Sola Scriptura 4 — Anton Bosch

The Warning Against Subtracting from Scripture

Read with me from the book of Revelation, chapter 22, the last chapter in the Bible. And we have one more in this series on the Bible or on the word of God. We spoke the last few weeks on adding to the scriptures, the various ways in which we add to the scriptures.

And today I want to speak about subtracting from the scriptures. Subtracting from the scriptures. Do not subtract or take away. And we'll read from Revelation 22, verses six through 21. Then he said to me, these words are faithful and true.

And the Lord God of the Holy Prophet sent his angel to show his servants the things which must shortly take place. Behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.

Now I, John, saw and heard these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed me these things. And he said to me, see that you do not do that. For I am your fellow servant and of your brethren the prophets and of those who keep the words of this book.

Worship God. And he said to me, do not steal the words of the prophecy of this book. For the time is at hand. He who is unjust, let him be unjust still. He who is filthy, let him be filthy still. He who is righteous, let him be righteous still.

He who is holy, let him be holy still. And behold, I am coming quickly and my reward is with me to give to everyone according to his work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

Blessed are those who do his commandments that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters and whoever loves and practices a lie.

I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright and the morning star. And the spirit and the bride say, come. And let him who hears say, come.

And let him who searches come. Therefore, whoever desires, let him take of the water of life freely. For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book.

And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the book of life, from the holy city and from the things that are written in this book. He who testifies to these things says, surely I am coming quickly, amen.

Even so, come Lord Jesus, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, amen. Verse 19 says, if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the book of life, from the holy city and from the things which are written in this book.

The Consequences of Altering God's Word

What a terrible warning that he will take away our part from the book of life, from the holy city and from the wonderful things that he has in store for us. Remember, he said that as we add to the scriptures, he will add to us all of the judgments and the curses that are written in this book.

That's a terrible thing when you read about the terrible wrath and judgment of God that is poured out in the book of Revelation. And then he says, if we subtract from his words, he's going to subtract us, take us away from those blessings that are spoken of in this book.

Now, that's an equally terrible thing. I don't know which one is worse, to receive the judgment and the wrath of God or to be removed from the blessing of God. Both of them are equally terrible. And both of them indicate and show us very clearly God's view on the completeness of his word, that we cannot add to his word and we should not be subtracting from his word because his word is total, his word is complete.

There is nothing more that we can add to it as we've been saying over the last few weeks, but also it's very dangerous to subtract from his word. We spoke last week about the fact that if you're baking a cake and you think, well, you know, it'd be a good idea to get this cake to rise nicely, we'll put a stick of dynamite in there.

Just adding something that is not part of the recipe is disastrous, but you know, also taking away from the recipe is disastrous. And so you can say, well, you know, the baking soda or the salt, you know, that's just a small ingredient.

It's just a, you know, it's just a half a teaspoon of salt in this whole thing. You know, that's not gonna make any big difference. And as we know, it does make a huge difference because it just is not the same.

And so as we subtract from the word of God, we find that we are left with something which is not the same, which does not have the same effect. And so this is some problem that the devil came up with from the beginning.

Satan's Pattern of Subtracting God's Command

You remember he spoke to Eve and he said, what did God say? And Eve says what God said. And it's interesting that Eve added to what God said, but then the devil subtracted from what God said. Oh no, but you won't surely, you won't die.

You know, that's, you know, just take that part away. Just ignore that part of the scripture because it's really, it's not the truth. And of course, that's the problem. The moment we add to the scripture we have or add to anything, we don't have the truth.

And so if I tell you that I was coming to church this morning and I saw a million cars, well, that's not the truth because I'm adding to all of the cars I saw. And if I tell you I came to church this morning and I didn't see any cars at all, that's also not the truth.

I'm subtracting or I'm adding. You know, we tend to take a lot of liberty in our speaking when we speak about things. And I understand that some of them are figures of speech. And so we say, well, you know, I have a million things to do today.

Now we understand that that doesn't literally mean I have a million things to do. It means I just have a lot of things to do. And yet somehow when we do speak literally, we do tend to sometimes exaggerate a little bit.

Sometimes we exaggerate a lot. And sometimes we underemphasize and we take away from just depending on the effect we want to achieve with the person that we're speaking to. And if we want something to look really big, we'll add a little bit.

And if we want it to look really small, we'll subtract a little bit. The problem is that none of them are the truth. And of course, when you go to a court of law, you have to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

And the problem is that we understand that when you add to the truth, that that's lying. And so I saw a guy do 50 miles an hour down the street, and I say, well, you know, I saw him do 100 miles an hour.

That's obviously lying because I'm adding to the truth. But when I'm not speaking the whole truth, that's also lying. And so if a man goes to a court and he says, you know, I saw him beat the man, that's maybe part of the truth.

But the fact that he saw him take out a gun and shoot him, now, if he doesn't mention that in the evidence, that's not the whole truth. And that makes a huge difference to what actually went down, to what actually happened.

And, you know, we seem to find some ability in our minds to say, well, you know, as long as I don't tell everything, but, you know, I didn't lie. I just didn't tell him everything. I just didn't tell the whole story.

How Advertising Uses Omission

And so we often have clever ways of maneuvering around these things. Of course, salespeople and advertising, the advertising media are very good at this kind of thing. They'll tell you all the benefits of the product, but they'll just happen to forget to tell you about some of the problems, some of the hassles.

Sometimes they'll tell you, but, and this is quite fascinating, when I listen to the radio and I hear them advertise some something, and then there's a small print. But they talk so fast that you don't have a chance of hearing what they have to say.

It's the same as the small print on the back of the advertising or the bottom of the advertising. When you get a little bit older like me, you can't even read what's down there. But in fact, that's the most important part.

When you read an author of somebody who's selling something, I've learned that the first thing you need to read is the fine print at the bottom. That's the real story down there. The bit that they don't want to tell you, but by law they are obligated to tell you.

But if they had any choice, they wouldn't even tell you about those things. And that's the problem, is we take away and we create a totally different picture and different impression of what it really is.

Higher Criticism and the Jesus Seminar

And that's the problem we do with the Word of God. And this has been a problem from the beginning. As I said, Satan had that problem, but it's been particularly a problem in the last 100 years in the church.

At the beginning of the last century, we had the beginning of the thing called higher criticism. And it was a lot of learned people who seemed to have one agenda, and that was to take away from the Word of God.

Oh no, but this is not really what the scriptures say. This is not really what God intended. And then of course, it just gets worse and worse and worse so that the latest thing, and it's not that late, it's been going for quite a few years now, is a thing called the Jesus Seminar.

You may have heard of this. And what these learned people do is they go through the scriptures and they have been dealing with the sayings of Jesus and they're now dealing with the deeds of Jesus, the things that Jesus did, and they'll look at the verse and they'll say, well, I think that that's not what Jesus said.

Jesus could not have said this. Or maybe Jesus did say this. And so they have a voting system with little beads. And you have a black ball and a red ball and a black bead and a red bead, and then there's another one, I think it's a white one, which is sort of in between.

If you don't think that this is what Jesus really said, then you vote with a black bead. And if you think that this is definitely what Jesus said, you vote with a red bead. And if you think, well, it's somewhere in between, then you vote with the other one, as I said, I think a white one.

Now, the end of this conversation, the end of this whole thing was that they've gone through all the sayings of Jesus and cut that by 80%. So they've been left with 20 of what the scriptures say Jesus said, and they say, that is what he did say.

Now, it's interesting that the things that they were left with were all the nice things. Love your neighbor. Of course Jesus said that. But when Jesus said, you shall not hate your brother, oh, no, no, no, we don't like that one.

No, Jesus could never have said that. And so we take that away. And so these people have stripped the Bible and literally, not even in their minds, but they have literally removed whole sections of the Bible.

So you're left with 20 of the New Testament, as far as they're concerned, really what they think Jesus said. I presume they'll come to the same figure about what Jesus did. Now, those are huge problems, but that's not really a problem to us.

Subtle Ways Christians Discount Scripture

I'm sure you're listening to me and saying, well, you know, that's not my problem. I have never taken away any of the pages of the Bible. I've never ripped out a whole page and said, well, you know, that's not the Bible.

Or with a red marker, just drew lines across the pages and said, well, you know, that's not for me. We don't do that. And yet we do the same thing, just a little bit more subtly, just a little bit more carefully.

And so what happens is we read through the scriptures and we come across a verse and we say, well, that doesn't literally mean what it says. Now, I just happened to be where we've read this morning and he says, verse 15, outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters and whoever loves and practices a lie.

Does that really mean that liars are not going to go to heaven? Is that what he is saying? They'll not be in the New Jerusalem? Oh no, no, surely that doesn't mean that. God is gracious. God is loving.

God is kind. He's not going to banish anyone from the New Jerusalem who happens to have a little problem with speaking the truth. And so we rationalize away parts of the scriptures that don't please us.

And that's the problem. There are so many parts of the scriptures that we say, well, surely that, no, that can't mean that. And so we just gently in our mind draw a line through it. And we say, well, that's not the Bible or that's not what God is saying to us today.

And of course, the big problem or the big issue, one of the big issues in churches today is the issue of homosexuality. Oh no, but the Bible didn't really mean that when it speaks. And so God, you know how the argument goes.

We're just subtracting from the scriptures. And so there is almost not a single truth in the Bible that has not come under fire in the last 100 years and more so in the last 20 years. So that we end up with absolutely nothing.

We end up with two covers and a few stories in between and really no substance and no truth because we have subtracted from the word of God. And as I've said, we do this in many, many different ways. But the biggest problem is when you and I remove as Christians, I don't know whether these higher critics and the people in the Jesus Seminar and all of these, whether they are truly Christians.

That's not the issue here. But those of us who are here this morning, how much of the Bible do we really believe? You know, I think that if we have to try and work it out, the percentage is relatively low.

And I'm not going to go to too many specifics this morning because I want a congregation to preach to next week. But you know, it's amazing how many verses in the scriptures we discount. We just gently read over them.

And we say, well, you know, it doesn't apply to us today. Oh, we live in a different kind of society today. Oh no, but you know, we've moved on. Oh, but we're under grace, we're not under law. And that's law.

And so we have all of the arguments, reasons why we should remove things from the scriptures, why we leave them there, but we don't really have them in our Bibles anymore. The verses that are just somehow are just dead as far as we're concerned.

Obeying the Whole Counsel of God

I wrote in the bulletin article this morning about preachers who are very good at this. When you speak to preachers or to people who've studied the scriptures a little bit and you ask them if they're against water baptism, for instance, and you say, how was Jesus baptized?

How did Paul baptize? How did Peter baptize? And it's as though those scriptures just don't exist. They'll have all sorts of arguments why it doesn't mean what it means, why it doesn't say what it says.

You know, what we need to do is we need to find grace to believe the word of God. Remember that verse in the book of Romans, which we like, because it speaks about God's estimation of us, where it says, let God be true and every man a liar.

So if God says I'm justified, then let God be true and every man a liar. It doesn't matter what men have to say. If God says I'm righteous and I'm justified, then that's all that matters. Now, we like that part of the verse, but when we apply that verse to the rest of the scriptures and we say, well, it doesn't matter what people have to say, it doesn't matter what the scholars have to say, it doesn't matter what whoever has to say, let God be true.

In other words, if God says it, then that is the truth. And let every man who has a contrary opinion be the liar. Now, if we can come to that position, I believe that we can make huge strides in our spiritual walk.

If we can just come to a position where we say, God said it and I believe it. Now, it doesn't mean that we will always understand. Remember, Timothy wrote concerning Paul's writings and he says, you know, Paul wrote a lot of things that are sometimes hard to understand.

But you know, he comes to the conclusion that they are still scripture because he says unstable men take these things and they twist them as they do the rest of the scriptures. In other words, what Paul wrote, even though it's hard to understand, it is still scripture, Peter says.

And we need to, if we can just have that understanding because it's by faith. I don't understand why God says some certain things in his word and I don't, I don't have all the answers. And anyone who professes to have all the answers is a fool.

I don't have all the answers, but it doesn't mean I don't believe God. And so if God says something has to be a particular way, if God says something in his word, then I need by faith to say, even though I don't understand it, let God be true and every man a liar.

Childlike Faith and Obedience

And so whatever God says, let me find grace to believe him. You see, the problem is that, and we have a lot of teenagers here this morning. And of course, teenagers have this particular gift, ability to know everything.

And so their parents say, don't do this or do it this way. And of course, the teenager says, well, it doesn't make sense to me. He just wants to spoil my fun. And there's no good reason for doing it this way or not doing it that way.

And unfortunately, it takes us a lifetime to discover. In fact, our parents had good reasons why they warned us about certain things, why they said, don't do this or do it that way. It takes us a long time to discover that.

And it's the same thing with God. God speaks to us and we say, well, what does God know anyway? You know, what does God, you know, there's no real reason why, why should I get into the water and get wet?

It can't save me. It can't wash away my sins. And we don't use water, we don't use soap in the baptismal font. So it can't clean me. So what's the point? And so we think we have all the answers. And yet God has a good reason why he wants us to be baptized.

And I'm just using that as an illustration. There are very important reasons why we should do that. And so the problem is that we become, remember Romans chapter one, professing to be wise. They became fools.

And so we think that we're clever. We think that we have the answers. When in fact, what we need to do is we need to become like little children. And the wonderful thing about little children is that they are just so moldable.

They just accept that if daddy says that, or mommy says this, they just believe it without doubting. You know, when it comes to the word of God, I believe there's a tremendous need for us. Now I'm not saying we need to be ignorant and not study the scriptures and not be diligent students and scholars of the word.

We need to do those things. But at the end of the day, what we need more than anything else is a simplicity and a childlike obedience of saying God said it. And even though I don't like it, and I don't understand it, God said it and it's true.

And I need to find grace to just do what he tells me to do. You know, I believe in this lies one of the biggest secrets to spiritual growth and spiritual blessing and spiritual prosperity. Because God never puts anything or lays anything on us that is unnecessary.

God doesn't write things in his word or tell us to do things just to make life hard for us. I know sometimes parents do that. And that's not a very good thing. I know sometimes governments and laws do that sort of thing.

They just make rules for the sake of making rules. And when I look at the laws that governments make, not just in this country, but other places, there's no real reason why that law is there. But it's there nonetheless.

But you know, God doesn't just make laws for the sake of making laws or rules or gives us direction and say, you know, don't go this way, go that way, just because he had nothing else to do. Everything that God says and every word that he has written has a purpose, has a reason.

And when God speaks to us in our lives, there are reasons why he tells us to do things, to not do things, to do things in this way or not to do them in that way. And the problem is that unfortunately, we have to bump our heads first before we really discover that God had a good reason for telling us to not go there or not do this or not do the other thing or whatever it is that God tells us.

And so what I need really, what each one of us needs is to say, God knows more than I do. You see, because that's the problem. It begins with pride. What does God know? That was the devil's attitude. What does God know?

What does God know about what's going to happen when you eat this? God, he knows you're not going to die. And you know, when we think that we can direct our lives, live our lives, not just in our Christian lives, but our day-to-day living and our marriages and our relationships, in our business affairs, in every area of our lives, we think that we can live our lives without applying his guidelines.

That really is arrogance of saying, well, what does God know about marriage? What does God know about how to order my life? What does God know about anything? Well, he knows everything about those things because he created it all.

And so let me listen to him. Remember the problem when you buy a new gadget. What should you do when you buy a new gadget or a new appliance? Read the instructions. Now we know nobody reads the instructions.

And yet we have the instructions for life and we choose to subtract from them as it pleases us. And unfortunately, we go halfway down the line and we discover, oh, but it doesn't work. And sometimes when the whole thing is broken, I've tried to put the new dishwasher or whatever it is together and I've actually destroyed it.

Then I go to the manual and I say, but oh, I should have done it this way. In fact, the reality is that sometimes we live our lives and many times we live our lives and we find ourselves in a broken situation.

And then we begin to turn to God and we say, but Lord, how should I have done this? But it's too late. Well, praise God for his grace that he helps us to fix things and he brings restoration and he brings healing.

Living by Every Word of God

But it would have been much better if I didn't go through all of that brokenness and all of that hurt and all of that pain if I just asked and followed the instructions in the first place. Now turn with me to the book of Luke chapter four and I'm going to go to a few scriptures.

This is Luke chapter four and I want to really just hammer home this one truth because this is really my cry for you this morning and for each one of us that we would just believe the whole of the word of God, that we would just live the whole of the word of God.

In Luke chapter four, this is the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. In verse four, Jesus answered him saying, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God, not by the word of God.

You see how we subtract from the scriptures because most people, if you ask them to quote that verse, they'll say man shall not live by bread alone, but by the word of God. Now what have we done? We've subtracted one word, every, and it makes a world of difference because when I say I shall live by the word, I should live by the word of God, it means, oh, as long as I'm generally following the instructions here, if I'm sort of in the ballpark, I'm okay.

But in fact, the verse doesn't say you need to be in the ballpark. The verse says what? I need to live by every word, literally every word. And we say, but surely that cannot be, that doesn't mean that.

The Great Commission and Obeying All Christ's Commands

Every word, the genealogies, the Old Testament, the Song of Songs, every word, well, that's the words of Jesus, every word. In the book of Matthew chapter 28, and you'll recognize these as being very important, pivotal scriptures.

And this is the great commission. We know this is the great commission. Matthew chapter 28, also in Mark chapter 16, Matthew 28 in verse, let's read from verse 19. Go therefore and make disciples to all the nations.

These are some of the last things Jesus is saying to his disciples. Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Teaching them, verse 20, to observe all things that I have commanded you.

Interesting that he doesn't say teaching them to observe the things I have commanded you. But he specifies that you teach them to observe all things that I have commanded you. In other words, everything that Jesus instructed the apostles are the things that we need to do.

Now, I want you also to notice in that verse that he says, making this, sorry, verse 20, teaching them to observe. I've mentioned this before, but I need to mention it again because it's important. He's not saying teaching them to know all things that I have instructed you, or teaching them to understand all things.

But he's saying teaching them to observe, meaning to do, to keep. It's not good enough to know the whole of the word of God. We know the Pharisees were good at that. They could recite the whole of the Old Testament.

Off by heart. But they were not very good at doing them. And so Jesus says, listen to what they say because they're speaking from the word of God, but don't do what they do. And so our responsibility as teachers and those who are being taught is to hear the whole of the word of God and to do all things, to observe all things.

Paul's Whole Counsel of God

In Acts chapter 20, Acts chapter 20, and Paul speaking to the Ephesians, and he's giving a summary of his ministry, Acts chapter 20 and verse 27. I have not shunned or failed to declare to you the whole counsel of God.

The whole counsel of God. Now that's quite a statement. I've been here about two years now, just over two years, and I don't know that I can say, Paul was there for, what was it, two years or three years.

I don't know that I can say, I don't even know if in five years time I'd be able to go away and say, I've taught you the whole counsel of God. But Paul says he did that, and I have to believe him. So you see that it begins with Jesus.

Jesus says every word, not only by bread alone, but by every word. He then instructs his disciples who became the apostles, and he says, teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you. Now Paul says, I have done what he commanded me.

I have delivered to you the whole of the counsel of God. So you can see that this was a important pattern that was operating in the church in the first century. And it's something that needs to be operating in our church here today.

Again, I don't want to do a survey or an analysis to try and figure out what percentage of the Bible as a church we do, and what percentage of the Bible we individually do. But I would suggest that it's quite a low ratio.

I don't know where it is. I don't know whether we do 50 of what the scripture says. I don't know whether it's 30 or 80%. But what I do know is it's not 100%. There is not one of us. And as a church, as a fellowship, we cannot say that we are doing everything.

Scripture's Inspiration and Christian Completeness

We need to be doing everything. We need to do the whole of the word of God. My final scripture for you is 2 Timothy chapter three. 2 Timothy chapter three and verse 16. And this is also a very well-known scripture.

All scripture, not some scripture, not the easy ones, but all scripture is given by inspiration of God. In other words, every verse that is written is written under the inspiration of God. Now, we're not gonna talk about how that happened.

We can do that at another time. But all scripture, and is profitable. All scripture is profitable, even the genealogies. Those who were in the Bible study a couple of months ago when we spoke about Amalek will have seen how even the genealogies are profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God, here's the purpose, here's what it's all about, that the man of God may be complete.

God wants us to be complete, perfect, mature, well-rounded Christians and people. And the scriptures have been given, all of the scripture has been given that we may be complete. We are incomplete without the word of God.

People out there in the world who do not have the word of God, who do not live and abide by the word of God, they are incomplete. We know that. But even as Christians, we're only complete as people to the degree that we abide by, live, the whole of the word of God.

Let's get back to the beginning where we spoke about the cake. The cake is not complete without the salt. It's just not gonna be the same. And there are little issues in the word of God that we choose to ignore and we say, well, that's not important.

It's just such a small thing. And yet your life and your experience and your walk will not be complete without every part of the word of God, that the man of God may be complete, and thoroughly equipped for every good work.

You see, this is not just so that God can make us these trophies of grace, which Ephesians speaks about. And he can say, look at my son. Look how well he or she has complied with the scriptures. That's not what it's about.

It's not about an examination on the day of judgment to say, oh, you know, I give you 80 for your following of the instructions. No, it's that we might be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

That's what it's about. It's not about filling our minds with knowledge, but it's about equipping us to do what he wants us to do, equipping us to live our lives, equipping us to be good parents, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, members of his body, fulfilling our ministry, whatever that may be.

That we might be thoroughly equipped for every good work includes that we may be good employees in the company or in a work situation. That we may be equipped for every good work in our relationships with our family, near and distant family, with our neighbors.

That we may be equipped for every good work that we may relate correctly to the government and to the police and to the laws of the land. All of the scripture is there to complete us and to perfect us for every good work.

Applying Scripture Through Obedience

You see, it's not about a theory, it's about living. And how is it going to work in practice? How does this work? Well, when you begin to read the scriptures, it needs to be with the mind of saying, what does God want me to do?

Remember, we touched on this in a different context. Remember the Jews on the day of Pentecost, Peter preaching, and their response was, what should we do? What should we do? And so, as we read the scriptures, it's not about trying to read three and a half chapters a day so I can get through the Bible in a year, or reading my chapter a day, whatever your regimen is.

Or being able to say, well, you know, I understand that. No, it's about, Lord, what do you want me to do? That should be my attitude. And if I find something that it tells me to do, then let me do it.

If your hand finds something to do, Ecclesiastes says, do it with all your might. And so, let's get back to the example we've been using, and I'm just using that as one example out of a thousand things that God could be speaking to.

Remember the man, the Ethiopian man on his chariot, and he hears about baptism. He says, why can't I do it? I must do it. So when I read about something, whatever it is, let me just do it. When it tells me to break bread, as we're going to do in a few moments, let me do it.

If it tells me to get baptized, let me do it. If it tells me to forgive, let me do it. Whatever it is it tells me to do, let me just do it. And that way I will become complete. Because as I obey in the one area, he's going to move on to the next area, and he's going to teach me the next thing, and then he's going to teach me the next thing, so that we may come to this point that the man of God may be complete.