Bible Authority

Lesson Six: The New Testament

The Chain of Authority

God

Hebrews 1:1-2

Jesus

Hebrews 1:1-2

Matthew 17:5/Matthew 28:18/Acts 3:22-26

The Holy Spirit

John 14:26/15:26-27/16:13

The Apostles

John 14:26/1 Corinthians 2:10-13/Ephesians 3:3-5/2 Peter 3:1-2

The New Testament Scriptures

Ephesians 3:3-5/1 Corinthians 14:37/2 Thessalonians 3:14

Points To Note:

1. God is speaking when we read the New Testament Scriptures. We will not hear His voice outside this final revelation to mankind.

2. The New Testament Scriptures, including the Epistles are the words of Jesus Christ. To reject what the apostles taught is to reject Him (Matthew 10:40; John 13:20).

3. We cannot place the teaching in the gospels over the teaching in the Epistles or visa versa. John 14:26 includes the gospels (“bring to your remembrance all that I said to you”), and the Epistles (“He will teach you all things”).

4. The apostles do not contradict Jesus’ teaching and neither do they contradict each other. Paul didn’t have one brand of Christianity and Peter another (Acts 15; 2 Peter 3:15-16).

5. All truth is found in the New Testament, therefore, the New Testament must be the complete and final revelation from God to man. This condemns all other supposed revelations, i.e., Koran, book of Mormon, etc..In addition, since Jesus called what would be revealed through the Apostles, “all truth”, the binding nature of what would be revealed through them is not changed by time or culture.

6. What was taught in one congregation is the same truth that was taught in another (1 Corinthians 4:17; 7:17); and what was revealed in one letter applied to congregations in addition to the one that had received the letter (Colossians 4:16). Therefore, in spite of the fact that none of these letters were written to you or me personally, they are still binding upon us.

7. Christians who refused to submit to the teaching of the apostles were marked as unfaithful (2 Thessalonians 3:14).

8. Any deviation from New Testament teaching receives condemnation (Galatians 1:6-9; 1 Timothy 6:3; 2 John 9-11; Revelation 22:18-19).

Verbal Inspiration

It is essential that we understand that the Bible, Old as well as New Testaments, are verbally inspired. That is, God not only gave to the prophets and apostles the correct concept to record, but the precise words to express that concept.

“All Scripture is inspired of God” (2 Timothy 3:16). The Bible plainly makes the claim of being inspired of God. But to what extent does the Bible claim inspiration? If one were to look up the word “inspired” in a dictionary, you would find definitions such as…”any stimulus to creative thought or action…an inspired idea….being inspired mentally or emotionally.” Most religious people, and even some not so religious, would probably agree with the above verse. The problem is that not everyone has the same idea as to what “inspired by God” means. Therefore, let us look at some misconceptions that are popular in the religious world.

Liberal or Modernist Views

Views that have been placed in this category would consider the biblical writers inspired only in the sense that from time to time their natural religious insight and genius ( great natural ability, mental capacity, creative talent, inventive ability, etc..) were deepened and heightened to discover “divine truths” for their own day. The Bible itself is only a kind of religious scratch pad of the scribes. The emphasis of the views in this category is upon man’s discovery of “divine truth”, and not upon God's disclosure of divine truth. It is human intuition rather than divine revelation.

PROBLEMS WITH THE LIBERAL/MODERNIST VIEW

It assumes that man is the most active agent in the process of the Bible's development. The Bible presents a very different picture. Instead of man actively seeking the secrets of divine truth, the Bible presents God actively seeking mankind to reveal His will unto them (Hebrews 1:1).

The Scriptures are not the product of “human creative thought”, “man stumbling upon divine truth”, or “the human mind stretching itself to discover divine truth” (2 Peter 1:20-21). The men who penned the Scriptures were not moved by their own religious insight or natural abilities, but rather by the Holy Spirit. Such men did not even fully comprehend the full impact of their message (1 Peter 1:10-12).

Man is glorified, not God: Many false views of inspiration make human reason or intuition the final judge in determining which part of the Bible is truth, and which part is error. These views eventually have man determining where God is actually speaking in the Bible...man is granted power over the Bible rather than taking a place under it. All such views have lost sight of the purpose for the Bible in the first place. Why did God have to communicate to mankind? Because man cannot find the truth on the basis of his own human wisdom! (Proverbs 16:25; Jeremiah 10:23; 1 Corinthians 1:21; 2:9).

“Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man” (1 Corinthians 2:9); “and no human heart ever conceived” (Nor); “things beyond our hearing, things beyond our imagining” (NEB). This isn’t merely in the information in the Bible regarding what life is like in heaven, rather this is true of the entire gospel message (2:7-8).

Neo-Orthodox Views

THE EXISTENTIAL VIEW: Karl Barth, a German theologian, had embraced the misconception that the Bible was filled with errors, even in the original autographs, and yet he still wanted to believe that the Bible was the word of God. His solution was that the Bible “becomes the word of God”. In this “existential experience, or crisis encounter”, the meaningless inkblots on the pages leap from the Bible to speak to man concretely and meaningfully. At this “moment of meaning”, the Bible becomes the Word of God to the individual.

PROBLEMS WITH THIS VIEW

It is based on the misconception that the Bible contains error (Psalm 119:151; James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23 “incorruptible”-not liable to corruption or decay; 1:23 “abideth”-not to perish, to last, stand, and remain, persist. Here is the promise of God to preserve His Word for all generations. Man and his accomplishments will fall by the wayside, but the Word of God is more enduring than man himself.

Eventually any theory of inspiration must confront Jesus’ own view of the Scriptures. In other words, what did Jesus believe and teach about the Bible? Jesus considered OT and NT to be truth (John 17:17; 16:13). Jesus understood that His apostles would not be depending upon their own fallible memories as the New Testament was being preached and complied (John 14:26). Whatever such men would write about His life, wouldn’t be the product of their own opinion, prejudices, or misguided personal interests. Jesus clearly taught that His words, the very words that He spoke while upon this earth, would outlast the creation (Matthew 24:35) They would not become lost, corrupted, or forgotten. Jesus viewed the smallest details in the OT translation that He possessed as being part of the genuine text of Scripture. When Jesus looked that the copy of the OT in existence in His day, He didn’t see human additions, subtractions, or corruption.

“until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished” (Matthew 5:18).

The smallest letter” would be “iota”, the tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet; “stroke”-the apex of a Hebrew letter (like the dot of an i or the cross of a t). Jesus considered the copy of the Law that was in existence in His day to be the Word of God right down to the smallest detail, and therefore in force and binding upon the Jewish people right up until the time that He would die upon the cross. Clearly, Jesus had absolute confidence in the Scriptures. He argued from them, quoted them often, used them to answer complicated questions and constantly appealed to them. Over and over Jesus will say, “It is written”. Jesus considered the OT Scriptures to be the Word of God, regardless of whether people believe in it or not.

“Have you not read that which was spoken to you by God” (Matthew 22:31); then He quotes from Exodus 3:5. The Sadducees had never really understood the full significance of “I am the God of...”; and yet that didn't make Exodus 3:5 any less inspired. What makes something the word of God is not some experience man has when he reads it, but that God said it in the first place. See also John 12:48-49; 5:46-47.

The Demythologizing View

This is the belief that the Bible must be stripped of the cultural ignorance or misconceptions found in it in order to get to the core of truth. It must be divested of religious myth in order to get at the real message, and one must look through and beyond the historical record, which is packaged along with all sorts of errors and myths.

PROBLEMS WITH THIS VIEW

“Myth” is what you encounter when you depart from the Bible: 2 Timothy 4:2-4 It is interesting to note that the events in the OT that many religious and highly educated men and women consider today as myth, Jesus considered them actual historical events. Jesus accepted the OT version of: Creation (Matthew 19:4-5); the Genesis Flood (Matt. 24:37-39); existence and destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Matthew 11:23-24 “it would have remained to this day”; Luke 17:32 “Remember Lot’s wife”); Jonah in the belly of the fish (Matthew 12:39-41); and the Burning Bush (Matthew 22:32). Keep in mind the fact that Jesus had a front row seat when all these events took place, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1); “for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4); “in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah” (1 Peter 3:19-20). The claim that Jesus simply overlooked or accommodated Himself to the cultural misconceptions of the time ignores the fact that Jesus Himself was an eyewitness to all the above events! Jesus never had to settle for teaching a corrupted version of anything!

The Inspired Concept View

Some have suggested that it is not the actual words in Scripture which are inspired, but only the general thoughts and ideas. This view claims that God gave the general concept, and then the prophet was free to record it in his own words. Sometimes this is called Dynamic Inspiration. The end result is that one doesn’t have to carefully follow the wording of a command, rather as long as one gets the general idea, and that is all that is required.

PROBLEMS WITH THIS VIEW

Jesus made arguments from Scripture based upon the tense of a word (Matthew 22:32 “I am the God of”. The whole argument was based on how God addressed His present relationship to men long dead.

God had Paul base a whole argument upon whether a word used in the OT in a particular verse was plural or singular (Galatians 3:16 “He does not say, ‘And to seeds’, as referring to many, but rather to one, ‘And to your seed’, that is, Christ”).

“which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words” (1 Corinthians 2:13).

In the above passage, God claims that He gave the Biblical writers not only the concept or truth to be recorded, but that the Holy Spirit gave the same writer the exact word or words to correctly express that truth.

Closing Points: If the Biblical writers were given tremendous latitude in expressing God’s truths, and if much of what is found in the Bible is human opinion, then: 1. Why must we study it so carefully? (2 Timothy 2:15) 2. How can it be called the Word of God? (1 Thess. 2:13) 3. Why must it be adhered to strictly with severe consequences for those who deviate? (2 Thess. 3:6,14). 4. Why is any addition or subtraction condemned? (Revelation 22:18-19) 5. Why were human writers allowed to deviate and speculate, when the same allowance was not given to God Himself? (“for He will not speak on His own initiative” (John 16:14; 12:49).

Going Back to the Law of Moses?

From time to time we face religious groups that want to go back to into the Old Testament and pick out religious practices such as instrumental music, observance of the Sabbath Day, or various food laws and incorporate them into Christianity.

The New Testament is very clear on this point. Seeking to find favor with God on the basis of observing some part of the Law of Moses obligates one to observe all of the Law of Moses (Galatians 5:3). Wanting to bring practices from the Old Covenant into the New is in fact repudiating the New Covenant and Jesus Himself. To do such is to fall from grace and be guilty of teaching another gospel (Galatians 5:1-4; 1:6-9).

From this statement (Galatians 5:1-4), some logical conclusions must be drawn: If adding circumcision to the gospel, cut you off from Christ, then most certainly adding the observance of the Sabbath day does! The same language applied to the Sabbath Day, was also applied to the practice of circumcision, i.e. an everlasting covenant. (Exodus 31:16; Genesis 17:9-13). The Adventists and others argue that the Patriarchs observed the Sabbath Day prior to the Law of Moses (in the attempt to prove that it is an eternal law) which is wrong (Nehemiah 9:13-14). But we know as a fact that they did observe the practice of circumcision, which was commanded of them. (Genesis 17) Hence, circumcision looks more like an eternal regulation than the Sabbath day does, even from the O.T. Yet Paul says accepting circumcision as a condition of salvation, cuts one off from Christ! Such a conclusion demands that adding the Sabbath Day to the gospel, also cuts one off from Christ!

Note what Paul never says: 'If you receive repentance as a condition for salvation, Christ will profit you nothing..If you receive baptism, immersion in water, as a condition for salvation, Christ will profit you nothing..' Why? Because those things ARE CONDITIONS FOR SALVATION! (Acts 2:38)

All attempts to gain favor with God, apart from Christ and His teaching, cut one off from Christ. (1) Because such manifests a lack of faith in the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice and His revelation to mankind. (2 Peter 1:3) (2) Hence, all human denominations find themselves cut off from Christ and grace, seeing that they had added their own terms of salvation, code of morality, pattern for the organization and worship of the church, etc.. (3) Trying to circumvent Christ's will, IS THE ULTIMATE INSULT TO GOD-Matthew 7:21-23. (4) COMPARE THIS STATEMENT WITH 2 JOHN 9. This same truth applies to people who try to DELETE something from the teachings of Christ. (Revelation 22:18-19) (5) LIBERTY IN CHRIST, doesn't give us the right to add and subtract doctrines from the New Testament.

'YE ARE FALLEN AWAY FROM GRACE'-'you have fallen out of the domain of God's grace' (NEB); 'you put yourself outside the range of his grace' (Phi); 'you have deserted grace' (Mof)

Points to Note:

1. The Christian can fall away. And beward, it doesn't take that much to end up lost. These Christians weren't falling away BECAUSE OF IMMORALITY, they were in danger of losing their salvation because they were trying to COMBINE ANOTHER RELIGION WITH CHRISTIANITY!

2. Jesus taught the same thing, adding human traditions to the Law of God nullifies everything one is trying to accomplish. (Matthew 15:1ff)

3. One can lose their salvation because they believe the WRONG DOCTRINE!

4. No continual, unconditional cleansing for sin is taught here. Paul informed them of their error, and EXPECTED REPENTANCE.

5. Ignorance is no excuse, and it doesn't prevent one from ending up lost. (2 Thess. 1:8-9)

6. Anytime that we strike out on our own, and feel that we can make up our own rules and conditions for serving God, we have just cut ourselves off from God's grace. The grace that results in salvation, and the forgiveness of sin, is ONLY FOUND in a faithful relationship with Jesus Christ (2 John 9). A relationship where the Christian is serving God according to His word, and asking for forgiveness when he sins, and repents when he finds himself in the wrong. (1 John 1:8-2:2)

7. The Holy Spirit didn't keep these Christians from believing error or falling away. (3:1-5)