Solutions to stumbling blocks – God’s divinely inspired book, part 4; John 16:1.

Title: Solutions to stumbling blocks - God’s divinely inspired book, part 4; John 16:1.

 

Bibliology - the study of collecting, arranging, and explaining the divinely inspired truths of the Bible. Bible [Gr. Biblos] means book.

 

THE BOOK OF GOD. By this title it is intended to call attention to the claim everywhere present in the Bible, that it is God’s message to man and not man’s message to his fellow men, much less man’s message to God.

 

THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. God is one in essence, yet three identified Persons. Doubtless this is one of the greatest of mysteries.

 

The doctrine reaches beyond the range of human understanding, though it is a fundamental in the divine revelation.

 

GOD THE FATHER: Father of all creation, Father of the eternal Son—the Second Person—, and the Father of all who believe unto the salvation of their souls.

 

The record concerning the Second Person, who, according to the Word of God:

GOD THE SON: the Son from all eternity, who is ever the manifestation of the Father, and who, though now subject to the Father in His humanity, is the Creator of material things, the Redeemer and final Judge of all mankind.

 

GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT: presented in revelation as equal in every particular to the Father and the Son and portrayed as being subject to both the Father and the Son.

 

CREATION. Is man who so fails to discover any reasonable solution of this problem at the same time to be credited with the authorship of the Genesis account of creation?

 

The Genesis account is the one basis whereon all subsequent revelation proceeds and the first mention of the messiah and His cross.

 

SIN. If God not be the Author then man has sat in judgment of himself and demonstrated a wisdom of the sinfulness of sin.

 

THE CURE OF EVIL ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE. Could man know his sinfulness and then devise a plan of redemption that only brings glory to God without merit to man and extends to every man regardless of race and is successful every time?

 

Yet if one hesitates to receive the Bible as God’s Word, he is left with no other choice than to believe that man is the author of redemption and that it has no more saving value than a fallen man can impart to it - RELIGION.

 

THE EXTENT OF BIBLE REVELATION. The Bible goes beyond the human experience looking into eternity past and future.

 

THE ETHICS OF THE BIBLE. The ethics of the Bible are as supernatural in their origin and holy character as is the estate into which the elect of God are brought.

 

Still another feature of this general subject, which, however, is only remotely related to the problem of morals, inquires:

 

How did Jews who were steeped in Judaism originate such a Book as the New Testament? There is hardly a feature of Christianity which the Jew does not naturally resist.

 

What could be more repulsive to a Jew than the sentiment,

 

ROM 10:12

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon Him;

 

Was not Judaism from God and was it not practiced for fifteen hundred years under the divine favor? Because of these indisputable facts, the Jew clutched the elements of Judaism to his heart, and still clutches them. The gospel abruptly broke in upon this religious monopoly and its consequent isolation.

 

THE CONTINUITY OF THE BIBLE. the Bible is a collection of sixty-six books which have been written by over forty different authors—kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, physicians, statesmen, scholars, poets, and plowmen—who lived their lives in various countries and experienced no conference one with another, and over a period of not less than sixteen hundred years of human history.

 

The continuity of the message of the Bible is absolute in its completeness. It is bound together by historical sequence, type and antitype, prophecy and its fulfilment.

 

From Genesis the Bible anticipates, presents, realizes, and exalts the most perfect Person who ever walked the earth and whose glories are the brightness of heaven.

 

Yet the perfection of this continuity is sustained against what to man would be impediments that are impossible to overcome; for the Bible is a collection of sixty-six books which have been written by over forty different authors—kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, physicians, statesmen, scholars, poets, and plowmen—who lived their lives in various countries and experienced no conference or agreement one with another, and over a period of not less than sixteen hundred years of human history.

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Because of these obstacles to continuity, the Bible would be naturally the most heterogeneous, incommensurable [lacking commonality with anything so as to not be compared or measured], inconsonant, and contradictory collection of human opinions the world has ever seen; but, on the contrary, it is just what it is designed to be, namely, a homogeneous, uninterrupted, harmonious, and orderly account of the whole history of God’s dealings with man.

 

Because of these obstacles, the Bible should be the most heterogeneous, inconsistent, and contradictory collection of human opinions the world has ever seen, yet it is a harmonious symphony.

 

Satan and the KOD attempts to group the Bible with his false counterparts as being written around the same time and in the same manner and so he attempts to commensurate the holy Scriptures with other writings of man. To the learned eye this comparison or commonality false woefully short and is revealed as an obvious scheme to discredit that which is divine in origin.

 

Nor should it be unobserved that other sacred books are the product of one man and therefore involve no problem of continuity such as developed when the writings of forty disassociated men are blended into one perfect whole. Each of the three great monotheistic religions has its written oracles. However, Judaism and Christianity share in this that their writings are a compilation of the writings of various human authors. The book which contains the tenets of Islam is the work of the founder of Islam. It proclaims itself to be the words of God; not, however, written by the hand of the prophet but taken by dictation from his mouth as a so-called revelation. It begins and ends in the person of its first teacher. From these records none of his followers dares take away or add to.

 

Its harmony is not that of trumpets in unison, but rather orchestration where, though absolutely in tune, the instruments are perfectly distinguished. On what ground could this plenary continuity be explained if it be asserted that the Bible is any less than the Word of God?

 

PROPHECY AND ITS FULFILLMENT. A very great number of prophecies were made by Old Testament writers concerning the coming Messiah and these were declared hundreds, and in some instances thousands, of years before Christ came.

 

It has always pleased God to preannounce the thing He is going to do and history records the realization of the prediction. A very great number of prophecies were made by Old Testament writers concerning the coming Messiah and these were declared hundreds, and in some instances thousands, of years before Christ came.

 

Those predictions which in the divine purpose were to be fulfilled at Christ’s first advent were literally fulfilled at that time. [Satan’s deception has been to interpret prophecy allegorically and not literally, which has led to such false doctrines as the Church being the recipient of the promises to Israel, as the Millennium not being literally 1000 years, or that there is no Millennium at all, as the Rapture coming after the Tribulation or in the middle of it.] Many more yet remain to be fulfilled when He comes again, and, it is reasonable to believe, these will be fulfilled with the same precision.

 

Were but two prophecies made and fulfilled, such as the virgin birth of Christ, to occur in Bethlehem of Judea, the supernatural character of the Scriptures would be proved by the history which records their accomplishment; but when these predictions run into thousands which concern the Persons of the Godhead, angels, nations, families, individuals, and destinies, and each and every one is exactly executed in its prescribed time and place, the evidence is incontestable as to the divine character of the Scriptures.

 

A fiction writer might present an imaginary situation concerning a supposed time and place and in that time and place cause his fictitious character to make a sham prediction and then follow this by another chapter in which he records the pretended fulfilment of this sham prediction, but it is not anything like that in the Bible.

 

The prophecies of the Bible are fulfilled in every instance by actual history. The Bible itself indicates that the acid test of all prophecy is its literal fulfilment.

 

Nor is the intervening time of small importance. Based on obvious conditions, a man might make a fortunate guess as to the turn of events on the day that follows; but the Bible prophecy disregards the element of time.

 

Biblical prophecy disregards the element of time; some are over a thousand years and others over a few days.

 

GEN 3:15 [over 4000 BC] And I will put enmity

Between you and the woman,

And between your seed and her seed;

He shall bruise you on the head,

And you shall bruise him on the heel."

 

Ps 22:1 [1000 BC] My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?

Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning.

 

Ps 22:2 O my God, I cry by day, but Thou dost not answer;

And by night, but I have no rest.

 

Ps 22:6 But I am a worm, and not a man,A reproach of men, and despised by the people.

 

Ps 22:7 All who see me sneer at me;They separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying,

 

Ps 22:8 "Commit yourself to the Lord; let Him deliver him;Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him."

 

Ps 22:9 Yet Thou art He who didst bring me forth from the womb;Thou didst make me trust when upon my mother's breasts.

 

Ps 22:10 Upon Thee I was cast from birth;Thou hast been my God from my mother's womb.

 

Ps 22:11 Be not far from me, for trouble is near;For there is none to help.

 

Ps 22:12 Many bulls have surrounded me;Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.

 

Ps 22:13 They open wide their mouth at me,As a ravening and a roaring lion.

 

Ps 22:14 I am poured out like water,And all my bones are out of joint;My heart is like wax;It is melted within me.

 

Ps 22:15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd,And my tongue cleaves to my jaws;And Thou dost lay me in the dust of death.

 

Ps 22:16 For dogs have surrounded me;A band of evildoers has encompassed me;They pierced my hands and my feet.

 

Ps 22:17 I can count all my bones.They look, they stare at me;

 

Ps 22:18 They divide my garments among them,And for my clothing they cast lots.

 

Zech 12:10 [520 BC]And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him, like the bitter weeping over a first-born.

 

John 3:14 [2-3 years before] "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;

 

No one would have drawn this conclusion.

 

John 3:15 that whoever believes may in Him have eternal life.

 

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.

 

Matt 26:2 "You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man is to be delivered up for crucifixion."

 

Who would be prepared to believe that hundreds of predictions which are fulfilled on the pages of history and extending over thousands of years of intervening time are the work of unaided men?

Yet there is no other alternative for the one who questions the divine origin of the Scriptures.