Chapter Four
Man's
Submission To The Authority of God And The Bible
Man must then make
a choice
whether to
serve or
reject his Creator.
Choosing to serve his Creator will logically place him under the
authority of God and His Word. There is a
natural succession of truth
which underlies the Scripture. The
Word of
God defines man’s reason for existence, and it is the study of the
Scripture where man must devote his energies.
How else will
man be
able to
understand and
believe God's
great plan
of redemption. The inspiration
of the
Scripture, and its transmission to us today, is critical to each of us.
We must have the very Word of God, not
some corrupted form, or
an inaccurate
translation. Do we
have the revealed Word of
God? Is really full of errors and contradictions?
To answer these questions we will deal with
the following
areas: inspiration,
revelation, and preservation.
Many scholars
and theologians
have grappled
with the
concept of inspiration. Numerous ideas
have been
proclaimed regarding the giving of God's revelation through inspiration. However,
the Bible still
stands undaunted
by time,
and the efforts of many to
bring it to degradation. Without
inspiration, there would be no revealed plan of redemption for mankind, and no
hope for rescue from sin.
The Holy
Spirit inspired
the writers
of the Old
and New Testaments to
inscribe the very words of God in the various ways: through
the spoken word
(vocally, directly from God),
dreams, visions, and the ministry
of the Holy Spirit to the
New Testament writers. The Scripture
conspicuously states
that it
is both the
revelation of God and that it is inspired of God.
"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is
profitable for doctrine, for reproof,
for correction,
for instruction in
righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all
good works."
II Timothy 3:16
"For prophecy came
not in
old time by the will
of man: but holy men of God
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." II Peter 1:21
What is inspiration and revelation? Did God dictate?
Did He chose to work through the minds of selected men? A workable
definition for inspiration is “Inspiration
is God's
revealing of
eternal truth
to specific ordained men,
through the direction
and guidance of the Holy
Spirit, so that these men wrote God's very words in their own vocabulary and background,
as they were
consciously or unconsciously
directed by God's Spirit."
With this definition of inspiration,
we may
draw certain
dogmatic conclusions: Inspiration
is directly related
to revelation.
God desired to speak
directly to man through revelation:
the very words of God. This
revelation and
inspiration extend to facts,
(scientific, historical,
or geographical).
The writers
of the
New Testament were conscious of the
authority of their writings and
they seemed to recognize that they
writing Scripture and that the content of
their writings had authority.
"If any man
think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let
him acknowledge
that the
things I
write unto
are the
commandments of the Lord."
I Cor. 14:37
"And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that
man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed."
II Thessalonians 3:14
"But though we, Or an
angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel
unto you than
that which we have preached unto you, let him
be accursed."
Galatians 1:8
The fact of
inspiration is
critical to
the physical proclamation of the Gospel.
When inspiration
is doubted
the reliability and
historicity of the text
is challenged!
Charles Pinnock states
that "the credibility of the Christian message is bound up with the
reliability of its historical proclamation"1 With
no infallible
Word there
is no record of the Savior
and the message of the Bible is become of none effect. So, then, we may safely
say: revelation is the act of God revealing Himself to man and that
inspiration is the writing of that revelation, so that Scripture is
the mind of God to the mind
of man. In an article
entitled, "A Common
Bible" the Trinitarian
Bible Society of England makes this great statements: "The
Scriptures manifest
themselves to
be the Word
of God
by their majesty
and purity;
by the
consent of all
the parts,
and the
scope of
the whole, which is
to give all glory
to God; by their light and power to convince and convert
sinners, to
comfort and build up believers
unto salvation: by the
Spirit of God bearing witness
by and
with the
Scriptures in
the heart of
man, is
alone able
to fully
persuade it that they are
the very Word of God."2
Divine inspiration
extends to all
parts of
Scripture and the organic
unity of the
Scriptures proves
them to be the product
of the mind of God. Without
inspiration we
would have
no reliable text or real
knowledge of God. The New Testament
Scripture has
been likewise
preserved unto this day!
An unbroken line of communication began with Adam and continued through the time of Moses. God gave His Word in written form directly to man. This indicates that God wanted man to read the Word of God with understanding. God gave us His inspired Word, and it would ludicrous for Him not to preserve it down through the ages. The Bible is an historical document, without contradiction, and is verifiable and accurate in every respect to quality, science, and history. God selected men to write Bible history and it was through Israel that He preserved His text. Israel was chosen to be a store "house for truth, keeping intact the Old and New Testaments (Romans 3:1,2).
The Old Testament scribes took great precautions when copying the text. Each word was counted, the center word noted, and varying number systems were devised. With great care these men worked diligently copying the New Testament manuscripts. Many of these manuscripts have survived to this day. It is these "surviving" manuscripts that today's scholars examine to determine the correct Greek text for use in translation.
An overwhelming array of manuscripts provides us with an accurate appraisal of the Greek Text. The Rev.. J. Lockhart made this statement: "It is Obviously next in importance to the fact of their inspiration that the Holy Scriptures continue in every essential respect the same as they came from the hands of those holy men of God who wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost...Let it be our zealous care in our day and generation to guard inviolate the precious treasure and our delight to acknowledge with thanksgiving our infinite obligation to the special providence of Lord who hath conveyed it down to us in its original purity...But also the strict faithfulness of the translations must be solemnly guarded. Unless the language of the Holy Spirit is uniformly rendered by precisely correspondent . dent terms and phrases, the professed version...may fail to communicate the knowledge of the truth..."3
The truth regarding the record of God being important to the
program of God is found in the
Scriptures:
"He that believeth on
the Son
of God hath
the witness
in himself: he believeth not God hath made him
a liar; because he believed
not the record that God gave His Son."
I John 5:10
“Search the
scriptures; for in them ye
think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."
John 5:39
It is apparent
that the
Lord sees His Word as inerrant, the message of His Word
as essential,
and the entire text of His
Word as unchangeable. God's Word reflects God's character, and it is obvious that
the Lord will deal severely with
anyone who
tampers with His Word. The Bible has been preserved, and is accurate.
We should "be concerned to
preserve and treasure every single word of Scripture."4 .
As the believer continues to
study, recognizing
the Word of God as the
Infinite Word of the Infinite God, he must place his life under the
authority of God.
This is
the practical outworking
of good Bibliology.
J.W. Burgon, a professor of the University of Oxford in 1860, stated this
in a powerful way: "Waste not thy precious time
in cavil about the structure of the casket
which contains
thy treasure,
but unlock
it with the key of faith,
and make thyself rich indeed. Already
the Judge standeth
at the door, and assuredly you and I, to whom God has entrusted so much,
shall have to render a very strict account
of the use we
have made of the
Bible when we shall stand face
to face
with its
undoubted Author...In
that tremendous hour the veil will be withdrawn from our eyes, and the
office of faith will be ended, and we shall be confronted with
the One who hath a
"vesture dipped in blood, and whose Name
is called THE LAMB OF GOD...'I have heard of Thee', we shall every one of us
declare, 'I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine
eye seeth thee."5
Footnotes - Chapter
four
1. Pinnock, Set Forth
your Case: page 102.
2. Ibid, page 102.
3. J. Lockhart
4. Pinnock, Set Forth
Your Case: page 103
5. J.W. Burgon
