Tagged: Word of God

Good reasons to trust the scriptures

This column appeared Aug. 16, 2012 in The Pathway, the official news service of the Missouri Baptist Convention.

Muslims claim The Qur’an is the perfect revelation of Allah, delivered by the angel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad. It corrects corrupted Jewish and Christian scriptures and supersedes all other religious writings.

Mormons profess belief in four standard works: The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and the Bible. The Book of Mormon is especially important, recording Jesus’ appearance in America to the descendants of a Jewish prophet; it is, in Mormon teaching, “Another Testament of Jesus Christ.”

Adherents to the Church of Scientology study Dianetics, a book by one-time science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, who claimed that people go through multiple rebirths and must shed negative baggage from past lives in order to become “operating thetans.”

Then, of course, there’s the Bible, which Christians call the Word of God.

Add to these the sacred writings of other belief systems – from Buddhism to Baha’ism – and the claims to truth are astounding in their number and variety.

But which of these books is really true? Is it possible that all of them contain some truth – or that all of them are true for the people who choose to believe them? Is it narrow-minded, arrogant, or culturally insensitive to say that any of these writings is false? Why do Christians insist that the Bible is the Word of God? Can’t we all just get along?

Inerrant, inspired, authoritative

Most Christians believe in the veracity of scripture. That is, we trust the Bible to be the inerrant, inspired Word of God and the authoritative source of all we believe and practice.

By inerrant, we mean the original autographs are without error because God, as its Author, does not lie or make mistakes. By inspired, we mean the Bible is “God breathed.” And by authoritative, we mean the Bible is God’s written revelation to us and therefore must guide our thoughts, words and deeds.

But many people – including some professing Christians – do not share such a high view of scripture. They raise serious objections to the church’s claims about the Bible’s truthfulness and reliability. For example, some critics charge:

  • “No one really knows what the Bible says because we don’t have the original manuscripts.”
  • “It’s silly to assume that one book contains all of God’s truth and that other great writings, from the Vedas to The Book of Mormon, do not come from God.”
  • “The Bible is full of contradictions.”

Responding to these objections is a daunting task – in part because critics raise some valid points. For example, it’s true that we do not have the “autographs,” or original manuscripts, penned by the Bible’s human authors.

However, the Bible soars above other ancient documents in many convincing ways, giving us good reasons to trust the scriptures.

Reason 1: The documents

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 more accurately copied manuscripts than the Bible.

For example, we have 25,000 – 30,000 handwritten copies of some or all of the New Testament, 5,700 of them in Greek. This is astounding when you consider that the average Greek author has fewer than 20 copies of his works – and no originals – still in existence.

Even if there were no copies of these biblical texts, we could reconstruct the entire New Testaments from the writings of the ancient church fathers, who quoted from the New Testament more than one million times.

In addition, the existing Bible manuscripts are relatively older than other ancient documents, dating closer to the time of the originals, thus lending credence to their reliability.

Finally, while these documents vary somewhat as they have been copied over the years, nearly all of the variants are minor, and none of them challenges a single doctrine of the Christian faith.

Reason 2: 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, or even martyred, for their faith. The authors of the Bible claimed to be under the direction of the Holy Spirit (2 Sam. 23:2; 2 Peter 1:20-21).

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 apostle Paul declared that “All Scripture is inspired by God” (2 Tim. 3:16). Peter referred to the writings of Paul as “scriptures” (2 Peter 3:16).

Even non-Christian ancient writings attest to the truthfulness of the eyewitness accounts of Christ. For example, the Jewish historian Josephus, in his Jewish Antiquities, corroborates the claims of the New Testament writers that Jesus was more than a man; He was the Messiah, and rose from the dead on the third day.

Next: Reasons 3-7 to trust the scriptures.

A little scroll opened in his hand: Revelation 10

Previously: The mighty angel and the small scroll

The scripture

Rev. 10:1 – Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, surrounded by a cloud, with a rainbow over his head. His face was like the sun, his legs were like fiery pillars, 2and he had a little scroll opened in his hand. He put his right foot on the sea, his left on the land, 3and he cried out with a loud voice like a roaring lion. When he cried out, the seven thunders spoke with their voices. 4And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write. Then I heard a voice from heaven, saying, “Seal up what the seven thunders said, and do not write it down!”

5Then the angel that I had seen standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven. 6He swore an oath by the One who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it: “There will no longer be an interval of time, 7but in the days of the sound of the seventh angel, when he will blow his trumpet, then God’s hidden plan will be completed, as He announced to His servants the prophets.”

8Now the voice that I heard from heaven spoke to me again and said, “God, take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.”

9So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, “Take and eat it; it will be bitter in your stomach, but it will be as sweet as honey in your mouth.”

10Then I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It was as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I ate it, my stomach became bitter. 11And I was told, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages, and kings.” (HCSB)

A little scroll opened in his hand (v. 2)

John notes that the mighty angel has “a little scroll opened in his hand” (v. 2). Later in this chapter we will see that John, for the first time, becomes an actor in this drama as he is instructed to take the scroll and eat it. It seems reasonable to view the little scroll here as the same scroll we see in Revelation 5, which the Lamb takes from the hand of the One seated on the throne. The same root word for scroll, biblos, is used in both instances (biblion in the first and biblaridion in the second), the only difference being that in Revelation 5 it is described as being “sealed” while in Revelation 10 the emphasis is upon it being “opened.”

Interpreters who say it is the same scroll explain that the scroll in the hand of God in Revelation 5 represents forfeited inheritance, or the title deed to the earth that Satan takes from Adam at the Fall. But as the Lamb receives the scroll from God the Father and opens each seal, He unveils the Good News – that He has come to defeat the usurper, pay humanity’s sin debt, and redeem the earth and its inhabitants. Now, in Revelation 10, the scroll lies fully opened; the redemption story has been told and what remains are the final acts of human history culminating in the personal, physical and visible return of our Lord.

Since John has witnessed the opening of the scroll’s seven seals (Rev. 6:1-8:5), it makes sense that the scroll is now fully opened. And just as the Lamb takes the scroll in the presence of a mighty angel in Revelation 5, it follows that John is commanded to take the same scroll from another (some  say the same) mighty angel and “eat it” in Revelation 10. The fact that the scroll is described as “little” in this passage could be a matter of revelation. Once the seals have been broken and the divine story told, it is now time to “eat,” or internalize, the Word of God, so the scroll is of a size that John can consume. Many times in scripture we are commanded to take God’s Word into our minds so that it directs our thoughts, words and actions. For example, the Psalmist writes, “I have treasured Your word in my heart so that I might not sin against You” (Ps. 119:11). And the Israelites are commanded in Deut. 18:18, “Impress these words of Mine on your hearts and souls, bind them as a sign on your hands, and let them be a symbol on your foreheads.”

The seven thunders spoke (vv. 3-4)

The mighty angel now puts his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land. In effect, he is claiming possession of the world for God. When someone sets foot on a piece of land, it often symbolizes his intention to take it as his own. The Lord tells His people in Deuteronomy 11, as they are about to step into the Promised Land, “Every place the sole of your foot treads will be yours” (v. 24). He repeats the message in Joshua 1: “I have given you every place where the sole of your foot treads, just as I promised Moses” (v. 3). The apostle Paul instructs us, “Be angry and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, and don’t give the Devil an opportunity” – more specifically, a beachhead or a foothold (Eph. 4:26-27); once Satan claims a tiny portion of our lives, he guards it ferociously as if it’s his property, even though our whole beings belong to God. The mighty angel has a message for Jew and Gentile alike, for believer and unbeliever: he is reclaiming the earth on behalf of our Kinsman Redeemer, and he claims it while standing on the earth and sea.

When the mighty angel cries out with a loud voice, “the seven thunders” speak with their voices. Who, or what, are the seven thunders? To begin, it’s important to note that these thunders are well known; they are the seven thunders. Some say this is the voice of God, for often in scripture His voice is compared to thunder (Job 26:14, 37:5; Ps. 29; John 12:28-29). There also is thunder at the opening of the seventh seal and the pouring of the seventh vial, concluding events in cycles of the Lord’s judgment upon the earth. This booming voice could be coming from God’s throne, although John doesn’t say (Rev. 4:5). The thunders could even relate to the seven spirits of God (Rev. 1:4, 4:5, 5:6). The thunders are said to speak with “their voices,” indicating a plurality of sounds, but unified in their message, for John clearly understands what is being spoken and begins to write it down.

At this point, however, there is a voice from heaven, saying “Seal up what the seven thunders said, and do not write it down!” John has been faithfully recording what he sees and hears, but now he is told that this particular message is to remain hidden, at least for a time. Perhaps it is because the seven thunders speak something to be revealed later in Revelation; by the time we get to Rev. 22:10, John is told, “Don’t seal the prophetic words of this book, because the time is near.” This is not unprecedented in scripture. At least three times, Daniel is prohibited from sharing what has been revealed to him because those things are for “many days in the future,” or “the time of the end” (see Dan. 8:26; 12:4, 9). Or perhaps there simply are some things God determines should not be shared. The apostle Paul has a unique experience in 2 Corinthians 12 where he is taken up into the third heaven – the throne of God – and hears “inexpressible words, which a man is not allowed to speak” (v. 4). Is it possible that some experiences in the presence of Almighty God are so awe-inspiring, so wonderful, so frightening that there is no earthly way to express them?

John does not protest. He obeys the prohibition against writing down the words of the seven thunders and moves on. Perhaps we should as well.

Next: There will no longer be an interval of time

The sixth seal – Revelation 6:12-17

Previously: Until their fellow slaves were killed (Rev. 6:9-11)

The scripture

Rev. 6:12 – Then I saw Him open the sixth seal. A violent earthquake occurred; the sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair; the entire moon became like blood; 13 the stars of heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its unripe figs when shaken by a high wind; 14 the sky separated like a scroll being rolled up; and every mountain and island was moved from its place. 15 Then the kings of the earth, the nobles, the military commanders, the rich, the powerful, and every slave and free person hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 16 And they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 because the great day of Their wrath has come! And who is able to stand?” (HCSB)

When Jesus opens the sixth seal, terrifying natural disasters take place on the earth and in the heavens. There is a violent earthquake. The sun turns black and the moon turns blood red. The stars – perhaps meteors – fall to earth. The sky parts and the land masses shift. But these are not merely natural calamities; they are God’s judgments, and the wicked on earth know this. Rather than repent of their sins, however, they hide themselves in the earth and call upon the rocks and mountains to shield them from the wrath of God.

When do these events occur? What is the great day of God’s wrath? And why do the wicked refuse to repent? How do John’s first-century readers understand this passage? And what does it mean to us today?

The sixth seal

The sixth seal matches a portion of Jesus’ Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24-25. Just as the second and third seals – portending sword, famine and pestilence – echo Jesus’ words in Matt. 24:6-7; and just as the fifth seal – describing martyrdom – matches our Savior’s prediction in Matt. 24:9-10; so the sixth seal – foretelling cosmic calamity – is eerily similar to Christ’s words in Matt. 24:29: “The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not shed its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the celestial powers will be shaken.”

What follows in Matthew 24 is Jesus’ return “on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (v. 30). The people of the earth will mourn, He says, a fitting match to the response of the wicked who know the day of God’s wrath has come. “Fall on us and hide us,” they cry to the rocks and mountains, “from the face of the One seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb” (Rev. 6:16).

The sixth seal previews the destruction of the first heaven and earth, some commentators say (see Rev. 20:11; 21:1). Others argue that this seal describes God’s judgment on Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans in 70 A.D. Perhaps both views are true since there are times when prophecies in scripture have both a near-term and long-term fulfillment. In any case, John’s words have terrifying relevance to his first-century readers. Most of the seven cities mentioned in Revelation 2-3 experienced devastating earthquakes in the century prior to John’s Apocalypse. Christians in these cities may graphically envision the day of God’s wrath. What’s more, earthquakes in scripture often announce the terrifying arrival of the Lord in His glory (Ex. 19:18; Ps. 97:5; Ezek. 38:19-20). But His final coming shakes both heaven and earth.

Let’s look more closely at what occurs:

  • “A violent earthquake” (v. 12). While many commentators take this literally, as a great seismic shaking, some interpret this religiously (the destruction of the temple and the fall of Jerusalem) or politically (the crumbling of the once-unshakable Roman Empire).
  • “The sun turned black like sackcloth make of goat hair” (v. 12). Again, some see this as a natural, God-ordained occurrence such as a total eclipse of the sun or, perhaps, the smoke from a violent earthquake masking the sun’s light. Others see this from a political posture as the light goes out on the leaders of Judaism and the Roman Empire.
  • “The entire moon became like blood” (v. 12). Atmospheric conditions can change the color of the moon, making it appear a dark red. But for those viewing this event figuratively, this is a reference to “lesser lights” in Jewish and Roman leadership positions.
  • “The stars of heaven fell to the earth” (v. 13). This could be a reference to a meteor shower – a spectacular night-time show that also results in dangerous debris falling to the earth. Or, as some interpreters insist, these are men of note in Judaism or the Roman Empire.
  • “The sky separated like a scroll being rolled up” (v. 14). For the literalist, God is moving the heavens with the ease of a scribe closing a scroll. For others, this is the end of Judaism’s great era, or the end of the Roman Empire’s chapter in world history.
  • “Every mountain and island was moved from its place” (v. 14). All of creation is shaken violently in preparation for its renovation into new heavens and a new earth, although some see this in figurative terms as the dramatic end to the times of the Jews and/or the Roman Empire.

While there may be good reason to see these events in figurative terms, parallel passages in the Old Testament seem to favor a more literal interpretation. Note:

  • Isa. 13:9-10: “Look, the day of the Lord is coming – cruel, with rage and burning anger – to make the earth a desolation and to destroy the sinners in it. Indeed, the stars of the sky and its constellations will not give their light. The sun will be dark when it rises, and the moon will not shine.”
  • Isa. 34:2-4: “The Lord is angry with all the nations – furious with all their armies. He will set them apart for destruction, giving them over to slaughter. Their slain will be thrown out, and the stench of their corpses will rise; the mountains flow with their blood. All the heavenly bodies will dissolve. The skies will roll up like a scroll, and their stars will all wither as leaves wither on the vine, and foliage on the fig tree.”
  • Joel 2:30-31: “I will display wonders in the heavens and on the earth: blood, fire, and columns of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and awe-inspiring Day of the Lord comes.”

Note how R.B. Sloan helps set the stage for the rest of Revelation: “The earthquake is a consistent sign in Revelation for the destruction that immediately precedes the end (see 8:5; 11:13, 19; 16:18–19) of history and the appearance of the Lord. The repeated references to the earthquake at strategic spots in Revelation do not mean that history itself repeatedly comes to an end but that John employed the well-known literary technique of ‘recapitulation’ (see Gen. 1–2), that is, the retelling of the same story from a different ‘angle’ so as to focus upon other dimensions of and characters in the same story.

“Thus, in Revelation we are repeatedly brought to the end of history and the time of Christ’s return. But John withheld his final (and fullest) description of this world’s end until the end of his document (19:1–22:5). In the meantime he used the literary technique (among others) of retelling to prepare his readers for both the traumas and hopes of human history” (“The Revelation,” in D. S. Dockery (Ed.), Holman Concise Bible Commentary, p. 672).

Next: The kings … hid in caves (Rev. 6:12-17)

Are there times we shouldn’t talk about Jesus?

Consider Matt. 8:4 – Then Jesus told him, “See that you don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses prescribed, as a testimony to them.”

Is the leper whom Jesus healed really not to tell anyone? Obviously, he has to say something to the priest in order to fulfill the requirements of the law. But what about his family, friends and others in the community? Is he expected to hide this obvious miracle from their eyes — especially since now, for perhaps the first time in years, he’s able to have personal contact with the ones he loves? What’s the point of Jesus’ stern command?

Quite simply, it appears Jesus is making it clear that the time has not yet come for Him to be fully revealed as the promised Messiah. Although in some private settings — as with the Samaritan woman at the well and in the presence of His closest disciples — He affirms His Messianic identity, He carefully calculates the day in which He must ride triumphantly into Jerusalem and be hailed King of the Jews. Until Palm Sunday, however, He must continue His earthly ministry without inciting His followers to prematurely declare Him King or His detractors to prematurely seek His death. All is done in God’s perfect timing. His command to the healed leper to hold his tongue looks to His future date with destiny, when He is declared King and fulfills the role of Suffering Servant in a single week.

The apostle Paul puts it well in Gal. 4:4-5: “But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (KJV)

One final note: After Christ’s resurrection, the recipients of His grace are never commanded to hide the message of the Messiah.

Seven reasons to trust the scriptures

Muslims claim The Koran is the perfect revelation of Allah given to the prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel. It corrects corrupted Jewish and Christian scriptures and supersedes all other religious writings.

Members of the Unification Church say Divine Principle is their written authority, coming from the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, “the Lord of the Second Advent” who completed the work Jesus left unfinished when Jesus died on the cross rather than marrying and having children.

Mormons profess belief in four standard works: The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and the Bible (“as far as it is translated correctly”). The Book of Mormon is especially important, recording Jesus’ appearance in America to the descendants of a Jewish prophet; it is, in Mormon teaching, “Another Testament of Jesus Christ.”

Adherents to the Church of Scientology study Dianetics, a book by one-time science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, who claimed that people are eternal beings who go through a series of rebirths and must shed the negative baggage from past lives in order to become “operating thetans.”

Then, of course, there’s the Bible, which most Christians agree is the Word of God.

Add to these the sacred writings of countless other belief systems – from Buddhism to Baha’ism – and the claims to truth are astounding in their number and variety.

But which of these books is really true? Is it possible that all of them contain some truth – or that all of them are true for the people who choose to believe them? Is it narrow-minded, arrogant, or even bigoted to say that any of these writings is false? Why do Christians insist that the Bible is the Word of God? Can’t we all just get along?

Most Christians believe in the veracity of Scripture. That is, we trust the Bible to be the inerrant, infallible, inspired Word of God and the authoritative source of all we believe and practice. By inerrant, we mean the original autographs are without error. By infallible, we mean the Bible is incapable of error because God, as its author, does not lie or make mistakes. By inspired, we mean the Bible is “God breathed.” And by authoritative, we mean that the Bible, as God’s Word, is His written revelation to us and must therefore guide our thoughts, words and deeds.

But are there sound reasons to trust the scriptures? Indeed, there are.

Listen. Read. Learn more.