James White: Jesus' View of the Scriptures

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Well, I was on the right verse when we all went to the wrong verse, and partly

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I was thinking to myself at that time, I had the opportunity in 2017 for the 500th anniversary of the

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Reformation to preach from Luther's pulpit in the castle church in Wittenberg.

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And they have obviously since the days of Luther put around one of the spires on the church,

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Ein Festeberg ist unser Gott, Mighty Fortress is our God. And I couldn't help thinking, what would

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Luther think if he knew that 500 years in the future, his song would be being sung by a church that couldn't meet because of paint fumes and is meeting via the internet.

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Would he think that was even slightly kosher? I'm not sure. I'm a little concerned as to exactly what he might've thought of all of that.

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I don't know. But anyway, here we are, and I would appreciate y 'all's prayers.

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I leave early in the morning. I'll be gone for four weeks.

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And this trip, not a long trip as far as distance goes.

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But I do have three debates over the course of this particular trip.

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And one with an open theist, one with a Roman Catholic, and one with Jared Longshore.

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Many of you probably know Jared from up in Moscow. And we're going to be having a debate primarily focused on the text in Hebrews regarding the nature of the new covenant.

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So I think a lot of you might find that one quite interesting, quite useful, I hope. And that'll actually be taking place online.

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So I'll be doing it from our very nice RV, which I will also be pulling tomorrow morning up Five Mile Hill out of Black Canyon City.

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So pray for that I get started early enough that it's not 147 degrees while I'm attempting to do that.

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Today, when last week, when Pastor Jeff mentioned this series on what defines us as a church, the foundational doctrinal commitments, what makes us different than a lot of other churches, well, there's a lot of things that make us different from other churches.

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But as I looked at the list that Jeff gave me of what he wants to cover, the foundational issues,

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I noticed that one of the things that he's going to be explaining, and again, this is to explain to people what makes

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Apologia different than another Baptist church down the road or a Reformed church down the road or something along those lines.

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And one of those fundamental commitments is to the concept of presuppositional apologetics.

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And most people, honestly, if they've heard it, they don't necessarily know exactly what that is in reference to.

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And I certainly am committed to that. I am a committed presuppositionalist. And I think as our society becomes more and more secularized, it truly is a vitally important commitment to have, to honor the word of God and to engage in apologetics in a meaningful fashion.

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But I'm going to be gone. I don't know what order of things Jeff is going to be taking things.

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And so when he asked me to speak on this particular Sunday, obviously he didn't know this was coming,

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I thought through what could

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I do? I don't want to introduce presuppositional apologetics or something like that and then make

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Jeff pick it up from there. And I've been actually doing a lot of study on, been doing a lot of listening to Greg Bonson.

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By the way, if you're not using Bonson U through Apologia to Studios, you really need to get that taken care of.

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It's a tremendous resource. It's incredibly valuable to have all those lectures and debates from Greg Bonson.

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But I was struck by the reality that what is foundational, really it's what's foundational to everything.

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When Jeff talked about the Trinity last week, foundational to that was we can go to the word of God and we can study the word of God and the word of God is going to be consistent in what it teaches on the subject.

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And I have to keep reminding people over and over again that that's not the foundational assumption of so many of the vast majority of churches in our world today in Western culture.

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There is such a skepticism, such a questioning of the word of God.

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And it's its role in our lives. And so we are in the minority if we actually believe that this book is consistent with itself in such a way that you can open it up and not on a surface level type thing, but with appropriate handling and interpretation, it's going to give you a unified message.

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We're in a minority to believe that. And that's something that I think I've addressed a number of times before, but it's something we need to be reminded of that explains why we have so many differences with people we might be talking to in the grocery store, over the back fence, whatever it might be.

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But when it comes to apologetics and presuppositionalism, one thing that over the years as I've practiced presuppositional apologetics and lectured on presuppositional apologetics, taught apologetics for Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, for example.

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And so that's the Southern Baptist Seminary. It's now called Gateway, I think. Anyway, I'd have students coming in and they had no background whatsoever in this field.

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And they would really struggle to understand why it is we're emphasizing this.

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They were used to hearing the standard theistic proofs, the cosmological argument, you know, that type of a thing.

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And what holds it all up, what puts it all together is the highest view of Scripture.

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You cannot do presuppositional apologetics. You cannot say to the world that the primary proof of God's existence is the impossibility of the contrary, because you are beginning with the assumption that God has spoken with clarity in His Word.

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And that's why liberals and agnostics and heretics can't use a presuppositional apologetic because they don't believe that God has spoken with clarity in Scripture.

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But for those of us who believe this and practice this, and this does mark our church off, even though it's not as popular as it was only a few years ago, it used to be the cool kids did presupp.

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That's not the case anymore. The cool kids are doing Thomas now. Well, we're not.

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And that's because we weren't trying to be cool to do it in the first place. It was an actual meaningful commitment with a theological foundation.

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But those of us who do it, we have to understand, we have to know why we believe that the

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Scriptures are at that level, literally God speaking, that they are self -consistent.

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And so I think one of the most important things, and this is where I want to ask, since we're all watching from home today. This sermon from here on out is really appropriate for all ages.

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And I want to especially challenge our young people, our teenagers, our preteens to sort of tune in here and listen, because what

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I'm covering today, and I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time. We've already done the introduction. I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time.

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What I want to cover today is foundational so that when Jeff introduces presupp, you've already got it there.

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And that is, what was Jesus's view of Scripture? And you would think, man, that should be really basic, huh?

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We should, we should really know what Jesus thought about the Bible, thought about Scripture.

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Now, of course he didn't. He's the author of the Bible as God, but in the time of his incarnation, all you had is what's called the

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Tanakh, the Torah, the Nevim, the Ketuvim. The law, the writings of the prophets and writings.

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And didn't have any of the New Testament that's going to be written immediately after his resurrection. But what did

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Jesus, how did Jesus view Scripture? It's astonishing how few seminary professors and seminary students have ever even given it thought.

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In fact, the sad thing is in the large majority of schools and seminaries, things like that, they would literally say, we can't know.

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They are so agnostic. They would say, well, you know, the passages you're going to read, like, like the first passage,

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Matthew 4, 4, but he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

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Well, you know, we don't really know that Jesus said that. That might just be Matthew. There is a skepticism that has become so deeply ingrained in the large majority of seminaries and Bible colleges that it's not surprising that people staying behind a pulpit have never given the thought to, well, did

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Jesus say this? Did Jesus not say this? Can we, can we consistently understand what Jesus' view was?

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But leaving the skeptics aside for the moment, it should be for us something that for everyone, and I include the teenagers, the preteens, it should be something that we can go, yeah,

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I, A, first of all, I realize probably the most, one of the most important things that I can do is to view scripture the way

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Jesus did. I mean, his authority is ultimate, isn't it? The one who, the one who rose from the dead, the one who's seated at the right hand of the father in the heavenly places, we call him

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King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Shouldn't his view of scripture be our view of scripture?

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And I have brought that up in a number of my debates with people who rejected that kind of a, of a position and a conclusion.

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And so we should want to know what Jesus' view of scripture is, and then allow that to be the foundation for what precept allows us to do everything else and challenge everybody else.

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I would challenge, you know, if you're talking to Mormons, why don't Mormons have Jesus' view of scripture?

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Because they don't. Why not? What's the issue? So where would you go?

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Where would you go to find Jesus' view of scripture? Well, I just read you a passage. I'm going to primarily draw from Matthew and John, because Luke and Mark follow the same, the same texts basically that you have in Matthew.

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But remember what I just read from Matthew 4, 4. But he answered and said, it is written.

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Now he then goes on to say something about scripture. When he says, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, he believes that God has spoken.

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And he believes that we can know what God has spoken. And he is going to quote from scripture throughout his ministry.

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He is right here saying, it is written. And so there's a, there's a bunch of things you've got to sort of stop for a second that we assume, but once you get into a debate, you can't just assume things anymore.

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You need to know why you're assuming them and how those things related to one another. So when

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Jesus says, it is written, did his audience know what he was referring to?

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You might go, that was a pretty simple question to ask. Yeah, but think about it.

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What does that mean? You see, people will tell us, well, we don't know what books belong in the

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Bible because, you know, you need to have, need to have the Pope to tell you, which of course

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Rome says happened in 1546, which long time after Jesus. Or you need to have this council over here.

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The fact of the matter is Jesus could say it is written and his audience knew exactly what he was referring to because they already knew what we call the old

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Testament was. There had been a process over 400 years, and really it only taken about 200, 250 years to where the books we call the old

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Testament had been laid up in the temple. They were considered to be sacred scripture. And Jesus never quotes from the

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Apocrypha and books like that. Other, other books were written during that early testamental period and says, it is written.

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When he says it is written, he and his audience can agree on what that is. So there is a, there is a canon, the canon, the list of books, the

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Bible. There is an assumption that God can reveal his word and people can know what it is without angels coming down with golden indexes and stuff like that.

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So he says it is written. So the son of God can quote from the scriptures.

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And when he does so, those scriptures are already authoritative. It's not his quoting it that makes it authoritative.

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It already is authoritative. It is written, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

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And so there must be a way of knowing what words are proceeding out of the mouth of God.

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And since he has just said, it is written, he is saying to us, scripture is

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God's speaking. And we're going to see later on in Matthew that he's going to expand upon that.

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For Jesus, when you read these words, God is speaking to you. God is speaking to you.

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And it's not just he was speaking back then. It continues to have abiding validity and God speaking to you now.

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We will see that when we get to Matthew chapter 22. These first three references are from the temptation of Jesus.

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Because remember, when Satan comes to him, what's Jesus' normal response? His normal response is to quote scripture.

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And so a little bit later, Jesus said to him, again, it is written, you shall not put the

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Lord your God to the test. Now here's the incarnate son of God. He could have said anything he wanted to.

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And what he would say would be completely authoritative. But as our example, he says to Satan, to our enemy, he quotes from the scripture.

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Be a wise thing for us to do when temptation comes to us. If we know the scripture well enough to do the same thing.

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Again, it is written. And Satan doesn't go, are you sure about that?

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Which translation are you using? You know, are you using the Jehovah's Witness translation? None of that, none of that comes out.

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There is an understanding that God has revealed his word. And that it's knowable and known.

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And then a few verses later, then Jesus said to him, go Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the

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Lord your God and serve him only. Now, again, he could have personally rebuked him on his own authority.

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But then again, if he had done so, would that be a higher authority than quoting scripture?

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No, because as the Logos, as the second person of the Trinity, this is his word.

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He had already been involved in giving that word. And so Jesus quotes scripture in such a way that it's clear that we can know what scripture is and what scripture isn't.

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It's God speaking and it has final and ultimate authority. And it's not just because Jesus is quoting it, that it has that kind of final authority either.

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Okay, now in Matthew chapter 21, we have

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Jesus again using this formula. And he said to them, it is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a robber's den.

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Think about something. This is when Jesus is driving out the people who have turned this place into a robber's den.

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This is a position of conflict. There is conflict going on here.

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In the temple. And so it's interesting.

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Satan did not question the word of God in the presence of Jesus. But now you have a sort of an apologetic context.

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And Jesus still simply says, it is written. That is enough for him.

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And one of the things that is central to the presuppositional apologetic is the ultimacy of God's revelation in scripture.

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What happens for a lot of people is we fall into the trap of thinking that we have to substantiate what scripture says by an appeal to, well, to what?

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Well, to an outside authority. Well, if you're going to appeal to an outside authority for authority, that makes the outside authority a higher or a lower authority.

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How would you appeal to a lower authority to substantiate your point? You wouldn't. You have to appeal to a higher authority.

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So you're making something out here, a higher authority than scripture itself. Jesus doesn't do that. He doesn't fall into that trap.

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And he said to them, it is written. My house should be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a robbery's den.

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Then it's really interesting in Matthew 26, when Jesus is talking about his death, burial, resurrection, he's talking to the disciples.

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He says, the son of man is going just as it is written of him, just as it is written of him.

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But woe to that man by whom the son of man has betrayed. It would have been better for that man if he had not been born. So we know we're talking about Judas, the betrayer, the role he plays, the necessary role he plays in bringing about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

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But notice, just as it is written of him, Jesus sees that what is happening is reflective of what scripture has said is going to take place.

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Boy, we could stop right there and talk about how this demonstrates that open theism is false, since I'm going to be doing a debate on that fairly soon.

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Because how can it be written if God can't know what free creatures are going to do?

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Because that's the open theist position. How can it be written? Well, it is written. The son of man is going just as it is written of him.

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Highest view of scripture. And a few verses later, then Jesus said to them, you will all fall away because of me this night, for it is written,

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I will strike down the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered. Matthew 26, 31,

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Matthew 26, 31. For it is written. It's just like it just flows from his lips.

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It's just so natural. And especially if you grew up in the church like I did, you've heard these things so many times that you can sometimes just sort of get used to it.

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And it's not even recognize how important it is to catch that it is written.

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It's in the scriptures. And the scriptures are prophetic. They reveal what's going to happen in the ministry of the son of man.

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In John 6, 45, some of you saw the debate I did a few months ago on this particular text,

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John 6, 45, it is written in the prophets and they shall all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me here in the middle of explaining

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God's sovereignty and salvation and everything else. Jesus can simply say, here is a prophetic word.

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It is written. It is in scripture. And here's what that word means. And I'm explaining it to you.

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I'm expanding this. I'm letting you know what this is all about. John 6, 45, it is written in the prophets that has a special authority.

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He doesn't have to sit there and go, no, you know, this one prophet, you know, he had some problems here and that is a prophet has problems there.

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And, you know, you sort of have to balance them off against it. No, this written revelation has supernatural origination.

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It comes from God. In John 15, 25, but this happened to fulfill the word that is written in the law.

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They hated me without cause. So you have that so many times there'll be this statement.

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They hated me without cause. Now it had a meaning when it was originally written. Yes, but it has a greater fulfillment in the person of Christ and in the purpose of God down through the ages.

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It's written. It's in the scripture. This is Jesus' view. In Mark chapter 12, verses 10 through 11, we read this.

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Have you not even read this scripture? The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the chief cornerstone.

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This came about from the Lord and it is marvelous in our eyes. Have you not even read the scriptures?

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These are people who very much were proud of their knowledge of the scriptures and their possessions of scriptures.

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Now, remember, you know, we've all got, we've got the Bible on our phones and stuff like that.

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We have beautiful Bibles like this that we can carry around and go, oh, it smells so good.

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We can do stuff like that. It's wonderful to have that privilege. Don't look at me like I'm that weird.

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It's on your phone. See, I have an audience of three today. It's great. It's wonderful. And it's hard to gauge their response.

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You know, I got to look through a door over here and stuff like that. It's a little bit weird.

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But anyway, if you preach it, not getting very many amens today. Let's just put it that way or it's going to sound really weird when

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I do. Anyway, these folks didn't have the scriptures the way you and I have.

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Their exposure to the scriptures was primarily either if they, you know, if there was like a rabbinic school or something like that, they'd hear the scriptures then.

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But the primary exposure of God's people to the scripture back then was in the synagogue service.

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You had something called the seat of Moses. And there was this, I saw this when I visited Israel, the one time I got to visit.

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In one of the synagogues, there was this box next to the seat of Moses. And that's where the scrolls were kept.

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Because remember when the scroll was, I think, yeah, in the next quote, you're going to see where Jesus is handed the scroll and he opens the scroll to a certain place and reads from it.

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So you didn't, I mean, those things were expensive. A vast majority of God's people did not possess their own copy of scripture.

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So if you have your own copy of the scripture today, you're a blessed person, of course, to whom much is given, much is required.

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So here's an example that Luke chapter four, verse 16, and he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up and as was his custom, he entered the synagogue on the

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Sabbath and stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.

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Now that's one of the largest scrolls. Isaiah is a long book. And can you imagine if, if the scroll was at the beginning somewhere and you wanted to get to Isaiah 60, that was a forearm workout par excellence.

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I mean, we're talking, wow, that was, that was a lot of work. He opened the scroll and found the place where it was written.

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So I wonder how long that took. I think about things like this. I'm not sure why, but I think about things like this.

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Where was it when it was given to him? How fast could he get there? You know, that's, that's the question. He found the place where it was written.

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The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. And he has sent me to proclaim release of the captives and recovery of sight for the blind to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the

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Lord. And he closed the scroll, gave it back to the attendants. That would have been the guy who would have been keeping the scrolls in order at the seat of Moses and sat down, probably on the seat of Moses.

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And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

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Wow. Can you imagine what that was like? Can you imagine what that was like? Because, I mean, you got to understand there was a tremendous amount of messianic fervor and anticipation.

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The Jews understood that God had stopped speaking in Israel, that there was no prophetic voice called the bath coal.

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There was no prophetic voice. There hadn't been for 400 years. So they're expecting, you know, Malachi, the end of Malachi.

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The next thing was the forerunner. John has been there. And here,

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Jesus says, today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your, it gives me goosebumps.

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Can you imagine what that was like? Now, I don't remember honestly, if the first century synagogue in Nazareth still exists, but I did get to visit the first century synagogue in Migdal, right on the shore of the

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Sea of Galilee. And that is the very first, that's the first century.

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Migdal, Magdalene, Mary Magdalene. So this was Mary Magdalene's synagogue. This is where she would have gone.

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And we're told that Jesus went to all the synagogues. So there really is a 99 % chance that the mosaic on the floor and the stones had heard the son of God preach in that synagogue.

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And so can you imagine all the people gathered around? And here's this famous man.

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He's been healing people. He's well -known and he reads from Isaiah the prophet.

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And again, no angels have come down from heaven and said, Isaiah is scripture. God had led his people to understand and recognize that hundreds of years before this, not by sending down angelic visitations, not by having infallible counsels or anything else.

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And Jesus says today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

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They understand what fulfillment means. They understand what he was claiming. They understand what scripture is.

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There was nothing in what Jesus was saying that would for a second lead you to believe that, well, you know, now this scripture is becoming authoritative in your life.

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No, it was authoritative because of its nature. It was authoritative when Isaiah had given it.

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And now Jesus was saying, here's the fulfillment in time. Here's the fulfillment in time.

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I am the one, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed, Mashiach, Messiah language.

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He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. Today, this is fulfilled in your hearing. The only way to understand this is again, the highest view of scripture.

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There's no room for, well, you know, it might've changed a lot since the days of Isaiah. No, that's not even, that's nowhere in the mindset of our risen

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Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Let's go to the gospel of John. John chapter seven, verse 37,

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John 7, 37. Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.

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He who believes in me, as the scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.

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As the scripture said, Jesus is not setting himself up in opposition. He's not saying that was then, this is now.

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There is a perfect unity between what the scriptures have said, what Jesus is saying, and what

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Jesus is now fulfilling right before them. As the scriptures said, I'm not introducing something new, but I am fulfilling what may not have been understood up until the present time.

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In John chapter 13, verse 18, I do not, this is of course, this is after the end of Jesus' public ministry, ends in chapter 12.

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Now it's the private ministry to disciples right before the betrayal and the crucifixion. John chapter 13, verse 18,

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I do not speak about all of you. I know the ones I have chosen, but that the scripture may be fulfilled.

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He who eats my bread has lifted up his heel against me. From now on, I am telling you before it occurs.

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So when it does occur, you may believe that I am he. Now, very quickly, I'm trying to be brief today, but that the scripture may be fulfilled.

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It is fundamental to Jesus' understanding that prophetic scripture must be fulfilled.

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There can be no mistakes. Again, that position that I'm going to be debating against in just a few weeks, fundamental to its assertion, is that scriptures can contain errors.

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That there really can't be serious prophecy in scripture. But Jesus says, but that the scripture may be fulfilled.

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And then he quotes again, the phrase, he who eats my bread has lifted his heel against me was something from David's life, but it has greater fulfillment in the person of Christ and in his ministry.

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So God can take all these different people who spoke in scripture and tie these things together perfectly so that it comes to fulfillment in Christ.

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You have to be Lord of time. You have to have a decree that you're working out for that to be true.

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I just note in passing, John 13, 19 is one of the I am sayings of Jesus.

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From now on, I am telling you before it occurs, that when it does occur, you believe that I am he, ego,

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I me, I am. And again, a further reputation of open theism.

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You can tell I'm preparing for debates, a further reputation of open theism. Actually, I'm also debating soul scripture against Roman Catholic.

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And a lot of this is relevant there too. But in John 13, 19, Jesus quotes from Isaiah 43, 10, which most of us have memorized.

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Most of us have memorized Isaiah 43, 10 to deal with Mormons. But we know that last part of the verse, before me, there was no

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God formed. There should be none after me. But the beginning part of the verses, you are my witnesses, says Yahweh.

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And my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and understand, believe that I am he, on a who in Hebrew, ego,

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I me in Greek. Jesus is quoting Isaiah 43, 10 of himself. And he's saying to his disciples,

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I'm going to tell you what's going to happen with Judas before it happens with Judas. So when it does, you may believe that I am, that I am,

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I am Yahweh. That's the quotation from Isaiah 43. John chapter 17.

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Boy, we know this and we can spend all day in the Lord's high priestly prayer. But verses 12 to 13, while I was with them,

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I was keeping them in your name, which you have given me. And I guarded them and not one of them perished, but the son of perdition, so that the scripture would be fulfilled.

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But now I come to you and these things, I speak in the world, so that they may have my joy made full in themselves.

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You see, in the, while praying to the father, while the son, the incarnate son is praying to the father in heaven.

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He says, so in speaking of Judas talks about the son of perdition, so that the scripture would be fulfilled.

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The importance, the necessity of the scriptures being self -consistent, true to themselves and hence can be fulfilled.

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Requires us to have the highest view of scripture. If Jesus believed like so many people today believe that, well, you know, this is, things have changed, you know, it's been so much time.

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So obvious scriptures have to have been corrupted over time. No, that's not anywhere in Jesus' thinking at all, at all.

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Matthew chapter 19, only have three other passages to get to. So we're not gonna, we're not gonna pastor

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Jeff here today. Matthew chapter, he's not even around to look at. He was here earlier.

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He left, he bugged out and he's out of here. He's supposed to be watching at home with his family. I, you know, we'll, we'll find out.

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I might have a little quiz for him later on or something like that. But I can't even look over at the little pew. And by the way, may

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I mention something? Just, just for the fun of it. Don't sit on the little pew. I mean, aside from the fact that it's my pew.

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Okay. I mean, I sort of claimed it, but there's a reason for it. It's actually not attached to the wall.

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Okay. So if you, if you sit on the front edge of that pew, you will end up with it on your back.

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I've come that close. You've just, it's dangerous. It's someone's gonna get sued or something eventually, but just don't sit on it.

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It's dangerous. That's a good reason to leave it for me. Go from there. Anyway, so I can't even look over there and see

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Pastor Jeff smiling at me over on the little pew. Matthew chapter 19. This is the one that's important to us.

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Boys, it's sad that it has to be important to us, but it is. Matthew chapter 19, verse four.

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And he answered and said, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife.

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And the two shall become one flesh. So there are no longer two, but one flesh.

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What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. So Jesus is quoting from Moses again, earliest of the writings, full assumption on his part that they have been communicated accurately to his day.

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There does not have to be some form of fundamental corruption that we can't know what was originally written.

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He then interprets a word that he had already given to us. But what's in the middle of it?

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You have, this is one of the most important texts in setting out Jesus's authority to define what a man is, what a woman is, what marriage is, what a family is.

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Our culture needs these words. But what's he doing?

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Have you not read? That's what we have to say to our, our culture.

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Have you not read? I was written that, that was, that was written about 1400 years before Christ.

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So we're talking over 3000 years. How can that be relevant? Because God's still relevant and we're still as creatures.

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Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female?

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You see, our society was formed on the foundation of the acceptance of what this text and the

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Bible as a whole teaches about man. They were made in the image of God. We're his creatures.

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Therefore he can give us law. And so we have to have law and we have to have all these things. We've lost all of that. We've lost all of that.

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And it's sometimes difficult for us who grew up with this to, to interact with people and not realize we now have young people today that are fully secular.

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They have never encountered a meaningful presentation of why you should believe the

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Bible, why the Bible is reliable, why it's the word of God. They have no idea. As they look at us, like we're freaks from another world.

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We have to be able to explain these things. And here on something, it's vitally important to our law today.

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Have you not read? Have you not read? Now, if you want these last two,

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I think if, if, if someone challenged you on this, the last two texts would be the two that I would camp on, that I would want to really explain to people.

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And I hope everyone, certainly at a church called Apologia. And if you notice how, you know, over since 2018,

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I have learned to say the wrong form of apology. It's Apologia.

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Okay. So when you, when you read it in the new Testament, make sure to get that right. But, but we're

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Apologia. And I'll leave it to the founders to explain the rest of it.

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But at a church like Apologia, I would think all of us, including our teenagers and even our preteens would want to know where these texts are and have a good understanding of what they say.

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Matthew chapter 22. Matthew 22 verses 31, 32. This is a part of the encounter between Jesus and the

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Sadducees. Jesus had just embarrassed the Pharisees. And so the

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Sadducees are like, oh, now's our shot. Now's our chance. And they bring up the story of the woman and the seven brothers and what's called

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Leveret marriage and so on and so forth. This is obviously an argument they've had many, many, many, many, many times on the streets of Jerusalem.

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And Jesus' response, because many say, okay, whose, whose wife shall be, shall she be in the resurrection? Because they didn't believe they're in a resurrection.

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Jesus' response was you're wrong. I love, I love the fact that Jesus' response to the Sadducees just straight up was you're wrong.

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He didn't do what happens in schools today. Well, that's an interesting perspective. No, you're wrong.

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And then he says these words, but regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God saying,

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I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but the living. Now, immediately, the immediate application is that Jesus is refuting their denial of the resurrection by saying

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God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not was Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob still exist.

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In the presence of God, there is a resurrection. So he's using that text from the

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Old Testament and he's refuting the Sadducees. But how did he do it? Why were the

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Sadducees left saying they're going, what just happened to us?

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Why hasn't this ever happened before? I don't know. Why? Because that argument wouldn't necessarily fly amongst our skeptical modern

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Western readers. Well, think about it. Have you not read?

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Okay, there has to be some understandable referent. Read what?

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Because remember, the Jews had written books other than what's found in our Bibles. Written lots of books.

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And most of what they had written was contradictory to itself too. So you could have made reference to all sorts of things and gone all sorts of different directions, but that doesn't happen in the

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New Testament. When Jesus says, have you not read? We know what he's talking about. We know what he's referring to.

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Have you not read what was, and the next word, if you and I were saying this, would be written, right?

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Have you not read the email I wrote to you? Okay, that's the natural next term.

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Have you not read what was spoken to you by God?

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And then you have a quotation from the Old Testament. What's Jesus's view of scripture?

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Jesus's view of scripture is that when you read the words of the sacred text, you are reading what

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God has spoken. It's God's speech. Because see, it'd be easier for us to go to Paul, all scripture is theanoustos, it's

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God breathed. We go to Peter, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. Yeah, there you have two of the disciples of Jesus and they have

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Jesus's view of scripture. But here's Jesus saying it. And Jesus's own words, when you read the scriptures, you are reading what was spoken to you.

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Yeah, that's what it says to you. It's not like, well, that was spoken to people back.

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It doesn't really matter to us today. No, when God speaks, he holds us accountable for what he has spoken in its written form.

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Because I couldn't, I couldn't know what was spoken 3000 years ago.

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Unless what? Unless it's written down. Unless it's written down.

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So because the scriptures are written down, they're widely distributed so people can't be making massive changes and putting their own stuff in there.

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That's what people like Joseph Smith did, but that's different religion. Because it's been given to us in that form, then

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Jesus held these men accountable for what was in scripture as if God had spoken it directly to them living 1400 years later.

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Which means when we quote from Jesus in Matthew chapter 19, from the beginning,

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God made the male and female. That's God speaking to our generation.

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And if you try to change that and you try to make your laws reflect that, you are specifically contradicting the man who rose from the dead, who will also judge everyone on that great day.

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So there's Jesus' view of scripture. He could quote a text from 1400 years later.

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He was so confident that the spirit of God had protected the transmission of that text that he could base his argument on the tense of a verb.

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Because the whole argument is, I am the God of Abraham, I was. So the tense of a verb is enough for Jesus to say, there's what

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God has to say. And he then holds the men of that generation or of this generation accountable for what

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God has said. There is Jesus' view of scripture. Matthew chapter 22, verses 31 to 32.

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All right, one last text. One last text. John chapter 10, probably expected me to go here, but that's because it's rather important.

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John chapter 10, verses 33 to 36. Now there's a whole bunch that we could say about this.

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But I want to focus primarily upon what it says about scripture. Because remember,

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Jesus has said, he has talked about he and his sheep. Father gives them life.

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I give them life. They're in our hands. You know, the unity between the father and the son. And Jesus has said,

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I and the father, we are one. And so the

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Jews answered, you know, Jews pick up stones to stone them. And he says, for which good work do you stone me?

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And then that's where this picks up. The Jews answered him for a good work. We don't stone you, but for blasphemy.

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And because you being a man, make yourself God. Jesus said to them, has it not been written in your law?

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I said, you are gods. If you call them gods, to whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be broken.

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Do you say of him who the father sanctified and the son of the world, you are a blasphemy because I said, I am the son of God.

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Now, like I said, we could spend a long time on the various interpretations that have been offered of this.

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Very quickly, quotation from Psalm 82. Psalm 82,

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God's addressing false judges. Jesus is identifying them as false judges. And then contrasting the fact that he has been sanctified by the father and sent into the world.

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And they're accusing him of blaspheming because he said, he's the son of God. They're demonstrating their false, their false judges by doing so.

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That's what it's all about. But I want you to, you know, it's good to know that to talk to the

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Mormons or whatever else. But I want you to see this final text testimony to Jesus's view of scripture.

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If he called them gods, the judges of Israel to whom the word of God came, that is, that was where God would bring judgment.

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That's what the judges were placed in Israel to do was to stand in the place of God, to bring his judgment, to use his law, so on and so forth.

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And the scripture cannot be broken. He wasn't announcing something new.

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It wasn't like there was a, you know, the Jews were having a liberal renaissance in his day and had started thinking that scriptures could be broken.

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The point is to enunciate the fact, the scriptures cannot be broken.

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They have to be fulfilled. You cannot dismiss anything because this is all the very speech of God.

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The scriptures cannot be broken. Do we believe that?

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Well, we believe that. That's why this is important. That's why it's foundational to presuppositional apologetics.

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That's why it's foundational to what the sermon was last week and the doctrine of the Trinity. You can't go through verse after verse after verse after verse in the scriptures and string them together to see a consistent testimony to who

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God is. If the scriptures can be broken, if the scriptures can be falsified, if the scriptures can be done away with, then we can't really know anything.

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We just get to pick and choose. And that's what that's what liberalism, quote unquote, progressive Christianity is.

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Why do they believe all completely different things? Because they're just picking and choosing what they want to believe because they don't believe there is a consistent testimony in scripture.

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Jesus said the scripture cannot be broken. And that is not just religious people.

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If the scriptures cannot be broken, then you can have the greatest intellect in the world and have degrees from all the biggest scientific universities in the world.

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The scriptures cannot be broken. If the scriptures say, this is the truth, you can do anything you want someplace else. You're still going to be standing against God's truth.

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The scriptures cannot be broken. And the attacks, I mean,

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I've spent 40 years in ministry now. And the attacks that I've seen upon scripture from so many perspectives on its historicity, its consistency, its language, its fundamental theology, from religious perspectives and non -religious perspectives and a mishmash in between.

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I mean, it's enough to, I remember when I first started studying Mormonism, I was like, oh man,

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I just don't know if I'm going to be able to know this stuff well enough to be able to answer all these different accusations and insinuations being made by this religious group.

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And then you start studying another religious group. And like, oh, but the reality is for the believer, it's not my believing that makes the scriptures unbreakable.

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The scriptures are unbreakable because they are the very speech of God. The question is whether I will be broken by the scriptures, not whether I can break the scriptures.

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They're the final authority. That's going to be the final judgment. And so we can be as arrogant as the progressive left is and question

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God's word. But in the final analysis, that word will break us. We can say we've broken the scriptures and the

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LGBTQ affirming people today, they think they've broken the scriptures. They think they've come up with an answer for every one of the quote unquote clobber passages and have freed us from the restrictions of scripture.

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No, you haven't. All you've done is broken yourself. All you've done is make yourself guilty before God.

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The scriptures cannot be broken. These men are standing before Jesus with rocks in their hands.

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This isn't just some mild theological disagreement. They are about to stone him.

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And what does Jesus say? Scriptures cannot be broken and the scriptures will judge you. I'm quoting to you from the scriptures.

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You're not under the authority of scripture. You claim to be, but you're really not. The scriptures cannot be broken.

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So what about us? When Pastor Jeff gets into,

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I would assume probably while I'm on this next trip, gets into presuppositional apologetics, fundamentally and foundationally, you will see that the scriptures and their ultimate authority is the foundational element.

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And there is a resistance in presuppositional methodology to appealing to sources outside.

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Because when you appeal to sources outside of scripture, you're making them the higher authority. The only way that presuppositionalism works, and that's why it's a

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Christian way of doing things, is to recognize the autonomous authority of scripture as God speaking.

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When God speaks, that's the ultimate authority. There can be no higher authority than that.

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And so we have to, we have to understand that if we're going to start there, then I think it's appropriate, especially with all different groups that we deal with, that we be prepared as the members of this church to be able to say to someone, well,

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I try to have the view of scriptures that Jesus had, because he predicted his own death, burial and resurrection died, rose again, ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the father, is king of kings and Lord of lords.

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The scripture says to kiss the son lest he be angry and you perish in the way. And he's going to return and judge you and I.

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I think having his view of scripture is really important. And you have to be able to know where to go to substantiate that.

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So if you're only going to remember two of those texts, remember

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John chapter 10 and remember Matthew chapter 22 and be able to take people to those texts and go, here's what

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Jesus said. He rose from the dead. He predicted his own death, burial, resurrection.

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And then he did it. No one else has ever done that. He's the ultimate authority.

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You and I need to bow to his view, not make his view about ours.

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I think that's vitally important. And it's central to the presuppositional methodology as well.

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Let's, we're going to have, we're going to sing another song in a moment, but let's have word of prayer. Let's pray together.

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Father, we thank you for this time. We thank you in your providence that we can still gather in a sense in this way and be instructed.

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Father, we pray that this time would be useful to your people and that you would give us opportunity to be able to testify of the authority of your word to a world that needs to have a sure word from God.