Who Chose What to Include in the Bible? - Part
2
Last month, we began a discussion on the authority of the Bible.
A Roman Catholic had made the statement that Protestants do not
truly rely on Scripture alone as we claim, but on tradition also.
They base this assertion on the argument that Protestants must rely
on tradition passed down to us as to which books of the Bible are
inspired and which aren't. (Click
here if you missed our last letter).
I believe this argument is fatally flawed. It shows a woeful
misunderstanding of how the Bible came to be - assuming that there
were many competitors for inclusion and only those chosen by some
body or committee made the cut. This is simply not true. The fact is
that the books of the Bible were largely recognized as inspired from
the time they were first circulated. Paul makes this point in 1
Thess. 2:13 where he writes "We also constantly thank God that
when you received from us the word of God's message, you accepted
it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of
God."
Of course, some at times raised doubts about some of the books.
But all the books of the Bible meet the basic concept of inspiration
in that they claim to speak God's word from an authoritative
source and they are prophetic in nature. Last time we looked at how
the Old Testament measured up to those criteria, so we now turn our
attention to the New Testament.
Identifying Inspired Works in the New Testament
Just as the Old Testament prophets claimed to speak on God's
behalf with their authoritative "just saith the Lord, so also the
New Testament writers claim to be speaking God's message directly.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:10, when he is giving instruction for
marriage states "But to the married I give instructions, not I,
but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband." Note
that he is claiming to speak the word of God. Another convincing
passage is 1 Cor. 2:9-13:
"But as it is written: 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has
prepared for those who love Him.' But God has revealed them to us
through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the
deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except
the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, no one knows the
things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not
the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we
might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom
teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual
things with spiritual."
In John 14:26 Jesus said "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things,
and bring to remembrance all that I said to you." Also, John
15:26 and 16:13 contain similar promises. Therefore we can be
assured that the Holy Spirit inspires the apostles' writings.
Of course, the New Testament is prophetic in nature as well. Not
only are there passages in Thessalonians and the book of Revelation
about the last days events, but Jesus gives prophetic predictions
throughout the Gospels. Above all, though, a prophet is defined as
one who is inspired by God to carry His message to the people. The
fact that the New Testament authors saw themselves as speaking God's
word means their writings are prophetic.1
The Testimony of the Holy Spirit
Lastly, we have the Holy Spirit directly testifying to each of us
directly that the Bible is God's inspired word. Norman Geisler and
William Nix in their book A General Introduction to the Bible write
"The inner witness of God in the heart of the believer who reads
the Bible is evidence for divine origin. The Holy Spirit not only
bears witness to the believer that he is a child of God (Rom. 8:16)
but that the Bible is the Word of God (2 Pet. 1:20-21). The same
Spirit who communicated the truth of God also confirms to the
believer that the Bible is the Word of God. That witness does not
occur in a vacuum. The Spirit uses the objective Word to bring about
subjective assurance."2
This last point means that we do not have to rely on any type of
tradition to understand that the Bible as we have it is inspired -
we have the direct witness of the Spirit Himself confirming it. In
fact, all the points we have discussed can be verified directly by
each of us. We can see the prophetic nature of both the Old and New
Testaments. We can see how they are authoritative in their
pronouncements and we can see historically that the apostles
accepted these writings as authoritative. Given that Jesus promised
the apostles the Spirit of God to make such decisions, we can know
with assurance that the Bible we have is the inspired Word of God.
Now, granted, this is a very brief overview of a complicated
topic. For a more detailed approach, you can get a copy of the audio
teaching "How We Can Know the Bible is REALLY from God" from our
last conference at http://www.comereason.org/resources/res030.asp.
Until next month, God bless.
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