Bibliology (11/19/2000)

Dividing the Bible for Study: Order, Humanity, Dispensations, Covenants, and Prophetic Eras

And really what we'll do is I want to give you a message that deals with the Word of God specifically. And before we do that though, let me do this, let me give you a little bit more information that has to do with the scriptures.

I'd like to talk to you just a minute about the different ways that the Bible can be divided for study. There's a lot of different ways that men do that. Theologians have done it in different ways depending on which book you get to read.

Maybe they've done it several different ways. One way is the way that your Bible is actually divided is the order that you find it in. You've probably noticed it's not chronological order because, for instance, the book of Job is found kind of over in the middle of the Old Testament and yet it was written as early as Genesis was written.

So it's one of the older books of the Bible. I don't mean that the time frame was as old as Genesis, but the time it was penned, it's that old. So it's not chronological, but it's divided into these sections.

First of all, historical, and that would be Genesis through Esther. And then poetical, which is Job through Song of Solomon. And then prophetical, which is Isaiah through Malachi. And then when you go into the New Testament, it has three divisions that scholars divide it into from time to time.

One is historical. One is, I can't even pronounce it, some scholar wrote this, epistolary. That's an interesting word, epistolary. And that comes from epistle, of course, and it means the letters from Romans to Jude, the letters of Paul.

And prophetical would be Book of Revelation. Now another way you can divide the Bible is by humanity. In other words, you can divide it from the time period of Adam through Abraham, and then you can go from Abraham to the time of Christ, and then you can go to the church age, and then the kingdom age.

And these are just different ways that the scholars divide the Bible up to study it. A third way that they divide it is according to dispensation, which I personally think is a very interesting way to study the Bible.

And I think it's also in this day and age in which we live with so much false doctrine, the dispensational idea is very important, just for the fact of understanding there are different dispensations, and you have to know what you're in when you're reading the Bible, or you may make an application that's not right.

For example, if you read in the Book of Acts, the Book of Acts is a transitional book. It comes in between, literally comes in between the Old Testament economy and the New Testament economy, it's just kind of there in between, and it's a transitional point.

And there are a lot of denominations and groups today that create their whole doctrinal stance on the Book of Acts, and they're wrong, they're off, because they don't understand it was just a transitional time, it's not like it is during the church age.

So they don't understand that there are different dispensations, and you have to take cognizance of it, and one verse in the Bible says that we ought to rightly divide the word of truth, and that's what the verse is talking about.

Rightly divide the word of truth, divide it into its proper dispensational time period and understand the truth that's being taught. The dispensations that are commonly listed are number one, innocence, which is creation until the fall of man, number two, conscience, which is from the fall and being cast out of the garden all the way up to the flood, and then number three, human government, which is from the flood to the time of Abraham, and then the promise, which is from Abraham to Moses, and then law, which is Moses, and then grace, which is the church age, and then the kingdom age is the seventh one.

That's a very good way to study. And then a fourth way we can study the Bible is by covenants. You have some that call it covenant theology, and they roughly correspond to the dispensations that we just talked about, but they deal more specifically with promises that were made by God to man or in some cases, well, let me just list them.

We have, I was going to say, in some cases they were actually, they're not biblical covenants, but they are theorized by theologians to have occurred before time started, and they're taken from several Bible verses.

But really, when I study covenants, I like to look at the literal covenants that God made. That's the way I prefer to do it, but you add, they add maybe two or three that happened that are kind of not so much what I would call a biblical covenant as a logical covenant.

We know that it probably happened that way. The first one of those is called the redemption covenant, and it's a great decree that happened before time began, and you find it alluded to in Titus 1, 2 and Hebrews 13, 20.

And then you have a covenant of works, which to me is, I assume we should consider it a covenant, but it was made with Adam at the time when God told him to till the soil and take, name the animals and so forth.

And it happened before the fall. And the interesting thing about it, if you want to consider that to be a covenant, then it still applies to lost people today. It does not apply to the saved, but it applies to lost man because lost man is judged according to his works.

Isn't that interesting? We are not, we can come under the next covenant, which is called the covenant of grace. And there's a fourth one called the Edenic covenant, which has to do with while they were still in the garden of Eden, it corresponds to the dispensation of innocence.

And then there's an Adamic covenant, which was one that was given to Adam after the fall when he blamed everything on the woman. You remember that covenant? And then we have the Noahic covenant, Noahic covenant, which is human government.

And that's found in Genesis chapter eight, verse 20 and following, uh, where it deals with Noah right after the flood. And that's where human government was formed and it goes up until time of Abraham.

And then you have the Abrahamic covenant, which is Genesis chapter 12 verses one through three, Genesis chapter 13 verses 14 through 17, Genesis 15, one through 18. Then you have the Mosaic covenant, which is Exodus chapter 20 all the way through chapter 31.

And then you have the Palestinian covenant, which is found in Deuteronomy chapter 30 verses one through nine. And then you have the Davidic covenant found in second Samuel seven, uh, roughly verses five through 19.

And then you have the new covenant, which is the new Testament. And you find that discussed in Luke 22, 20, and then you have the new covenant for Israel, which is discussed in Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34.

And again in Hebrews eight, seven through 12. So you can divide, study the Bible by dispensation, by covenant. Another thing you can do is study it by prophetic era. And they divide those from Adam to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Daniel, from Daniel to Christ and the church age, the kingdom age and age and the eternal state.

It's eternity future. And so that brings us now to where we want to go. I just want to give you a little bit of that background information. That's the way that the scholars divide the Bible to study it.

Some of the ways, uh, we're studying bibliology right now, which is the study of the Bible. Let me give you the divisions, the main divisions that fall under this category. And we will be, be studying these.

Uh, so this brings us right to where we're headed in the next few Sundays. What are the divisions that you look at when you're studying the word of God itself about the Bible? What does the Bible say about the Bible?

In other words, first of all, revelation, secondly, inspiration, and I will make this available to you. So you don't have to write them down right now if you don't want to, if you're like me, you do anyway to help you remember them.

Number one, revelation. Number two, inspiration. Number three, authority. Number four, illumination. Number five, interpretation. Number six, animation, which is kind of interesting. It means it comes to life.

The Bible Is Alive, Inspired, and Preserved

The Bible comes to life. Most of you know the example I've told before about Doug Neville when he was a teenager. We used to go out street witnessing and we'd catch all the teenagers on the drag. We're doing most of this over in Mahalia.

We did some of it here in Corsicana too. And Doug was a redheaded teenage boy that was already a Bible scholar and he's a preacher now. He went right on to Bible college and he's been pastoring a church for years.

But even as a young teenage boy, everybody kind of knew that's what he was going to be. But he would go out street witnessing with me and one night he went over and he took his little pocket New Testament out and he threw it down and he put a hat on the top of it.

Covered it up with a hat so nobody could see it. And there were probably 20 or 30 teenagers sitting around on their cars and stuff and all of a sudden he went over and said, it's alive, it's alive. Watch out, it's alive everybody.

It's alive. And he went all around that thing. They were all looking and they all came over and got in a big circle around his hat. Probably 15, 20 kids. And he went on and on and finally he lifted that hat up and he said, it's the word of God, it's alive.

And they all went. They all went. They all went like that and walked off and got in their cars and left. He could thin a crowd quicker than anybody I ever saw. And he's still the same way today. He's an amazing person.

But that's what animation means. And then the seventh is preservation. In other words, if God inspired the Bible and it's perfect, what about the one we have today that's been copied and copied and copied and copied and copied for 2 ,000 years?

Is it still perfect? So that's what we study under preservation. So that'll be some interesting ground to travel. But this afternoon, let me just give you this. I want to give you three aspects of the Bible.

Number one, the Bible is authoritative. Number two, the Bible is accurate. And number three, the Bible is accomplished. In other words, it's finished. It has a back cover on it just like it has a front cover on it.

So let's look at number one for a moment. The Bible is authoritative. Turn with me to 2 Timothy chapter three and verse 13, 2 Timothy 3, 13. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.

That talks about in the end times. Perilous days shall come, the Bible says. Evil men and seducers will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. So sometimes they think they're telling us the truth, these people, when they say they're wrong things.

And I remember one of the candidates for president went into a black church recently and preached to him and told him, you need to vote because this is a matter of good versus evil. Well, he was right, but I'm not sure he knew which was good and which was evil, but he was right.

But you see, it says that these men will grow worse and worse, deceiving, but also being deceived by the spirits, spirits. There is such a thing the Bible calls the doctrines of demons. Demons teach doctrine to men and the men believe that to be the truth and they follow it.

Well, this is going to grow worse and worse in the end times. And we are in the end times. I believe verse 14 says, but continue thou in the things which thou hast heard. You see how this is a warning.

If there is anything in the whole Bible that applies to us sitting on these pews this afternoon, it's this because it's written to the end times Christian, specifically written for those who are in the last days.

And it says you're going to have more and more evil men and seducers. In other words, they're saying words that are wrong, but they sound awfully good. Their words sound so great and so true and so logical, but they are absolutely wrong, but they sound so good, they seduce people to believe them.

That's going to be worse and worse. And God says, but for those of you who are mine who are living in that daytime, you need to continue in the things what you have already learned and has been assured of knowing of whom you learned them.

Now, who did you learn those from? Brother Otis? The Holy Spirit. That's right now, Brother Otis may have helped other teachers may help, but the Holy Spirit is the great teacher. In fact, in first John, he says you have no need of any teacher because the Holy Spirit is our teacher and he lives within us and he's the one who wrote this book.

And so that's what the very thing it means when it says continue in the things you've been assured of. If the Holy Spirit have assured you of a truth, don't let some seducer change your mind. Now, if a person tries to bring up a thought that cannot be backed by scripture and its proper dispensation and in its proper context and in its proper meaning.

Now, if they can show you that, then change your mind. You know, if you know that it fits the Bible better than what you formerly believed, go ahead and change your mind. You'd be a fool not to. But if you can't make it fit your whole system of theology that you know to be true, then throw it out or study more, you know, but the thing is, you let the Bible interpret the Bible.

That is so safe if we do it that way. People can throw out new ideas and new things and they can sound awfully good for an hour. But if you take it home and it doesn't fit Genesis through Revelation, everything you know about God and everything the Bible teaches and it won't fit within that whole, then throw it out.

And so continue in what you've been assured of, knowing of whom you've learned them and that from a child you have known the Holy Scriptures. So it points to the Bible as the authoritative source for truth.

It doesn't say from a child you've known Peter and John or Luke. It says from a child you've known the scriptures, the written word, which are able to make the wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.

And then we have our famous verse that says all scripture is given by inspiration of God. It means all scripture is God breathed and is profitable for doctrine. In other words, for keeping our doctrine correct, the word of God is profitable for that.

It is profitable for reproof and correcting those who are off base doctrinally. And it's also profitable for instruction and righteousness for those who want to live a righteous life that the men of God may be perfect.

That means mature. It doesn't mean sinless, but it means mature. It means mature in their faith and their understanding of the whole revelation that God is given. They're mature in that area, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

The whole ballgame for Christian life is right there in those two verses. And it all comes back to this book. It doesn't come back to programs. It doesn't come back to all these different things churches have us busy doing all week.

It doesn't come back to anything other than this book. And God, as he reveals his heart to us as we study it. And so the Bible is authoritative in all faith and practice. Secondly, the Bible is accurate.

Look at Acts chapter one in verse 16, and I'd like you to turn to it. It'll make more sense if you see that. See it. Acts one and verse 16. I've always found it difficult to understand how a book could be claimed to be authoritative.

And yet by the same people, they don't believe it's accurate. If it's not accurate, how can it be authoritative? And the fact is, those who call themselves moderates, who are the ones that believe some of it is accurate and others of the Bible, other points are not accurate.

Guess who that makes be the authority then? Them, because they're the ones that write the books and tell us which part of the Bible is true. So now the Bible loses its authority and the theologian gains the authority if they don't believe the whole book is accurate.

Do you see how the two are tied together inseparably? So if the Bible is authoritative, as second Timothy three, 16 says of itself that it is, if it's God breathes, then that leads to point two. It must therefore be accurate.

Acts chapter one, verse 16, men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled. Now notice this. We're talking about scripture. And this verse is going to give us the mechanism by which we obtain the word of God.

And it's fascinating. This scripture must be fulfilled. Look at this next little phrase, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake. Now, I want to take you back to some of your grammar lessons when you were in school.

All right. I want you to tell me when we look at this phrase. The Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake, who is what is the subject in that that independent clause? Holy Ghost is the subject. What is the verb spake?

So who did the speaking, David or the Holy Ghost? That's right. We're always talking about how David was the great psalmist. He wasn't a very great psalmist. All he did was move his mouth and the Holy Ghost spake through that mouth.

The Holy Ghost worked in David to write these beautiful songs and psalms and so forth. And it very clearly indicates the method behind which inspiration takes place. And we really shouldn't use the word inspiration because we use that to talk about Shakespeare or all manner of profane poets and writers who say they were inspired.

This is different. This is not inspired in that use of the word at all. This is God breathed. It's different. There's only one book in the world that was God breathed. And it's the Bible, the 66 books of the Bible where each God breathed.

And the way it literally happened was as one of the penman would work, David would open his mouth and the Holy Ghost would speak. And that's how the Bible got to us. Or one of them would begin to move their hand and write and the Holy Ghost was authoring.

So you had the human penning it, but the Holy Ghost writing it. You had the human saying it, but the Holy Ghost speaking it. This is the method by which we got the Bible. Therefore, it's absolutely accurate because God can't make a mistake.

And the Holy Spirit is the one who said the words. Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled. In other words, this scripture had to be fulfilled because the Holy Spirit spake it by the mouth of David.

It's an obvious conclusion, but it does give us some interesting insight into the method or or the actual mechanism behind which the Bible was handed down from the Lord to us. Then go into second Peter 315.

How can we know the Bible is accurate? Second Peter 315, an account that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you.

So now this is talking about some of Paul's writings. Now, who wrote who who is the human penman of second Peter? Y 'all are smart, Peter. All right. Peter is the human penman. Now, he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write what he wrote.

And look what he writes about Paul's writings, talking about Paul's writings. And in verse 16, as also in all of his epistles. So that's talking about the letters of Paul speaking in them of these things.

In other words, these mysteries, these teachings of salvation in which are some things hard to be understood. Well, that's right, because Paul reveals some mysteries or God used him to reveal some mysteries that men had looked into during the entire Old Testament period and couldn't see it.

Couldn't figure it out. And Paul revealed the facts such as the church age. They couldn't figure out the church. They they knew that it said that the Messiah was going to come and die on the cross. Isaiah 52 and 53 talk about that.

But then again, they said he would come as a king and reign and have a kingdom period. They couldn't figure out how can he do both? Because they couldn't see the time period in between the two advents.

They didn't. It was flapsed into one to the Jewish mind. They couldn't stretch that out and see that there's a period called the church age here. They couldn't see it. It was a mystery. And Paul is the one that revealed it as the Holy Spirit showed it to Paul.

And then he revealed it. And so as it speaks of these things, it says in the middle of verse 16, in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable rest as they do.

Also, the other scriptures and to their own destruction and the key phrase in this whole verse is the two words at the end, other scriptures. It shows very clearly that Peter considered Paul's letters to be scripture, just like the Old Testament was scripture.

Isn't that amazing? That's a little verse there you might miss, but it's some great ammunition to have in case someone comes to a white. Why do you think the letters of Paul should be part of the Bible?

Well, because the Holy Spirit called them scriptures. So it wasn't man. It was not man who decided to put Paul's letters and make it part of the Bible. Do you see that it was the Holy Spirit and then Matthew chapter 12, verse 39 turned to that one.

There are many parts of scripture. I went to Baylor University. I almost hate to admit it, but I graduated with two degrees from that school and I had to sit. Now, I was not a theology student. I wasn't even saved yet.

I was already out of college. And when God saved me in my car on the way to work one day, but I had sat under several theology teachers at Baylor because they make every student take their Old Testament, New Testament class.

I had two of them and they both, I would say, are lost men, lost theologians. They did not even know the Lord. And what they taught us was that every miracle in the Bible could be explained away as a natural phenomenon.

That's what they taught at Baylor University in their theology class. That's why this is an independent Baptist church, because we don't want our tithe money going to pay those guys salaries. Amen. That's right.

So anyway, that's what they taught me now. So they were saying that these miracles, such as Jonah in the whale, and they would get up in front of the class of us, you know, college age kids and say most of us Christians.

And they'd say, how can you believe scientifically that a fish actually swallowed a man and kept him in his belly for three days and three nights and then spit him out alive on the face of the earth? They said that didn't really happen.

It's just an allegory. So there are many portions of the scriptures that these moderates say are not true. And yet look what Jesus Christ himself says. Now, here you have to face the question. Jesus was one of three things.

He was who he said he was. He was either who he said he was, which was the son of the living God. He said, if you shall die in your sins, for if you believe not that I am, which meant I am, you know, when when Moses asked God what your name is, he said, my name is I am.

He said, if you believe not that I am, you shall die in your sins. Either that's who he said he was, or he's a lunatic. Or he was prideful and a liar. He was one of those three things. He was either the very son of God or he was a lunatic or he was a liar.

You only have those three choices when you confront Jesus. Now, if he was a liar or a lunatic, then we don't have any proof that Jonah and the whale ever really happened. But if Jesus was the son of God, he was all of the fullness of the Godhead in a body.

And he said, when you've seen me, you've seen the father. If that's who he was, then look what he said about this interesting, debated passage in the Old Testament, Matthew 12, 39. But he answered and said unto them, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonas.

So Jesus Christ authenticates Jonas as being a genuine Old Testament prophet. And he says in verse 40, for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Now, I'm telling you what Jesus believed. You decide who he was, but I'll tell you what he believed. He believed that he would be in the grave the same number of days and nights that Jonah was literally in the whale, in the belly's whale.

In the whale's belly. That's what Jesus believed. He said it better than I did, but that's what he believed. Now, Jesus Christ authenticates that Jonas was a genuine, literal human in a genuine, literal historical story, which happened to have been a miracle.

Verse 41, the men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation. So there really were men of Nineveh that knew Jonah, Jonas, and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonas.

And behold, a greater than Jonas is here. Whoa. Referring to himself. So if Jonas isn't real, Jesus wasn't real. Do you see the point? If you already decided Jesus is real, then Jonas is just as real.

And so even those portions of the scripture that could be debated on scientific grounds are authenticated by other portions of scripture. And we have to take either all of it or throw it all out is my view.

It's been my view since the day I got saved at the age of 24. Either every jot and tittle of this book is true and I keep it or every bit of it's wrong and I throw it all out. I'm not going to keep part of it because I'm not smart enough to figure out which part to keep.

Matthew 23, 35 says that upon you may come all the righteousness, all the righteous blood shed upon the earth. Now this is Jesus speaking. You should, you should probably jot this down. Matthew 23, 35, that upon you should come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Baraka, Barakas, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

Truly I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation. But it's very interesting to understand that if you went and you got a Hebrew Bible of the old Testament, a Hebrew scriptures, the last book of their Bible is the book that contains Zacharias, the prophet.

And so it's ordered a little differently than ours is in their old Testament as far as the order of the books. But they're the same books. They're all identical to ours, but they're ordered slightly different.

Well, the book, the Hebrew Bible that Jesus had, the prophet Zacharias was listed in the last book. The prophet Abel was listed in the first book, which is Genesis. So Jesus, in that one statement, authenticated the entire old Testament.

He went from the first book to the last book and said, everything in there is true in that one statement. And then Matthew 5, 18, in case there was any doubt about what Jesus believed. He said, for verily I say unto you till heaven and earth pass one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.

He said, there's not one cross of the T or one dot of the I that's missing. It's perfect. It's exactly where God wants it. And every bit of what the word of God says is going to come to pass. It is authoritative and it is accurate.

The Faith Once Delivered and the Closed Canon of Scripture

Now, the third point this afternoon is this. It is accomplished. God has accomplished. The word of God is finished. It has a back cover on it. And that brings us to Jude 3, which we alluded to this morning.

But I want to point out a couple of words to you. Jude 3. It says, beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith.

And that little phrase encapsules the entire Christian doctrinal arena. It's the Christian faith. When I say the faith, that's what they mean. The entire revelation of the true biblical Christian religion.

He says, you should contend for that, which was once delivered unto the saints. Now, I want to look at this little phrase, which was once delivered unto the saints, because the thing that was delivered is the faith.

So from the point of Jude, which was one of the one of the last New Testament books written, right, I guess, before maybe not more than 20 years before revelation was penned by John. And by this time, the whole system of the Christian faith had already been delivered.

Now, that's very significant. Let me show you the words here. Do you see the word once where it says was once delivered? Once in the Greek language is pronounced hop ax, hop ax. And it means one or a single time numerically or conclusively.

In other words, it means once for all. Now, I'll show you how we prove that the word hop ax comes from another Greek root word, hop ax, which means absolutely all or every one. And the way we know that is because that little Greek word hop ax comes from two smaller words.

And the first is, ah, or, uh, all, excuse me. Alpha was how we say it in Texan. Alpha is the first letter of the alphabet. And it literally just by using that letter, since it's the first letter of the Greek alphabet, it always means the first and it comes to mean privation or it can mean only.

And then the second part of the word pass, which means all, any, every or the whole. And so or it can mean thoroughly whole. So you put it all together when he says that I'm talking about the faith, which was once delivered unto the saints.

This word once means once and for all, once and only once delivered. And the word has once, of course, or was once in the English is past tense in the Greek. It's also in that gives the idea that it's already been done.

Now that presents a great problem for a lot of the modern, uh, Christian religionists who believe that God is still revealing scriptures to us through their people, who have words of wisdom, words of knowledge and prophetic gifts and tongue speaking and all of this stuff that they say is going on.

When in fact, the Bible says very clearly in first Corinthians that these things have ceased, but they say these things are still going on. And yet the Bible says as long ago as Jude was pinned, that the Christian faith had already been delivered in its entirety.

Isn't that amazing? Now that you might say, well, how could it say that revelation hadn't been written? Revelation didn't have anything to do with the church. It had to do with the future, with the tribulation period, with the millennial kingdom and so forth.

I won't say it didn't have anything to do with the church because every part of the Bible has something to do, but predominantly, it was not a book that had to do with the faith. It had to do with the future.

So the faith has been once delivered. Now, let me give you another, to me, even stronger passage about the accomplishment of the Bible, the fact that it is a finished book. Hebrews chapter one, verse one through three, or specifically verses one and two.

God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners, spake in time past and to the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son. An amazing passage, but one you should really grasp and understand the full meaning of.

It says God, once upon a time in different times and different manners, spake in time past that says very clearly he used to speak this way in time past. This is how God, this was God's method in time past.

He would speak to the fathers and the prophets by dreams, visions, you know how it worked in the old Testament. That's how he accomplished it. And then you say, go into verse two, it says, however, he hath in these last days, and this is a contrast, not a comparison, but a contrast.

In the last days, God's method is this. He has spoken unto us by his son. Now notice even there, it says, hath spoken. It doesn't say he's still speaking. He hath spoken to us by his son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things.

And by also whom he made the world. Now you say, how does that work? Where you go into John chapter 16, verse 12. Jesus said, I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot hear them yet. And he was, hear them now.

He was talking to his apostles before his ascension into heaven. And he said, you can't hear them yet, but I'm going to say them to you. How be it when he, the spirit of truth has come. This is John chapter 16, verse 13.