WHAT IS THE BIBLE?
According to Guinness, the Bible is still the world’s most distributed book (link). At the time of this article, the Bible has been translated into 1,659 languages. And between 1815 and 1975, some 2.5 billion Bibles were printed, of which 1.5 billion were handled by Bible societies. Within its 66 books, 1,189 chapters, 41,173 verses, and 774,746 words, we read about a variety of topics from religion, love, war, history, poetry, foretelling the future, songs, and wise sayings. We read narratives about betrayal, bravery, honor, cowardice, obedience, and rebellion.
Now imagine Amazon's board of directors wanted to feature a special anthology this year, so they randomly select forty different authors from a variety of different countries to submit their writings into a sixty-six book collection. The company selects people with diverse backgrounds including religious leaders, governors, doctors, kings, accountants, fishermen, and even shepherds. But rather than selecting only living authors, the board features writers who lived throughout a time period over the last fifteen hundred years! The topics not only include love and war and poetry and stories, but also thoughts on the origin of the universe, what sustains life, what will happen when we die and what will happen to cause the end of the world.
Can you imagine any of these contributors agreeing with one another? From book to book, and page to page, there would be contradiction and confusion. When we consider the authenticity of Scripture, we realize we are reading a document that wasn't merely penned from the hand of man or dreamed up in man's mind. We are reading the very words of God. Let's look at 4 important concepts about the Bible.
1. Revelation
There are two ways that God has chosen to reveal Himself. The first is called General revelation. General revelation is God's witness of Himself through creation to His creatures. Psalm 19:1-4 explains this: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world."
General revelation is limited. The ultimate end is that it leaves men without excuse for failing to recognize the nature of their Creator. But it doesn't show us how to be reconciled with our Creator. We cannot be saved by merely understanding general revelation. That's where the second idea comes in: Special revelation. Special revelation is when God reveals Himself directly, whether through direct action, dreams or visions, Scripture, as well as the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
General revelation in nature will eventually perish, but we are told that God's Word will never fade away. The means of general revelation in nature became cursed and corrupted, but the Word of God is holy, righteous, and good. David says in Psalm 19 that the law of God is perfect. And Jesus, according to John's Gospel in the opening pages, is the Word made flesh. Jesus Himself is God's special revelation to His people (John 1:1, 1:14, Hebrews 1:1-2). God may have revealed Himself before the coming of Jesus Christ through dreams, through visions, through the word to the prophets, by speaking to Moses from the burning bush, and even through a donkey to Balaam. But that time has ended. God speaks now to His church through His Son, who is the Word made flesh.
We believe that the Bible is God's special revelation to man, and it testifies of Jesus Christ, who is the express image of the invisible God. Jesus and the Scripture is the revelation of God.
2. Inspiration
The Bible says about itself in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."
That phrase, "breathed out by God" simply means that the writers of the Bible were inspired by God Himself to scribe the words they wrote. They weren't writing their own thoughts. Peter explains it even more clearly when he says, "knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:20-21). God used the writers of the Bible to communicate His revelation as they were inspired by His Holy Spirit.
James Montgomery Voice said, "‘Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives".
What is the difference between revelation and inspiration? Alfred Martin explains, "Revelation is the communicating of what otherwise could not be known; inspiration is the recording of that truth." How did God accomplish this? Not through what some call the 'Dictation Theory', which is how Muslims believe God communicated the Quran to Muhammad. Dictation excludes the style of the one doing the writing and is just an exact replica of what was said by the speaker. In inspiration, God inspires an individual to write something but what is written reflects the style of the one doing the writing. So, in the Bible the style of Paul is different than that of John which is also different than Luke which is different than Peter. Each person used their own style and vocabulary, and the Holy Spirit inspired them to write down His message.
We would say that we believe in the verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture. Verbal meaning the words themselves are inspired, not merely the ideas.
Plenary meaning full, or all. The Bible does not merely contain the word of God--all Scripture is God-breathed as Paul told Timothy. These are not the words of men only, but the word of God.
Read Part 2 here
