Translate

Monday, September 3, 2012

The Holy Bible - God's Divinely inspired Revelation

2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

Yesterday we looked at the unique authority of scripture in comparison to secondary forms of authority used in the Christian life.  We concluded that the Bible alone (sola scriptura) is sufficient to be the believer's standard for all faith, practice and understanding.  Also too, we understood that whether it be reason, experience, tradition, teachers or pastors - that these secondary "norms" are "normed", judged and operate in accords to the norming norm - God's Word.  With that said, why is the Bible to be considered the supreme authority for the Christian? Why is it unique and why must all other authorities be considered secondary?  Below we will begin answering that question. 

Seven terms that describe the Southern Baptist View of Scripture
Seven phrases are of particular interest in the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message.  Below three of these phrases will be highlighted in today's blog, namely: "The Holy Bible",  "Divinely Inspired" & "God's Revelation".  These are important terms which hopefully all Southern Baptists and Bible believing Christians would affirm.  The entire 2000 Baptist Faith and Message (2000 BFM( can be found on the SBC official website: www.sbc.net .

"The Holy Bible" This is the first phrase of the 2000 BFM (Baptist Faith and Message) and designates the Book of God.  The Bible is of course the Book of Books, God's Divine Library, composed of 66 books, written by 40 authors, in three languages, over 1500 years, on three continents.  The Holy Spirit of God moved upon these men to compose the more than 774,000 words of the Bible - with each author writing in literary styles of poetry, history, narrative, commands, letters, biographical sketch and prophecy.  The unity of scripture is testimony to its Divine authorship, as well as the sheer amount of fulfilled prophecy.  More than 800 prophecies are found in the Bible.  Concerning Jesus Christ - 109 were fulfilled in His first coming, and 224 point us to His second coming.  The Bible alone is unique in containing fulfilled prophecy - no other so-called Holy book as even one example.  Thus the Bible is a product of God the Holy Spirit working through the writing styles and languages of the Prophets and Apostles.  (2 Peter 1:21)

"Divinely Inspired" This phrase deals with how the Bible was produced.  The term literally means "God breathed".  Just as God breathed into the nostrils of Adam, making him a "living soul" (Genessis 2:7), so did God the Holy Ghost breath through the words of the Prophets and Apostles to make a living book - God's Book - the Bible.  (2 Timothy 3:16-17)  As a Divinely inspired work, the 66 books of the Bible each are used by the Spirit of God to bring about conversion - since no one believes on the Lord apart from scripture. (Psalm 19:7; Romans 10:17)

"God's Revelation" Revelation refers to God making known what was previously unknown.  Deuteronomy 29:29 tells us that the unrevealed things belong to God while the revealed things belong to us and our children.  God did not disclose His will without first making His words known to His prophets in the Old Testament and His Apostles in the New Testament.  (Amos 3:7; John 14)  The Bible is God's revelation in written form.  The 2000 BFM refers to the Bible as Divine revelation or as revealing God's will on three occassions. Thousands of scriptures have the phrase "thus saith the Lord" - lending to the designation of the Bible as "God's revelation".

Thus these three terms: Holy Bible, Divinely inspired and God's revelation aid us in understanding the nature of God's Book - the Bible.