How to Know the Bible Is True #1

Welcome to The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, Founding Pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hello, I'm Bill Wright. Thanks for joining us as we continue teaching God's people God's Word. Don begins a new message today, so without further delay, let's join him right now in The Truth Pulpit.

I'm quite glad, excited to be able to deliver this particular message to you here today. We just finished six messages on how to know God exists. It's a part of what our Elder Andrew Snelling has called a bigger mega-series on how to build a Christian mind. Building a Christian mind, that is what we are doing. And we spent a half dozen messages establishing how we know that God exists. It's not simply that we assert his existence, we set forth how we know that he exists. And the whole point of this long series that we are engaged in that will last for a few more months is not simply to explain what we believe, but to help you as a Christian, help you as a young person trying to find your way in Christ, to know how we know that these things are true. Not simply to recite a creed from memory, but be able to articulate the reasons that those things in the creeds and confessions are true. And today we turn to a new topic in this series on building a Christian mind.

And it is in some ways the most critical theme of them all. And the series that we're about to embark on and the title for today's individual message is how to know that the Bible is true. How to know the Bible is true.

And this is a more, there are aspects of this that perhaps you've not recognized and heard before. We're going to look at the traditional way that this has been defended over prior decades, perhaps, and then look at what I believe is a far more effective and a far more biblical way to establish how we know that the Bible is true. There is hardly a question that could be more significant in building a Christian mind. You know, you've been around us, most of you have been around us long enough to know that we look to the Bible as our authority. We state that the Bible alone is where God has spoken. We affirm the principle of sola scriptura, and we do so for good reason. But how do we know that the Bible is true? On what authority, here's the question, on what authority do we receive the truth claims of the Bible? That is essential, a vital, vital question to know the answer to. And it's so simple that you'll say, I should have seen that all along.

It's so clear and yet it's been so obscured by well-meaning teachers that you wonder, well, where has this been in the past? Well, I want to take you, first of all, as a kind of an introductory matter, I want to take you to a few different passages of scripture just to show that the Bible claims itself to be the Word of God. If you would start back in the Old Testament book of 2 Samuel, 2 Samuel, as we read about the life of David and here in 2 Samuel in chapter 23, we are coming to the end of David's life after God has given him deliverance from all of his enemies. And scripture records the final written words of David here in 2 Samuel chapter 23.

And there's a very critical text that is found at the start here. In 2 Samuel 23 verse 1, we read, Now these are the last words of David, the oracle of David, the son of Jesse, the oracle of the man who was raised on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel. And as you read through the 150 Psalms, you find 73 of them are ascribed to King David. And what David says in what follows there in verse 2 is what I want to point your attention to. He says, this one who wrote such large portions of the Word of God that we still have today, he says, the Spirit of the Lord speaks by me.

His word is on my tongue. And there you see a, you see the aspect of the dual authorship, you might say, of scripture. It is the Word of God, the Spirit of the Lord speaking through David. The Word of God was put on his human tongue to express. And so God spoke through human authors.

He used their pens, he used their tongues, he used, he worked through their personalities in order to record his word for all time to, in written form, to those that would pick up and read. In like manner, the Apostle Paul, if you would turn to the book of 1 Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians in your New Testament chapter 2, 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, and I'm going to take a little bit of time to turn to the specific text today to point them to you. 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 13. We read this, 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 13.

We also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the Word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the Word of God which is at work in you believers. Paul said, we spoke to you, but you perceived it rightly. This was not the word of man that was coming to you through Paul's apostolic ministry. This was the very word of God that was being spoken as Paul ministered to them during his earthly apostolic ministry. Now in perhaps a more familiar passage, if you'll turn a few pages to the right in your Bibles, 2 Timothy chapter 3, we read this, 2 Timothy chapter 3 verses 16 and 17. We read that all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. If you look back up at verse 15 where I could have started, Paul reminds Timothy that from childhood, Timothy, you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. These writings that are sacred, they are from God, they are breathed out in their manifestation from God by the Spirit through the human author. Scripture says over and over again, this is the word of God. One final passage that I want to bring to your attention.

Again, we're just in an introduction here. In 2 Peter chapter 1, and we'll come back to some of these texts in future messages, 2 Peter, 2 Peter chapter 1, beginning in verse 19, Peter had just alluded to the fact that he was on the Mount of Transfiguration when the Lord displayed his glory in such great power to Peter and the other two that were with them at the time. And he says in verse 17, when he received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.

We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven for we were with him on the holy mountain. But look at what Peter says. This majestic experience of seeing the Lord transfigured and seeing an unveiling of the Shekinah glory of God before their very eyes, Peter looks to the written word and says that we have something that's even more firmly established than an experience like that.

In verse 19 he says, we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart. Knowing this first of all. Notice the priority that Peter places on what is about to follow. This is a matter of first principle.

This is what you need to know first of all, he says. He says 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. You see Peter saying over a thousand years after David, expressing the same concept with different words.

David said his word is on my tongue. Peter says the writers of scripture spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. And so we find throughout scripture and you could spend weeks looking at this theme through Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible.

And we did a series of messages on Psalm 119 as we were going through the Psalms that you can look to. What the word of God is, what it does, what it requires. This is embedded deeply in the themes of scripture. We're only touching on surface, on the surface of it here this morning. The point is for today is that scripture claims to be the word of God.

Now that has far reaching ramifications. The fact that it is the word of God, we reason like this. God is true. Jesus said I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me. In the book of Titus we read that it is impossible for God to lie. Truth is such an intrinsic part of his essence that it is impossible for him to lie. That means that it is impossible for scripture to lie to us. It is impossible for scripture as the word of God to be wrong, to be mistaken in anything that it affirms. God is true, therefore what he speaks is true. Scripture is his word, therefore what scripture speaks is true. And there are places in scripture where you can see that where scripture interchangeably uses phrases like God says, scripture says. So that the word of God is identified with what we have in the written 66 books of the Bible. So crucial to understand that and we will build on this and kind of build it out in construction terms, we'll build this out in messages to come.

For today, we're dealing with a slightly different question, a more preliminary question, an entry way into all of this. Scripture asserts this and on the testimony of scripture itself, that is enough in itself for us to accept it as true, to believe it. And beloved, let me just pause here, go on a little bit of an unplanned tangent here that's very important to understand. That what we believe is part of our obedience to God. Obedience is not simply a matter of what we do with our physical flesh and what we, you know, how we conduct our lives. There is a crucial aspect of the obedience of faith. In some ways, the first obedience that we render to God is to believe what he has said. If you do not believe what God has said, if you do not uphold what God has said, you are disobeying him at the most fundamental level. Scripture says that this is the commandment that you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that you believe him, 1 John 3.23. And that if we do not believe him, we have made God a liar.

And so we can't just simply look at this as some kind of incidental matter. What we think about the Word of God is essential. It is at the very source of Christian obedience to Christ. We must have clear in our minds that this book is true. This is God's Word, and this alone is God's Word. And believe that and affirm it and defend it in our hearts and in our words and in our ministries, whatever the Lord has given to us. This is an essential aspect of Christian obedience to believe this, to know it, to be convinced of it. Because to waffle on the truthfulness of God's Word, to deny it in different aspects, to undermine it with different critical theories that even so-called evangelical scholarship has embraced, is to commit an act of treachery, an act of treason against the reliability of God and the truthfulness of his own Word. It's that important. And what we believe is essential to being a Christian, not simply how we behave.

Now, done with that little side tangent there. Today I want to address the question, how do we know that the Bible is true? On what authority do we receive that? How do we know to accept that claim? And, beloved, again, there is no more fundamental question that you could answer. Because once you answer this question and you establish it and it's clear in your mind, then the force of the truth of the Word of God works its way through everything else in life, everything else through theology, everything else through how to respond to trial, the force of it all carries through if you know what the fundamental foundation basis is upon which we receive this claim. And is this based on a judgment that we make as we read the Word of God, or is there someone else's judgment that we rely on? I'm working on something.

I'm working on a project that has been in my mind for 20-some years, and I was just looking at it again. And, you know, I have to caution you, help you, without getting into too much detail, to admonish you and to warn you against an over-reliance on experts, self-proclaimed experts on Scripture, those with doctorates and those that have different letters after their names that they are very eager to point out to you, and all of that. And as John Knox said toward the end of his life, that it is often universities that will do the most to undermine the Word of God. And so we have to be mindful of where our authority is. And in our day and age where we love to quote experts on medicine and on politics and all kinds of things, beloved, you need to know where the real authority is. Scholarship, even Christian scholarship, is not always faithful to the Word of God.

In fact, it often is not. I had opportunity to go into academics, and I chose not to because I could just see that that was not where the best defense of the Word of God could be made. I'm thankful for faithful scholars. I have friends that are faithful scholars. But as a whole, as a pastor, I need to warn you, the flock of God entrusted here, to be careful about where you place your trust and to know exactly where the authority lies and to not be intimidated by men who waive their doctorate certificates who are actually being unfaithful to the Word of God. And so this is of most fundamental importance.

What we're about to say depends not a bit, not a wit on me. What we want to do is we want to think God's thoughts after him. How does God view his Word? How do we know to receive the 66 books as that which comes from God and therefore is true by definition? Well, I want to start with one approach that we'll call the evidential approach, and then we'll move into the second aspect today of what I believe is the biblical approach, the better approach, you might say. But the evidential approach is what I want to consider first and help you understand the argument that traditionally, perhaps, has been made in defense of the authority of Scripture. Many of us, including me, were nurtured on these arguments early in our Christian life.

I remember back in 1987, what is that, 36 years ago, watching a film series at Moody Memorial Church in Chicago that had a lot of arguments about which I'm going to allude to here. And at the time, it seemed good. It seemed impressive.

It also seemed kind of overwhelming to gather all of this stuff and try to remember it all. But this evidential approach considers this. It considers what the proponents of the argument consider to be compelling proofs that surround the Bible.

And they look at different historical things. And I'm going to just go quickly through four different arguments, four different lines of argument that you will hear in this regard. And depending on how I go, I'll either quote names or I won't. It's not really that important who says it. But first of all, in the evidential approach, you'll find that this argument says you need to consider the indestructibility of the Bible, the indestructibility of the Bible.

And what are they referring to when they say this? Well, I quote from one famous writer along this line who believes that evidence demands a verdict. The Bible has withstood vicious attacks of its enemies as no other book.

Many have tried to burn it, ban it, and outlaw it from the days of Roman emperors to communist-dominated countries. So the argument is that men have tried to destroy this book. The book has survived, and therefore that gives us evidence that it is somehow associated with God. Another writer says this, the fact of the indestructibility of the Bible strongly suggests that it is the embodiment of divine revelation. And so the Bible has survived many attacks against it, and the fact that it survives gives us the suggestion that it comes from God.

Now secondly, I'm just going to kind of lay out these things and then examine them with you later. Secondly, we read about the character of the Bible, the character of the Bible. This argument goes like this. It's kind of a, somewhat of a theological argument. It says the Bible presents a high view of God and exposes the sin of man. Along with that, the Bible has a remarkable unity, even though it was written by some forty different men over a period of sixteen hundred years. Now that's very true.

All of these arguments are objectively correct, and so don't think that I'm suggesting that the argument in and of themselves is wrong or mistaken. You must understand the greater picture that is about to come later on. So the character of the Bible says a high view of God, sinfulness of man, remarkable unity over such an amazing chronology. It has one doctrinal system, one plan of salvation. The Bible deals frankly with the sins of its characters. You can read, you know, I just spoke about David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, and yet David was a man of greatly flawed in his sin with Bathsheba, his murder of her husband. And so the Bible deals frankly with this, in that this is different from human writings, which often cover up the defects of the people that they love. And the character of the Bible causes one writer to say this, we must conclude that the Bible embodies divine revelation, since mere men could not have originated such a world and life view. Man wouldn't have come up with this idea of God. Man wouldn't come up with a system that condemns man as sinful, and so therefore the character of the Bible shows that it's probably from God.

Now, thirdly, we can read this. You read about the influence of the Bible, the influence of the Bible. The idea here is that the Bible has had such a remarkable, positive impact on all walks of life. And as a result of that, the effect of the Bible, the effect of its teaching, gives us an indication that it is from God. The idea is that it has led to achievements in art and architecture.

Think about the great cathedrals in Europe. Literature, music, it's influenced the laws of nation and produced social reform and changed thousands of lives. Surely that impact of the Bible, its influence shows that it's from God. And so we've seen the indestructibility of the Bible, the character of the Bible, the influence of the Bible, and it all starts to sound pretty impressive, doesn't it? These are things that are, you know, we agree with that. We agree that the Bible is indestructible. We agree that it's got a wonderful character of unity about it. We agree about the historical nature of its influence. How could we even be possibly suggesting that there's something wrong with this argument?

You might well ask. Preacher, I don't see where you're going to have any criticisms of this. There's a fourth argument in this evidential approach. It deals with fulfilled prophecy. The idea is that because God is omniscient, only God can reveal the future. God's the only one who knows the end from the beginning. And so one theologian writes, many prophecies about the course of human nations have been fulfilled, proving that the Old Testament expresses divine revelation. So the fulfilled prophecy shows that the writers possessed the divine mind. That same writer goes on to say this.

If we weigh separately, now this is where the pivot comes. This is where you need to listen really, really carefully to see what this evidential argument is saying and what it is not saying. This writer says, if we weigh separately the arguments presented here, the indestructibility, the character of the Bible, the influence of the Bible, fulfilled prophecy, we may not find any one of them conclusive. But if we permit each argument to contribute its modicum of truth, we shall be forced to the conclusion that the Bible is the embodiment of a divine revelation.

Another writer says this, and this is where you need, listen here and you'll understand why this is of such great concern. Another writer who believes that evidence demands a verdict says this, about this cumulative, all of these things that have been said. This does not prove the Bible is the Word of God, but it shows the Bible is unique. Now, stop there for a moment, step back, and remember the different Scriptures that we looked at over and over and over again, Old and New Testament, where the Bible asserts itself to be the Word of God. His Word is on my tongue. Men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. All Scripture is breathed out by God.

You receive from us not the Word of men, but for what it really is, the Word of God. Now, beloved, as you see those things side by side and you see a conclusion of the evidential argument that says this does not prove the Bible is the Word of God, it should trouble you to say, how can a Christian book take what God says is the Word of God and reduce it to something less and say that we haven't proven that the Bible is the Word of God? It's as though this evidential argument leaves you with the question in the Garden of Eden, has God really said this? Because it leaves open the door, even if it's only a little crack, it leaves open the possibility that maybe there's another way to view this evidence. Ultimately, what the evidential argument is doing is it's making a probability case.

In any other situation, you could say it's a good probability case. Look at all of these factors, consider the cumulative weight of the argument, and be impressed and you, here's the key, you come to the conclusion that this is the Word of God. So that the evidence is given to you, you are the one who stands in judgment of the evidence, and you render the verdict, is the Bible the Word of God or not? I've considered the evidence, and now I will pronounce judgment. I will render the verdict on it. Beloved, that ought to make you very uncomfortable.

Say something's amiss here. If what these arguments do lead us to the point where we say something like this, in my judgment, yes, this is the Word of God based on all of these arguments, we have strayed at the most fundamental point. If that is the basis, if that is the foundation of our argument, because here's my question, here's my question to somebody who would say that, I've considered the evidence in my judgment, yes, the Bible is the Word of God. Here's my question. Well, what was the argument before you were born? What will the argument be after you are gone? Your judgment doesn't matter here.

You're just a passing wisp in the wind. How are we to know these things in a way that transcends human judgment? Are we just left with a probability argument?

I think that's a pretty good case. Yeah, I'll take it as the Word of God, based on what I think. Are you kidding me? That's what we proclaim? We proclaim the opinions of men? I do not teach the Word of God based on the judgment of my own that this is where God has spoken. That is not the basis upon which I preach at all.

I believe it's the Word of God, but that's not the basis of authority from which I speak at all. Now, let me tell you something. It's sitting out in my car.

I didn't bring it in with me because I didn't want to confuse things by showing it to anyone who might ask. I want to share something factual with you that should frighten you. If you have been raised on these evidential arguments and thought that this was the best case that could be made for it, this should frighten you. Beloved, the evidential approach ultimately backfires on us because Muslim apologists make the same kind of arguments for the authority of the Qur'an.

They make the exact same kind of arguments about the impact of the Qur'an on culture and what it has done for architecture and all of that. They're making the exact same argument for a completely different satanic look. Now, if we're making the same argument, something's wrong.

Something's not right with that. Somehow these arguments are subject to a satanic counterfeit that leaves us vulnerable. What you need to see is that in both cases, the Christian evidentialist and the Muslim apologist, they're doing the exact same thing. They're saying, you look at all of this evidence. You make a decision on your own about what is true. If you're left with competing claims for the Bible and the Qur'an, then how are you to know?

How are you to find out? On what basis are you able to sort through all of that? Beloved, these arguments, the information upon which these arguments are based for Scripture, it's not bad information. And for the believing Christian, it's helpful, it's encouraging to see something like that, but here's where it falls down. Here's where it fails. It bypasses divine authority. It bypasses what God says. It bypasses the very authority of the one whose opinion alone is the opinion that matters. And I ask the question this way.

I ask the question this way. And let me just remind you of what one of the advocates of the evidential approach says. This does not prove that the Bible is the Word of God. We're left with a probability argument. Are we really, beloved, are we really going to stake what is true? Are we really going to stake our eternal destiny on a probability argument that this is most likely the Word of God? Is that the best we can do as Christians? And just, you know, just kind of cross our fingers for the gap between what's probable and what's certain?

Out on the suggestion. By no means, under any circumstances. What is the biblical approach?

What is the better approach for considering the authority of Scripture? Well, let me give you two words. You only need to remember two words out of today's message to point yourself in the right direction. You don't have to remember all kinds of ancient history. You don't have to remember all kinds of matters of fulfilled prophecy and the history that corroborates it.

You don't have to know the you don't have to know the world history and the unfolding of civilizations that did or did not have the Word of God and all of those things that are beyond many of our minds and reading. Two simple words. Saddle the matter. Jesus Christ. That's Don Green here on The Truth Pulpit. And here's Don again with some closing thoughts. Well, my friend, thank you for joining us for yet another podcast from The Truth Pulpit. And we wanted to let you know that in addition to these audio resources that you are enjoying, that there are also written resources from my ministry. The Lord has given us opportunity to put some of the things that I've taught over the years in print.

And I have one book in particular that I would want to call your attention to. It's the most popular book that I've published so far called Trusting God in Trying Times. It's a book born out of deep personal sorrow and is brought into context, you might say, through the Word of God. How to trust God when you are going through the deepest valleys and the most sorrowful things in life. How do you trust God through those times when you can't see your way forward?

I've been there, my friend. And the book Trusting God in Trying Times speaks to that spiritual experience in the life of the believer. You can find all of my books at thetruthpulpit.com. That's thetruthpulpit.com. Just click on the link there.

You'll find links to different books and you will find that they take you to an easy place to purchase them for your reading enjoyment. So thank you once again for joining us on The Truth Pulpit. We'll see you next time as we continue to study God's Word together. That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you so much for listening to The Truth Pulpit. Join us next time for more as we continue teaching God's people God's Word.