The Bible - Part IV

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus

Glory to God most High, for ever and ever. I understand that this blog is coming a bit too late after the earlier post, but due to some circumstances I was unable to write and post this earlier. 

In the previous parts,  Part 1 and Part 2 (you may click on the link to go the said chapter to read in full) we learned that unless God takes the initiative to disclose what is in His mind, we shall never be able to find out. Unless God makes Himself known to us, we can never know Him. We also understood that God reveals Himself in two manners - first through Natural Revelation, where the Divine Artist has revealed Himself in the beauty, balance, intricacy and order of His creation and secondly through speech. Speech is the main model used in the Bible to illustrate God's self revelation. We understood that Scripture is God's Word, issuing from God's mouth.

In Part 3, we started to understand some of the qualifications to clarify our thoughts on how God spoke His Word and understood that His Word was closely related to His activity, that is He spoke to His people not  only through His words, but also through His deeds.

Now let us understand the second qualification. God's Word has come to us through human words. 

When we read the Bible, we can see that whenever God spoke, He usually did not shout audibly out of a clear blue sky. He spoke through prophets in the Old Testament and through the apostles in the New Testament. Moreover, these human agents of the revelation of God were real people. Did these speakers or writers ever have personal agenda? Did they lose their personality while writing the words of God? Were they reduced to being automatons or dictating machines or tape recorders?

Divine inspiration was not a mechanical process which reduced the human authors of the Bible to machines, whether dictating machines or tape recorders. Divine inspiration was a personal process, in which the human authors of the Bible were usually in full possession of their faculties. We only have to read the Bible in order to see that this is so. The writers of narrative (and there is a great deal of historical narrative in the Bible, Old and New Testament alike) used historical records. Some are quoted in the Old Testament. Luke tells us at the beginning of his Gospel of his own painstaking historical researches. Also, all the biblical authors developed their own distinctive literary styles and theological emphasis. Hence the rich diversity of Scripture. Nevertheless, through their varied approaches God Himself was speaking.

This truth of the double authorship of the Bible, namely, that it is the Word of God and the word of men, or more strictly the Word of God through the words of men, is the Bible's own account of itself. The Old Testament law, for example, is sometimes called "the law of Moses" and sometimes "the law of God" or "the law of the LORD". In Hebrews 1:1 we read that GOD spoke to the fathers through the prophets. In 2 Peter 1:21, however, we read that men spoke from God as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Thus God spoke and men spoke. They spoke from Him and He spoke through them. Both these affirmations are true.

Further, we must hold the two affirmations together. As in the incarnate Word (Jesus Christ), so in the written Word (the Bible), the divine and human elements combine and do not contradict one another. This analogy, which was developed quite early in the history of the church, is often criticized today. And obviously it is not exact, since Jesus was a person whereas the Bible is a book. Nevertheless, the analogy remains helpful, provided that we remember its limitations. For example, we must never affirm the deity of Jesus in such a way as to deny His humanity, nor affirm His humanity in such a way as to deny His deity. 

So with the Bible. On the one hand, the Bible is the Word of God. God spoke, deciding himself what He intended to say, yet not in such a way as to distort the personality of the human authors. On the other hand, the Bible is the word of men. Men spoke, using their faculties freely, yet not in such a way as to distort the truth of the divine message.

The double authorship of the Bible will affect the way in which we read it. Because it is the word of men, we shall study it like every other book - using our minds, investigating its words and syntax, its historical origins and its literary composition. But because it is also the Word of God, we shall study it like no other book - on our knees, humbly, crying to God for illumination and for the ministry of the Holy Spirit, without whom we can never understand His Word.

May the Lord Almighty bless you and keep you in all your ways.

Your brother in Christ Jesus

Jobin George

The Bible - Part III

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus

In the previous session, Part 1 and Part 2, we learnt that unless God takes the initiative to disclose what is in His mind, we shall never be able to find out. Unless God makes Himself known to us, we can never know Him. We also understood that God reveals Himself in two manners - first through Natural Revelation, where the Divine Artist has revealed Himself in the beauty, balance, intricacy and order of His creation and secondly through speech. Speech is the main model used in the Bible to illustrate God's self revelation. We understood that Scripture is God's Word, issuing from God's mouth.

Having affirmed that God speaks through the Scriptures, now let us learn a few of the qualifications to clarify our understanding of how God spoke His Word...

First, God's Word (now recorded in Scripture) was closely related to His activity. Put differently, He spoke to His people by deeds as well as words. He made Himself known to Israel in their history, and so directed its development as to bring to Isrealites now His salvation, now His judgement. Thus, He rescued the people from their slavery in Egypt; He brought them safely across the desert and settled them in the promised land; He preserved their national identity through the period of judges; He gave them kings to rule over them, despite the fact that their demand for a human king was in part a repudiation of His own kingship; His judgement fell upon them for their persistent disobedience when they were deported into Babylonian exile; and then He restored them to their own land and enabled them to rebuild their nationhood and their temple. Above all, for us sinners and for our salvation, He sent His eternal Son, Jesus Christ, to be born, to live and work, to suffer and die, to rise and to pour out the Holy Spirit. Through these deeds, first in the Old Testament story but supremely in Jesus Christ, God was actively and personally revealing Himself.

For some theologians, it has been fashionable to distinguish between personal revelation (through God's deeds) and propositional revelation (through His words). There is no need for us to choose between these two media of revelation, as God used them both. Moreover, they are closely related to one another. For God's words interpreted His deeds. He raised up prophets to explain what He was doing to Israel, and He raised up apostles to explain what He was doing through Christ. It is true that the process of divine self-revelation culminated in the person of Jesus. He was God's Word made flesh. He showed forth the glory of God. To have seen Him was to have seen the Father (Jn. 1:14, 18; 14:9). Nevertheless, this historical and personal revelation would not have benefited us unless, along with it, God had unfolded for us the significance of the person and work of His Son.

We must, then, avoid the trap of setting personal and propositional revelation over against each other as alternatives. It is more accurate to say that God has revealed himself in Christ and in the biblical witness to Christ. Neither is complete without the other.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus, we have now understood God has revealed Himself in all the activities that He has done in the Bible and Bible is a testimony for His activities. Both are together. In the next session, we will understand how God's Word has come to us through human words.

May the Lord Almighty bless you and keep you in all your ways. Have a blessed day ahead.

Source: The Bible Book for Today - John Stott

Your Brother n Christ Jesus

Jobin George

You may please get in touch with me with your thoughts and views on jobin.george2012@gmail.com

The Bible - Part II

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus

I understand it has been a bit long after the previous post, but some work has been making me unable to spend more time blogging. In the previous part, Part 1, we learnt that unless God takes the initiative to disclose what is in His mind, we shall never be able to find out. Unless God makes Himself known to us, we can never know Him.

Now let us learn and understand how He reveals Himself to us.

My thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD.

For so as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain and snow come down from heaven,

and return not thither but water the earth,

making it bring forth and sprout,

giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth;

it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

-Isaiah 55:8-11

The Way of Revelation

Even though it is reasonable for God to reveal Himself, how has He done so? He has revealed Himself, in principle, in the same way that we reveal or disclose ourselves to one another, that is, by both works and words, by things we do and say.

Just as creative arts has always been the chief means of human expression, God is said to have "formed" or "fashioned" the earth, and mankind to dwell upon it (Gen 2:7; Ps. 8:3; Jer. 32:17). Moreover, He Himself is seen in His works. "The heavens are telling the glory of God," and "the whole earth is full of His glory" (Ps. 19:1; Is. 6:3). Or, as Paul writes near the beginning of Romans, "What can be known about God is plain to them (the Gentile world), because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature, namely, His eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made" (Rom. 1:19-20).

In other words, just as human artists reveal themselves in their painting, sculpture, or music, so the Divine Artist has revealed Himself in the beauty, balance, intricacy and order of His creation. From it we learn, therefore, something of His wisdom, power and faithfulness. This is usually referred to as natural revelation because it has bee given in and through nature.

Though this is not what prophet Isaiah text refers to in Isaiah 55:8-11, he refers to the second and more direct way in which we make ourselves known to one another and God has made Himself known to us, namely, through words. Speech is the fullest and most flexible means of communication between two human beings. Speech is the best means of communication and speech is the main model used in the Bible to illustrate Go's self-revelation. Notice in thee text, verses 10-11: "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and ... water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be." Notice the second reference to heaven and earth? It is because the heavens are higher than the earth that the rain comes down from heaven to water the earth.Notice also that the writer goes straight from the thoughts in the mind of God to the words in the mouth of God: "So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall... accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it." The parallel is plain. As the heavens are higher than the earth, but the rain comes down from heaven to water the earth, so God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts, but they come down to us because His word goes forth from His mouth and thus conveys His thoughts to us. As the prophet had said earlier, "The mouth of the LORD has spoken" (Is. 40:5). He was referring to one of his own oracles, but described it as a message coming out of the mouth of God. Or, as Paul wrote to Timothy, "All scripture is God-breathed (the literal translation of theopneustos)" (2 Tim. 3:16). That is, Scripture is God's Word, issuing from God's mouth.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus

In the previous session, we understood that God's thoughts are so higher than ours that we cannot comprehend them without His help and allowance. Now we understood two ways in which God reveals His thoughts - one though the natural works of His hands which shows the grandeur and magnificence of hiss thoughts and secondly, through the Holy Scriptures, which is the Bible. In the next session, we will understand some of the qualifications of hos God spoke His Word.

May the Lord Almighty bless you and guide you to walk along His paths, and please do keep this sinful brother in your prayers.

Your Brother in Christ Jesus

Jobin George

P.S. You may contact me with your suggestions, recommendations and views on jobin.george2012@gmail.com

Source: The Bible - Book for Today - John Stott