What is the Bible
What is the Bible?
Why do I ask that question? I have found a lot of people look on the Bible as just a guide book to life and/or a book of spiritual and moral matters.
But the Bible is not just a book one adds to their thinking. The Bible over 3,000 times claims to be the Word of God. We are told that God knows everything, being infinite in knowledge and wisdom.
“For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything” (1 John 3:20).
“Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure” (Psalm 147:5).
“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable” (Isaiah 40:28).
The Bible is a revelation from God to man, from the one who knows all things. This means the Bible gives the key information God has revealed to us to enable us to have the right foundation to build the right way of thinking about everything. Without that key information, how would we as fallible human beings know how to have understanding of anything?
Here’s the problem for man. No matter how much we know, there’s an infinite amount more to know. Which means no matter how we know, we don’t know how much more there is to know anyway. This means no matter much we know, we don’t know how much we do know or don’t know in relation to whatever there is to know. Which means we just don’t know much at all.
That’s the lesson God taught Job. When Job was going to argue with God concerning what had happened to him, God then asked Job a series of questions to show him that he didn’t know much at all compared to God. That’s why after God had enabled Job to understand how finite his understanding was, Job said:
“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:2–6)
Job recognized, as we all need to recognize, that we know next-door-to-nothing compared to God. How arrogant of humans to think they know better than God when they determine man’s views of origins must be correct, and therefore we have to reinterpret God’s Word in Genesis to tell God what is supposedly actually true about the origin and history of life and the universe.
No, God’s Word is a revelation from God who doesn’t lie, who knows everything. This means all our thinking in every area has to be founded on God’s Word. We must use God’s Word to judge what man is saying and not the other way round.
I remember my father telling me when looking at the notes in the Scofield Reference Bible about the supposed “gap theory,” that we needed to always understand the notes were not inspired like the Word of God. He told me that God’s Word should always be looked on as the commentary on the notes and not the other way around because only God knows everything, and it’s God’s Word we can totally trust. In other words we should judge the notes by what God’s Word states. And when we do the gap theory fails! The notes were fallible, the text of Scripture is infallible.
Think about this in regard to forensic scientists trying to solve a murder. They may find someone’s fingerprints and even blood type at the scene. The circumstantial evidence can overwhelmingly point to a particular person being the murderer. That person could be found guilty and put in jail. But these scientists didn’t have all evidence. What happens if some evidence is found later that would throw a whole different light on the murder scene and that the murder was actually committed by someone else? This has really happened more than once in real life. There have been people found guilty of a crime based on circumstantial evidence only to be found to be innocent later on when additional evidence comes along.
People may think that the evolutionists view of history makes sense of the evidence of the present. But they don’t know everything there is to know and so don’t know for sure they have the correct interpretation of the evidence. But God’s Word, is the Word of the One who knows everything, understands all the evidence. That’s why we need to trust what God states in Genesis concerning origins, and use what God reveals to judge the ideas of man. And not the other way round as has happened so much in the church.
Sadly, many church leaders have exalted man’s ideas above God’s Word when they compromise man’s evolutionary/millions of years beliefs with the Bible. In a way, those who do this are really looking on man, not God, as knowing everything. It’s really a worship of fallible man.
That’s why over and over again God’s Word warns to not trust in man’s word, but trust in God’s Word:
“Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord” (Jeremiah 17:5)
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).
"It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes” (Psalm 118:8-9).
I must admit, when it comes to beliefs about origins, I’m immediately suspicious of views held by the majority of scientists because man knows nothing compared to God, and man has a sinful heart that does not want to believe God’s Word.
I just can’t understand (except it’s a result of their sin nature) why so many Christians want to trust man’s beliefs about evolution and millions of years instead of God’s clear Word in Genesis. I would rather stand guilty before the Lord for believing his Word as written, than putting my trust in fallible man’s word.
This trust in man’s word has been catastrophic for the modern church because of the devastating consequences in the coming generations doubting and ultimately rejecting God’s Word.
As I often quote, “Let God be true though every one were a liar” (Romans 3:4).(1]
What is the main message of the Bible?
God promised to defeat death and accmplished it thru Jesus.
The Bible in a nutshell:
♡The Whole Bible points fallen man to Jesus.
♡In the OT God promised to destroy the power of death. The NT tells how he did it.
♡In the OT God promised a Savior to take away the sins of humans, the NT tells how He did it.
◇ Beyond that it tells us who God is and how to live in righteousness (to become more holy and Christlike).
Footnotes
(1) Ken Ham
Comments
Post a Comment