Thy Word is Truth Part 5 By John McCallum

Ephesians chapter 5 from verse 17
Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is
Do not get drunk on wine which leads to debauchery
Instead be filled with the Spirit
Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual psalms
Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord
Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ
Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord
For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church
His body of which he is the Saviour
Now as the church submits to Christ
Also wives should submit to their husbands in everything
Husbands, love your wives
Just as Christ loved the church
And gave himself up for her
To make her holy
Cleansing her by the washing with water through the word
And to present her to himself as a radiant church
Without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish
But holy and blameless
In the same way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies
He who loves his wife loves himself
After all no one ever hated his own body
But he feeds and cares for it
Just as Christ does the church
For we are members of his body
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother
And be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh
This is a profound mystery
That I am talking about Christ in the church
However each one of you must love his wife
As he loves himself
And the wife must respect her husband
Amen
We turn once again this morning
To 2 Timothy
And coming back again to the third chapter
We come now to verse 16
In the earlier session we were thinking about verse 15
And looking there at the holy scriptures
The holiness of the scripture
And the scripture is holy because the author is holy, the message is holy
The purpose for which scripture is holy
And the fruit of the scripture is also holy
And so the sacred writings are holy
Because they come from the holy God and they lead to holy thinking
And holy living
Well we come now to verse 16
2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16
And in this authorized version, the King James Version
We read all scripture is given by inspiration of God
And is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction
For instruction in righteousness
And I want to speak to you now about the inspiration of scripture
So far in our weekend we have been thinking about the Bible
We have been trying to emphasize the Bible is to be equated and understood exactly as the word of God
What the Bible says, God says
And there is this divine authorship
And accuracy of content
And so on
And here we come then to consider the inspiration of scripture as the old divines would put it
This is the only place in the scripture where this particular expression is used
And in verse 16 we have one of those little summary statements
Which in a few words says so much concerning the scripture
Incidentally, 3.16 is a very interesting combination in the New Testament
You look up the New Testament books and find how often chapter 3 verse 16 is a very interesting summary statement
We are all familiar with John chapter 3 verse 16
But there are other 3.16's which are worthy of your attention
And here we have one of them, 3.16, second Timothy, all scripture is given by inspiration of God
Now this is not only the only place where this particular expression is used
But this is the only place in the Bible where this kind of idea
And this kind of summary definition or description concerning the scripture is given in so many words
We have seen that there are other places in the Bible where the scripture speaks of God speaking and so on
But here we have what is the nearest formal definition of how it is that God speaks
That we find in the entire scripture
And yet you will notice that whilst it is sufficiently clear as to leave us in no doubt that all scripture is given by inspiration of God
Yet we are not really told how it is that the scripture is given by inspiration of God
And so as we come to think of this particular subject I want to begin by emphasizing here that there is a great mystery
And there are things in this inspiration of scripture that we do not understand
And I say that at the very outset because you might perhaps be expecting me to tell you exactly how it is that God inspired the writers of the Bible
And in fact the Bible does not actually tell us how it was that God inspired or moved the writers of the Bible
But that does not necessarily mean that this is therefore a doctrine which we must put into the realm of the unbelievable or the unknowable
Because when you come to think of it all the great doctrines of the Bible are associated with mystery and steeped in mystery
And I want to begin by making that emphasis in everything in the Christian faith there is a certain mystery
That is why we were reading together in Ephesians chapter 5
Because you remember how Paul comes to the conclusion there at verse 32
Ephesians chapter 5 at verse 32 he says this
He is speaking of the relationship of husbands and wives and how there is the mutual and complementary roles within the marriage relationship
And then Paul says this very interesting and indeed I think a most significant statement
He says in verse 32
He is speaking about the husband and the wife becoming one flesh
A quotation of course you remember out of the book of Genesis chapter 2 where we are introduced to the ordinance of marriage
And then Paul says this
This is a great mystery but I speak concerning Christ and the church
And what Paul is saying is indeed that there is more to marriage than just meets the eye
He is exhorting husbands and wives to live together in this particular way
Because human marriage is a kind of reflection and a type of the heavenly marriage
Human marriage in a sense is real enough to us but it is not ultimately the real marriage
The real marriage in the universe is the marriage between Christ and his church
In the same way as bread, take for example the idea of bread
Bread is real enough and it is necessary enough for us
But the real bread that we need above all other bread is the bread that came down from heaven
And that is why Christ says I am the true bread
All earthly things are transitory and yes they are necessary but ultimately they are not lasting
And therefore they are not ultimately real, everything is going to pass away
But there is a bread and there is a nourishment which will never pass away
And Christ says I am the true bread
Now so likewise here Paul says that in marriage there is a real mystery but it points to a higher mystery
The mystery concerning Christ and the church
And Paul is speaking of course of the union that Christian believers have with Christ
Where the church is spoken of as the bride of Christ and Christ as the bridegroom
And the reason why Christian wives are to live in a certain respectful way is because they are submitting ultimately unto the Lord
And the reason why husbands are to love their wives as they are commanded to do is because they are to emulate the Lord who loved the church and gave himself for the church
So there is a mystery there and Paul doesn't explain the mystery
He doesn't go into the explanation, the Bible doesn't tell us really in a sense in what way it is that a man and his wife in a sense become one flesh
We are left with certain things unsaid
But so it is with all the great doctrines of the Bible
There is a mystery concerning for example the very first doctrine or truth that we are introduced to when we begin to read the Bible
That is the doctrine of God
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth
But you and I believe or hope believe in God
But when you come to think of it what do we really know about God?
Well we know that the Bible tells us that there is a Trinitarian relationship within the Godhead
And we know that he is everywhere present and he is everywhere powerful
He knows everything, he never forgets anything
He never has to learn things the way that we learn things
We know that the scripture says that God is a spirit and so on
But do you know what a spirit is? How would you define a spirit?
I don't know what a spirit is quite frankly
I know that it is something that has personality and it is non-corporeal
But at the end of the day we are left with a mystery
And we are told that the Godhead is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
But we are not told exactly in what way the relationship within the Godhead comes to be
We don't know how it is that the Son of God is eternally begotten of the Father
And we don't know how it is that the Holy Spirit is eternally proceeding from the Father and from the Son
In other words there are mysteries and we have to be facing the fact and be content
With the fact that the Bible explains to us certain things
But there are other things it doesn't explain to us
You remember how Moses puts it in the book of Deuteronomy 29 verse 29
Where he says that the hidden things belong unto the Lord
But the things that are revealed belong unto us and for our children
God has not told us everything about himself for the simple reason that God understands that we are children
Have you ever noticed how in the Old Testament and in the New Testament
The people of God are addressed as children
And you and I speak to our children in language that is appropriate to their childish condition
We don't begin to tell our little newborn babes the calculus and the mysteries of physics
And we don't introduce them to the great issues and philosophies and mathematics
We begin at the beginning, we begin to tell them little baby stories
We have to begin with ABC
And no matter how long we are in the Christian life in this world
We are still addressed as little children
That is one of the ways in which John the Apostle for example addresses those to whom he is writing in the first epistle
My little children
Now some of these little children were old men according to that same epistle
And yet they are all little children
You and I, all of us, no matter how long we have been Christians
Or how mature we are as Christians, we are all still babes in Christ
We are just beginning to learn, we are just beginning to walk
We are just beginning to, as little children do, begin to be aware of the new environment
And the new things to be discovered in this world into which we have been born
And that is the way it is with Christians
You and I are still in the babyhood and in the childhood stage of our Christian development
And it is going to take the next world, the new heaven and the new earth
When we will grow up into our maturity and our manhood in Christ Jesus
So there are mysteries and God doesn't reveal to us everything for the simple reason
That he knows that we wouldn't even begin to understand
If he were to explain all the mysteries of his own existence
And all the mysteries of all the things that he hasn't indeed reserved
He has told us sufficient the Bible, as we shall see later on indeed this evening
Is not given to answer all our questions
The Bible leaves many of our questions unanswered
The Bible is given to make us wise unto salvation
And if anyone wants to be saved, they need to read the Bible
And there is more than enough to keep us occupied all the days of our life
In understanding the things that God has revealed
We have a tremendous tendency to be discontented with the good things of life in this world
And we tend to be also discontented
Because God doesn't answer every question that we ask
And explain everything in the way that we would want him to explain it
But God knows what we need to know
And he has told us enough in so many different ways
He has given us four Gospels
He has given us all the Psalms and all the different books of the Bible
To fill us in on the way that he works in the world
And he gives us so many warnings of neglecting his word and so many encouragements
He has revealed to us all that he in his wisdom deems it necessary for us to know
And if God has left something unsaid and a question unanswered
It means that it's not important for us to know that particular thing
In order to be made wise unto salvation
And so it is with all the various doctrines of the Bible
Think for example of not only the doctrine of God and God's existence
That's a mystery
God is the Holy One, he is hidden
But think of the second great doctrine of the Bible
The doctrine of creation
We are told of how God made this whole universe
At least the Bible tells us he made everything
The Hebrew expression, the heavens and the earth
Is the Hebrew way of speaking about everything that is made
Everything that is made, the whole universe
The one cosmos, God made it all
And as I've already touched on over this weekend
God made it and he completed it in six days
And we're told that he separated the light from the darkness
The dry land from the sea
We're told that he spoke and birds began to fly in the air
And animals and fish in the sea and land animals
But we're not told how he did it
We're just told that he spoke and it was done
He said let there be light and there was light
But it doesn't explain to us how it was precisely
That God's word and the fulfilment of God's word came to pass
It's not important for us to know how it was
That God separated the light from the darkness
We're not even told concerning the creation of man
How it was exactly that God created man
Except that we're told that he made man from the dust of the ground
And that he breathed into our nostrils
And we became living creatures
And we don't know how it was that God did it
And the point that I'm making is there is a mystery there
There's a mystery in creation
And there's a mystery in providence
One of the great puritan writers, a man by the name of John Flaval
He once wrote a book, a whole series of articles
Called The Mystery of Providence
And John Flaval was expounding the scriptures
And recognizing that in our world God is at work
And he is ordaining the weather patterns according to the Bible
He has set the sun and the stars in their courses
He has ordained our lives
He raises some up
He casts others down
And there's a great mystery
Because there doesn't seem to be equity at times
It seems that the ungodly prosper
And the righteous ones are the ones that are cast down
And it seems that the wise ones are ignored
And the foolish ones reach positions
Where their influence influences the way that nations will take
And there's a mystery
The Bible says God is ruling over all things
And that he does indeed raise up some and cast others down
But it doesn't tell us how he does it
It simply says that he does it
And he does it according to the counsel of his own will
All things are accomplished according to the counsel of his will
Now that might not please us
It would not be the way that we would do it
According to the counsel of our will
But he does it according to the counsel of his own will
And we just have to leave it there
Because the Bible doesn't answer the questions
As to how and why God does what he does
He does as he pleases
And it's the same in the realm of grace
You think of the beginning of grace
In your life if you're a Christian
It begins with God choosing you for salvation
Now I'm not going to preach
Let me emphasize again on predestination as such
But you can't read the Bible without coming to the conclusion
That the Bible teaches that those who are going to be saved
God chooses them unto salvation
Now that raises all kinds of objections and problems in our thinking
And that may well be so
But the fact is, even as one scholar that I was reading quite recently
Who is no friend of the Bible, a Jewish scholar
He is no friend of the Bible
But he does say the Bible, whether we like it or not
The Old Testament as well as the New Testament
Is a predestinarian book
And he doesn't like the doctrine
But he acknowledges the Bible teaches the doctrine
And there is a great mystery in election
As to why God chooses some
Sometimes the apparent most unworthy ones
And some of those that we would think would be worthy of salvation
God passes them by
Or think again of regeneration
We're told that we must be born again
Before we can enter into the kingdom
But I'm going to tell you something
You be very careful of any preacher who comes along
And tells you exactly how it is that regeneration occurs
In the heart of an individual
Now I've preached on regeneration
And I've tried to explain to people as best I can
Out of the teaching of the Bible
What regeneration seems to preach
Seems to teach
But at the end of the day there is a mystery
And Christ warns us concerning probing too far
And being too clever and too quick with our answers
And our explanations concerning the new birth
Because Christ says there is a mystery about it
He says it's like the wind he says
You hear the sound of the wind, you see the fruit of it
Sometimes it comes in a great storm
Other times it comes with a gentle breeze
Whatever way it comes it blows wherever it wants to blow
It accomplishes its purpose
So is everyone that is born of the Spirit
God's Spirit moves in different ways
In different places, in different people
It always achieves its proper end
This person becomes a new man
With a new nature and a new heart
But the Bible doesn't tell us how it is that God actually accomplishes it
And I would be surprised if any individual here
Who is a Christian, who is regenerated, who is reborn
Could state the moment that they were reborn
The fact of the matter is you don't know
And the fact of the matter is that I don't know
All we know is that there came a time in our lives as Christians
When once we were blind and then we began to see
Once we were living for self and sin and the world
And we loved to have it so
And then there came a point when we found sin distasteful
And we found the world uncongenial and unsatisfactory
And in some way we began to long and to pine after the Lord
And we began to call upon the name of the Lord
What is happening to us?
It is the new life that God has already planted within our hearts
And that new life is beginning to assert itself
In the same way as a newborn baby
He begins to cry, he begins to feel uncomfortable
He wants to be cuddled or he wants to be washed
Or he wants to be fed or warmed
He is not aware except that there are those instincts rising up
But his birth he knows nothing of it
Our birth certificate says something
We just have to take our parent's word for the fact
That we were born on a particular day
That is what our birth certificate says
But our birth certificate may or may not be accurate
What I am saying is that there are things in life that are mysteries
And we are dependent on others to give us information
And so it is with the things of God
In the realm of grace
We are left with many mysteries
I don't know exactly how it is or what it is
That takes place in my heart
When I become a new creation in Christ Jesus
And I find this new life, this union with Christ
That Paul acknowledges is a mysterious thing
And I don't understand all that is involved
Except that God says that he does it
There are certain fruits that flow out of our lives when he does it
And that we should thank God when we see in our lives
The evidences of grace and of godliness
And so I am telling you these things
In order that you will not be over much dismayed or discouraged
Because we cannot explain everything
That is involved in this doctrine of the inspiration of scripture
At one level there is a sense in which we could say
We don't know really how it is that God has inspired the Bible
And yet there is another way in which we can say
Although we don't know exactly how it takes place
Yet there are sufficient strands of the Bible's teaching
Whereby we can come to certain conclusions
And we can exclude perhaps certain errors
That men would introduce as to how it is that God has indeed inspired the Word
So that what is written by men is in reality the very words of God
All scripture, not just part of it
Not only the important parts or the parts that are easily understood or inspiring
But all parts, those parts that we find dull
Those parts that we find difficult
They are all, according to Paul, equally given under the inspiration indeed of God
And yet there is a mystery
So I have emphasized that in order that you won't be over much disappointed
When I don't explain to you all the various facets
Of how God inspires his Word
For the simple reason that we do not know how it is
Ultimately that God inspires his Word
Except that the Bible tells us that this is what he actually does do
So that's the first point
But the second thing I want to emphasize is this
We've got to be clear as to what Paul is actually saying here
When he says that all scripture is given by inspiration of God
And I want to make a comment particularly about this Word
That in the authorized version is translated by inspiration
And if you have an NIV in front of you probably it's translated by the expression God breathed
This word inspiration is the word that in a sense we're stuck with it in theology
It's not the best word to use indeed
It's the very opposite of what Paul is actually saying
Because the word inspiration is from the Latin
Not from the Greek, it's from the Latin
And it means to breathe in
You and I breathe in and we breathe out
And when we breathe in we take a deep breath and that is inspiration
And then we breathe out and that is expiration
And actually if we're going to base our understanding of the product of scripture given by God on the Latin
This should actually read all scripture is given by expiration of God
Because what is actually being taught here is not that God breathed in
And the product was the scripture but actually that God breathed out
And what indeed resulted was the scripture
And that is why the NIV is a good translation of this particular word that Paul uses
This is the only place in the New Testament that the word is used
And it means in the Greek God breathed
But what do we mean when we say that the scripture is God breathed?
And here we've got to be clear
Because there is a great deal of confusion, indeed a deadly confusion
There are those who say that by inspiration or by God breathed
That what we are to understand is that when we read the Bible
God is breathed out to us and that the Bible breathes out God
Now there's a sense in which the Bible does breathe out God
In the same way that when you and I breathe out
We express ourselves and our true personality is expressed
And I reveal myself to you and you reveal yourself to me
By the way that we speak we can tell what part of the world we come from
We can tell whether we're educated or uneducated
We can tell a great deal about ourselves
We breathe ourselves out, the inner man indeed
And so there's a sense in which the scriptures do breathe out God
Because when we read the Bible God comes to us
And God is speaking to us through the scripture
And that is in a sense true
But that is not actually what Paul is saying
He's saying the very opposite
Not that the scripture breathes out God
But that God actually breathes out the scripture
And so what we have here is Paul saying God speaks
And there's a certain product that is the end result of God speaking
What is this product? It is the scripture
Now we've got to grasp that
And understand that the scripture as we have it actually written down
Is the end product of God speaking to us
And he's not going to speak to us in a different way
Or in an additional way
To the way that he has already breathed out his message to us in the Bible
He has stopped speaking in this particular way
And I want to hone in on that just for a moment if I may
We're being taught increasingly large, large, massive sections of the Christian church today
Are speaking of God's continual revelation
Now that raises a whole host of questions in a sense
Because it raises a fundamental question
Which is composed of many parts
And the fundamental question is this
Does God reveal himself today? And the answer to that is yes
I believe that God reveals himself today
But let me immediately put a caveat on what I've just said
We do not believe that God reveals himself today
In a way that is the same as he revealed himself through the scripture
What do I mean? God reveals himself in this way
In the light of the scripture
Every Christian in a sense has had a revelation of God
Now I don't mean that we've seen visions
Or that we've seen voices
What I mean is we've seen the message of the Bible
We've seen its truthfulness
We've seen its relevance and its glory
And we have become enamored with it
We didn't see it before
Because remember faith according to the Bible
Is a way of seeing things
Those in the epistle to the Hebrews for example
In the 11th chapter, Abraham and so on
They saw God's promises
They looked for a kingdom
They looked for a city
Whose builder and maker is God
They embraced the promises
And they saw them afar off
The Bible says that Christian people
Are those who don't look to temporal things
They are those who look and they concentrate
On eternal, unseen and spiritual things
Remember we're told concerning Moses for example
How he endured as seeing him who is invisible
And so faith in the Bible is a kind of mental, spiritual seeing
In the same way it's a kind of hearing
We begin to hear, it's a persuasion
Faith in the Bible is multifaceted
But I'm homing in on this
Because we do see, we do see Christ
We do see God in the Bible
But not in the way in which God used to reveal himself
Physically in theophanies and in voices
But we do see as he is revealed in the Bible
He's not revealed as a different God
But he is revealing himself now only through what is written
And those people for example who say
That they have seen God, they are mistaken
They may well be sincere Christians
But they are mistaken Christians
There are often in the charismatic movement for example
Those who say that they have seen Christ
And many charismatic books
They record all these miraculous experiences
Where people have seen visions of the Lord in their bedroom
Driving along their cars and the Lord has spoken to them
Now I want to emphasize something from the Bible
Concerning that as clear as I am
All those visions of Christ
That have been recorded down through the ages
They are false visions
Because the Bible says, Paul says, the apostle
Says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15
Last of all he appeared unto me
And there is no record in the New Testament scriptures
Of Christ appearing to any other one after Paul
Now you might say ah but what about John in the book of Revelation
On the Isle of Patmos some 60 years later
After he appeared to Paul
Yes we know that
But the Lord had previously appeared to John
On the very day that he rose again from the dead
What Paul is saying is
No one after me, Christ never appeared
To any new person after me
Last of all, I am the last one to see Christ
And that is what Paul is actually saying
It is not just that he is saying I happen to be the last one at that time
He says this is the final new revelation
That Christ gives to men
The Bible, it says oh the Bible foresees
The mistakes that we are going to make
And the Bible prepares us by cautioning us
And warning us no one has ever seen Christ
After no new person has ever seen Christ
After the apostle Paul
Now if there are those here who imagine that they have seen Christ
I don't doubt your sincerity or your integrity
But I am going to put to you that according to the scriptures you are mistaken
And whatever it was you saw or heard
It is not the Christ of the Bible
Now I am emphasizing that because
God does reveal himself to everyone who is a Christian
It has been taught by Jesus
According to Ephesians chapter 4
But not with new revelations
So the Bible in a sense brings God to us
But that is not what Paul is saying
What Paul is saying is that God brings the Bible to us
The Bible is the product of God speaking
God speaks and men wrote down what God spoke
And what is the ultimate result is what we now have as our holy scriptures
Now when we speak of God speaking in the Bible
He speaks through men
I have emphasized this already
I don't want to overplay this or overemphasize it
But I do want to remind you of two
Well basically one in two parts of an important truth
The human writers of the Bible
As far as I can understand it in the Old Testament
Were prophets
There is no book in the Bible
As far as I know
That in the Old Testament
As far as I know that wasn't written by a prophet
Now every prophet in the Old Testament did not have the prophetic office
But every writer of the Old Testament including Solomon had the prophetic spirit
I just mention that
Because this question of the validity
The acceptability of what books are to be regarded as God's word
The Bible tells us
He speaks to us through his holy prophets
The Old Testament is written by prophets
And in the New Testament we find that the apostles were the writers
The associates of the apostles were the writers
Those every book of the New Testament has as its human writer
Either a man who was directly an apostle
Or someone who was an assistant to the apostles
And that was one of the ways in which in fact the early Christian church
Had to decide what books actually were to be regarded as scripture
Were they prophetic in their penmanship
Were they apostolic
The New Testament has prophets as well as does the Old Testament
And all the apostles by the way
In the New Testament they were all prophets as well
Just as they were elders
But all prophets were not apostles
And indeed deacons could also have the prophetic spirit indeed resting upon them
And in the New Testament for example
Even there are occasions when women were prophetesses
But they weren't apostles
And they didn't write scripture
But they did have the prophetic spirit resting upon them
And God gave to them revelations
Because he chose to do so
But the writers of the Bible were prophets in the Old Testament
And apostle prophets and their assistants in the New Testament
So what Paul is saying here is that all scripture is given
The scripture is the product of God speaking
And in the Old Testament as in the New there are many many references
Which emphasize that the written scripture is to be equated with the very words of the Lord
359 times for example
In the Old Testament we have this prophetic refrain
Thus saith the Lord
And we have the same emphasis in the New Testament
What does the scripture say
So the first thing is I want to dissuade any doubts in your mind concerning
Confusion or discouragement over this doctrine
Everything in our holy faith is shrouded in mystery
And so there is nothing unusual in a mystery surrounding the doctrine of inspiration
And yet it is God-breathed
God speaks and breathes out the scripture
And then the third thing I want to emphasize this morning is this
There are various theories that have been put forward
As to where men have tried to explain
Some of them good men and some of them not so good men incidentally
Who have tried to explain away this doctrine of the inspiration
And I want to mention about five various theories that have been put forward down through the ages
To explain the way in which God has inspired his own word
And the first theory that I would mention is the dictation theory
Now the dictation theory as you can probably surmise is the theory that God spoke
And the writers, the penmen of the Bible
They simply wrote down exactly as automata just like machines, typewriters
It's also called the typewriter theory of inspiration
And that these men they were just suspended animation
They didn't think, they didn't feel, they didn't as it were do any research
They simply heard, were impelled to write down
And just like the typewriter they would receive and record exactly what they heard
Now that is a very common view even among evangelical people
As to how it is that God inspires his own holy word
And there is a sense in which even if God did
It doesn't happen to be true by the way, it's a false theory of inspiration
Let me say that at the beginning
But even if God did use that dictation theory
That would not be wrong of God to do that
Because after all if you've got a stenographer
If you're a business man or woman and you want your secretary to write down
You want someone who's going to write down what you want them to write down
And the more faithful the stenographer the better he or she is going to be
And you'll keep him or her as a valuable asset
But who wants after all a secretary or a scribe
To write down something different to what we are telling them to write down
And as E.J. Young points out in his book Thy Word of Truth
Well even if this dictation theory were true
It wouldn't be wrong for God
As long as the message was accurately conveyed
Then there's nothing wrong with God using the dictation theory
And indeed John Calvin the great protestant reformer speaks of inspiration
In such a way that it seems that at times at least he believed
In the dictation theory of inspiration
It does not happen to be the biblical theory of inspiration
Because the Bible makes it clear that whilst the written word is God's word
There is a sense in which he uses the talents, the experiences, the researches
Of the human penmen also to record
He records out of their own experiences
They freely give their own testimony
And they're speaking out of their own feelings and experiences of the Lord
So there is that theory of inspiration called the dictation theory
And then there's another theory which is called the religious insight theory
And that theory goes something like this
That the Jewish nation they in some way were spiritually acute and sensitive
And that they saw insights into monotheism
Though indeed it wasn't something common to other nations
Now I don't know if you've heard this particular theory of our civilization
But it goes something like this
According to the social commentators and certain historians
We owe our western civilization, our Judeo-Christian civilization
Basically to three great nations who have contributed to the well-being of our society
And these three nations were the Hebrews, the Greeks and the Romans
And the theory goes like this
It says that from the Romans we learned our laws
They had a genius for law
And in some ways it seems that they did
And a great deal of our laws in Australia are actually based upon Roman law
Not all of it, but a great deal of it is based upon Roman jurisprudence
And they say ah, the Romans had a genius for organization and law
And we have inherited and they have contributed to us and we receive the benefit
And so our civilization and law is based upon the insights of the Romans for jurisprudence
And then we're told that the Greeks, their great contribution was generally culture
Civilization, architecture, philosophy, the good life
And all those refined things such as poets, poetry
As far as we know the best ancient heathen poets were in fact Greeks
Homer apparently as far as we know was the first one
And western European literature is based to a large degree upon ancient Greek poetry
And so the theory goes the Greeks, they had a genius for civilization, philosophy, the good life
Thinking reasonable scientific thinking
And we have inherited as the children of the Greeks, we've inherited what they gave to us
And then the Jews we're told
They had an insight for religion
And they had spiritual sensitivities
And they could see beyond the multiplicity of all the various gods of the heathen
That there was only one god
And as a matter of fact it is true as far as I know
That the idea of only one god has indeed come from the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament
For example Islam is very rampant
There is only one god, there's no other god but Allah
And the other religions, they've always got room for other gods
You can always introduce a new god into the heathen religions of the world
But not into Islam, why?
Because Islam is based or derived in a sense from the books of the Old Testament and New Testament
And they have inherited monotheism
And so has Christianity from the Old Testament scriptures
But the theory goes the Jews had religious insight
And they wrote down their insights
And they were a blessing to the world
But when you read the Bible, what do you find about the Jews?
How do you find them described?
God says to them I didn't choose you because you were greater than other nations
You're a stiff necked people
My people Israel are bent on backsliding
They don't want to know me
They're ignorant, they're blind
They were as blind as the nations around them
They had no religious insights
They didn't instinctively believe in the Lord
Within a very short period of time in their captivity in the land of Egypt
According to the early chapters of the book of Exodus
They had even forgotten the name of the Lord
They didn't know the Lord
They didn't want to know the Lord
So let us not fall into the idea of thinking that in some way the Jews have an instinct for religion
And that this explains the inspiration of scripture
It's the best scripture that we have
It's the product of the Jewish thinking
And therefore this is how God indeed gave his word to us
That is a mistaken view of the inspiration of scripture
And then there's a third view that I would mention
And it is what's called the kernel theory of inspiration
And the kernel theory of inspiration says this
It says that God planted the seed in the heart of individuals
The prophets for example in the Old Testament
And apostles in the New Testament indeed even in the heart of Christ some of them say
And that the prophets worked it out according to the circumstances
The social and historical circumstances of their lives
God gave the seed thoughts
But left the words and the implications to the man of the moment
Now that is a very common view among critical scholars
Especially of the Old Testament
But it doesn't happen to be the view of the Bible
Because the Old Testament itself reminds us
For example in Jeremiah
The Lord says Jeremiah I'm calling you to be a prophet
Now Jeremiah was not only to be a
He was to be a writing prophet
And you know what God says to Jeremiah
Jeremiah I'm going to put my words in your mouth
And you're not going to utter anything except what I put into your mouth
And you're not going to write down anything
I'm not going to leave you just to develop your own ideas about me
I'm going to put into your mouth the very words that I want you to speak
And the words that I want you to write
And you're not to write down anything except what I actually tell you to write
So this idea of the kernel theory of inspiration is directly contradicted
By the teaching of the Bible
Working out as best they could with their own ideas
The seed planted by the Lord
But that they were under the control of God
And that they were writing down things probably that they didn't even understand
I wonder if Isaiah
Do you think Isaiah understood the 53rd chapter of his prophecy?
Do you think Ezekiel was understanding
What he was actually writing when he was given visions and told to write them down
In those closing chapters of his prophecy
Of those mysterious symbolic representations of Jerusalem and the temple?
Do you think the prophets understood those predictions
And those prophecies that God's Spirit inspired and impaled them to write?
No!
Because we are told in the scripture that in a sense
There's another theory
I'd better press on
There's another theory
And it's called the subjective theory
And the subjective theory in many ways is perhaps the second most dangerous of all
The last one I think is the most dangerous
It's called the accommodation theory
The subjective theory is that these men simply wrote about what they thought God was doing and saying
And that when they crossed the Red Sea for example
And they crossed on dry land
They only thought that God had caused that east wind to draw back and hold back the waters
In reality the scholars tell us well it wasn't really God at all, this happened to be an east wind
And they say well there are places even today when you can cross these marshes on dry land
But the people of those days they were full of superstitions
And they saw the divine and the miraculous in every event
Behind every bush and every tree and all the unusual things
Well sickness and unusual events we're told
They said oh it's the doing of the Lord
And so these people happened to cross the Red Sea on dry land
And by the time the Egyptian army came after them the tide was coming in
And they got their chariot crews bogged in the sand and they were all drowned
But it wasn't really the doing of the Lord
They just thought it was the doing of the Lord
That's the way the critical scholars speak today
And then the manna in the wilderness
The Bible says God sent manna to feed them for those 40 years
And there are those people who wander in the Sinai desert
To say hey that's not miraculous, we find manna
At certain times of the year there's a kind of food grows in the bushes
And when the sun rises it melts away
It's a kind of gum apparently
That the shepherds sometimes find and the sheep apparently eat it as well
And they say that's the manna
Well I don't know what these shepherds today are eating or not eating
I've never been there
All I know is that the Bible says that God sent manna from heaven
And on the seventh day he didn't send any
And that they were to take a double portion on the sixth day
And store it up for the seventh day
And so the Bible is very specific
The Bible doesn't speak in general terms
The Bible says the Bible makes a difference between sickness and demon possession
The Bible makes a difference between the doings of the Lord
And the doings of nature or the doings of men
The Bible is very clear in what it says
And if we are not going to be careful in our understanding of what the Bible is actually saying
We could confuse the issue
Often a lot of our thinking is confused and unbiblical
Because we're not actually listening to what the Bible is saying
We are perhaps reading into the Bible things that we think it ought to be saying
But the Bible is very clear in what it says
And so the subjective feels the same with the apostles
When they all give testimony to the resurrection of Christ
We are told by the scholars, they were good men, they were sincere men
But they didn't really see Christ
They were all having a mass hallucination
They only thought that they saw Christ
But in reality he wasn't alive, he was really dead
They just thought that they saw him
And they will point to the fact that down through the history of the world
People have always had hallucinations and they've imagined that they've seen things
And so on, I could multiply examples
I'm just saying that there are those who try to explain away
And they want to demolish by every argument that they can
The fact that this Bible is God's inspired word
And they say, well, we know it's there
We know it's a unique book and we've got to explain its existence
But not by divine origin or inspiration
Anything but that
And so there's the dictation theory
The religious insight theory
The kernel theory
There's the subjective theory
And there is what I think is perhaps the worst of all
Because it pertains to our Lord Jesus Christ
It is the accommodation theory
What is the accommodation theory?
The accommodation theory goes like this
It says that the prophets and the apostles and Jesus also
They were men of their times
They happened to believe in a three-decker universe
Where there was heaven and that was where God was
Up in the clouds, up in space
And then there was the world of men
And then somewhere under the earth, in the bowels of the earth, there was hell
Now I say this is dangerous
Because our Lord Jesus Christ speaks of heaven and hell
And there are those who say, well, he was just a Jew
He was brought up in a Jewish culture
He envied the mistakes and the old-fashioned ideas of his time
And yes, he was a good man
And he may well have insights
And he may well have believed, even some of them will say this
He may well have believed that heaven and hell weren't as crass as the heathens thought
But he preached it in that way because that was how his hearers understood it
Now that is to impugn the integrity
It is to impugn the honesty of our Lord Jesus Christ
Let's be clear about it
If our Lord Jesus Christ believed that this universe
Was a three-decker universe, that heaven was up there
World of men and hell somewhere under our feet
If that's what he believed and if that's what he taught
Then let's forget all about him being our Savior and Lord
And let's not listen to him anymore
And let's just put him into the realm of history
As a good man, a good prophet
But no longer relevant because the world is in fact not like that
And so this accommodation theory is very dangerous
Because it goes right into the heart of Christ's ministry
And it says, well, he was mistaken
The Bible is very clear in its presentation of Christ's ministry
And he spoke very clearly concerning the reality of a lost eternity
Not in some fire in the bowels of the earth
Where all the vocals have their origin
But in the hands of an angry God with everlasting consequences
And that's what he said
And if he said it we've got to face the grim reality that that's what he meant
And the same with heaven, it's not just up in the clouds somewhere
It's in that place, that third heaven, that spiritual dimension
Which is spoken of as the third heaven, not the sky, not space
But the spiritual reality of God's everlasting kingdom
And he spoke of that, and my hope for everlasting life
Is not just to be up in the clouds somewhere
But to be in some renewed heaven and a renewed earth wherein there is righteousness
The true theory, if I can put it forward as a theory
Of the inspiration of scripture is this
And it's the one that the Bible itself supports and teaches
And it's called the organic theory of inspiration
And God does not suspend the thinking or the emotions of the writers of the Bible
The prophets, they cry from the depths
Because they were in the depths
And they were spontaneously speaking unto God for mercy and for grace
And God's spirit was moving them as it moves every Christian to cry from the depths
But he was moving them to do something further
To write down exactly their experience
And to record it for posterity
So that generations of Christians yet to come would recognize that
Crying to God from the depths is not an unusual thing
It's very normal
And generations of believers before us have had to go through that same deep and dark experience
And so on
When Luke would set down to write his gospel he tells us
That he made research, he went and inquired
Now why did he make research? Because the spirit of God was moving him
I'm not saying that Luke was conscious, that he was being led by the spirit
Luke probably just thought, well, I want to write a gospel
I'll go and inquire of those who are there and find out what took place at the birth of Christ
And then throughout his ministry
And Luke recorded their memories and memoirs
But he was being inspired by the spirit of God to do exactly and produce exactly
What God was sending him to produce
B.B. Warfield has a very wonderful
In his book on the inspiration and the authority of the Bible
He puts it like this
Sometimes he says, he's caricaturizing of course
But he puts it like this, he says
Sometimes the picture is presented of God looking down upon all the world
And be looking for a man who will write his Bible
And write something that is on the one hand God's intended revelation
And on the other hand something that is true to human experience
And here is God looking to see if there is any man to whom he can come
And compel him to write
And Warfield says, no, no, it's not like that at all
If in God's eternal purpose
God's purpose for his people is to write certain epistles
That are of the very nature and content of the epistles of Paul for example
Then he says, God in his mysterious providence will so arrange Paul's life
And so control all the circumstances of Paul's life
That just at the moment Paul will write as a man out of his own experiences
God arranges the providence to produce such a writer of such an epistle
So that what the man writes spontaneously
What Isaiah writes, what the psalmist writes, what Paul writes
What the evangelist writes in the gospel
It's all spontaneous
And it's their doing as far as they are concerned in that sense
And yet God has prepared them from their infancy
To produce by their experiences and their memoirs
And their historical research
God has ordained that they would produce exactly
As he has foreseen from all eternity that his church would need such writing
That's the organic theory or the organic biblical doctrine of inspiration
We can speak of the words of Paul because the Bible does
We can speak of Isaiah saying because the Bible does
But as I was saying in the morning, the real author is not Isaiah
Or Paul or any other human tenement
The real author is God
And mysteriously God is controlling them
The theory is often put forward, an argument is often put forward
Well, but these men believe strange things
I don't know what Paul believes except what he wrote
I don't know if Paul has strange ideas
Or the prophets of old
I don't know what they believe
It is conceivable, I don't know
That perhaps some of them believe in a flat earth
I don't know, but I do know this
That when they came to write the Bible they didn't teach that the earth was flat
When they came to write the Bible they taught that the earth was up from the circle
And that God had placed it
And there are no errors
We don't know what they thought privately about certain matters
But when that spirit of God was moving them to write
And carrying them along as Peter says in his second epistle
Holy men of God carried along as a ship is carried along by the wind
What they were writing was not their own opinion
But the very word and the thoughts of God
And we can go no further than that
In our understanding of the inspiration of scripture
For the simple reason that the Bible itself goes no further
Is in that, the organic doctrine of the inspiration of the scripture
And finally, and I'm going to close because I am conscious of that clock
It's looking right between the eyes
I wish I couldn't see it at times
But that's alright
There's one final point I want to make
And it's on this word scripture, I want to come back to this word scripture
The product, the written scripture
Because that's what Paul has in mind here
The written scripture that you and I have
You and I have the writings that Paul is referring to by all scripture
And what Paul is saying is that all scripture
Not only part of it, but all of it
In its entirety and exclusively all scripture is given by inspiration
Now why am I emphasizing that?
I'm emphasizing it because we've got to face the fact that there are some parts of the Bible which are hard to understand
There are some parts which are hard to apply
And the fact of the matter is that there are some parts of the Bible which are quite not as useful
In making us wise unto salvation as our other parts
There are primary purposes in God and there are secondary purposes in God given to us as scripture
And if I was to be shut up with only part of the Bible
I would far rather have, for example
John chapter 3 of the whole gospel of John than the first seven chapters of the first book of Chronicles
Where we have all lists of genealogy
But Paul is not saying that only those parts that are inspiring
Or only those parts that immediately make us wise unto salvation are given by inspiration
He says all scripture, even those dull parts
Even those parts where we've got to go through genealogies chapter after chapter
And where we have the recordings of the wicked deeds of wicked
And even those parts also are given by inspiration
Because they're all filling in this general picture of what man is like as a sinner
And how God is gracious as the savior and the judge
We sometimes think that inspiring
Or to be inspired means to be inspiring
You might go into an art gallery
And you might look at all these wonderful paintings
And you're just amazed that someone could do that with pots of paint
How could they do that?
You're looking into a Rembrandt or into a constable
You're just astounded that such a man could do such a thing
Inspiring or music, literature, poetry
And we say isn't it inspiring and we think oh the Bible is the same way
And we go to the Bible and we open it up at a portion
It might not be particularly inspiring
It might in fact be something that's going to bring us down to the depths of discouragement
And into the depths of conviction of sin and show us up for the ungodly creatures that we are
That's not very inspiring
The Bible doesn't mean when it says all scripture is inspired
It doesn't mean it's all inspiring
It can all be inspiring
And I'm saying that because I won't mention any names
But there was a world renowned preacher
And you all know his name if I mention it
And he used to hold a view something like this that by inspiring the scripture was inspiring
Well I don't know about you but there are some parts of the Bible I don't find inspiring at all
It's not inspiring, it's inspiredness
And whether we find the Bible dull or interesting
Whether we find it hard to understand or easy to understand
It is still inspired, it's God's word
And it has a place to fulfill in his total revelation to make us wise and to salvation
Through faith which is in Christ Jesus, all scripture
You and I open up the Bible and we read the history of the Old Testament
Don't write that off as just the ancient chronicles
Of ancient historians mistaken, giving their opinion
Read the scriptures as Christ did
And as the apostles and the prophets did
Listening to the word of the Lord, what can I learn from this
That would help me on the road to salvation
It may well be that in those rather uninspiring chronicles of evil deeds in the Old Testament
God is pointing the finger at us
And saying to us, now that you have a sinner
Stop sinning like that and live the life of righteousness
It all congeals and congells together
To give a total revelation of what God has to say to us
To make us wise unto salvation
All scripture is given by inspiration of God
It's all breathed out, it's all profitable
Maybe not all equally profitable, but all profitable
For the life of salvation
That's how Christ saw it
That's how the apostles and the prophets saw it
And that's how you and I are to see it
Don't despise any part
We all have our favorite passages
But don't just immerse yourself in your favorite passages of the Bible
We all have our favorite, of course I've got my favorite chapters too
But there are other chapters
And they are just as authoritative, they are just as accurate
They are just as applicable as those favorite passages are
Because they all come from God speaking to us something for our salvation
I'd better stop there, may God bless this one to us
For Jesus' sake