Solutions to stumbling blocks – God’s divinely inspired book, part 3; John 16:1.Title: Solutions to stumbling blocks – God’s divinely inspired book, part 3; John 16:1.
Bibliology – the study of collecting, arranging, and explaining the divinely inspired truths of the Bible. Bible [Gr. Biblos] means book.
Part of this study would be canonicity, but we’ve already done that. I am just going to relay some of the points of introduction to bibliology from LS Chafer’s systematic theology, volume 1, chapter 2.
Though a book [quote] it does surpass all other books as to authority, antiquity, literature, and popularity, yet its peculiar supremacy is seen in the fact that it discloses the truth concerning the infinite God, infinite holiness, infinite sin, and infinite redemption. It is, therefore, reasonable to conclude that the Bible is itself infinite, and such it proves itself to be, for no human mind has fully comprehended its message or measured its values [not one, ever].
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.
No other book, from any religion, is written like this.
1 Kings 8:23 And he said, "O Lord, the God of Israel, there is no God like Thee in heaven above or on earth beneath, who art keeping covenant and showing lovingkindness to Thy servants who walk before Thee with all their heart,
1 Chron 29:11 Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Thine is the dominion, O Lord, and Thou dost exalt Thyself as head over all.
Ex 34:6 Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;
Ps 145:9 The Lord is good to all, And His mercies are over all His works.
How absurd is the assumption that unaided man could write the Bible if he chose to do so! But if man did not originate the Bible, God did, and because of that fact its authority must be recognized.
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.
This revelation extends to all the details of the Fatherhood relationship and includes the giving of the Son that the grace of God may be revealed. No human mind could originate the, conception of God the Father as He is revealed in the Bible.
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 Son offers the most extensive and immeasurable evidence of the divine origin of the Scriptures. The Person and work of the Son of God with His humiliation and glory is the dominant theme of the Bible; yet the Son, in turn, dedicates Himself to the glory of the Father. The perfections of the Son can never be compared to, or even comprehended by, the wisest of men.
Liberal historians paint Jesus as a man confused about who He was. How do you explain the beautiful literature about Christ in prophecy and in biography written by mostly uneducated men if all they were doing was to try and prop up a confused carpenter?
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.
In like manner, His service is seen to be the complement and administration of the work of the Father and the Son.
Who could originate a triune God, coequal and coeternal God who is one? What creature could possibly harmonize this mystery?
And yet the creature in great arrogance ignores what should be obvious, God’s scriptures are supernatural.
And millennia after the introduction of the God of light being one, but three in person, do we find that white light is comprised of three primary colors.
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.
Among many subjects upon which man could have no un- prejudiced information, the fact of sin and its evil character is obviously one of the foremost. Yet if it be contended that the Bible—the only source of reliable information on this theme—is not of divine origin, there is no alternative other than the supposition that man, as supposed author of the Scriptures, has sat in judgment on himself and is able to comprehend what everywhere he demonstrates himself to be unable to comprehend, namely, the sinfulness of sin.
And the problem does not involve one human author, but at least forty human authors who had their share in the actual writing of the Word of God.
All of the forty men see eye to eye on this vast theme concerning which man could know nothing apart from revelation.
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?
If fallen man does not naturally know his sinfulness, much less does he have native capacity whereby he can know the divine remedy which is not only revealed to man in the Word of God but has demonstrated its efficacy in every instance in which man has met its terms and claimed its values.
This redemption not only provides a perfect salvation for the individual believer, but extends to the new heaven and new earth with sin dismissed forever.
It is conceivable that man might dream of a Utopia, but what human being could devise the plan of salvation and cause it to be successful in every instance without exception? How could man devise a plan which discredits-human merit, which secures the saving power of God, and which tends ever to the glory of God and the disillusionment of human vanity?
Why should man in his fictitious utopia be concerned that it shall be wrought out only in that manner which preserves the infinite holiness of the One who redeems? It is only after man is redeemed that he can even feebly apprehend the mighty workings of divine grace in the salvation of the lost.
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.
Like a telescope, the Bible reaches beyond the stars and penetrates the heights of heaven and the depths of hell. Like a microscope, it discovers the minutest details of God’s plan and purpose as well as the hidden secrets of the human heart. Like a stereoscope [3D viewer], it has the capacity to place things in their right relation the one to the other, manifesting the true perspective of the divine intent in the universe. So far as human knowledge goes, the Bible deals as freely with things unknown as it does with the known. It speaks with utmost freedom and assurance of things altogether outside the range of human life and experience—of things eternal as well as of time. There is a border beyond which the human mind, basing its conclusions on experience, cannot go; yet the human authors of the Bible do not hesitate when they reach that boundary, but move majestically on into unknown realms with intrepidity [courageously]. By what other means than through the Bible may one gaze into eternity either backward or forward?
Yet the theory that the Bible does not originate in God alone, imposes the necessity of believing that restricted and temporal creatures of the earth have themselves arisen to the sublime conceptions of eternity and of heaven as well as to the eternal Being of God, and are able to sit in judgment over the eternal destiny of all things. Man could not write such a Book if he would.
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.
The religions of the world concern themselves with simple morals about drinking, smoking, family values, not lying, etc., which are basically the Ten Commandments, which apply to the unbeliever.
The Bible has introduced something which is foreign to all the moral schemes and systems the world has ever produced. Whether it be the Mosaic Law, the Christian exhortation, or the kingdom standards of rectitude [strong moral character], each becomes an obligation resting upon those to whom it is addressed because of the estate in which each group of people is placed in the sovereign goodness of God.
I am entreated not to walk as someone hoping to gain righteousness, but to walk as one who is righteous through the finished work of Christ.
In the Bible, ethics are based on doctrine and become its legitimate fruitage. In no instance is this principle so operative as in the case of the Christian, who, because of his position in Christ, is called upon to walk worthy of that high calling or election.
The Bible presents an unqualified exposure of man’s ethical failure as well as the judgments which rest upon him. Man’s depraved nature and his inevitable deflection from that which is right strongly preclude the theory that he is the originator of so high a morality as that found in the Word of God; and since on the human side the Bible is the product of Jewish authors, it is pertinent to observe that the men of that nation, even in the face of all their privileges, were little better in their moral rectitude than the men of other nations.
Added to this is the fact that the Bible standard of holy living is the testimony of many human authors from every walk of life and over many centuries. How, it may be inquired, could human nature have given spontaneously such a depressing and hopeless description of itself as is contained in the dogmatic statements of the Bible on this subject? There every soul of man is charged with complete failure.
Ps 14:2 The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, To see if there are any who understand, Who seek after God.
Psa 14:3 They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one.
For good measure it is repeated in the NT.
Rom 3:10 There is none righteous, not even one;
Rom 3:11 There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God;
Rom 3:12 All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one."
Eph 2:3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
How could incarnate bigotry and depravity become the author and champion of those principles of holiness resident only in heaven?
No other so-called holy book paints man in this picture in that he is totally depraved and helpless to do anything to save himself and that God must do all the work in salvation, in fact, other religions as well as legalistic Christianity puts salvation squarely in the lap of the creature and his performance and work.
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. Not only had Jewish writers of the Old Testament recorded all the infamies of their own nation and recognized the divine chastisements so justly sent upon them, but now as worthy writers as any of the Old Testament authors are seen to turn from Judaism altogether and to espouse a system which contradicts or supersedes Judaism at almost every vital point. These are problems that should not be passed over lightly by those who question the divine origin of the Scriptures and are compelled, therefore, to account for these oracles as a human product.
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