TheTrustworthiness of Scripture

Robert C. Newman

Introduction

In witnessing today, we find far more people rejecting theBible's claim to be God's word than was the case in former years.  As a result, our witness is oftenrendered ineffective from the very start, for many people are unwilling tobelieve the Bible, the source of authority by which we proclaim God's messageof human sinfulness and his offer of reconciliation through Christ.

This situation today reflects a spreading attitude ofunbelief which can perhaps be traced from the fall of Puritanism in seventeenthcentury England through the Enlightenment and French Revolution of theeighteenth century to the Rationalism of nineteenth century Germany and finallyinto American colleges and churches in our own [20^th] century.

This particular stream of unbelief has been coupled with ahigh level of scholarship rediscovered by the Renaissance humanists anddeveloped by Bible believers of the Reformation and Puritan periods.  This combination of scholarship andunbelief has raised an impressive edifice in opposition to BiblicalChristianity.

The most famous construction of this movement is thebiological theory of evolution, which denies the Biblical teaching that Godcreated all things, including man, and that man, by his own volition, rebelledagainst God and fell from his original sinless state.

Less famous, but equally devastating, have been variouspsychological theories based on evolution, by which man, rising from aprimitive animal state, is gradually improving his own religions, moral codesand actual behavior. In suchpsychologies, sin loses its absolute quality of transgression against God andbecomes merely guilt feelings or antisocial behavior, to be removed by properconditioning.

Even less familiar in Christian circles, but mostdestructive of all, have been the direct attacks made on the trustworthiness ofthe Bible by this formidable combination of learning with unbelief.

As a result of such scholarship, the whole Biblical pictureof the God who made all things and who intervenes miraculously in history hasbeen denied. The great prophetMoses is pictured as a legend and his five books of revelation from God areseen as a cleverly-contrived patchwork produced by editors working as much as athousand years later. Virtuallyevery prophetic book of the Old Testament has been divided up intocontributions from several authors in order to fit an evolutionary view for thedevelopment of religion and to avoid bonafide supernatural prediction of futureevents.

The New Testament has not been overlooked in this radicalreworking of the Bible. Jesus hasbeen variously pictured as a gentle humanitarian teacher, a radicalrevolutionary bent on overthrowing the Roman establishment, a clever plotterseeking to fulfill Old Testament predictions of the Messiah, or a deludedfanatic who had convinced himself that God had sent him.

To obtain such pictures of Jesus, the Gospels are viewed asunreliable products of superstitious and biased writers far removed from theactual events. The testimony ofPaul is usually discredited by removing him as far as possible, bothgeographically and theologically, from the original disciples of Jesus, and bypostulating a strong antagonism between them.

Like the Christian view, this complex of theories alsorequires the Bible to be a work truly unprecedented in world history, but nowits distinction is seen to lie in its mass of cleverly-contrived devices tocover up forgery, to falsify prophecies and still to teach a morality of loveand honesty!

If this situation is appalling to us as evangelicalChristians living in the latter part of the twentieth century, at least weshould be comforted by the fact that this is what we should have expected.  The Bible pictures unbelievers as "deceivingand being deceived" (2 Tim 3:13), "suppressing the truth inunrighteousness" (Rom 1:18), "having a form of godliness but denyingthe power thereof" (2 Tim 3:5), and "wresting the Scriptures to theirown destruction" (2 Pet 3:16).

Nor should we think of today's opposition to the Word of Godas historically unprecedented, for "there is nothing new under the sun"(Eccl 1:9). Six hundred yearsbefore Christ, King Jehoiakim cut up and burned the scroll of the prophetJeremiah. The Jewish leaders hadJesus put to death, and they forcibly sought to stop his disciples fromproclaiming his resurrection.

Later the Roman government actively persecuted Christiansoff and on for over 250 years, confiscating and destroying Bibles in theprocess. Before AD 300, some ofthe arguments against the prophecies of Daniel now found in college textbookswere put forward by the pagan writer Porphyry. Even after Christianity was legalized by Constantine, theRoman emperor Julian sought to defy biblical prophecy by having the Jerusalemtemple rebuilt. His spectacularfailure is an interesting story.

These attacks on the Bible have ever been used byunbelievers to excuse immorality, even as they are today.  Jonathan Swift, in the earlyeighteeenth century, reports on the relief of a man at hearing some manuscriptsof the New Testament read differently in a passage on the Trinity, whotherefore concluded he could safely defy the parson and continue in his sins.

It is clear, I think, that the matter of the trustworthinessof Scripture is central to any consideration of Christian witness today, not tomention is crucial importance for the very existence of Christianity.  It is this vital subject which we wouldlike to consider this evening.

Trustworthiness a Revealed Doctrine

The first thing about the trustworthiness of Scripture thatwe as Christians need to understand is this. The inerrancy of the Bible is a revealed doctrine of Scripture and not a conclusion reachedby an examination of evidence other than the Scripture's own statements.  It is true, as we shall see later, thatthere is compelling evidence that the liberal view is incorrect which sees thisuniverse as a closed system of cause and effect into which not even God canbreak, but the point we wish to make here is that man is incapable of provingthe trustworthiness of the Bible in the sense of its being an inerrant revelation from God.

This is so, in the first place, because no man knows enoughby investigation to make a universal negative statement, whether it be "Thereis no god" or "There are no errors in the Bible."  All of us have finite brains and shortlifetimes. As a result, we cannotexamine all possible interpretations of every Scripture passage to show thatall agree with reality. This isfurther complicated by the fact that we don't know much about reality either.

On the other hand, the unbeliever would seem to be in arelatively easier position, for he needs only to demonstrate one mistake in Scripture to disprove its inerrancy.  And in fact, unbelievers have alleged agreat many errors in Scripture. Asit happens, however, these errors have had a disconcerting tendency todisappear when further evidence is uncovered. For instance, the book of Daniel was for a long timeattacked as inaccurate because it listed the last king of Babylon as Belshazzarand said he was killed in the fall of Babylon. But all other historians known said that Nabonidus was thelast king of Babylon and he was spared when the Persians conquered the Empire.  But then the archives of Babylon werediscovered buried in the sand on clay tablets. These show that Nabonidus was not interested in ruling theBabylonian Empire, so he went into the desert to study the stars and left hisson Belshazzar as co-regent to rule in his place.

Where such alleged errors have later been cleared up, theallegation is usually seen to be due to misinterpretation of Scripture, toexcessive reliance on inaccurate historical materials, or most often, toarguments based on silence rather than positive evidence.

Man cannot himself prove the inerrancy of Scripture in thesecond place because his intellect has been damaged by sin.  This defect, it should be noted,afflicts believers as well as unbelievers, and it will leave us with manymistaken ideas which will not be cleared up until we are glorified.  Naturally, our correct and mistakenideas about what the Bible teaches will not necessarily fit together withoutcontradiction.

In the third place, God is infinite and so in many ways foreverbeyond our finite understanding. For instance, we may never know how God exists in three persons and isyet a unity, nor how God's control over all things and events can be reconciledwith our responsibility for our own actions.

But though we cannot prove by independent investigation thatthe Bible is inerrant, it is not difficult to show that this is what theScripture reveals concerning itself. Thus 2 Timothy 3:16 tells us that all Scripture is "God-breathed,"that it is spoken from the mouth of God himself. 2 Peter 1:20-21 indicates that God did not leave theprophets to interpret historical events and visions by their own privateability, but rather that the Spirit of God carried them along to the rightresult.

The product of their prophesying, according to Deuteronomy18:21-22, was so accurate that false prophets could be recognized by onemistake in their predictions, and so clear that the common people could beentrusted with recognizing the false prophets and executing the death penalty uponthem. As a result, the Scripturalcommandments are so authoritative that Jesus warned anyone who teaches thateven the least commandment could be safely broken would be least in God's kingdom!

Thus we as Christians are called upon to defend the trustworthinessof Scripture against attacks from outside (or even inside) the church, just aswe must earnestly contend for the deity of Christ and his bodilyresurrection. It is a fact ofrevelation proved from Scripture itself, not from an appeal to archeology,science or reason.

Trustworthiness a Living Principle

Because Christ has called us to be his witnesses, becauseour good works are to glorify our Father in heaven, the trustworthiness ofScripture must be more to us than an abstract doctrine.  It must also be a principle whichcontrols our whole life.

In the first place, it is the trustworthiness of Scriptureas a principle of our life which has, in a real sense, saved us.  Of course it is true that we have beensaved by God's having chosen us, by Christ's atoning death for us, and by theHoly Spirit's saving work in giving us the new birth. It is also true that most of us were taught the truths ofthe Gospel by some other person, rather than learning them for ourselves inindividual Bible study, but it is still true that the Bible has saved us.  The Scripture says that "faithcomes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom 10:7), and churchhistory has amply demonstrated that it is only in the Bible that God's word hasbeen preserved through the centuries.

Thus Paul tells Timothy to continue in the things he haslearned from childhood in the "Holy Scriptures, which are able to make youwise unto salvation" (2 Tim 3:15). The Psalmist agrees: "Unless the law had been my delights, I shouldthen have perished in my affliction" (Ps 119:92).

Secondly, once we have been saved, it is necessary for us totrust the Scriptures in order to live the Christian life.  "All Scripture is profitable forteaching, for conviction (of sin), for correcting faults and for discipline inrighteousness, that the man of God may be complete" (2 Tim 3:16-17).

So many aspects of the Christian life involve things wecannot see and things we cannot know outside of Scripture, that we shall surelymake shipwreck of our faith without it. The whole eleventh chapter of Hebrews illustrates the crucial decisionsmade by men of faith in which correct knowledge of the invisible or the futurewas absoolutely essential. Theonly armor which will protect us against the invisible activities of Satancomes to us through Scripture.

The Psalmist recognized the value of Scripture in his dailylife when he saw himself in relation to those who didn't have it (Ps119:98-100):

Thou through thy commandments hastmade me

wiserthan my enemies…

I have more understanding than allmy teachers:

forthy testimonies are my meditation.

I understand more than the ancients

becauseI keep thy precepts.

Spiritually we are like men walking along a dangerous pathin the darkness, but the Scripture is a lamp to our feet, a light to our path(Ps 119:105).

So our attitude toward Scripture distinguishes the believerfrom the unbeliever. The Christiandoes not guide his steps through life according to the advice of the wicked,nor choose the lifestyle of habitual sinners, nor take the viewpoint of mockers(Psalm 1). Instead he actuallyenjoys God's laws, and this attitude and the resultant Bible study produce ahappy, fruitful life.

Trustworthiness a Powerful Weapon

At this point, it may seem that I have said rather littleabout witness. I have suggestedthat the trustworthiness of Scripture is a revealed doctine which is a vitalnecessity of the Christian life, but what does this have to do with winning thelost? Actually, it is veryimportant to our Christian witness, but to make this clear we must go onward.

By now, some might conclude that our doctrine of theinerrancy of Scripture independent of external evidence is an impregnablefortress, and that we as Christians may go inside, lock the door and kick downany ladders by which outsiders may seek to enter this safe position, trustingthat the Lord will somehow populate the fortress independent of visible means,perhaps by using a Star Trek transporter. But this is absurd.

Although the mysterious and supernatural work of the HolySpirit is indispensable for the salvation of everyone who becomes a Christian,God has chosen to work through means to accomplish this purpose.  He has chosen "the weak things …to confound the mighty" (1 Cor 1:27). The treasure of God's free salvation is carried to others inthe earthen pots which are saved sinners (2 Cor 4:7).

That Christians may accomplish this purpose, God has givenus his trustworthy, miraculous Word as a powerful weapon by which we may wageoffensive warfare, "piercing to soul and spirit" (Heb 4:12), "castingdown strongholds" (2 Cor 10:4), that the "gates of hell may notprevail" (Matt 16;18) against us. But this Word is not some sort of magic talisman for driving out demonsby a few choice incantations, nor a shield for stopping enemy bullets, norfurniture for our bookcase, nor even a sourcebook of passages to memorizewithout understanding. It is onlyas the Bible is understood by patient, sane and pious labor that it manifestsits supernatural force in transforming lives.

It is then that we come to see men for what they are, thehighest earthly creations of God, made in his own image, yet fallen into suchdepths of sin that even we as Christians (but for the grace of God) are capableof every degradation and atrocity that men have ever committed.  This Biblical picture, properlyunderstood by Christians and properly communicated to the unsaved, has apowerful convicting force in bringing men to recognize the truth of Scriptureand their awful predicament before a righteous God. It is here that God has given us a real weapon to punctureman's inflated self-image.

In science, too, the Bible provides powerful insights tochallenge the theories of unsaved humanity. Alone among the documents of antiquity, the Bible depictsthe universe as an enormous (Jer 31:37; 33:22) but finite (1 Kings 8:27; Ps147:4) object of finite age which was created (Gen 1:1) by a Being whose naturealone can account for order and personality. How is it that the insignificant Israelite nation came topossess such a conception, which fits the observable data to a degree unmatchedeven by modern theories?

On a smaller scale, how did the biblical writers avoid thecommon scientific mistakes of their time? Why does the Bible teach a round earth (Job 26:10) instead of a flatone? How did its authorsunderstand the world to hang on nothing (Job 26:7) when nearly everyone elseknew such an object must have material support or it would fall?  How has the Bible avoided the medicaland genetic errors of antiquity? (see McMillen, None of These Diseases). Suchexamples are barbs God has prepared for the balloon of religious evolution, butwe must understand and use them if it is to be punctured in our generation.

But sometimes these arguments will be swept under the rug byunbelievers who postulate the existence of (unknown) advanced civilizations inantiquity or even visitors from other planets, who gave all this information tothe Hebrews. While today suchsuggestions are on the lunatic fringe, it is characteristic of the unbelieverto run to another (false) position if you demolish his previous one.  We cannot expect all opposition tovanish if we succeed in showing its weakness. (Remember that they crucified Jesus.)  Our job is to give a logical reason forthe hope within us, to stop the mouths of gainsayers, and let God take care ofthe results.

Another weapon of great importance which the Bible providesfor our witness is fulfilled prophecy. The Bible's description of reality explains Jeane Dixon's unusual,probably supernatural, but certainly fallible, prophecies.  Can materialism or positivism explainhow the Bible was right in predicting a second exile of the Jewish people (Is11:11), yet their preservation (now lasting nearly two thousand years) as adistinct, recognizable group, an event unpredendented in world history?  Can a non-supernaturalist explain howthe Bible predicts that a particular gate in a particular city would be "permanently"closed (Ezek 44:1-2), though the prediction was fulfilled two thousand yearslater by a member of an antagonistic religion?

And biblical prophecy is more than merely isolatedprodigies. Centuries before theChristian era, the prophets of the Old Testament predicted the coming of a manespecially commissioned by God, who had already existed from ancienttimes. This man was neverthelessto be born in the small village of Bethlehem in Judea (Micah 5:2), yet he wouldsomeday become world-famous. Hewas to come while the second Jewish temple was still standing (Hag 2:7-9; Mal3:1), while the Jews were still in their own land as a nation, during the 69^thsabbatical cycle after the command to rebuild Jerusalem (Dan 9:25-26).  Although this man would work miraclesand offer salvation to his people, yet he would be rejected by them (Isaiah53). He was to be put to death bymeans of executions involving pierced hands and feet, stretching of the body,terrible thirst, mocking and degradation, yet he was to live again and hismessage was to be spread everywhere by his followers (Psalm 22).

With so many specific restrictions described prophetically,it would be amazing if anyone in history would be able to fit them, even if themiraculous features are left out. But Jesus of Nazareth not only fit them, he is generally recognized evenby unbelievers to be one of the most significant figures in world history, andthat for reasons which have nothing to do with fulfillment of prophecy.

Thus biblical prophecy is not only a weapon to puncture thetheories of unbelievers, it also leads them and us to the feet of the God-manJesus Christ, whose life, death and resurrection provide the only way ofreconciliation to God.

Conclusions

Let us summarize what we have said this evening.  The Bible is God's word and thereforeit is trustworthy. Because it istrustworthy, its prescriptions really do work to bring men to Christ and toguide those who follow him.

But most of the unsaved will never take the time to read theBible unless they are drawn to it. They will not be drawn to it unless they see in us some quality of lifethat cannot be found outside of Christianity.

Our witness, then, will be no better than our Christianlife. Our Christian life will notrise above our trust in God's word. But, by God's grace, our trust in his word can grow as we understand itand apply it seriously in our own lives.

Let us then earnestly study his word for what it is, alife-giving communication from the One who made every atom, every human, everygalaxy. Let us live his word inthe realization that the Creator is a holy God who sees us every moment, whowill one day bring our every thought and act into judgment.

Probably given in Ithaca, NY, probably in the late 1970s,probably at Faith Bible Chuch, though possibly at Cornell University or IthacaCollege.