The Doctrine of the Bible

The Bible as God-Breathed Revelation

I want to start out by praying, of course, but there's a statement that someone made. I didn't come up with this. Man could not write the Bible if he would, and he would not if he could. What do you think that's saying?

So man does not have the supernatural knowledge to write the scripture. So even if he wanted to, he couldn't. Man just does not have that ability. But even if he did, man would not write the Bible because ultimately the Bible is a book that condemns man.

So it's not the type of thing men would do. So we're going to be looking at the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures this morning, but let's pray and then we'll look into it. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this beautiful day that you've made.

We will rejoice and be glad in it. I just pray that each heart would be blessed, that we would learn something from your word. And Father, we may come across someone later today or this week who has questions about the scriptures or wonders if they can trust the scriptures.

And Lord, I just pray this class would be a benefit that we can take and use what we hear and learn to your honor and glory. We pray in Jesus name.

Amen.

So here's the thing about the Bible. The Bible is right and you're wrong. Now you're not always wrong, but the Bible is always right.

Amen.

And if there's ever a discrepancy with the Bible says this and some person says this, the Bible is right and they're wrong. So that's the starting point.

Okay.

Two weeks ago we looked at the church mission statement. So now we are coming to the first article of the Morris Corner Church constitution, which is the holy scriptures. So let's get a volunteer to look up second Timothy three 16.

I know a couple of you have it memorized, but let's just turn there. We'll start there. Second Timothy three, it'll look at 16 and 17 in just a moment, but here's what the doctrinal statement says. This is how it begins.

We believe the holy scriptures of the old and new testaments to be the verbally inspired word of God, the final authority for faith in life in Aaron, in the original writings, infallible and God breathed.

And the scripture references are second Timothy three, 16 and 17 second Peter one 20 and 21 Matthew five 18 and then John 16, 12 and 13. Does anyone want to take a guess at why this is the first thing in our church doctrinal.

Statement?

That's not by accident. Why is the scripture the very first thing?

Cause it sets the tone for the rest of what you're going to say.

It sets the tone.

Exactly.

Because yeah, everything flows from this. If the Bible is full of errors, if it's not trustworthy, if it's only the word of man, how do you really know who God is and what he's like and what he wants?

Everything else in our doctoral statement, we know because the scriptures tell us. So if you don't have this as your foundation, what can you know about God? Uh, well there are a few things, uh, but let's start out with this verse, uh, second Timothy three, 16 and 17 who would like to read it?

Volunteer.

Mike.

This is NIV.

Okay.

All scripture is God breathed and he's useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

All right.

Thank you.

All scripture is God breathed. We have any other words in your translation inspired, inspired, right? All scripture is given by inspiration of God. So this is the very first point in our doctrinal statement because, uh, everything else we know because the Bible tells us, uh, Marcus, there was a radio program I heard many years.

Ago called the breath of life, which I enjoyed very much and might well be a part of why I'm a member of here. It was called the breath of life. Interesting because this, this phrase God breathed is very much like how life human life began.

God breathed. He formed Adam with his hands and then he became a living soul.

Amen. Amen.

So, like I said, everything we know comes from the scripture. Uh, however, there are some things that we can know about God. Even if we didn't have the scripture, we could know that God exists. We could know that he is all powerful.

General Revelation and Special Revelation

And I just want to read from Psalm 19 verses one through four. We're going to start out by making a distinction between two terms. You can write these down. General revelation and special revelation. So the Bible is which one special revelation, but Psalm 19 one through four gives us something about general revelation.

The Psalmist writes, the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork. In other words, you can look up at the night sky, for example, and just know that there is a God know that there is a creator.

He continues day on today, utter speech and night on tonight reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth in their words to the end of the world.

So the heavens declare the glory of God. We can know that God exists simply by looking around us. And this is why all over the world, uh, primitive cultures all throughout history, people have always known that there is a God long before the scripture was penned.

Uh, also one other verse concerning general revelation, Romans one 20, the apostle Paul says for since the creation of the world, his, that is God's invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made.

That's us. Even his eternal power and Godhead so that they mankind is without excuse. So God's invisible attributes are clearly seen. That's kind of a funny statement. How can something invisible be clearly seen?

But by looking at the creation, we can know that there is a God and that he has all power. Any questions or comments on that?

Marcus, I am so blessed to have the job that I have. Um, when I was in line and you could look out over the hills, sometimes higher than the hills that we live in, the Lord has blessed me even more. Now I am up in Shelburne where our pastor lives very high up in Shelburne and to see the dawn, uh, when I was a cop, it was the stars.

I worked the night shift, but all this just to say that, uh, it, I start my day every.

Day.

I'm just a wonderful worshipful view.

Yeah.

But other people, they look around and they would claim they don't see it.

Why?

Why Satan has blinded their eyes. So this is general revelation, uh, that we can know something about God simply by observing his creation. But we're looking at special creation or excuse me, a special revelation this morning.

And that is the Holy scriptures. So the Bible we know is a collection of 66 books written by, uh, over 40 different authors over the course of about 1500 years. And we read this passage, second Timothy three 16 and 17, all scripture is given by inspiration of God.

And the Greek word is they honest us, which means God breathe. And what's, uh, Paul's point here that the scripture is not from man. It is from God. Its origin is divine. And we also see this in second Peter one 20 and 21 where Peter writes, knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation.

Well, what does that mean? Oftentimes we hear that, you know, the Bible means one thing to one person and something else to another, that each person has their own private interpretation. Uh, that's not good, but that's not really what Peter is getting at.

Uh, he explains it. He says, prophecy never came by the will of men or by the will of man, but Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy spirit. So again, uh, Paul said this. Now, Peter is saying it, the scripture, obviously it was written by men, but its source is God.

It came from God. Holy men spoke as they were moved by the Holy spirit. So when somebody says to you, well, the Bible is just a book written by men, how are you going to respond?

Yes, it is.

Yes, it is.

You're correct for, for the moment.

Yes.

Like, well, I mean, obviously it didn't fall down from heaven. It wasn't written by angels. We, we understand everyone understands it was written by men, but its claim is that it is from God.

What is it?

3800 times or more in the old Testament calls it the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord.

Yes.

Jim, just a comment about the prophecy that you're talking about in the old Testament, especially in the, uh, in the, um, Ezekiel and Jeremiah and Isaiah and the minor prophets. Also, there were a lot of false prophets because let's take Jeremiah, for instance, who's often referred to as the weeping prophet.

Yeah.

He was constantly badgered by these false prophets, which were, you know, Jewish leaders. So there is a false, there are false prophets throughout scripture, right? And it's God had didn't want anybody to listen to him.

But of course the nation said, Oh, these guys are right.

He's wrong. Right.

So yeah. And there's false prophets today, of course. And if, and if a preacher gets up week after week without expounding from the Bible, there's a pretty good chance. I mean, whatever he's preaching, if it's not the Bible, you know, what's he doing?

Right.

So yeah, very, very good point.

Okay.

So the Bible is written by men and this is the foundation really of our faith. Jesus is the foundation, the chief cornerstone. But what do you know about Jesus? That doesn't come from the Bible. Tell me something that Jesus said or taught or did that doesn't come from the Bible.

You can't, there's kind of a movement now within, um, Christianity where people, you know, we're Jesus centered. We're not Bible centered. We're Jesus centered and it's all Jesus, Jesus. And well, how can you argue with that?

We're not trying to, but they want to kind of distance themselves from the Bible or from the old Testament and just say, it's just about Jesus. And well, I mean, that's such a foolish thing because you don't know anything about Jesus except what you learn and read from the scripture.

So anytime you hear somebody trying to distance themselves from the Bible in favor of Jesus, that it's nonsensical. And there's usually, uh, an agenda there.

Marcus.

John chapter 21 verse 25. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that should be.

Written. Amen.

Yeah. Yep.

So, um, if anyone ever watches this on online, you know, days, weeks, uh, years later, my advice finding a church to go to just ask the pastor or the church leadership. Do you believe in the inerrancy or the infallibility of the Bible?

If they can't tell you yes, without flinching, find another church. Because if you don't believe in the inerrancy of scripture, that this is the authoritative word of God without error. Um, like I said, it's, it, it sets the tone, right?

Everything will flow from there.

So many men that bring the error.

Yeah.

And one of the worst ones was verdict.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah. Man brings the error. You weren't there at the beginning of the class. They said the Bible is right and you're wrong.

All right.

Three terms.

Yeah.

Yes.

Larry.

I was just going to say, and how the Bible is interpreted, you know, whether literally or symbolically, um, you know what, it's, it makes sense to me to take it literally and, and that's how it should be.

Because where do you stop if it's symbolically?

Right.

Right. Right. Right.

And I want to stay on point, but Jim mentioned someone who is a false teacher and you know, there are a lot of churches and pastors who just come right out and say, you know, the Bible has errors or they would just come right out and reject the scriptures.

These are the churches typically that would have, you know, the rainbow out front. They'll tell you that there are certain things in the Bible they don't believe. I mean, that's easy to spot. I mean, they're telling you they don't believe.

Okay.

Okay.

But what's subtle? Remember the devil is subtle. There'll be a guy like you mentioned and he'll say, Oh, I believe every word of the Bible. But then what he says after that, you know, redefining terms, twisting the word of God, that's what you got to watch out for.

People who would claim to believe the word of God, but then, um, they're, they're really not teaching it accurately. So that, that's where it becomes a little more complicated. I think it was Charles Haddon Spurgeon who said, discernment is not knowing truth from error or knowing what is true.

It's knowing what is almost true, you know? So there are a lot of things that sound sounds right, but not quite. There's something wrong. Have you ever heard that a sermon, a teaching, and you're like, can't quite put my finger on it, but I know that there's something wrong here.

All right.

So I'm bound and determined to finish everything that I got. So we got to keep moving three terms, revelation, inspiration, and illumination. These three terms, what is revelation? Revelation is from God to man.

Inspiration is from man to paper or to parchment or whatever they were writing on. And then illumination is from paper to the heart. So God gave his revelation to the prophets and the apostles. The inspiration is that they wrote, uh, under the direction or inspiration of the Holy ghost and illumination.

That's where we come in, where we read the word of God. And because we have the Holy spirit within us, God illuminates his word and we understand.

It.

And it's applied to our heart.

Notice.

I said, you have to have the Holy spirit in order for there to be illumination because there's a lot of people who would read the Bible and they said, I don't get anything.

Out of it.

I don't understand it. Most of the people in this world, and listen, you could have a church member who saved and you read the book of Ezekiel and you're like, I don't know what's going on.

Okay.

That doesn't mean you're unsaved or any, that's not what I'm saying. But unsaved people do not understand the scripture. First Corinthians two 13 and 14, the apostle Paul talking to the church at Corinth, he says, these things we also speak not in words, which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy spirit teaches comparing spiritual things with spiritual, but the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God.

For they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. So to really understand the word of God, you have to have the Holy ghost. You need to be a Christian that way.

You know, you believe God's word, God, the Holy spirit will illuminate it and then you'll understand any comments on that.

All right.

Everyone's on board so far. So revelation is got from God to man. Inspiration is from man to paper and illumination is from paper to the heart. I think the biggest problem for believers, however, we understand the Bible, but who would say they understand everything about the Bible?

Well, I don't think any of us would say that. The Bible is a wonderful book. It's so simple. A child can understand it and get the basic message, but it's so deep. You can spend the rest of your life and really just scratch the surface.

But the biggest problem I think for us in understanding the Bible is just making sure we're taking things in context. I know this gets repeated all the time and it's for good reason. Everything has to be taken in context.

I remember when I first came to saving knowledge of Christ, one of the first things I did was memorize scripture and that's so important that we memorize scripture. So I had a notebook with page after page of verses that I had memorized and I would go about my day and something would remind me of something and I could quote a verse and then it's just kind of dawned on me at some point.

I don't know if somebody pointed it out, but I think I took that out of context and that's a temptation for all of us. So we need to make sure, especially if we're teaching somebody else or trying to teach someone else, we need to make sure that we're taking these passages in context.

So when we obviously need to read the Bible, study the Bible, and we need to ask those basic questions, who, what, when, where, why, and how, right? Who is writing this? Who are they writing it to? When did they write it?

What was going on in that, in that setting? Why are they saying these things? How would these things have been understood by the original recipients? Does this apply? How does this apply to me? Does this apply to me?

So anytime we're reading the Bible, studying it, we need to ask questions about the scripture, not just read a verse, get a feeling or a thought and run with it. That, that can be a dangerous thing.

Yes.

Don't take this as any sort of disagreement to anything that you've said, but that can also, in my opinion, can also be taken too far because this, the book of Galatians was written to the Galatians. Does, because it was written in the book of Galatians, does that mean it's also written to the church in North Corner?

So again, you really need the Holy Spirit. And the only way to really do it is to meditate on these things day and night.

It's a good point.

Paul wrote the book of Galatians to who?

To...

Let's put this into practice. Who did he write it to?

To Christians.

He did.

Obviously he didn't write it to the church at Morris Corner. No, it was like, nobody's claiming that it was a circular. That was Ephesians Galatians. He wrote to, well, the circuit circulating among the several churches, the churches at Galatia, right?

So he wrote it to the churches in Galatia, but it's for us. It's not to us, but it's for us because they were Christians. We're Christians. The same principles and doctrine that applies to them applies to us.

Paul was warning about adding to the gospel. Well, what were they adding to the gospel?

Circumcision.

Probably not going to find that happening today. That would be pretty rare, but people add other things to the gospel like social justice. So the same principles will apply. And that's a very good point.

Marcus, thank you for bringing that up.

All right.

So when you're reading the Bible, ask, ask yourself these questions.

Those are the same things in any police report.

That's what we've got.

What, when, where, why?

Right. Good.

How many of you, and I know this is probably most, and I think most of us have probably.

Said this.

So if you have, I'm not, I'm not critiquing you or anything like that. But how many of us have been in a Bible study and it goes around the group. Someone reads a verse or a passage and everyone goes from one to the other.

And well, here's what this verse means to me. Like, you know, you've been there, you know, you've said that I've, I've said that.

You know what?

That's fine because there are many applications to the scripture. Sometimes the word of God can speak to you right where you're at. And that's what you needed to hear. And maybe that's not even what Paul was specifically addressing, but we can take a principle, something, you know what I mean?

Where that, it just seems to apply to you in that moment. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but we do need to understand that every verse and every passage of scripture has one actual meaning.

Maybe with prophecy, there can be dual the filaments or something, but every verse of scripture, every passage has one meaning. It really can't mean one thing. Let's say it goes like this. Jim says, this is what it means to me.

And I said, well, here's what it means to me. And it's the exact opposite.

All right.

One of us is wrong. Maybe both of us are wrong. So you understand every verse of scripture has one meaning. So we need to find out what that meaning is. What did Paul mean? What did Jesus mean? How would the hearers have understood this?

And then once you get that settled, then you can go into the application.

All right.

I saw several hands.

Yes.

Well, last week, Dennis kept telling us to don't go to application yet. We need to continue to look at our standing in Christ according to His Word. And then all that we have in Christ, you know, before, you know, our standing in Christ.

All the riches and all the goodness, all the mercy that He's lavished upon us before we apply it then.

Right. Right.

Yeah.

And if you're hearing a sermon about David and Goliath, and then the pastor starts talking about, you know, you need to slay the giants in your life. You know, are you facing giants in your life? That's a pretty common thing.

I think I even did that once. But you need to start with what actually happened. Like David actually fought this giant. It's not an allegory. Like, no, it really happened. And you start with what the Bible says and what it meant in the original context.

And then you can do the application. Problem is, and this is going to the next point, understanding the Bible. One of the problems is all the false teaching that is out there. If you only do the application, that's kind of a red flag that this might be a false teacher who isn't interested in what the Bible actually says.

You just want to kind of twist it to make it seem palatable to you and make the Bible all about you. Christianity is all about you.

No, it's not.

It's all about. It's all about Jesus. You're part of it.

Okay.

He came to die for your sins. You're part of it. But it's really all about him. So we just need to make sure the horse is before the cart here.

Yeah.

Did I see a hand?

Yeah.

Jeremiah 29, 11. I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. I think it's safe to say that applies to everyone.

Sure.

God has a plan for everyone.

Yeah.

On application. First, there needs to be as many observations as possible. Then as many interpretations, the more observations you've made, the better your interpretation.

Is this the verse I have plans for you? Good and not evil. Is that the verse?

Or is that a different one?

Oh, yeah.

That's taken out of context.

That does not apply to everybody.

All right.

Prosperity.

There could be some unsaved wicked person. And they quote that verse. And that's not really true for them. So I think we can see a little common sense goes a long way. Not all these verses apply to every every individual.

The next and understanding the scripture properly. If you want to really understand the word of God, you got to be careful who you're listening to.

All right.

You got to be careful who you're listening to. This is one of the good things that the gospel can go out through media, whether it's television, you know, the Internet radio. That's a good thing. We can get the word of God out and all these different mediums.

That's wonderful. The problem is the false teachers are getting their word out on. And I would argue that they really do control Christian television. There are some good preachers on TV, but they're few and far between.

So if you listen to false teachers, you're hearing things that are false, twisted out of context. And that stays in your mind. And then when you hear the truth, there's a there's a conflict in there and it's good.

It's going to really cloud your understanding. So we need to be careful about who you're listening to. OK, so we believe the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. We believe them to be the verbally inspired word of God.

The final authority for faith and life inerrant in the original writings, infallible and God breathe. And by the way, this is why we try to go through chapter by chapter, verse by verse, because then the context is going to be there.

And you can't just cherry pick and that that guards against false teaching. It's not a guarantee, but it helps guard against it. All right. So these two terms, let's focus on these. They're in the statement of faith that the Bible is inerrant and infallible.

Who wants to define these terms? What is inerrant or inerrancy? Mean without error, without mistakes, infallibility means what? Look at it this way. If the Bible is inerrant, you say, I believe the Bible is inerrant.

You're saying it does not have any errors, contains no errors. To say it's infallible means it cannot contain errors. You can write you can take a test or write a term paper that's inerrant. You can do that.

It has no errors. That's humanly possible. You cannot be infallible, though. That means you would be incapable of making an error, and that is not humanly possible. So the Bible is inerrant. It contains no errors.

But take that to the next level. The Bible is infallible. Now, there's someone else who claims to be infallible. And who is that? There is a Bible teacher on this earth who claims infallibility. There's probably more than one.

But some of you would identify yourselves as Protestant. Some of you don't care for that term. I'm not Protestant. I'm independent or whatever.

I think his address is wrong.

I'm giving you. I'm giving you a hint.

Okay.

If you didn't notice the infallibility of the Pope, the Pope claim when he speaks on matters of faith and practice, doctrine and practice, he claims infallibility. The Catholic Church claims the Pope is infallible.

Only God is infallible. Of course, Popes have contradicted each other through the years. So just be aware of that. And there are some Protestant and Baptist preachers who they talk like they're infallible.

And they're really not.

Stacey.

How does the Pope reconcile his humanity in being infallible?

How does it reconcile that?

Like, how do you make a self-judgment like that to say, yeah, I'm infallible?

Right.

Well, he they would acknowledge that he's a man and he can make mistakes. So he right. But when he's speaking on matters of doctrine and practice, when he's speaking specifically on matters of of those things, then he is infallible.

And he probably claim you just like Peter, when he wrote the scripture, when Peter wrote first and second Peter, he was. Well, Peter wasn't infallible, but the writings are infallible. So basically, the Catholic Church believes they'll say the Bible is true and the Bible is without error.

But so is the church when speaking on that. So their authority is not the Bible alone. It's the Bible plus the Pope. But they do acknowledge he can make mistakes in life. And when he talks about other matters.

So in doctrine, wouldn't he be able to misinterpret?

Yeah.

Misinterpret.

Yes.

But they view him as an equal with Peter. He is an apostle, essentially. And they claim the bishops are successors to the apostles. I don't want to get too sidetracked. But and I don't say that to run down, you know, Roman Catholicism or Roman Catholics.

But, you know, it's good to know that that is out there. We believe the Bible is the sole authority.

Amen.

That's in our doctrinal statement. That's what we believe.

Dad.

I'd like to hear your comments on a term called scribal error.

Scribal error. And we're getting to that next. You guys are always good at asking questions. And that's just exactly where I'm going. Notice what else. So he asked a question about scribal error. Notice in our statement of faith, it says that we believe in the Bible.

It is inerrant. Let me find the statement. Inerrant in the original writings.

Okay.

So if we get a council together here at Morris Corner and we decided we're going to come out with our own Bible translation.

Some Greek and Hebrew will help.

Yeah, we'll get to bring in a few Greek and Hebrew scholars to make it seem official, you know. Could we make mistakes? Let's just say somebody accidentally just writes the wrong thing. There is a Bible printed.

I don't know if it was in the 1500s or 1600s. It's called the adulterer's Bible. You know, went through the Ten Commandments and just the person operating the printing press. It's that verse, thou shalt not commit adultery.

They accidentally left out the word not. Thou shalt commit. And it became, you know, and they destroyed them all. But a few copies were spared and they're worth a lot of money today. But obviously people can make mistakes.

The Bible is written by men copied by men. So you can make a scribal error. So we believe the Bible is inerrant in the original writings. I know for some people, they say, well, that ruins it then because we don't have the original writings.

Well, that's true. So here, here's the thing. No one translation of the Bible is guaranteed to have this, to have this promise that it's inerrant in the NIV compared to the King James version. There's some, there's at least two or three, and I don't mean to pick on anyone translation.