Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus
Before reading this conclusion, I would request you all to first please spend some time to read the prior sessions (Part I, Part II, Part III & Part IV). Now to sum up, we believe the Scriptures because of Christ. He endorsed the Old Testament, and he made provision for the writing of the New Testament by giving to the apostles His authority. We therefore receive the Bible from the hand of Jesus Christ. It is He who has invested it with His own authority.And since we are determined to submit to Him, we are determined to submit to it. Our doctrine of Scripture is bound up with our loyalty to Jesus Christ. If he is our Teacher and our Lord, we have no liberty to disagree with Him. Our view of Scripture must be Him.
At this point some people raise an understandable objection. "The Scriptures bear witness to Christ and Christ bears witness to the Scriptures," they say, accurately summarizing what we have been studying. "But surely," they continue, "this reciprocal testimony, each bearing witness to the other, is a circular argument? Does it not assume the very truth you are wanting to prove? That is, in order to demonstrate the inspiration of the Scripture you appeal to the teaching of Jesus, but you believe the teaching of Jesus only because of the inspired Scriptures. Isn't that a circular argument, and therefore invalid?" This is an important objection to face. But actually our argument has been misstated, for it is linear and not circular reasoning.
Let me put it in this way: When we first listen to the biblical witness to Christ, we read our New Testament with no preconceived doctrine of inspiration. We simply accept it as a collection of first-century historical documents, which indeed it is. Through this historical testimony, however, quite apart from any theory of biblical inspiration, the Holy Spirit brings us to faith in Jesus. Then this Jesus, in whom we have come to believe, sends us back to the Bible and gives us in His teaching a doctrine of Scripture which we did not have when we started our reading. For now He tells us that His historical testimony is also divine testimony, and that through the human agency of prophets and apostles His Father is bearing witness to Him.
Whenever you read the Bible, please do remember its major purpose. Scripture is the Father's testimony to the Son. It points to Him. It says to us, "Go to Him in order to find life - abundant life - in Him." Therefore any preoccupation with the biblical text which does not lead to a stronger commitment to Jesus Christ, in faith, love, worship and obedience, is seriously perverted. It brings us under the rebuke of Jesus. "You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me; yet you refuse to come to me [to whom they bear witness] that you may have life."
Scripture, as Luther used to say, is the manger or cradle in which the infant Jesus lies. Don't let us inspect the cradle and forget to worship the Baby. Scripture, we might say, is the star which still leads wise people to Jesus. Don't let us allow our astronomical curiosity to so preoccupy us that we miss the house to which it is leading, and within it the Christ-child Himself. Or, we might say, Scripture is the box in which the jewel of Jesus Christ is displayed. Don't let us admire the box and overlook the jewel.
Dr. Christopher Chavasse, formerly Bishop of Rochester, once put the matter admirably. He said:
The Bible is the portrait of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospels are the Figure itself in the portrait. The Old Testament is the background leading up to the divine Figure pointing towards it and absolutely necessary to the composition as a whole. The Epistles serve as the dress and accoutrements of the Figure, explaining and describing it. Then while by our Bible reading we study the portrait as a great whole, the miracle happens, the Figure comes to life, and stepping down from the canvas of the written word the everlasting Christ of the Emmaus story becomes Himself our Bible teacher, to interpret to us in all the Scriptures the thing concerning Himself.
It is not enough to possess a Bible, to read the Bible, love the Bible, study the Bible, know the Bible. We need to ask ourselves, Is the Christ of the Bible the center of our lives? If not, all our Bible reading has been futile, for this is the end to which the Bible is intended to be the means.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus, some of you believe that with all my previous writings I am leaning towards the Sola Scriptura theory, but I would say otherwise. The Bible as a book came to be formed in the 3rd century and it was widely made available to the lay people after the typewriter was invented. My meaning for the writings are that the prophets and the apostles wrote the Word of God through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and the church believes that the Word initially was passed on through the word of mouth and writings. But now since we do have a written Bible in our hands, it should not be kept n the closet, but it should be taken out daily and the Word of God should speak to you and you should make it a point to understand it.
Hope you enjoy reading this post and I await more responses from all my readers.
Your Brother in Christ Jesus
Jobin George
P.S. The Bible - John R. W. Stott
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