ability to understand Scripture rightly is more a moral and spiritual ability than an intellectual one (see 1 Cor. 2:13-15; 2 Cor. 3:14-16, 4:3-4; Heb. 5:14; James 1:5-6).
“The clarity of Scripture means that the Bible is written in such a way that its teachings are able to be understood by all who will read it seeking God’s help and being willing to follow it” (Grudem, p. 108).
There are two causes for disagreements over the clarity of Scripture: 1) we may be seeking affirmations where Scripture is silent; and 2) we may be wrongly interpreting Scripture. This is no reflection on Scripture; it is a reflection on us.
Scholars play an important role in understanding Scripture. They may teach Scripture clearly, explore new areas of understanding the teachings of the Bible, defend the doctrines of Scripture against attacks, and supplement the study of Scripture for the benefit of the church.

3. The necessity of Scripture. “The necessity of Scripture means that the Bible is necessary for knowing the gospel, for maintaining spiritual life, and for knowing God’s will, but is not necessary for knowing that God exists or for knowing something about God’s character and moral laws” (Grudem, p. 116).

The Bible is necessary for salvation in this sense, writes Grudem: One must either read the gospel message in the Bible for itself, or hear it from another person. Even those believers who came to salvation under the old covenant did so by trusting in the words of God that promised a Savior to come (p. 117).
The Bible is necessary for maintaining spiritual life. For example, Jesus, quoting Deut. 8:3, said, “Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). And Moses spoke to the Israelites concerning the words of God’s law, “they are your life” (Deut. 32:47).
The Bible is necessary for certain knowledge of God’s will. If there were no written Word of God, we could not gain certainty about God’s will through other means such as conscience or wise counsel; while they might provide a general sense of God’s will, they do not spell out in detail God’s perfect and holy standards, and we are left with the best that our sinful and fallen natures can ascertain.
General revelation – the knowledge of God’s existence, character, and moral law – comes to all people through creation. But Scripture nowhere indicates that people can know the way of salvation through general revelation. It takes special revelation – God’s words addressed to specific people, as well as the revelation of Christ through His incarnation and finished work on the cross – to know these truths.
“The Bible never views human speculation apart from the Word of God as a sufficient basis on which to rest saving faith,” writes Grudem. “Such saving faith, according to Scripture, is always confidence or trust in God that rests on the truthfulness of God’s own words” (p. 124).

4. The sufficiency of Scripture. “The sufficiency of Scripture means that Scripture contained all the words of God he intended his people to have at each stage of redemptive history, and that it now contains all the words of God we need for salvation, for trusting him perfectly, and for obeying him perfectly” (Grudem, p. 127).

We can find all that God has said on particular topics, and we can find answers to our questions. It is possible to study systematic theology and ethics and find answers to our questions.
The amount of Scripture given was sufficient at each stage of redemptive history. At the time of Moses’ death, the first five books of the Old Testament were sufficient for God’s people. And for Christians today, the Old and New Testaments are sufficient for us during the church age.
This does not imply that God cannot add any more words to those he has already spoken to His people. Rather “it implies that man cannot add on his own initiative any words to those that God has already spoken. Furthermore, it implies that in fact God has not spoken to mankind any more words which he requires us to believe or obey other than those which we have now in the Bible” (Grudem, p. 129).
The sufficiency of Scripture reminds us that we are to add nothing to, or take anything away from, the Bible.
It tells us that God does not require us to believe anything about Him or His redemptive work that is not found in Scripture.
It tells us no modern revelations from God or man are to be placed on a level equal to Scripture in authority.
It reminds us that nothing is sin that is not forbidden by Scripture either explicitly or by implication.
It tells us that nothing is required of us by God that is not commanded in Scripture either explicitly or by implication.
Finally, the sufficiency of Scripture reminds us that we should emphasize what Scripture emphasizes and be content with what God has already revealed to us in His Word.

In summary, there are countless good and moral writings that have been left with us since ancient time, many of which agree in part or in full with Scripture. These may be read for encouragement, comparison, study, or a variety of other reasons. But only the Bible makes the unique claim to be the full written revelation of God. It is authoritative, clear, necessary, and sufficient.

July 25, 2008

Sound reasons to trust the Scriptures (part 4)

The Word of God

This is the fourth in a nine-part series of articles offering sound reasons to believe the Bible is the Word of God.

In Systematic Theology (Vol. I), Dr. Norman Geisler presents many lines of evidence supporting claims for the Bible as the Word of God. In unique fashion, he labels each line of evidence with a word beginning with the letter “S,” making his arguments relatively easy to follow and remember. This article borrows his headings and then incorporates some of Geisler’s research with numerous other sources, which are cited.

Reason 4: The testimony of the supernatural

The Bible features nearly 300 prophecies of the Messiah, the latest of which dates to more than 200 years before the birth of Jesus. Every prophecy has been fulfilled, with the exception of those pertaining to His glorious return. Many are clear and specific, including:

† His virgin birth (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:21).

† His being “cut off” or killed 483 years after the declaration to reconstruct the temple in 444 B.C. (Dan. 9:24-26).

† His birthplace in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2; Matt. 2:1; Luke 2:4-7).

† His miracle-working authority (Isa. 35:5-6; Matt. 9:35).

† His rejection by the Jews (Ps. 118:22; Isa. 53:3; Acts 4:11; 1 Peter 2:7)

† His suffering and death (Ps. 22; Isa. 53; Matt. 27:27ff).

† His resurrection (Ps. 2:7; 16:10; Mark 16:6; Acts 2:31; 1 Cor. 15:3-8).

† His ascension into heaven (Ps. 68:18; Acts 1:9).

† His place today at the Father’s right hand (Ps. 110:1; Heb. 1:3).

Contrast these specific predictions and their fulfillment in Jesus of Nazareth with the predictions of psychics today who, according to The People’s Almanac, 1976, are wrong 92 percent of the time. Even the highly reputed visions of Nostradamus are suspect. He often was wrong, especially when being specific, and his predictions were usually so vague as to be practically useless.

The bible gives us many supernatural confirmations of its divine origin. For example, Moses, Elijah and other prophets were given the authority to perform miracles to confirm God’s sovereign power and divine message. Jesus, we are told by Luke, was “a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know” (Acts 2:22).

Next — Reason 5: The testimony of structure

July 9, 2008

Sound reasons to trust the Scriptures (part 3)

This is the third in a nine-part series of articles offering sound reasons to believe the Bible is the Word of God.

In Systematic Theology (Vol. 1), Dr. Norman Geisler presents many lines of evidence supporting claims for the Bible as the Word of God. In unique fashion, he labels each line of evidence with a word beginning with the letter “S,” making his arguments relatively easy to follow and remember. These articles borrow his headings and then incorporate some of Geisler’s research with other sources, which are cited.

Reason 3: The testimony of the scribes

The 40 men who penned the scriptures over a period of 1,500 years insisted that their message came from God. Many were persecuted and even killed for their faith. Of the 11 faithful apostles plus Paul, only John escaped a martyr’s death, although he was boiled in oil and banished to Patmos; even at that, he continued to boldly proclaim divine truth.
The authors of the Bible claimed to be under the direction of the Holy Spirit (2 Sam. 23:2; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:21).
The prophets ascribed their message to God. Phrases such as “Thus saith the Lord,” “God said,” and “the Word of the Lord came to me” are found hundreds of times in the Bible.
The prophets were convinced they were speaking and writing God’s Word. Near the end of the Old Testament, Zechariah mentioned “the law (and) the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets” (Zech. 7:12). Peter wrote in 2 Peter 1:21 that “prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Many of the prophets suffered and died for their belief that they were speaking God’s Word (Matt. 23:34-35).
Writing about the Old Testament, Paul declared that “All Scripture is God-breathed …” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). New Testament writers like Peter referred to the writings of Paul as “Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:16). And the author of Hebrews ranked the New Testament with the Old Testament (Heb. 1:1-2; 2:3).
Non-Christian ancient writings attest to the truthfulness of the eyewitness accounts of Christ. Ancient history dealt almost exclusively with political or military rulers, or with religious and philosophical leaders of established and respected religions. Since Jesus fits none of these categories, we would expect to see very little about Him in non-Christian writings. Yet the Jewish historian Josephus, in his Jewish Antiquities, written in the last third of the first century, corroborates the claims of the New Testament writers that Jesus was more than a man, was the Messiah, and rose from the dead on the third day (18:63-64, quoted in “The Historical Reliability of the New Testament,” Craig L. Blomberg, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, p. 215).

Next — Reason 4: The testimony of the supernatural

July 2, 2008

Sound reasons to trust the Scriptures (part 2)

This is the second in a nine-part series of articles offering sound reasons to believe the Bible is the Word of God.

Reason 2: The testimony of the scrolls

While the autographs, or original manuscripts, of the Bible have not survived the ravages of time, no other book from the ancient world has more, earlier, or better copied manuscripts than the Bible. Examples abound:

The number of manuscripts and their age

Both the Old and New Testaments are attested by a large number of manuscripts in a variety of forms spanning many centuries. The word “manuscript” is used to denote anything written by hand, rather that copies produced from printing presses.
According to scholar F.F. Bruce, we have nine or 10 good copies of Caesar’s Gallic Wars; 20 copies of Livy’s Roman History; two copies of Tacitus’s Annals; and eight manuscripts of Thucydides’ History. The most documented secular work from antiquity is Homer’s Iliad with 643 copies. But there are roughly 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, making this collection of 27 books the most highly documented book from the ancient world (The New Testament Documents, Are They Reliable?, p. 16).
Generally speaking, the older the manuscript copies, the better. The oldest manuscript for Gallic Wars is roughly 900 years after Caesar’s day. The two manuscripts of Tacitus are 800 and 1,000 years later, respectively, than the original. The earliest copies of Homer’s Iliad date from about 1,000 years after the original was authored around 800 B.C. But with the New Testament, we have complete manuscripts from only 300 hundred years later. Most of the New Testament is preserved in manuscripts less than 200 years from the original, with some books dating from a little more than 100 years after their composition and one fragment surviving within a generation of its authorship. No other book from the ancient world has as small a time gap between composition and earliest manuscript copies as the New Testament.
“In the original Greek alone, over 5,000 manuscripts and manuscript fragments or portions of the NT have been preserved from the early centuries of Christianity. The oldest of these is a scrap of papyrus containing John 18:31-33, 37-38, dating from A.D. 125-130, no more than forty years after John’s Gospel was most probably written” (Craig L. Blomberg, “The Historical Reliability of the New Testament,” Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, pp. 193-94).
“The versions and Church Fathers provide helpful early attestation that can aid scholars in reconstructing the most plausible original readings. The total tally of more than 6,000 Greek mss., more than 10,000 Latin Vulgate mss., and more than 9,300 early versions results in over 25,000 witnesses to the text of the NT” (“Is the Bible Today What Was Originally Written?” by Andreas J. Kostenberger, found in www.4truth.net).

The accuracy of the manuscript copies

Mormons and Muslims allege that the Bible’s documents were substantially corrupted as they were copied over time, but there is overwhelming evidence that proves these claims wrong.
Scholars of almost every theological stripe attest to the profound care with which the Old and New Testament documents were copied. For the New Testament, for example, the books were copied in Greek, and later translated and preserved in Syriac, Coptic, Latin and a variety of other ancient European and Middle Eastern languages.
The New Testament is the most accurately copied book from the ancient world. Textual scholars Westcott and Hort estimate that only one-sixtieth of its variants rise above “trivialities,” which leaves the text 98.33 percent pure. Noted historian Philip Schaff calculates that of the 150,000 variants known in his day, only 400 affected the meaning of a passage; only 50 were of any significance; and not even one affected an article of faith (Companion to the Greek Testament and English Version, p. 177).
Sir Frederick Kenyon, a New Testament authority, writes, “The number of manuscripts of the New Testament, or early translations from it, and of quotations from it in the oldest writers of the Church, is so large that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some one or other of these ancient authorities…. This can be said of no other ancient book in the world” (Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, p. 55).
Many of the apparent discrepancies in the gospels, Acts and the writings of Paul – minor as they are – disappear once we judge ancient historians by the standards of their day rather than ours. As Craig L. Blomberg writes, “In a world which did not even have a symbol for a quotation mark, no one expected a historian to reproduce a speaker’s words verbatim” (“The Historical Reliability of the New Testament,” Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, p. 207).
“The point is simply that the textual evidence for what the NT authors wrote far outstrips the documentation we have for any other ancient writing, including dozens which we believe have been preserved relatively intact. There is absolutely no support for claims that the standard modern editions of the Greek NT do not very closely approximate what the NT writers actually wrote” (Craig L. Blomberg, “The Historical Reliability of the New Testament,” Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, p. 194).

The only textual variants in the New Testament that affect more than a sentence or two are John 7:53-8:11 and Mark 16:9-20. Craig Blomberg writes, “Neither of these passages is very likely to be what John or Mark originally wrote, though the story in John (the woman caught in adultery) still stands a fairly good chance of being true. But overall, 97-99% of the NT can be reconstructed beyond any reasonable doubt, and no Christian doctrine is founded solely or even primarily on textually disputed passages” (“The Historical Reliability of the New Testament,” Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, p. 194).

“If we compare the present state of the New Testament text with that of any other ancient writing, we must … declare it to be marvelously correct. Such has been the care with which the New Testament has been copied – a care which has doubtless grown out of true reverence for its holy words…. The New Testament [is] unrivaled among ancient writings in the purity of its text as actually transmitted and kept in use” (Benjamin B. Warfield, Introduction to Textual Criticism of the New Testament, pp. 12-13, quoted in The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, p. 70).

The eyewitness accounts in the presence of hostile witnesses

The New Testament was written by eyewitnesses and contemporaries of Jesus. For example, Luke probably wrote his gospel around 60 A.D., before he wrote Acts. Since Jesus died around 33 A.D., this would place Luke only 27 years after the events, while most eyewitnesses – and potentially hostile witnesses – were still alive and could have refuted Luke’s record.
The apostle Paul speaks of more than 500 eyewitnesses of the resurrected Christ when he wrote 1 Corinthians, which critics date around 55-56 A.D. John and Peter add similar testimonies (1 John 1:1-2; 2 Peter 1:16).

Next – Reason 3: The testimony of the scribes

June 25, 2008

Sound reasons to trust the Scriptures (part 1)

This is the first in a nine-part series of articles offering sound reasons to believe the Bible is the Word of God.

Reason 1: The testimony of science

Much in the Bible demonstrates advanced scientific knowledge – that is, God revealed through human scribes information that only He knew long before scientists discovered these truths. For example:

The exact order of events in the origin of all things. “In a day when the ancient polytheistic myths of origin prevailed, the author of Genesis declared that the universe came into being out of nothing by the act of a theistic God in the exact order that modern science discovered a millennium and a half later,” writes Geisler. “The universe came first (Gen. 1:1a), then the earth (1:1b), then the land and sea (1:10). After this came life in the sea (1:21), then land animals (1:24-25), and finally … human beings (1:27). This too supports the view that the author of Genesis had access to some intelligence as to how the Creator made the universe” (p. 545).
Reproduction after each creature’s own kind. This scientific fact runs contrary to many ancient and even early modern views. Observation and the fossil record demonstrate that each type of life produces its own kind.
The earth as the raw material of human bodies. Many ancient polytheistic beliefs claim that people cam from the gods; the Koran teaches that human beings were made from a blood clot (Sura 23:14); but the Bible explains that God made Adam from the earth (Gen. 2:7).
Rain water returning to its source (Eccl.. 1:7). Perhaps without even understanding it, the writer recorded the process of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation long before scientists figured it out.
The shape of the world as it hangs in space. Job (26:7) and Isaiah (40:22) make remarkable statements contrary to the ancient belief that the earth was flat, or square. Some myths held that the earth rested on the back of Hercules or on pillars, but the Bible states otherwise.
Life is in the blood (Lev. 17:11), a fact declared in scripture more than 3,000 years ago and only fairly recently attested to in science.
The sea’s paths and boundaries (Ps. 8:8; Prov. 8:29). The continental shelf that makes this possible is a fairly recent scientific discovery.
The laws of sanitation (Lev. 12-15). Long before there was scientific knowledge of bacteria and germs, God instructed His people through laws of sanitation to protect themselves from diseases spread by unseen organisms.