The Scriptures (Part I)

But yeah, we'll pray. Father in heaven, we come before you in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ. For his sake, Lord, we ask for your blessing upon this time. I pray that you would open our hearts to consider the truthfulness of your word and Lord, that we would be amazed and at how you've laid out the scriptures and you've given them for us for our good and your glory.

And I pray that we would we would again, see the causes that we have to trust in you. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

The Canon of Scripture and the 66 Books

Well.

In your.

Booklet turn to the page that has the name on it, the scriptures in the left side and we're gonna be tackling the first half of that.

That proposition and.

I'm gonna read it out the first part and then we're just gonna go through hopefully hopefully quickly if you if you do have a serious question and it's going to be you can't wait until later and it's gonna be you're gonna be able to field that question because you you're gonna forget later, then that's okay.

You can put up your hand and I'll try to answer that question if it's probably if it's gonna be like a hard word you know, what is self attestation or something like that and then of course ask the question and I'll I'll try to be able to answer.

But our first part of the scriptures says the scriptures consisting of 66 books of the Old and New Testaments are the inspired Word of God without error in the original writings the complete revelation of his will for the salvation of mankind and the final authority for all Christian faith and life.

So I'm gonna be looking at that very first part the scriptures consisting of the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. What we're talking about here is the canon of scripture. Canon not C-A-N-N-O-N as in the the huge massive gun that shoots big cannonballs, but canon as in the standard all books must follow to form a part of the entire canon of scripture.

The list of all the books that belong to the Word of God that we see are a part of the Bible and we get that word canon if you could if you remember have you know the the company that sells really high quality cameras Canon.

Canon cameras claim to set the standard for all other cameras. They are the camera all other cameras are to be judged.

By.

Canon cameras are the standard. Everything else has to be judged by it so they say. So each book of the Bible is recognized as having been given by God and makes up the canon of scripture and recognized for what?

What do the scriptures exude that that calls our attention to see this is from God. This is not just a mere human document and that goes for the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. There's three things that cause us to recognize this is from God.

This is the voice of God. Number one all books of the Bible must have divine qualities. Asking the question is it known to be used in saving and blessing God's people? Does it teach when we go to the book of Nehemiah or we go to the New Testament Gospel of John, does it teach healthy doctrine?

Doctrine that accords to the truth everywhere else taught in scripture. Doctrine that leads to a godly lifestyle or does it teach heresy? That it's going to lead to someone leading an ungodly life a reckless lifestyle.

And so when you when when the Jews before Christ came and when the Christians after Christ came were looking at the scriptures and at the books that would be compiled together. They were asking these questions.

Does it teach heresy or does it teach the truth? Does it have has it been used by God in the past in saving his people in blessing his people? Leading them to a life of godly godliness. Also, they're asking the question of corporate reception.

Do all God's people accept this book? Is it Catholic? Catholic is that word universal. It's not a bad word. Only when it's Roman Catholic is it used in a wrong way. Is this book, 1st Peter, 2nd Peter, is it accepted by all the church?

Do all the church accept this? When it comes to books that were talked about being brought into the New Testament canon, they looked at the Gospel of Thomas. No, it teaches heresy and not everybody accepts it.

Okay, it's not in there. It's not from God. We recognize it is not from God. Number three, is it prophetic or apostolic? Was it written by a prophet or an apostle or secondarily? Was it in conjunction with an apostle?

Did an apostle help write this Gospel, like the Gospel according to Mark? Likely, Peter helped in the writing of that. Peter is an apostle. Was it written by or in connection with God's chosen agents?

Well, with that being said, when we look at the Old and New Testaments, altogether amounting to 66 books, each of those,.

The.

Canon of the Old Testament and the canon of the New Testament, they do form one entire canon. It is one book, but when they were compiled, they were looking at those specific qualifications that make up a book.

The Old Testament, why is it called the Old Testament? Well, it is named after the covenant that God made with Israel from Mount Sinai through Moses, and.

That.

Testament, that covenant that God entered into, has now been replaced by the New Covenant. So, it is the Old Covenant, and we have a reason to call it that from 2 Corinthians 3, where Paul says, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart.

And in the same context, he uses Old Covenant for Moses. The scriptures of the Old Testament are the Old Testament. So, how did this come to be? That we compiled these books into one canon. The Jews, possibly under Ezra's hand, but definitely under God's, compiled all the writings, recognized as from God.

Again, they did not make it. To be from God. They recognized that this is from God. They saw this is indeed from God. Into one body of writings with three main divisions, but two for short. Three main divisions, two for short.

The law, and the prophets, and the writings. So, if you go into the New Testament, and you talk, and you look at Matthew 5 17, where Jesus says, I did not come to abolish the law or the prophets. He's not just talking about the Ten Commandments.

He's saying, I did not come to do away with, nullify, put to.

Destroy.

The Old Testament. He's fulfilling it all. The whole Old Testament. Likewise, at the end of Luke, Luke 24, when Jesus goes through the law, and the prophets, and the Psalms. Psalms are the first book of the writings.

That portion, that third portion of the Old Testament. That's a cipher for the whole Old Testament. The whole Bible that they had at that time. So, Jesus accepted the canon that the Jews already accepted.

When Jesus was denouncing the Pharisees, and he said that, upon this generation was going to come all the blood that was spilt on earth. The blood from Abel, to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah.

What is he saying there? He is saying, the first martyr of the first book of the Bible, and the last martyr of the last book of the Bible that they had. That's all going to come upon this generation. So, Jesus is affirming, yes, this group of scriptures, this group of books, is the scriptures.

Jesus accepted it. The Apostle followed, the Apostles followed Jesus in accepting the Old Testament. When we read 2nd Timothy 3, and Paul says that all scripture is breathed out by God, and is profitable.

All scripture there, he's talking about, is the Bible that they had then, the Old Testament. Sects, heretics, like the Sadducees, accepted only the law. They didn't accept the prophets thereafter. The Samaritans, when Jesus says, you worship you know not what, and he's saying that because they did not accept later writings of the Old Testament.

Early church heretics, like the Gnostics, the Manichaeans, and the Marcian, rejected the Old Testament altogether. They said, it teaches a different God, a different faith, there's a different religion there, and we don't need it.

The God of the New Testament is the God we worship, and that was false. Now, the New Testament, named after the new covenant in Jesus's blood, Jesus planned for the writing of the New Testament, in John 14 and John 16, where he promises the Spirit of Truth, that would guide the Apostles into all truth.

He's not just saying that generally for all of us, though the Spirit ministers to us in that way. We read the scriptures, we have the Spirit through faith in Christ, he guides us into all truth. But that was specifically said for the Apostles.

God was going to use his Spirit to bring to remembrance all that Jesus had said, so that they would write the Gospels, and then furthermore, they would write Acts, and the Spirit would show the things given to them from Jesus, so they would write the letters of the New Testament.

Not only that, the Apostles considered their works as part of the canon of Scripture. In 1st Timothy 5 18, 1st Timothy 5 18, Paul says, as it is written, as the Scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, and the laborer is deserving of his wages, is worthy of his wages.

So he says Scripture, and then he quotes from Deuteronomy 25, and from Luke. All of it's considered Scripture. This is the Word of God. 2nd Peter 3 15 and 16, Peter says that Paul has written many things that are hard to understand, and the ignorant, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

Peter's.

Connecting Paul's words with Scriptures. Paul's words are Scriptures, the Old Testament are the other Scriptures. So what do we do? We accept what Christ accepted, what the Apostles accepted, and that is the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments.

The canon is closed. That means no more books are going to be added. No more books are going to be added to the Bible. So we don't, God made a definitive close at the end of Revelation 22, when he says, and I think it's an appropriate judgment to make about this verse, that it's not just about curses will be added to the one who adds to the book of Revelation.

Curses will be added to the one who adds to the Bible, and says this is the Word of God. With that definitive close, then we don't have to wonder if Jewish writings like the Mishnah are a part of the Scripture, or the Church Fathers, as good as they were, are a part of Scripture.

We don't have to wonder whether the Book of Mormon is a part of the Scriptures, or the Pearl of Great Price, or the Quran, or Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Keys to the Scriptures, is given by God.

We don't have to wonder those things. We know God said it, and it's closed. So we recognize this is from God, not like the Roman Catholic Church that determines by its own authority what belongs and what doesn't, and not like the Mormons which says just pray about it, and if you feel that this is from God, then you will know.

Rather, the whole Church has recognized this is from God, and God testifies with His Spirit that that it is so. Number two, the Scriptures consisting of the sixty books, sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, are the inspired Word of God without error in the original writings.

Inspiration and Inerrancy

These two convictions set us apart from even some so-called evangelicals. They will say, yes, we're Christian. We're evangelical. We just don't believe that God breathed out the words that we read in Genesis, or Luke, or Acts, and we don't believe that God kept it from error, but that there are some scientific errors, and there are some words that contradict with other things.

So, right off the bat, that sets us apart from that. The doctrine of inspiration that comes from the King James Version, all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable. That word, inspire, when in 2 Timothy 3, 16, it says, all Scripture is breathed out by God.

God breathed is the best translation. It's the anustus. What this tells us is that what Moses, Paul, or John penned is the very words of God Himself. The writings, not the writers, were inspired. People say, Moses was inspired.

Well, no, Moses wasn't breathed out by God. His writings were breathed out by God. What he wrote was breathed out by God. How does this work? What did this look like? Did God just use someone robotically to pen exactly what He wanted them to write?

Was their personality even engaged in it, or was it like some kind of a trance? They didn't even know what was going on, just their hand was moving. In 2 Peter 1, verses 20 to 21, says, no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced, brought about, by the will of man.

Unlike the false prophets who prophesied out of their own mind, out of their own heart, whatever they wanted to say, whatever came to their thoughts, it's not like that. God had a time when Peter was going to sit down, and he's going to write this.

But the next one says, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Carried along is the same word that's used in 2 Peter, in the same context, verse 17 and 18, for the voice that was born from heaven, carried from heaven to Jesus, or born from heaven.

So, if you still take baths, you make waves in the bath, the bath toys go up with the waves and go down with the waves, and that's exactly the way that it was with God breathing his word. He's using the personality, he's using the mind of the person, and the writing style, or lack thereof, of the person, to say exactly what God wanted them to say.

So this doesn't make them robots. God doesn't need to force anybody. God is God. He can turn the hearts of somebody to do exactly what he wants them to do, while at the same time, it is exactly what that person wants them to do, wants themselves to do.

What this means is that when we read scripture, and it says that in Hebrews, Hebrews 3, 7, it says, "...as the Holy Spirit says," and then in chapter 4, verse 7, it says, "...he," that is God, "...appoints a certain day today, saying, Through David, or when it says in Hebrews 10, 15, "...and the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us, for after saying," and then he quotes Jeremiah, "...then he," the Holy Spirit, "...adds," then he quotes Jeremiah again.

Or in Matthew 22, 43, Jesus said, "...David in the Spirit calls him Lord," or verse 45, "...David calls him Lord.". One second, you can say God said it. The next second, you can say David said it. Both are true.

It's not a contradiction. It's by God as the source, through the human agent, by God, through human authors. Next, inerrancy. Okay, the scriptures are without error in the original writings. If, think about this, it's pretty easy, if God.

Spoke,.

Then it can't possibly be untrue. It can't possibly be error. The scriptures are breathed out by God. God can never be wrong, so the scriptures could never be wrong. We don't have time, and I don't have it right now, but if you look up the 1977 Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy, really great, 1977 Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy, about what it means for God to keep his word free from error.

So,.

God never could and never will lead you astray. God's word can be trusted with your life, your soul, your eternity. He tells the truth not only in the little things, but in the biggest things ever, things that concern your salvation.

Can we trust God or not? And it has been doubted that we can trust God ever since the serpent said in the garden, did God actually say? Questioning God, questioning his intention.

So, scriptures,.

What is the attack on on on inerrancy? Scriptures use round numbers. The angel of Lord killed 85 ,000.

Soldiers.

Did he really kill 85 ,000 soldiers, or was it 85 ,015 soldiers? It can use round numbers and still be true. Scripture uses non-scientific terms, like sunrise. You and I use non-scientific terms, like sunrise and sunset.

The sun doesn't actually rise. The sun doesn't actually set. And yet, it works. Everybody uses it. Scripture uses Peter's poor grammar and even quotes Satan, but scripture tells the truth. Peter may find things Paul said and other scriptures hard to understand, but he never said they were erroneous.

And he puts blame on those who are ignorant and unstable when they twist the scriptures to their own destruction. Just like Jesus said, is not this the reason why you were wrong? Because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.

So, if you question, is this.

A contradiction? Look into it, because on the surface it might look like a contradiction, but it is.

Proved.

To not be a contradiction when you look at other scriptures. Or, if you still find fault with it, you're the one that's wrong. Jesus points the finger back at us if we find fault with God's Word. What we're not saying by this statement is that we hold only to the ESV.

And the ESV is the only source of scriptures or anything like that. King James onlyists will hold up the Bible and say the Bible that they have in their hands is the Word of God exclusively, and then they'll trace it back to a family of manuscripts, the writings, called the majority text, and say this was God's preserved Word, and now we have it forever in English.

It's settled. No problem. Unlike them, we acknowledge, number one, we don't actually have the originals, the autographs, okay, the ones by Paul, so far as we know. We don't have the ones by Jeremiah or Luke or Moses from his very hand, so far as we know.

But we do have 5 ,700 manuscripts that show tremendous agreement, and what differences they are boil down to practically nothing. We have copies of the originals, but they're great, and we have more than any other book.

If you read— do you guys like Homer? Not Homer Simpson. Homer. Greek poet. Homer's Iliad. So that's— that's the— that has the next most amount of manuscripts.

Still,.

It's barely anything compared to what we have in the Bible. We have a wealth. We have a wealth of manuscripts that we can make use of all of them, unlike King James only us, to try to discern what the original said in order to make accurate translations.

There's good ones, ESV, NASV, NIV, NKJV, all those kind of different things, and then going from could be better to can't get worse, our King James version, NLT, Word on the Street, The Voice, The Message.

Those are things that we would not say you're going to actually.

Profit.

From reading these. NLT, sure. KJV, grab a— grab an old dictionary. Grab an old, a really old dictionary. Okay, so all of these things, the original writings, the 66 books, contain the complete revelation of his will for the salvation of mankind and the final authority for Christian faith and life.

Sufficiency of Scripture

What this is confessing is the sufficiency of Scripture. We've talked about the canon of Scripture, talked about inspiration, talked about inerrancy. This is sufficiency. Just as Pontius Pilate said, I have written what I have written, so God can look at his word and say, I have written what I have written.

We don't need any more of his thoughts to get a clearer picture. We don't need something further from God to lead us into the truth. God has said it. He's spoken. It is enough. It's plain and clear so that in all matters of faith and life, we can be directed into the truth, and he's not going to take away from it.

There's not going to be suddenly 65 books of the Old and New Testaments. So, we don't have all that God thinks, of course. The finite cannot contain the infinite. In John 21, 25, it says that.

Were all.

The things written that Jesus did, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the things to be written. There's more that could be said. God has not revealed those things. God's greatness is unsearchable.

His mind is unsearchable.

So,.

The Old Testament had enough revelation of God's will to be saved by. When you read Genesis 3 .15, Genesis 3 .15 is the first gospel.

Okay?

The seed of the woman is going to crush the head of the serpent while having his heel struck by the serpent. There's the gospel right there. And believers in the Old Testament had that light and held on to it and trusted in God, and that was enough for them throughout the Old Testament.

Jesus can say in Luke 16, in his parable of Lazarus, the rich man of Lazarus, they have Moses. Let them hear Moses. They're not going to believe even if someone were to raise from the dead. If they don't repent, reading God's word, then they are asking for too much.

God has already given enough. Now that Christ has come and fulfilled all the Old Testament pointed to and revealed all that we need to know to be saved and to live and worship rightly in the new covenant, we are waiting for Christ's second coming.

In Jude 3, it says, to contend earnestly for the faith that is once for all handed down to the saints. We have it. We have everything that we need. In 2 Peter 1, it says that we have enough. God has revealed everything pertaining to life and godliness so that we can actually take the scriptures and we can live by it in a godly way.

When God gave his word at different times, he did not, sorry, he had in mind the salvation of believers. What was written for Abraham, when it says that Abraham believed God and was counted to him for righteousness, in Romans 4 .3, it then says later in 4 .23, it was not written for his sake alone that it was counted to him.

But for us also, it will be counted to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead and who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised again for our justification. The scriptures are given to be saved by as we read the word of God and hear the promises of God.

We see Christ in the Old Testament and the New Testament and God used that means to bring us to faith.

The Bible as the Final Authority and the Problem of Circularity

Now,.

One might look at this and hear all this and say, this is circular reasoning. You're saying the Bible is true because the Bible says it's true. You can't do that. I've been saying this whole time the scriptures are the inspired word of God because it says in 2 Timothy 3.

It's inerrant because God is said to be true and he cannot lie.

Yes,.

Someone could look at that and say, you're in error for saying that. You have to show me evidence that the Bible is inerrant or that the Bible is from God. And what we have to say is we can appeal to God's word as our highest authority.

If we were to say appeal to logic or our sense or a miraculous event or some other type of evidence, we would not be appealing to our highest authority. We'd be confessing an authority higher than the Bible.

We must appeal to God's word as our highest authority. Not only that, everybody does this. Everybody has to use their own criteria for judging things so to come to their conclusions. John Frame,.

He.

Wrote the book Apologetics for the Glory of God. He said every philosophy must use its own standards in proving its conclusions. Otherwise, it is simply inconsistent. Those who believe that human reason is the ultimate authority, rationalists, must presuppose the authority of reason in their arguments for rationalism.

What they say, our reason tells us what is true. Therefore, they argue and then they argue for reason, rationalism. Those who believe in the ultimacy of sense experience must presuppose it in arguing for their philosophy, empiricism.

So they would say our senses tell us what is true. Then you try to argue with them, try to have a debate with them, try to talk to them about the scriptures. Well, that's not true to me because I haven't felt it.

I haven't experienced this.

So,.

We need to also have.

Our.

Criteria from the Bible. The point is that when one is arguing for an ultimate criterion, whether scripture, the Quran, human reason, sensation, or whatever, one must use criteria that is compatible with that conclusion.

If that is circularity, then everybody is guilty of circularity. Second to this, there's no neutral ground. Stay with me. People are born sinners. Jesus said you're either for me or against me. People are either dead in sin or dead to sin.

People either hear the word of Christ and they submit to it or they reject it. And Jesus said, is not this the reason why you cannot hear my voice? Because you're not of God. When we go to scripture and we tell somebody about the truth, we're going to enemies of God and telling them about the truth.

Of course, they're going to reject it until God changes their heart, until God creates in us a love for the truth. The second Thessalonians 2 .10 describes those who perish forever. They're said to do so because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.

So, this issue of God's word is the authoritative standard for us, we say that because Jesus Christ is Lord and people confess other lords and have other gods themselves as God and we're saying no, Jesus is Lord.

So, in keeping with the Bible's own criteria for testimony, we have two witnesses for the authority of scripture. Number one, the scriptures themselves. They attest themselves to be from God and have ultimate authority.

Number two, the Holy Spirit. Number one, the Holy Scripture. Number two, the Holy Spirit. The scriptures claim hundreds of times, thus says the Lord. Later writings attribute every, or early writings, to be God said, the Lord said.

And then, number three, it is written, is used with a tone of authority every single time. Jesus, in the wilderness temptation, trusted in the scriptures and said, it is written every time and he appealed to it.

It is written. This must be obeyed. This must be trusted. He's deferring to scripture. As 1st John 5 9 says, if we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. And then, whoever does not believe God has made him a liar.

That's the ultimate, that's the choice. Whether we, whether we either accept God's testimony or we reject it. Wayne Grudem said, the authority of scripture means that all the words of, in scripture, are God's words in such a way that to disbelieve or disobey any word of scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God.

Number two, the second thing is that the Spirit persuades his people that the scriptures are God's authoritative words. Jesus said in John 6, that the words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life.

In John 7, he said, if anyone is willing to do my will, do God's will, he will know whether I speak on my own authority or whether the words that I say are from God. In John 10, Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice.

God bears witness to the human about the authority of his own words. 1st Corinthians 2 12 and 16, it talks about how the the words that the Apostles used were taught by the Spirit of God, and the spiritual person accepts the things of the Spirit of God.

The person, the natural person, the person that's just unsaved, does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, the words of God, because they're foolishness to him, because they are spiritually discerned.

So, we could also add to this, 1st Thessalonians 1 4 and 5, and 2 13, where it says that we thank God constantly, because we know that he has chosen you, because when you had heard the word from us, you accepted it not as the words of men, but as it really is the word of God, which is at work in you believers.

So, it comes down to, do you have ears to hear? God gives ears to hear, and it's for all Christian faith in life. We don't need a prophet to personally tell us. Jesus, our prophet, tells us through his word and applies it by his Spirit.

We don't need a church to act as a committee to guide us into proper interpretation. We don't need priests to tell us what the word of God means, or to set standards of right and wrong, and rule our consciences like the Roman Catholics.

And confessional documents, whether it is early ones, or it is this document that we've written up here, has to be submitted to the word of God. It's subject to the scrutiny of Scripture. This document that we're presenting here is fallible.

It's not inspired, and it cannot bind your consciences the same way that Scripture must, and we're going to point you to. We just need the Scriptures, sola Scriptura, Scripture alone. Scripture interprets Scripture like a diamond cuts a diamond.

Somebody who has the Holy Spirit and reads the word will not be led astray if they keep to Scripture. The Spirit will not lead them into false doctrine or evil practices. How do we use this? How do we use everything that we have said thus far?

You can trust the word of God. God, being good, would not and could not give a book that harms you. God, being faithful, would not and could not give you a book that would lead you astray. God, being wise, has given a book to guide you.

God, being.

Gracious, he has given a book as a means of grace to bring you to salvation. Being holy, he gave you a book that is convicting. Being righteous, he gave you a book that deals with you fairly. Being glorious, he gave you a book that inspires worship.

We can read the word of God, and we can trust it, and especially in times of temptation, where if the Son of God, in the flesh, relied upon it is written, then so can we, in times where there's fiery trials and temptations and fiery darts that are fired at us.

Number two, this book testifies the gospel and promises forgiveness and salvation to all who believe. Christ died and rose again, and that is the import of Scripture from Old Testament to New Testament, and whoever rests on Christ, trusts in him, will be saved.

You must believe the gospel now, today, and every day for the rest of your life. And then number three, walk according to God's word. Quickly, in Psalm 19, it says, in verse 7, So let's go to the Scriptures, and let's live by the Bible, be people of the book, as it were.

Closing Questions and Prayer

Any questions?

Yeah.

I've encountered Mormon missionaries on the streets of Florence, and they, when I've taken them to Revelation 22, and they mentioned that to them, they have applied that specifically to Revelation, and not to all Scripture.

Yeah.

If you were to look at other passages that really make a compelling case for the closing of the canon, the fact that the canon is closed, maybe what are some other apologetic responses you would give in that situation?

In that, he's saying that there's nothing else that really needs to be brought to your attention, nothing needs to be added to the faith. Specifically for Mormons, what does their book actually teach?

It teaches something that's contrary to the faith once for all delivered to the saints, and so right off the bat, boom, no. Same thing with Muslims. 1 and 2 John talks about antichrists that deny that Christ has come in the flesh, that he's the son of God.

Well, that's exactly what the Muslims do. So when they came around, there's no argument really needed. You're already identified as antichrist, nothing needs to be added to that. And so on with every single book.

Charles Spurgeon, he's great. He doesn't need to be added to the Bible, he's not an apostle, and so I think that connection as well with apostles who had specifically been commissioned by God to write scripture, and what God has preserved.