Challenging claim

A challenging claim

The Bible comes before us, then, demanding to be heard as the Word of God.

Gutenberg Bible – detail from the Old Testament (Photo credit: National Library of Scotland)

“Thus saith the Lord”, and phrases like it, are an integral part of the fabric of the Old Testament. To remove all those parts of scripture claiming Divine inspiration for themselves, or recognising it in others, would leave but little remaining. The
Apostle Peter’s claim that the Jewish scriptures were produced when “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21) is either true or it is a pious fraud. But when we realise the extent to which the Lord Jesus Christ himself – not to
mention his apostles – recognised that same Old Testament as the authoritative Word of God, there ought to be no doubt that the attitude of a true follower of Christ should be the same.

“Have ye not read?”; “It is written”; “What saith the scripture?” – these were favourite phrases of the Master when referring to the largest part of what we now know as the Bible.
Significantly too, the Lord Jesus claimed no less of an inspired authority for his own words (see John 17:8); he promised his apostles that they too would be supernaturally guided by the Holy Spirit (John 14:26; 15:26,27; 16:13-15); and the early Bible Christians
took it as a foundation doctrine that “all scripture (both Old and New Testaments by then) is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable …” (2 Timothy 3:16).
Such a challenging claim by the Bible about itself leaves no middle way for our personal reaction to its message. We must either accept or reject it. For if the claim is false, then the Bible’s message is of no real value, and the Gospel of salvation it contains is but a figment of man’s imagination. But if the claim is true, then the Bible’s message commands obedience and its Gospel offers the true hope of life beyond the grave.

The Bible’s claim is no academic exercise: it is a matter of life and death.

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Preceding article: Miracles of revelation and of providence

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Find also to read:

1. Looking to the East and the West for Truth
2. Inspired Word
3. The Bible Really Is God’s Inspired Word
4. Bible Word from God
5. Bible in a nutshell
6. Proof of The Bible’s Divine Inspiration
7. Missional hermeneutics 5/5
8. The Metaphorical language of the Bible
9. Why believing the Bible
10. Listening and Praying to the Father
11. Wishing to do the will of God
12. A Living Faith #9 Our Manner of Life
13. Golden rule for understanding in spiritual matters obedience
14. Something Most False Christians Have In Common
15. American atheists most religiously literate Americans

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