The authority of Scripture 8 (end)

Biblical exposition

It is the duty of ministers of the Gospel to expose the Scriptures. They must do that in the assurance that the Scriptures are the infallible and inerrant Word of God for all ages. The application is a part of the exposition. When we think that the application is not immediately related to the exposition, we in fact see the Bible just as an historical document. In that case the sources for the application of the biblical message come from outside the Bible. Knowledge of gram­mar, bib­lical history and languages is highly use­ful. We must compare Scrip­ture with Scrip­ture. We must reject how­ever exegetical methods, which are not based on the self-wit­ness of the Bible.

Our approach to the Bible is never neu­tral. We must approach the Bible in the aware­ness that it is the voice of the liv­ing of God. Not our reason must judge the Bible, but the Bible must judge our rea­son. What we need above all is the enlightening of the Holy Spirit. Other­wise our knowl­edge of the Bible and of bibli­cal exe­gesis can be very great, but it is just an encyclopaedic knowledge. For that reason exposing the Scripture, we miss the real point. How we have to pray daily: "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law (Psalms 119:18)"

 

The end of the authority of Scripture

God has given us his Word to make us wise unto salvation. Defending the infallibility of Scrip­ture must never become an aim in itself. Our aim must be that we and other people glorify the triune God who has revealed himself to us and speaks to us in his Word. When we have our reser­vations about the divine origin of the Scripture and its divine inspiration, we cannot speak with authority any longer.

Prophets and apostles knew themselves to be spokesmen of the living God. They said: "Thus saith the LORD". Accepting the books of prophets and apostles as the Word of God, ministers of the gospel preaching the Word may speak and must speak which the same assur­ance: "Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:20)"

 

The authority of Scripture 7

The formal and material authority of Scripture

The scope of Scripture is the message of salvation by Jesus Christ. In that context we speak about the material authority of Scripture. That means: Scripture has authority because of its mess­age. The will of God and the way of salvation is abundantly taught in it. The for­mal auth­ority of Scripture means that all what the Scripture teaches on what­ever topic has divine authority. In article 5 of the Belgic Con­fession we read: "believing without any doubt all things contained in them."

More than once it has been defended that the Scripture is only infal­lible in regard to its doc­trine of faith and salvation. Men want to hold fast to its material authority but cannot accept its for­mal auth­ority. Again we must say that it is impossible to separate the saving message of Scrip­ture from all that it contains. The formal and material authority of Scripture presupposes each other and need each other. The formal and material authority of Scripture is two sides of one coin.

The saving message of Scripture is complete reliable because it is revealed to us in the fully inspired, infallible Word of God. We can never separate the content of Scripture form the character of God. What God says and that God speaks to us in Scripture, are com­pletely related to each other. Because of the form given to the Scrip­ture by God (fully and verbally inspired), the Scripture can fulfil the aim for which God has given it to us (to make us wise unto salva­tion).

 

The witness of the Holy Spirit

How do we come to the assurance that the Bible is the Word of God? It has been testified in the church during the ages. The Bible itself shows many marks of its Divine origin. Our ultimate assurance that the Bible is the Word of God is not based on the fact that the church receives and approves it as such, but on the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Sprits convinces us of our adoption into the family of God. At the same it convinces us of the divine origin, and the divine authority of the message of the Bible.

Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: "For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake (1 Thessalonians 1:5)." In the sec­ond chapter of the same epistle we read: "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe" (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

A Christian upbringing or Christian witness is as a rule the first way in which we are brought in contact with God’s Word, and is used by God, as the conviction that the Bible is the Word of God. But the witness of other men never can be our ultimate ground of assurance. Our unshakable assurance is based on the witness of the third person of the Holy Trinity in our hearts. Being enlightened by the Holy Spirit we see the majesty of God in his Word. We recognized his voice.

When we try to convince others of the message of the Bible, we can point to the fulfilment of prophecies, the trustworthiness of quite a lot of biblical accounts proved by archaeological excava­tions, the existence of the Christian church and so on. We can also point to unrest in every human heart and explain it in the light of the bibli­cal message of sin and salvation. We can witness and we are obliged to do it, we only God can really convince and assure people and he does it by his Holy Spirit.

 

The authority of Scripture 6

The historical reliability of the biblical witness

One of the essential features of biblical revelation is that God acts in history. God governs history. The biblical record is a his­torical record. Our salvation is based on God's mighty and saving acts. Is it essential that these mighty acts really happened? Are we to accept the reliability of the biblical historical records?
Let me first say the Bible is written in several genres. We find prose and poetry, psalms and prophecy. Awareness of the literary categories is essential for proper exegesis. We must however an appeal to literal genres to undermine the historical trustworthiness of the biblical record of events. What the Bible reports regarding history must be accepted as such.

The salvation of sinners depends on the work of Christ. Sometimes the position is defended that the acts reported in the Bible can be still true although they in reality never happened. We find this view already in the early church. Origenes said that several histories reported in the Bible were in reality allegories containing a lesson for us. With his allegorising method he tried to take away the offen­sive nature of the biblical message for the educated men of his own time. Heathen philosophers noted that fact.

In trying to explain the biblical message, Origenes offered it up to an essen­tial philosophical nderstanding inimical to the essence of the biblical message. When the great facts of the life of Christ never hap­pened, it cannot be said that Christ saves us. Not tak­ing se­riously the his­tori­cal reality of Christ's redem­ptive work, of his virgin birth, his death and resurrec­tion is a sin of a Pelagian view on sin and an esse­ntial moralistic view on the nature of salvation.

The saving acts of God in history are integrally related with the bib­lical record of the history of God's covenant people under the Old Testament dispensation and the biblical record of the life of our Sav­iour on earth. When we really obey the Scripture we accept all it says. In article five of the Belgic Confes­sion we read "believing without any doubt all things contained in them (namely the book of Holy Scripture)."

The fact that the Bible has a scope namely the revelation of Christ and his redemptive work does not mean that the other things revealed in the Bible are not essential. When we doubt what the Bible says about the context in which it places Christ and his work, we lose the very message of salvation. In this context I will discuss the issue how we must understand the first three chapters of Genesis. Are they myth or history?

In the account given in Genesis there is no hint that the first three or eleven chapters are only symbolical. They simply recount something which the writer believed took place. In the New Testament the fall of man is accepted as a historical fact. In Romans 5 Paul compares the action of Adam with the action of Christ.
The redemptive work of Christ is the answer on the fall of Adam. The historicity of Christ is cru­cial for Paul's argument. Man was created in the image of God. On a certain point in history Adam transgressed God's command. Death and mis­ery was the result. Death and miseries are not a part of God's ori­ginal creation.

If Adam's work is mythical, how do we know that Christ's work is not mythical? When we deny the historicity and significance of the first Adam, we cannot get a real insight into the work of the second and last Adam Jesus Christ. Accepting the histori­cal factuality of the fall of Adam is essential for a faithful presen­ta­tion of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The famous scientist Pascal said that true Christian religion consists in the knowledge of two persons, namely Adam and the damna­tion and misery of all mankind as a consequence of his fall and Jesus Christ and the felicity of all who believe in him.

Accepting the historical trustworthiness of the first part of Gen­esis is heavily criticized in the name of modern science. We all know the name of Darwin and his theory of evolution. We must never forget that so-called scientific data are in many cases not so sure as its defenders suggests.

Much of which is accepted as the only possible inter­pretation of the facts or data in one age, is seen by the next as the consequence of the prejudice with which the former age approached the­ data. All too often it is forgotten that science functions within the framework of pre-scientific presuppositions that are of an ideologi­cal or religious nature. Neutral science does not exist. That is especially true when questions concerning the origin of creation and human being are answered.

Evolution is not based on real fact but on the gaps between the facts. There is not one sure example of a being that can be seen as a transi­tion between tow kinds. Evolution is not the result of research of data but a postulate that can never be proved wrong for them who accept it. There­in it shows itself to be more than a scientific the­ory.
Real scientific theories can in principle be falsified. I do not say that accepting the historical trustworthiness of the first part of Genesis we can answer all ques­tions concerning the relation between faith and science. But that is not necess­ary for trusting the Bible as the infallible Word of God. Everybody no matter what his con­victions are lives implicit or explicit with open questions.

It is also important to realise that already in the Early Church the relation between the account of the origin of the world and the science of their day was problematic. According to the Greek philos­ophy matter was eternal. The Greeks did not belief in God as the Cre­ator of mat­ter.
We know that Augustine as a young man wrestled with the relation between faith and science. It was one of the reasons that he left the Christian church. But after many years he came back con­fessing that his heart was full of unrest until in found rest in God. Augustine learned more and more to bring into captiv­ity every thought to the obedience of Christ (compare 2 Corinthians 10:5).

 

The authority of Scripture 5

Accommodation

The point of the cultural and historical context in which the bib­lical revelation has been given to us, brings me to the subject of accommo­dation. In the doctrine of Scripture this topic plays a great role. We find it already in the writings of the church fathers. The reformer John Calvin has said much about it. The church fathers, and in their footsteps John Calvin, used this concept to clarify that God who is for us incomprehensible speaks to us in a way that we can understand. God, they say, accommodates himself to our level of understand­ing. In the writings of the church fathers and the reformers accommodation is not related to fallibility and time- and culture-bound insights, which are no longer relevant for us, but to the fact that we as limited creatures who cannot fathom God.

In the time of the Enlightenment we see that quite another concept of accommodation comes in fashion. Semler said that the biblical writers were just children of their time. In his opinion they were, in what they wrote, not raised above their time. The way in which Semler spoke about accommo­dation had very much influence. You can read quite often that several of the insights you find in the Bible are just bound to the cultural horizon of the biblical writers. A famous example is the biblical doctrine of eternal punishment. It is said that the biblical writers and also our Lord himself on that point, just accom­modated them­selves to the religious views of their time.

Such a view however brings you in conflict with the Bible itself. The doc­trine of eternal punish­ment surely belongs to the core of the biblical message. It is a substantial part of the dark back­ground of Christ's work of redemption and salvation. Christ came to save sinners from the coming wrath. When the reality of coming wrath is denied, the work of Christ becomes meaningless. The biblical doctrine of atonement and reconcili­ation is at stake. Christ propitiated the wrath of God by dying on Calvary. His death was a sacrifice for sin. When the wrath of God is denied, our view on Christ' work is substantially altered.

The view I mentioned is not self-con­sis­tent either. How do we know that with regard to eter­nal pun­ishment we can speak of accommodation and with regard to the love of God we have an insight for all ages? When we speak about accommodat­ion in the way Semler did it, our own rea­son becomes the judge of the message of the Scripture. All the aspects we do not like, we declare to be time-bound.

Besides the doctrine of eternal punishment, I can use another, and I know, for many people a disputed example. I refer to the posi­tion of women in the church of Christ. In the New Testament there are several texts that speak explicitly on this point. In 1 Corinthians 14:34 we read: "Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law" and in 1 Timothy 2:11-15 Paul states: "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the trans­gression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they con­tinue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety."

Going back to the creation-order Paul inspired by the Holy Ghost points to the fact that the position of man and woman in marriage and also in the church differs from each other. Each has his task and sphere. Because man is the head of woman it is not allowed that women preach, teach, or, fulfil an office (that is always associated with ruling and governing) in the church. We are going against the witness of Scripture itself when we say that Paul (and other biblical writers) in their view on the position of women conformed themselves to time-bound cul­tural customs. However Paul's appeal is not to con­form to the cultural-bound standards but to creation. The different position of man and woman in marriage, church and also (although the Bible is less explicit on that point) in society is based on God's creation order.

Most the biblical data on the position of women have reference to the married. Heavy stress is laid on the task of the women in the family. Confer again 1 Timothy 2:15 "Notwithstanding she shall be saved in child­bearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety." This is a most neglected but very import­ant task. Through the godly upbringing of her children women can build the church. The classical example is Monica and her son Augustine. I do not mean that the task of women is restricted to her family. This is the first but not the only thing the Bible says. How useful can be the advice especially of elderly women. We read that Aquila and his wife Priscilla explained to Apollos the way of God more perfectly.

In several ways women can be used to build the church of God, but when we fol­low the biblical wit­ness we are not allowed to give them a ruling posi­tion in the church. Our view on the position of men and women must not be governed by the cultural standards of our time, but by the wit­ness of the Bible. The Biblical message originated within a certain cultural context. We must also say that the Bible has been given not only to transform our hearts and lives, but also to transform cul­ture and society.

 

The authority of Scripture 4

Is the Bible a time- and culture-bound document?

In the work of the writing of his inspired Word God used men who were men of their time, just as all men they were limited in knowledge and so on, in themselves they were fallible men. Does that mean that the Bible is a limited, time-bound and fallible record about God? That is argued quite often, but such an opinion contradicts the witness of Scripture itself. The Scripture does not present itself as a time- and culture-bound, fallible document, but as the record of God's revealed will for all times and places.

It is true: in themselves the biblical writers were fallible sinful men, but moved by the Holy Spirit they wrote the infallible Word of God. The biblical writers were men of their time. They lived and wrote within a certain culture. That does not mean however that what they wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit was bound to their time and culture. God governs the whole world. He works all things according to his eternal pleasure. It pleased him to reveal his will within a certain cultural and histori­cal context. The cultural and historical contexts are not factors that stand out­side the counsel of God.

The Bible was written within a certain cultural and historical context, but its message is not bound to that context. From its very beginning, it was intended to be a revelation of God and his will for the world. When we read the Bible, we are confronted with commands and cus­toms. Are all commands meant for us? Are we to follow all customs described in the Bible?

In the first place we must distinguish between the Old Testament and the New Testament dispensation. In the New Testament it is explicitly indicated that many commands were only meant for the Old Testament dispensation. In the next place we must not forget that not all things that are described in the Bible are prescribed for all coming generations. But when a custom is in the Bible itself explicitly prescribed and it does not belong to the mosaic dispensation, we do not have the right to say that we are free to obey or disobey.

The authority of Scripture 3

Inspiration

Men wrote the Bible. God wrote the Ten Commandments, which are in the Bible. Men wrote the Bible, but that does not mean that the Bible is only an old and even a unique religious document. We believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God. The Bible itself testifies abundantly of its divine origin and authority. Two texts always have played an important role in the doctrine of Scripture. I refer to  2 Timothy 3:16 and 2 Peter 1:21.

In 2 Timothy 3:16 we read: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in right­eousness." The Greek word for inspira­tion is "theopneustos", that means "breathed out by God". The Bible is not just an inspiring book, but it is the inspired book of God. His Spirit breathes out the words of the Bible.

God used men as his instruments to give us his revelation. That is especially true of his revelation in its scrip­tural form. Peter states in his second epistle: "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." The writers of the Bible were in their writing, moved by the Holy Spirit. Their thoughts were his thoughts and their words his words.

This does not mean that the biblical writers were completely passive in what they thought and wrote. God has revealed himself in diverse ways. God has used the complete personality of the biblical writers. He made use of their research and several other activities. The result of all was that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. The human instrumentality of revelation and the divine origin are just two sides of one coin. In and through the words written by men God has revealed himself to us.

The inspiration is a permanent and abiding feature of the Scripture. The Bible is the voice of God. We read the Bible in the attitude: "Speak, Lord, for thy servant hears"

 

The authority of Scripture 2

Bible and revelation

God has created heaven and earth. After the fall of man, God has revealed himself to men to redeem him from sin and guilt. God sent his servants the prophets. He revealed himself in mighty acts. The climax of God's revelation was the sending of his Son. The Bible is the record of God's saving acts. In the Bible, we find the interpretation of God's mighty acts. But, we must even say more. The Bible is not only a record of revelation. It is revelation itself. The Bible is the Word of God.

In every biblical statement (which we must take always in its context) God reveals some aspect of himself and how we have to honour and worship him. To give an example: the Psalms are more than human confessions of guilt and praise. They are inspired records of the work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts and lives of men. The Bible is not only the stan­dard of what we have to believe to be saved. But God has revealed to us how men experience their faith in him, too. The Bible is also the standard and rule of the experience of faith.          

In and through the Bible we meet the living God. The revelation of God has a personal charac­ter. At the same time we must say that the Bible is the revelation of God, about his nature, his will, and about God's way of salvation. We can call that the propositional aspect of revel­ation, that means revelation as revealed truth with an objective content; truth about God. The personal and propositional aspects of revelation do not con­tradict each other, but they presuppose each other.

To say it in other word: faith in God and in Jesus Christ has a distinct content. Faith is not feeling or emotion without content. To believe in Christ means trust in him, but also to know that he is God revealed in our flesh, the eternal and only begotten Son of God, who propitiated with his death the wrath of God against human sin.

When we deny the propositional aspect of biblical revelation, the element of knowledge in faith is not longer thought to be essential. All thoughts about God and Christ are seen as principally of the same value. Their remains just one sin: to have your doubts about the sincerity about the faith of others.
The denial of the Bible as the infallible Word of God has a universalistic tendency. Regardless of the content of their faith all men calling themselves Christians, are seen as Christians, or even further every man is seen as a child of God.

Our view on the Bible itself and on the biblical message is inter­re­lated. Sometimes it is said: "The way you see the Bible is not of pri­mary importance. The matter is: what means Christ for you? Do you love him?" But that is a wrong approach. After the close of the canon we can only come in contact with God in and through his Word. When we love God, we also love the book in which he speaks to us.
In Psalm 119 we find a clear witness of the interrelationship of love to God and love to the scriptural record of his revelation. A view on the Bible, that is not in accordance with its self-witness, leads to another view on God and on the way of salvation. Faithfulness to God can never be separ­ated from faithfulness to the book by which God speak to us and reveals himself to us.

 

The authority of Scripture 1

Introduction

In answer 21 of the Heidelberg Catechism we find the following state­ment in answer on the question: What is true faith? : "True faith is not only a certain knowledge, by which I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in His Word, but also an assured confidence which the Holy Ghost works by the gospel in my heart, that not only to others, but to me also, remission of sin, everlast­ing righteousness and salvation are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ's merits."
I highlight the first part of this defini­tion: "True faith is a certain knowledge by which I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in his Word." God speaks to us in his Word. The Bible is the Word of God. This is a foundational conviction of the Christian church. The Word of God forms the Christian church. The Word of God is committed to the Christian church. Great parts of the Christian church are in a crisis. Man does not know what to believe. Ministers do not know what to preach. The reason is, that they are not convinced that God speaks to us in his Word. They are not sure that in the Bible, God reveals Himself to us.

With regard to the Bible two positions are possible: we can see the Bible as the Word of God to man or as words and thoughts of men about God. The first position is in agreement with the self-witness of Scrip­ture. The second completely contradicts it. Many people within the churches see the Bible as the thoughts of men about God. They confess it is a unique document. They will say: it is a standard for our thoughts about God, but that only means that we must first listen to the Bible in forming our thoughts about God. It does not mean that our thoughts about God must be completely formed and governed by the Bible.

When we deny the Bible to be the infallible Word of God, the immediate result is that our thoughts about God are formed by other sources: human traditions and reason are the climate of our own time. To proclaim to message of the Word of God faithfully, we must first bow to this, and to accept Word of God as his revel­ation for all ages and all places.

Everyone has a sense of God's being and existence. The apostle Paul speaks about that sense in Romans 1. He stresses that the sense man has of God apart from the biblical revelation never lead to the true knowledge of God. To know who God is, how we can find peace with Him, and how we have to worship him, we need the Bible as our only guide.