The Bible As Given By God To Man

Transcript

GRM 937
4/10/2005
The Bible as Given by God to Man
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh


The church is the body of Christ, composed of those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ. The universal church is composed of people all over the world who have come to believe in Christ. The local church is the manifestation of the body of Christ in different places, and we are one of those local churches. The Bible says in I Timothy that the church is the pillar and support of the truth, and the truth is the focus of what we are. We follow a pattern in our study together, usually of going through the Bible book by book, verse by verse. We start at the beginning of a letter or a book and we just move through to the end. That’s not the only way to study the Bible. And sometimes we study topics, we study a topic like prophecy, and stopped to talk about a topical study of the work of the Holy Spirit and so on. But we believe that God gave His Word in the Bible book by book, letter by letter and so it’s foundational to us and that’s the way I approach my study, let’s just take it the way God gave it. He wrote a letter to the Ephesians, let’s start at chapter 1 and just read through that letter and study through it and we’ll move through to the end. And that’s the foundation for our other studies here at Indian Hills. There are other studies that go on that are not just book studies as we call them, taking a book of the Bible and starting at the beginning and going to the end. But that which forms the foundation for all of our other studies, other studies that take us through the Bible in a regular, systematic way.

All this is founded upon the fact that God has chosen to reveal Himself. That revelation is what we have as our Bible. It is trustworthy and reliable, it is what God has intended for us to know. I want to just look at some foundational matters with you today—revelation, inspiration, illumination, interpretation, matters related to the Bible, the fact that it is God’s revelation of Himself, that it is trustworthy, that we are able to understand it and that it takes work to properly and correctly come to that understanding.

I’ll start with the matter of revelation. Foundational to everything in religious areas is the fact that there is a God and God has chosen to make Himself known. That’s a presupposition. If there is no God there is nothing to talk about religiously. We just are on our own, doing the best we can and when it’s over, it’s over. We’re going under the presupposition that there is a God. Now the follow through on that is, if there is a God and we’re going to know anything about Him, He will have to make Himself known to us. If there is a God and He chooses to keep Himself secret, we have to go on and live as though He didn’t exist, because it’s not possible to know anything. If He’s truly God and He doesn’t want us to know about Him, we won’t know about Him. We’re going on the basis of the fact that there is a God and that God has chosen to make Himself known. That is called revelation, He has revealed Himself, and apocalypse has occurred. Greek word translated revelation, we bring it over also into English apocalypse. That’s just the Greek word for revelation. We have the last book of our Bible, the Revelation to John, it’s the apocalypse that was given to John, revelation from Jesus Christ to John.

There are two kinds of revelation. There is what is called general revelation that refers to the revelation God has given of Himself in creation. Turn to Romans chapter 1. And I am aware that my arguments today will be circular. I’m not going to try to prove the authority of the Bible, to prove that it is the Word of God. We are simply going to allow the Bible to speak for itself and you either accept that by faith or you do not. The revelation of God given in creation. Romans 1:18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Now note this, God’s wrath is poured out on mankind because they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. They suppress the truth. It’s not a matter they do not have truth, but the truth they have they choose to suppress, they don’t want to acknowledge it. What is he talking about? Well read the next verse, because that which is known about God is evident within them or among them because God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. So you see the argument. The creation, the heavens, the earth, everything in them is a manifestation of the very person and character of God. His invisible attributes, His eternal power, His divine nature, verse 20, have been clearly seen through what has been made. So you can learn about God as you look at the creation and see something of His glory, His splendor, His power, His intelligence. He is revealed in creation.

Verse 21, even though they knew God. How did they know Him? Through the creation. Look at the heavens, look at the heavenly bodies, look at the world around you, look at that diversity, look at its intricacy. Even though they knew God they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile, empty in their speculations. Their foolish heart was darkened, professing to be wise they became fools. Now what is being established here is the sinfulness of mankind. The problem is not that there are people in the world someplace who have not been exposed to the truth concerning God. There are no such people anywhere in the world. Because everywhere in the world God has made Himself known through creation. Now let me say something here. There is enough revelation in creation to condemn a person, not enough revelation in creation to save a person. Furthermore, there is sometimes the question asked, what if somebody responds positively to creation, can they be saved. What happens with the revelation of creation is, mankind is demonstrated to be sinful. The whole argument starting in Romans chapter and going into Romans chapter 3 is that man is sinful, there is none that does good, no not one. Man always responds negatively to the revelation that God has given in creation. That’s why I say there is enough revelation in creation to condemn a man, but not enough to save him. There is no revelation in creation of God’s plan and program of redemption, of the provision of a Savior to pay the penalty for sin. Now sometimes confusion comes because people say well what if someone did respond positively to the revelation in creation. And the answer is sometimes given, well if they did then God would give them more revelation, perhaps send them a missionary so they can be saved. That is not true. The premise is wrong. That would be like saying, what if God did not create the world, then what? It’s an empty, meaningless question, and any answers and anything based on such a premise would be false because He did create the world.

So drawing the question what if someone did respond positively somewhere in the world to the revelation God has given in creation. Well that never happens. How could you say that? Because the Bible tells me that no one responds positively to that revelation in creation so it reveals their sinfulness. God says here I am, look at Me, here is a revelation of my divine nature, of my invisible attributes. They suppress that truth, they refuse to acknowledge it, they are guilty before Him. They worship and serve the creature rather than the creator, as he goes on to explain in Romans chapter 1. So be careful, that’s a question you cannot answer—what if someone did respond positively? Can’t answer because it’s an impossibility, and you don’t want to go down meaningless roads because they only engender confusion. What if God did not create the world? It’s a meaningless question, it’s a meaningless presupposition because He did. There is no answer to the other, it’s purposeless. What if there is no life after death? There is, so anything you develop out of that kind of reasoning will be false. Verse 22, professing to be wise they became fools. So certain things we don’t even go there, we don’t even try to answer.

Back up to the Old Testament, Psalm 19. Just to show the Old Testament declared this 1000 years before Paul wrote it to the Romans, the same truth was revealed through the psalmist, David. Psalm 19, the heavens are telling of the glory of God and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Now think about it. If David could write this 1000 years before Christ, if Paul could write it a few years after Christ, think about what we know about the heavens today. They can look and see the stars, now we know something of the universes that are out there. The heavens are telling of the glory of God, their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, night to night reveals knowledge. It goes on day and night, I mean this revelation of God through the creation. It happens in the daytime, you look around and you see that splendor and then you go out at night and even the darkness enables you to see others as you look at the heavenly bodies.

There is no speech nor are there words, their voice is not heard. It is not an audible declaration, but it is a revelation nonetheless. Their line has gone throughout all the earth, their utterances to the end of the world. In them He has placed a tent for the sun which is the bridegroom coming out of his chamber. It rejoices as a strong man to run his course. Its rising is from one end of the heavens and its circuit to the other end. There is nothing hidden from its heat. I mean wherever you go in the world to the most remote, primitive place, they have been exposed to the creation. In fact you usually find those people worshipping the creation, as Paul went on to say in Romans chapter 1.

Keep your finger or put a bulletin in Psalm 19, we’re coming right back here, and turn to the book of Isaiah. So just a little further toward the back of our Bible, not far, the large prophecy of Isaiah. And we’re going to go to chapters 44-45, just read some verses. Isaiah 44:24, thus says the Lord your redeemer, the one who formed you from the womb. You look at the marvel of a human baby, a human being, at the revelation of the God who has created them. I am the Lord, the maker of all things, stretching out the heavens by myself and spreading out the earth all alone. He is the sovereign creator, He created it all and called it all into existence. My mind cannot conceive of such a being. They talk about the measureless expanse of the universes and I think, one God all by Himself called it into existence, brought it its order and its intricacy and enabled it all to function and coordinated………. I just can’t imagine how that could be. How long would it take me to plan all of this and try to fix the orbit. I mean with all of our brilliance and all of our developments we think it’s a great thing that we send one space capsule out there and it makes it far out and can take pictures. Isn’t this wonderful. And you have to create every single one of the millions and billions of the stars out there and get them in their right place so they don’t crash and create disaster. And I say how can I conceive this, it’s overwhelming.

Down into 45:5, I am the Lord, there is no other, besides me there is no God. The end of verse 6 and verse 7, I am the Lord, there is no other. The one forming light and creating darkness, the one causing well-being and creating calamity. I am the Lord who does all these. Verse 9, woe to the one who quarrels with His maker, and earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth. Verse 12, it is I who made the earth and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with my hand, I ordained all their host. Verse 18, thus says the Lord who created the heavens, He is the God who formed the earth and made it. He established it, did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord, there is none else. All this means, the end of verse 21, there is no God beside me, a righteous God and a Savior, there is none except me. Turn to me and be saved all the ends of the earth, for I am God, there is no other. And ultimately every knee will bow to Me. I mean He is sovereign, He is everything. And everything has come into being and exists by His will. I mean this creation is a manifestation of the awesome God, and anyone who denies that and refuses to see the wonder of God in this creation is simply suppressing that truth. It’s not because they’ve examined the scientific evidence and think the evidence points to the fact that it just came into being of itself and evolved, they know better in their heart and mind. They refuse to acknowledge these obvious truths and clear revelation, so God says they are without excuse. There is no one anywhere in ignorance on that level, only people who are suppressing that truth, refusing to acknowledge it and manifesting by such their sin, their guilt. So he starts out in Romans showing the sinfulness of all humanity because all humanity has demonstrated its sinfulness on that level, its response to the creation.

Back to Psalm 19. That’s general revelation, that’s the revelation of God that is given to all mankind through the creation. And in Psalm 19 after speaking about that revelation, he starts to talk about specific revelation, beginning in verse 7. Specific revelation is the revelation God has given of Himself verbally, propositionally, with statements. You know a subject, a verb, an object, the statements that He has made in revealing Himself. The scriptures are the specific revelation of God. They are necessary for a man to hear and know of to be saved. Romans chapter 10 talks about the fact that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. We are saved by grace through faith, but you cannot believe in what you have not heard. So specific revelation is necessary, necessary to understand the revelation of creation, really, because of sin. And necessary to hear and know, to understand something of the plan of salvation that God has determined and provided and to be saved by believing in.

So Psalm 19:7 says, the law of the Lord is perfect. The law of the Lord referred to the Law of Moses, the first 5 books of the Bible, what David had as his primary scripture. The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. The testimony of the Lord, what God has testified to, what God has said is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. On he goes to show the preciousness of this revelation, specific revelation, the verbal revelation that God has given. God has spoken and this revelation unfolds more clearly, more fully, more precisely what this God is like, what this God requires, what this God has provided for sinful humanity. It concludes then with the psalmist saying that he wants to be pure within and without, and the Word of God brings that cleansing power. It brings wisdom, it brings purity, and it is what is to be desired.
Come over to the New Testament, Hebrews chapter 1, toward the back of your New Testament, the book of Hebrews and the first chapter. The writer to the Hebrews says God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, and that carries us to what we’re going to talk about in a moment, that revelation. And it will move us to inspiration. But the writer to the Hebrews declares God was the one who spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets. So when those prophets came throughout Old Testament history and spoke, it was God speaking. He gave that word, that message to the prophets. And He spoke to them in many portions and in many ways. In other words, all of God’s revelation through the Old Testament didn’t come through one prophet. We can study the prophet Isaiah or Jeremiah or Ezekiel or Daniel or Hosea or Joel or Amos, on they go. There were a variety of prophets that God used. And He used a variety of ways to speak to those prophets. Sometimes He spoke audibly from heaven, sometimes He came and talked to them in the person of the angel of the Lord. Sometimes He sent another angel with a message. Sometimes He spoke to them in dreams and in visions, there were many portions, many ways. In these last days He has spoken to us in one who is a Son. So the epitome and climax of the fullness of revelation centers in the coming of the Son of God to reveal and manifest God. And He can manifest more clearly and more fully God to man, than anyone had done before.

Paul wrote to the Colossians and said that in Christ all the fullness of deity dwelt in bodily form. And here you have God in a human body, living and walking on this earth. And He revealed more fully the character and person of God. This Son is the one whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. He was there at the beginning. He is the radiance of His glory, the exact representation of His nature, and He upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. So here you have the ultimate revelation, the revelation that comes through Jesus Christ. Now be careful. You don’t want to make a division between the revelation through Jesus Christ and then the revelation of the Bible, as some people would do. And say well I don’t worship the Bible, I worship Jesus Christ. And it’s more important that I know about Him and I know Him than it is that I know facts that are found in this book. I don’t have a paper pope. Well the reality of the matter is, everything you know about Jesus Christ is contained in this book. So the fullness of revelation given through Him is contained in the Bible. That’s important to keep in mind because what people who are using that argument are declaring is I come to know Jesus Christ through my experience. That is not true. You come to know Jesus Christ through the scripture. Now the saving knowledge of Christ becomes experiential in you when you hear the message of Christ that is contained in the scripture, and by the grace of God through the ministry of the Spirit you believe it, then you are transformed by the power of God. But no one has an experience with Jesus Christ apart from hearing the truth of scripture and believing it.

So Jesus Christ and the scripture, that revelation is not two different things. The Old Testament prophets had revelation from God, with the coming of Christ the fullness of God’s revelation of Himself comes. And that will be recorded for us after His death and resurrection. And so we study as we study the book of Hebrews and other New Testament letters the revelation given through Jesus Christ and the fullness of the revelation that God gives of Himself through His Son. But the Bible and the revelation of Christ are one and the same, because it is this written Word that enables us to learn of Christ and understand God’s work concerning Him.

Back up to Ephesians chapter 3, just a little bit before the book of Hebrews in your Bible, go back a little bit and you’ll come to the book of Ephesians, the third chapter. What happened with the coming of Christ, the accomplishing of the work of salvation. After Christ dies, is resurrected from the dead and ascends to heaven, revelation from God continues to the followers of Christ, the apostles and prophets. The Apostle Paul is one of those and in Ephesians chapter 3 Paul writes what God had revealed to him. He talks in verse 2 about the stewardship of God’s grace which was given to me for you. Now note verse 3, that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. By referring to this when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ. What are we talking about, about this mystery? A mystery is something that had not been revealed before by God, it’s something you could not know if God did not make it known. Look at verse 5, the mystery of Christ which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit. What Paul is going to talk about is the church, where Jew and Gentile alike are brought together in one body to be one people, the church. That’s not found anywhere in the Old Testament, God hadn’t revealed it then, He hadn’t made it known. He talked about His people Israel and their salvation, He talked about saving Gentiles. He never talked about saving Jews and Gentiles and bringing them together to make them one people of God, the church. That is new revelation, that is a mystery not known until God made it known through the Apostle Paul in its fullness. Verse 6, to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs and fellow-members of the body, partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. So that’s revelation, that’s truth made known from God to Paul to man.

Back up just before Ephesians to Galatians 1:11, for I would have you know brethren that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man nor was I taught it. I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ made it known directly to me. This is revelation, this is specific revelation, verbal revelation from God recorded in our Bible.

Back up to one more passage and we have to move on, back to I Corinthians, just before Galatians. I Corinthians 2:9, quotes from the book of Isaiah in verse 9, things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, which have not entered into the heart of man all that God has prepared for those who love Him. Now you have to read the next verse, some people say this is talking about what happens to us after death—we get to learn things we would have never known in this life. That’s not what he’s saying. Look at verse 10, for to us God revealed them through the Spirit. What he is saying in verse 9 is the things you couldn’t find out just on the human level by using your eyes and ears and mind, you couldn’t find out about heaven if you were just left to your own resources, your own intellect. But God has revealed them to us by His Spirit, it’s a matter of revelation. That’s specific revelation.

All right, we have God revealing Himself in creation. The man always rejects that revelation. We have God revealing Himself in scripture and that is the revelation that brings salvation. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. That’s how a person is saved, Romans 10.

The next thing I want to talk about following revelation is very important to us and we’ve been using that as a presupposition even though we didn’t address it first—inspiration. Inspiration is the taking of the special revelation that God has given of Himself and writing it down accurately under the direction of the Spirit of God. So inspiration is different than revelation. In revelation God makes Himself known, in inspiration God directs those that the revelation is given, to accurately record it. So there is a correct inerrant record of His revelation.

Look at II Timothy chapter 3, back toward the back of your Bible again, about halfway toward the back from where you were in Corinthians. II Timothy 3:16, all scripture is inspired by God, literally God-breathed. All scripture comes out from God and so is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequately equipped for every good work. All scripture is God-breathed. That’s where scripture comes from, it’s breathed out from God, it finds its source in God. Now we have the revelation that God gives, the revelation that God communicates being recorded as God’s Word.

Turn back to II Peter, keep going toward the back of your Bible, past Hebrews and we’re going to come to II Peter 1:21. For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. See what is happening. God is speaking to someone and through that person. He’s communicating His Word to them so that they might communicate His Word to others, and it’s a work of the Holy Spirit moving on them so that their words are inspired. This encompasses Old and New Testament alike.

Turn back to II Peter chapter 3. When Paul wrote to Timothy, all scripture is God-breathed, that would obviously encompass the Old Testament. But understand even the New Testament, much of it was recognized as God’s Word even before the apostles died. II Peter 3:15, regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as also our beloved brother Paul according to the wisdom given him wrote to you. As in all his letters speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand which the untaught and unstable distort as they do also the rest of scripture to their own destruction. You see what Peter does here. He says that the writings of the Apostle Paul are scripture, and anyone who distorts or twists the scripture as given through Paul does it to his own destruction. It’s the Word of God. There was a recognition that even what Paul was writing was the Word of God, Peter recognized that. We say that the Spirit of God is moving the writers of scripture, we’re including the New Testament in this provision.

Now the emphasis of the Bible, we don’t have time to go through all of this, we’ve done some of this on other occasions. The Bible is inspired verbally, we believe in the verbal, plenary inspiration of scripture. Verbal means the words, plenary means full. It is inspired fully, completely, all the words in the original manuscripts, the autographs as God originally gave it. And that’s why there is study to compare manuscripts and so on. Just an aside, we don’t have time to go into this in any detail at all. There is really no issue over the accuracy of what we have in our Bibles, that’s been established. We have more evidence supporting the accuracy of our Bible than we have in almost any other ancient document, and for sure in any other documents that are as old as the Bible. In fact one, perhaps the leading Greek scholar of his day, deceased now, is a man who did not believe the message of the New Testament, did not believe in the deity of Christ, did not believe that the wicked would be lost and so on. But he was a great Greek scholar. He said that anyone who doubts the accuracy of our New Testament is just ignorant of the facts. So while he didn’t believe all of the New Testament, his disbelief, his unbelief was not based upon a question about the accuracy. He just chose not to believe it. But he said the accuracy is so overwhelmingly established, it is a non-issue. I just mention that because some people say well we have all kind of translations, how are we supposed to know what are the words of God and what are not. Well we go back and base it on the manuscript evidence, there really are no debates in any significant areas. The manuscript evidence we have is overwhelming. So just mention that as somewhat an aside.

The inspiration of the Bible goes to the words of the Bible. The thoughts of the Bible are not what were inspired, the words of the Bible that make up the thoughts. Now that’s important because some people say well it wasn’t the words that were inspired, what God wanted to communicate were the thoughts of His mind. And He was basically concerned to communicate about salvation. So inspiration is carried to the thoughts and particularly what God said about salvation. Now you see what happens as soon as you do that. You will have to have an authority outside the Bible to decide what is true and reliable and what is not, right? I mean if it’s not all trustworthy somebody has to tell me which part is. And to say well it’s the thoughts that were inspired, not the words. Well we sometimes talk about a paragraph as a unit of thought. Now if your child goes to school and is learning some things about grammar and sentence structure and beyond sentence structure to creating thoughts and making paragraphs, he comes home and says you know my teacher says it’s only the thoughts that matter, the words don’t. You say, all right, thoughts matter, words don’t. How do I know what the thoughts are without the words. I mean a paragraph is made up of sentences, right? And a sentence is made up of things that don’t matter whether they’re right or wrong. Well if the words that make up the sentence can be wrong or right, how do I know the sentence is right? I don’t. And if the words that made up the sentence aren’t right so the sentence is not right, how in the world can the thought of the sentence be right when the sentence wasn’t right that made up the paragraph because the words weren’t right. I hope it doesn’t make sense to you. But that’s the way some people approach the scripture, it wasn’t the words that were inspired, it was the thoughts. As though they have come up with some great insight, until you stop to think how can you express thoughts without words. When God spoke, did He misspeak? Did He speak with words that weren’t correct? Well He couldn’t, He’s God. Then the words were inspired. And if He didn’t get the words right, how do you know He got the thought right?

And then you have the idea, well all of the Bible is not inspired, it’s not a plenary inspiration, a full inspiration, because really the writers were men of their times. They wrote with their understanding of history, with their understanding of science. We can’t expect them to be accurate, they weren’t intentionally lying, they just didn’t know any better at the time. But that’s all right because the Bible is really concerned, it communicates the message of salvation and that’s all we have to be concerned about. Okay. But if they didn’t get the history right, they didn’t get the science right, how in the world do you know they got the salvation message right? You know there were a lot of messages of their time about salvation, too, and differing views of salvation. You know Christ and the apostles and so on were persecuted and martyred and so on because people had differing views of God and salvation than they had. So if they were wrong in the history, how do you know that they were right in the salvation parts? Besides, how do you disassociate the salvation from the history? Did Jesus Christ walk this earth in time in history? Did He actually have a physical body? Was He actually crucified to a literal cross that stood in a literal piece of ground, watched by literal Roman soldiers? I mean was that in Roman history? Was He buried in a literal tomb? Was He raised bodily from the dead? Now some that have infiltrated evangelicalism say look. They’ll give the point, it really doesn’t matter whether He was crucified and rose from the dead. What really matters is you have a resurrection experience with Jesus Christ. Well what did that mean? I don’t even know if He was a historical figure. And if what the Bible says about it is not true, how am I going to have an experience with a Man who may never have lived. Maybe I just ought to turn on TV and experience whatever comes by. I mean somehow, how do these ideas come in and we think we can deal with the Bible in different ways than we deal with anything else that we take in writing. I mean we read history…….well it doesn’t matter whether George Washington really lived and it doesn’t matter whether there was a war with England and it doesn’t matter whether they really signed a Constitution. All that matters is we have an experience as Americans. Oh, okay. Does it matter what happened yesterday? No, it doesn’t matter. Is there a Congress? Well it doesn’t matter. Is there a President? Doesn’t…….. How far back does history not matter anymore? I mean everything dissolves and that’s what happens with scripture, and so they move religion and this is why they say, look you can believe that God created the world as your religious belief, but that doesn’t have to affect science. In other words, it doesn’t matter whether God created the world, you can believe it if you want. But we’ll believe science that says it didn’t. Well in other words you can believe lies, you can believe myths. Religion then is reduced to the realm of a myth, and as long as it’s real to you, it’s real. And so as long as you have an experience with Jesus and that experience is real to you, then it’s where they come. Look, the Bible itself is not revelation, the Bible does not contain the revelation of God. The Bible IS the revelation of God, from the first verse of Genesis to the last book of Revelation it IS the revelation of God. It is a propositional revelation, given as statements—subjects, verbs, objects. God spoke, the Spirit of God directed the writing of what was spoken so we have an accurate record.

Go to John 14:26. Jesus spoke about how people would write about Him for subsequent generations. In John 14:26, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Some people as they do commentaries on the gospels say we have to try to compare the gospels because they forgot some things, they didn’t remember some things correctly. So as we compare them we try to sort out what was correct and what was not. You can throw that all away. Well don’t you forget things over time? Yes, I do. Isn’t it human nature? Yes it is. Well don’t you think it happened to the writers of the gospels? No, I don’t, because Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would enable them to remember it in a supernatural way. They would have an accurate memory of it, a correct memory. And they would remember what God wanted them to remember and record. He will bring to your remembrance all I said to you. So you don’t get to the point that the Jesus seminar does where so-called scholars sit down and get different colored buttons or stones and then they’re going to vote. Well we read this in the gospel. Well this color stone means you think for sure Jesus said it, this color stone means you think there is serious doubt, this color stone means for sure He didn’t say it. Well who becomes the authority, then, the gospels or these scholars? These scholars. They tell us this isn’t true, this is true. And all you have is their opinion, majority rules. Most of us voted this was truly the words of Christ, most of us voted this wasn’t. So what? The Spirit of God directed the men in the writing.

John 16:13, but when the Spirit of truth comes He will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears He will speak. He will disclose to you what is to come. The Apostle John would later write the book of Revelation. The Spirit of God was disclosing to Him what was to come. He will glorify Me, He will take of mine and will disclose it to you. And when He discloses that about Me, He’ll be disclosing the Father, the next verse says. So it’s the work of the Spirit guaranteeing the accuracy. That’s why I use the translation that is as close to being a word for word translation as we can get, because it’s not enough just to get the gist, to get the idea. I want to be as close as I can with a translation to the very words, even though that may leave a little more confusion and doubt that has to be sorted out. But usually you find that that ambiguity was there in the original text. And so I want to have it as the Spirit gave it.

All right, I just want to summarize two other areas and then a couple of words. The area of illumination is the work of the Spirit in enabling us to understand the scripture. If you go to II Corinthians, and I’ll just limit myself to one passage, II Corinthians chapter 3. Paul uses the analogy of Moses from history. In verse 13, we are not like Moses who used to put a veil over his face so the sons of Israel would not look intently at what was fading away. But, verse 14, their minds were hardened. For until this very day at the reading of the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, the same veil remains unlifted because it is removed in Christ. But to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their heart, but whenever a person turns to the Lord the veil is taken away. Paul says the Jews, when they study the Old Testament, they study it with their spiritual eyes darkened. They have a veil over the eyes of their heart. They don’t really understand the truth concerning Christ that is contained there. It explains how people can study the Bible, study the Bible, study the Bible and not really ever really understand it. You know it’s like you brought a person in here blindfolded with a hood over their head, and you say, all right you can just walk around and you can stand and look and describe the auditorium. Well they could stand here for a day, a week, a lifetime, but they could never see it. They wouldn’t understand, they wouldn’t know. I mean you could put the greatest document in front of them there is, they wouldn’t understand. That’s the way they are, they’re in spiritual darkness. They have a veil over the eyes of their heart.

You’ll note, verse 16, when a person turns to the Lord the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. We all with unveiled face, we who have believed in Christ have the veil lifted because the veil is removed in Christ. So we study the Word and it’s alive, it’s rich, it’s deep, and we want more. That’s why there are some people that can come to church, hear the Word of God taught week in and week out, week in and week out. And that’s all right, that’s nice. I mean you ought to go to church. But they really never grasp its truth because they are sitting there with a veil over their eyes. But when you have come to believe in Christ the veil is removed, then you’re beholding as in a mirror the Word of God, the glory of the Lord. What happens is you look into this book and it’s a revelation of God’s glory. And as you’re studying God’s glory in this mirror you are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory by the ministry of the Spirit. A supernatural work is going on and continues that process of transformation to make you more and more like Jesus Christ.

Then there is the matter of interpreting the Bible—interpretation. So a person without the Spirit really can’t understand the Bible. Initial salvation occurs when you hear the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Spirit of God moves on you to enable you to see and understand and believe in Jesus Christ. Apart from that work of the Spirit no one ever would be saved. Then there is the matter of interpreting the Bible. We come together to study the Bible and look into its truths. We follow what is called a literal method of interpreting the Bible, historical, grammatical interpretation. We see it set in certain histories. So we study like the letter to the Corinthians, we study the time of the Corinthians. We study the book of Romans, we study life in Rome at that time. We study the gospels, we have to find out what were the Pharisees like, who were they in New Testament times and so on. The historical setting.
We study the grammatical, we study the sentence structure. We don’t just pull out a word and then make that word mean whatever we want it to mean so it’s just some kind of mystical freedom here to impose on the Bible whatever we feel we get out of it. You know that idea, what does the Bible mean to you, what does this passage mean to you. It doesn’t matter what it means to you, it doesn’t matter what it means to me. It matters what God meant when He said it. That is its meaning, that is its only meaning. It is objective, it is outside of myself. So we study it to learn what God has said.

Go to II Timothy 2:15. This is in the context of warning about the dangers of false teachers, the dangers of divisions that can come into the church through false doctrine. II Timothy 2:15, be diligent to present yourself approved to God. What is more important than receiving God’s approval. Present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the Word of truth. That word, to be diligent, let me read you what a Greek dictionary or lexicon says. Be zealous or eager, take pains, make every effort, be diligent, be diligent, take pains, make every effort to present yourself approved to God by handling accurately the Word of God. That’s our responsibility in interpreting the Bible. God has revealed Himself, that revelation has been recorded as our scriptures. We have been given the Holy Spirit to guide us, to open our eyes. Now we are to apply ourselves with diligence in persevering study and the hard work of grappling with the Word of God. That’s why we handle the Word of God the way we do when we come together. I’m not here to give you a few thoughts from the scripture that will encourage your heart, to talk to you about things you might find interesting. The very fact that God has spoken is of enough interest, shouldn’t it be?

So we have to start and we have to move through it, like we did verse 15. Be diligent. What does it mean to be diligent? What does it mean to present yourselves approved to God? You stand before God and receive His approval. How do you get His approval? You have handled accurately His Word. How will the church ever give an account of itself, corporately and individually, when it deals so cavalierly with the Word of God? That’s why, yes, our worship times are serious times. We say, bring your Bible, we’re going to start at the beginning of this book and we’re going to work through, we’re going to try to understand what God has said, see why He put it here, what He meant when He said it, how it applies to our lives. It’s going to be hard work, you have to take pains with something, you have to make every effort. They think they come and we’ll relax. No, this will be the hardest work of the week, but the most rewarding, because as we plumb the depths of what God has revealed, we come to know the living God. And by the work of the Spirit of God we are being transformed from within into conformity with the image of His glory. What greater privilege, what greater honor, what more important that we would do with our lives—pour ourselves into the Word.

I realize I speak to a large audience. I expect there will be varying degrees of interest, but we need to be careful. We begin to gear our services to those who do not know the Lord so they have a veil over their eyes and we think we will appeal to them by making the Word of God light, of dealing with things that are popular. But you understand they have a veil over their heart. I cannot make the scripture interesting, understandable to the person who is sitting there in darkness. Only the Spirit of God can turn on the light. All I can do is open the truth of God that the Spirit of God uses to accomplish His work. So as we get ready to start a new book, what are we going to do? Say I’m ready for hard work, I have my Bible ready, I have my pencil ready, I’m ready to mark it, I’m ready to grapple with it, I’m going to make every effort. I’m going to take pains because what I want more than anything else in life, as one who by God’s grace has come to know Him through faith in His Son, is I want to be approved by Him. And that means I have to handle accurately the revelation He has given of Himself.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for the revelation of your Word. Thank you for the revelation of creation. Lord, thank you that by your grace we have come to understand and believe that your Son is our Savior. He died to pay the penalty for our sin, and in Him the veil has been taken away of our blinded hearts. And we see in your Word, we see in the wonder of creation things that we never saw before. We understand what we never understood before. Lord, I pray that our appetites may be relentless, may be bottomless, that we might have a desire to know more of you, understand more clearly, to apply ourselves with all diligence, to take great pains, to make every effort to understand the truth correctly, to handle it accurately, because above all else, as your people, we desire your approval. We praise you in Christ’s name. Amen.