John 9 — W.F. Anderson

The only thing consistent about me is my inconsistency. I've started out to take up a series of studies in the life of our Lord, and I'm changing. And I want to look at various passages, as time permits, this afternoon, beginning with John chapter 9, which is an incident in the life of our Lord, but there are certain concerns that come out of experience, and I'm thinking, I suppose, particularly of our young people here today, and I want to get at one of those.

Jesus and the Man Born Blind

And he's been thrown out of the synagogue because he wouldn't deny it. In verse 35 of John 9, Jesus heard that they had come to him and he said, Do you believe in the Son of Man? And he answered, And who is he, sir, that I might believe in him?

Jesus said to him, You have seen him, and it is not that I have come to fulfill them, but to be one of the least of these commanders, and to teach them in the kingdom. What do you mean by that? Faith is not something that is an entity in itself.

You cannot have faith by itself, regardless of all the popular religious songs in the country in all the sense. Faith must have an object, and when you say, I simply take the Bible as the Word of God on faith.

Faith on what? Are you prepared to take the whole Bible on faith? Do you mean the Word? Do you mean the thoughts that the Bible conveys? Do you mean the writer was inspired when he wrote? Do you mean the words that he wrote were inspired?

Because in the evangelical world today, and I speak of the evangelical world including the assembly and outside the assembly, in the evangelical world today there is no more vexed than the inspiration of the Spirit.

And what is the Word? I think this is the experience of most of us here today. We were convinced that the Bible is the Word of God before we came to Jesus Christ. I don't think that we truly are. We simply heard somebody preach the gospel and believed in Jesus Christ, and we were born again.

What the Bible is had never entered our heads, and it didn't enter our heads. Jesus came along and healed him. And this word got around that here's a guy that was born blind that's been healed. And of course, all the religious leaders pounced on him immediately.

Who healed you? Well, I don't know who healed me. All I know is I'm healed. So they got his parents. Are you sure this boy was born blind? Well, yeah, we're sure he was born blind. How did he get healed?

We don't know. Ask him yourself. Is this man false? Well, he must be a pretty wicked man. And this man began to reason from his own experience. We've never heard of a man being born blind and being healed.

Anybody who does that good work, anybody who does a good work like that is from God. I'm convinced the man who healed me is from God. And as soon as they said that, they turned around. The man who healed you came to him and said, Do you believe in the Son of Man or the Son of God?

He didn't agree. He didn't respond. Tell me who he is. Based on my personal experience with you, I'm convinced you are a man of God. And because of my personal experience with you, I'll believe anything you say.

So you just point him out. You show me who the Son of Man is, and I'll believe because you tell me. That's pretty much the basis. Because of our personal experience with Jesus Christ, and most of us, myself included, and I grew up in a Christian home, did not believe in Jesus Christ because we first believed the Bible was the Word of God.

We heard the Gospel message, and we believed in Jesus Christ in response to the invitation in that Gospel message. And out of that experience with Jesus Christ, we were convinced of who He is. And now we are within here a spectrum of theologians, liberals, evangelicals, neo-Orthodox, if you can accept the trustworthiness of the record.

Jesus Christ's View of Scripture

It's pretty clear what Jesus Christ thought about the Scripture. He thought about the Scripture just exactly what the Jews of His day thought about them, the Pharisees and the Rabbis. That is, they are the Word of God.

There can be little doubt that this is what our Lord held. What I'm ignoring is, do we have a reliable record of what Jesus Christ said? Reading on your own. I'm going to suggest you get F .F. Bruce's book, The New Testament Documents, Are They Reliable?

We have a generally, I believe more than that, but I'm assuming, we have a generally reliable record of what Jesus Christ said. One of the most helpful studies is to go through the Gospels and make a list.

If there's one thing that settled my own mind, it was that, if I have Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, as the Son of God, as authoritative in my life, then what He says about the Scripture settles the whole question.

And if I've got any doubts in that area, it seems to me the first question I've got to settle is, if I've settled that, then what He says about the Scripture. He's been amazed. He goes, it's been said to you of them of all time, but I say unto you.

He's not saying the Old Testament said it, but I'm giving you something different. Your teachers, and if you understand the authority of the Jewish rabbis, was entirely traditional. What the rabbis before them had said, it is what the judges of Israel had decided the law meant in any given case.

And this was the startling thing about our Lord's ministry. It was so refreshing. He spoke as a man having authority and not as a scribe. He wasn't quoting what Rabbi So-and-So said. He was saying, this is what the Word of God says.

Now, the contrast in the Sermon on the Mount is between what they had been taught by the rabbis and what the Old Testament really said. For example, the Old Testament said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

And the rabbis teased on this. Uh-huh. You are to love your neighbor. That means you are free to love your enemy, to hate your enemy. The Lord says nothing to him. That's what the rabbis said. That's not what the Word of God said.

And his ministry was based on the Word of God. The reason he got into so much trouble with religious leaders of his day is because he totally ignored their tradition and got back to the Word of God. And one of the healthiest chapters you can read and think about the implications of is Mark chapter 7, where our Lord knocked heads with the Pharisees over a point of tradition, and all his own pent-up anger at their holding to tradition instead of the Word of God came rolling out, and he let them have it, nullifying the Word of God by their tradition.

His whole ministry was the authority of his teaching. He demanded this of his followers. He preached it to the multitude. They must obey the Word of God. But most striking to me was his own person. If anybody, it was the one who gave the Word, subjected himself in his public life and in his private life to the teaching of Scripture.

Christ's Obedience to Scripture

When he met Satan in the wilderness, in the temptation which occurred in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, that's held in Matthew and Luke, and he met Satan with the verse of Scripture, Now, look, let's face it here.

If you're told that all you have to do is quote Scripture to Satan, and he's going to turn and run from you, you're in for some pretty bad shock. It doesn't work. I've tried it. The Lord did not defeat Satan by quoting a verse of Scripture to Satan.

Satan will quote you a verse right back. He said to Satan, Man shall not live by bread alone. That wasn't going to turn Satan on its heel and make him run. Our Lord was telling Satan this. Man shall not live by bread alone.

And I am committed to that Scripture. I do not live by bread alone. Why not? Because Scripture says man shall not live by bread alone. And when Satan said, Well, throw yourself off the pinnacle of the temple, Our Lord comes back with this written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

And the reason he wouldn't do it is not because it wouldn't work, but because he was bound to obey the Scripture which said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And he wouldn't put God to the test because he himself was subject to Scripture.

When he comes on the night of his betrayal, Peter takes out the sword to defend him. He starts the whole business with, How shall the Scripture be fulfilled? Peter, I am committed to obey the Word of God in my own personal life, though it cost me my life.

That he was bound by it. Who he is. What he has to say. And his view of the Scripture is not in doubt. What about the New Testament? Let me move on from there. In John chapters 14 and 16, part of our Lord's Upper Room Discourse, he talks about the ministry of the Spirit of God.

The Spirit's Ministry to the Apostles

Now, we are very good at wrestling Scripture, at ripping it out of its context, and thinking our selectivity is amazing. What we pick out and what we leave, entirely arbitrary, just what suits us. And in John 14, our Lord made some promises about the Spirit of God.

When he has come, he will bring to your remembrance all things whatsoever I have said unto you. Now, where are you going to get a hold of that? Say, that's the ministry of the Spirit of God to me. So I get a hold of my kids in Emmaus, and I say, now look, let's put this thing to the test.

Do you believe that verse of the Scripture? Oh yes, I do, I do, I do. Then how come you flunk that test on the light of Christ? It means what you say it means. Get 100 on any test on the four Gospels on the light of Christ.

Because the Spirit of God is bound to bring to your remembrance everything that Jesus said. All the things you've learned in studying the Bible, you'd better pay attention to who a given statement is made.

And in the upper room, there were 11 apostles. ...Judas has a wide use of messengers, but it also has a narrow use in a certain group of men to whom certain authority was given. I don't think that would be difficult to demonstrate from these testaments.

To these, our Lord said, the Spirit of God will come and bring to your remembrance everything I said to you. And that's my guarantee of the accuracy of the Gospel narrative. When these men wrote an account of what our Lord said and did, it was that ministry of the Spirit of God that ensured the accuracy of what they wrote and what they preached, by the way, which were written in the New Testament.

The Lord said to them, not only would he bring to your remembrance all things whatsoever I have said unto you, he will guide you into all truth. And he will show you things to come. And this, in my own judgment, covers the ministry of the apostles in their teaching and in their prophetic ministry, say, the book of the Revelation.

The apostle, our Lord, authorized folks for him. Now, there's another way of doing it. I can approach the Scriptures, this book, this Bible, we'll just call it a book. I can approach it in two ways. Of the writing that I find, the obvious implications of the humanity of the writers, I can look at the way they messed up grammar.

And they did mess up grammar, as this may be some encouragement to those of you having trouble with English. They did not always follow the nice rules of grammar, you know. And my English teachers used to bug me about a dangling participle.

I still don't know what a dangling participle is. Or a split infinitive. The writers of the New Testament would split infinitives and dangle participles. And you can look at this, the phenomena of Scripture, and here, obviously, is the humanity of the writers.

Now, if you only look at that, you come up with a human book. But there's another way to look at it. That is, what do they say about their own writing? What is the teaching of the book about itself? Well, I'm not going to listen to them.

Well, why not? In any court case, a man on trial, if he is a man of integrity, is his own best witness. You can tell that in any court. What does the Bible say about itself? Let's look at a couple of passages and get some of the implications.

Scripture as God-Breathed

Second Timothy, chapter 3. This is an authorized... Paul is not above presenting his credentials for claiming apostleship. And this is an authorized spokesman of our Lord talking about the Scripture in Second Timothy, chapter 3, verse 14.

"...as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for recruitment, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.". Now, Paul is here talking about the profitableness of the Bible.

In what areas is the Bible worthwhile? Well, he mentions two of them. It's the means of our salvation. Through the Scriptures, we came to faith in Jesus Christ. We heard the message preached. It is secondly, profitable to equip the Christian who has already believed in Jesus Christ to do every good work.

Now, why is it profitable? Because it's been inspired by God. As much as I enjoy Shakespeare, as much as I enjoy poetry, as much as I enjoy other literature, it doesn't do this because it was inspired by God.

And I can read Shakespeare to the non-Christians from now till Doomsday and it's not going to convert anyone. Except in those passages where Shakespeare has given a message based on the Word of God. But that's because it comes out of Scripture.

Shakespeare in and of itself is not going to convert anyone. But the Word of God will. Because that has been inspired by God. Now, what does he mean inspired by God? Our English word inspire means to breathe in.

To expire means to breathe out. And we use expire of death. The expression that Paul used here is that Scripture is God breathed without saying inspire or expire. Our English word inspire may leave the wrong impression that God breathed into what was already written and gave it canonical status and authoritativeness.

Or I might get the idea that God breathed into the writers. And so we've got inspired Scripture. But that isn't what Paul is writing. Paul is simply saying Scripture is God breathed. Now, what does he mean by saying Scripture is God breathed?

Well, go back to the 33rd Psalm. I think we can pick up the idiom of Hebrew thinking. Psalm 33, verse 6. By the word of the Lord the heavens were made and all their hosts by the breath of His mouth. Now, without going into Hebrew poetry and its parallels, he's saying the same thing in a reverse order in those two lines just using different words and that's characteristic of Hebrew poetry.

What he is saying in Psalm 33 is that the universe is the product of the creative activity of God. That creative activity is described in the second line of that poetry as the breath of God. And we could say all creation is God breathed.

That's what the psalmist is saying. And the parallel idea in a different sphere in 2 Timothy 3 is that all Scripture is God breathed. What does he mean about creation? God produced creation by His own activity.

What is he saying about Scripture? God produced Scripture by His own activity. It's God breathed. It is the product of God's work. Two things in Scripture. I see the clear marks of human evidence. There isn't any difficulty in picking out the personality of Paul by reading his writings.

Now, you're not going to get that in a letter from a secretary or that's dictated by a secretary. You're not going to learn a thing about the secretary. Except maybe she can't spell and she can't type.

Or she can't spell and she can't type. You don't learn a thing about the secretary. But you learn a great deal about the boss. Don't you? Then I learn a great deal about these men in their writing. What kind of men they were.

And this tells me God did not dictate the Bible. Just precisely how it was done we don't know. There's another passage in a moment that may help us. But all Paul is saying is that though these men wrote the Scriptures the end product is the result of God's activity.

All Scripture is God's reason. 2 Peter chapter 1 the passage we've already been in toward the end of that chapter. 2 Peter chapter 1. Didn't set that clock ahead again. Verse 16. You're always under that pressure.

Say it and get out of there. 2 Peter 1 verse 16. We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was borne to him by the majestic glory this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased we heard this voice borne from heaven for we were with him on the holy mountain and we have the prophetic word made more sure.

Now I don't like this revised translation and I'll tell you why in a moment. We have the prophetic word made more sure. You will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart.

First of all, you must understand this that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man but men moved by the Holy Spirit saved from God.

The Prophetic Word More Sure Than Experience

Peter is saying this. We told you that Jesus Christ is coming again. On what was that based? It was based on two things. The Scriptures of the Old Testament and our experience on the Mount of Transfiguration.

We saw a foregleam of the second advent of Jesus Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. We were there. We weren't following commonly devised myths. We were following two things. Our own eyewitness experience on the Mount of Transfiguration and the Old Testament Scriptures.

Now, I think Peter is saying if push comes to shove, forget my experience and take the Old Testament Scriptures. We have the Scripture, verse 19, made more sure. Give me the translation that says we have a more sure word in the prophetic Scriptures.

The study I did, it was most helpful to take the writings of the apostles and see what they had to say about the Old Testament. And I can't, after that study, I cannot imagine Peter ever saying my experience on the Mount of Transfiguration made the Old Testament more sure.

If there's one thing these apostles were convinced of, it was the absolute authority and reliability of the Old Testament. I just can't dream of Peter saying I had an experience. Peter says, over against my experience on the Mount of Transfiguration there's something more sure than that.

And that's the Old Testament. And this is the absolute reliability of Scripture. Why is it reliable? Because it didn't originate with man, that's why. And Peter says, you've got to understand this in verse 23, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation.

Now, the question is what does he mean by interpretation? Does he mean how I interpret the passage? Well, if Peter's talking about how I interpret the Bible, it's all out of joint. This isn't the subject of this passage.

He's not talking about how I interpret Scripture, but about the reliability of Scripture. And it seems to me what Peter is saying, no Scripture originated with the interpretation of the promise. Let me give you an illustration.

If you go back to the book of Jeremiah, a captivity had already occurred and a good number of Jews were done in Babylon. There were prophets in Babylon, there were prophets in Jerusalem who were going around telling everybody that within three years the exiles are going to be restored to Jerusalem and Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon are going to be all done.

Old Jeremiah says, Amen, brother, I wish that were true, but it ain't. And Jeremiah got up and said, all you people here in Jerusalem are going into Babylon, into captivity. They're not going to join you, you're going to join them.

Now, here are two prophets looking at the same set of circumstances coming up with two different interpretations. You proved Jeremiah right, but God had something to say about that. He said, These men have spoken out of their own hearts, not from the counsel of God.

And it seems to me this is exactly what Peter is saying. The Scriptures we have were not the interpretation of a prophet looking out at circumstances and giving his views where they come from then. And the word moved is carried along.

I can help someone to walk. That's a totally different thing from picking up my child. And Peter says, These men were carried on the Holy Ghost. It did not come from the thinking of men. They sat down and looked and surveyed the situation and said, uh-huh, I think this is what's going to happen.

And they wrote it as a prophet looking for the end product. Now, you just briefly had to touch on it. If you're interested, let me suggest a little bit of reading you might do. R .C. puts out a very helpful little book called Fundamentalism and the Word of God by J .I. Packer.

Available in paperback. Moody Press puts out a book called Can I Trust My Bible? that you might find helpful. And if you're really interested in going into this thing and going at it hammer and tongue, get hold of the writings of B .B. Warfield, still published by the Presbyterian Reformed Publishing Company in Philadelphia.

Get into the meat of it right there. B .B. Warfield. Get a hold of everything he wrote. Quite a few massive volumes. And there are various chapters in those volumes. There's one on inspiration in the Bible.

There's a real meat of the stuff. That's suggested reading. But now, if you agree with me, and you better agree, but if you agree with me, now, a couple things have come out. To be re-examining what we do in light of the Scripture.

Scripture Over Tradition and Mere Knowledge

Reverend, our tradition has absolutely no authority. I don't quite care if you quote John Melton Darby and C .H. Macintosh and William Kelley, but they are to be evaluated in light of the Word of God.

That is the only authority. ...and read some of these. Now, I can't read Darby. I can't make any detail of that. Kelley was a real New Testament scholar. But these are not the authorities. The authority is the Word of God.

Inspiration. I'm passing a doctrine of inspiration that I deny with my life. It was Paul Little's father. Shocked. Before you get up and leave. The sight of God. The sight of God. A vast knowledge of the Bible is of no more value than a vast accumulation of money to memorize the Ten Commandments.

There is no blessing in knowing the Bible. I'm prepared to back that up and switch it. There is no blessing in learning something that's happening. And you are not blessed by learning it. But the blessing lies in being blessed in his doing.

Not in his knowing. And he warns us against being hearers of the Word. In the Upper Room Discourse. If ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye do them in the inspiration of the Word. I'm not presenting what I've presented to you this afternoon.

I'm just trying to help some of our younger brethren get hold of a basis for saying the Bible is the Word of God. But we don't show our faith in inspiration by repeating what I've said. The Bible is the Word of God.