‘Behold, the Lamb of God’
ide o amnos tou
theou
College Study
5th teaching
7.26.2012
“the Divine Attributes of Holy
Scripture”
Part I — Holiness, Authority
and Immortality
Bibliology Part II
Now we know where the Bible came from. It’s source
was the eternal mind of God Almighty. It has its origins in His infinite
thoughts and heart. It began as a message within Him that He desired to give to
humanity, and He gave it to His prophets and apostles, who then wrote it down
in a human language.
Tonight, we’re going to discuss the Divine Attributes of
the Bible. Since the Bible is the Word of God, since it is God-breathed, we can
expect that it will have the fingerprints of the Hand of God, earmarks of His
Deity, hints of His glory. And in reality, this is exactly what we see.
The Bible is a wholly unique book. It is the only one of
its kind. It is the only book that truly had both a divine Author and several
human authors. Because of this, the Bible has divine attributes AND human
attributes.
Think of it in these terms. The Bible teaches that Jesus
Christ was fully man and fully God. He took on a second nature of humanity in
addition to His deity. Christ had a divine nature and a human nature. In His
human nature, He was limited in knowledge, He felt hunger and thirst and pain,
He knew sorrow and loss, He needed to breathe and He had a physical body that
experienced all the sensations a physical body feels. But in His divine nature,
He was unlimited, all-powerful, all-knowing and so on.
Like this union of divine and human in the Person of Jesus
Christ, the divine and the human are united in the book we call the Bible. It
has characteristics that are divine and characteristics that are human.
In the future, we’ll look at the human attributes of the
Bible. Tonight, our topic is its divine attributes.
Tonight, I’m going to give you SEVEN divine attributes of
the Bible. Three of these we’ll cover tonight, and the next four next week. These
are divine characteristics that are there because this book and this book alone
is God-breathed:
1. The Holiness of the Bible
2. The Authority of the Bible
3. The Immortality of the Bible
4. The Capability of the Bible
5. The Efficiency of the Bible
6. The Prophecy of the Bible
7. The Inerrancy of the Bible
Each of these attributes point to the fact that the Bible
is a book of supernatural origins, which had its foundation in the mind of God.
1.
The Holiness of the Bible
II Timothy 3:15-16, “and from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able
to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of
God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for
instruction in righteousness…”
Before we’re told that the Scripture is breathed, the
Scriptures are called the Holy Scriptures. The Bible’s full title is the Holy
Bible, the holy book.
What does the word holy
mean? It means something that is sacred, exalted, pure, perfect, worthy of
devotion. It literally means to be set apart. Holiness is something that has
distinct-ness, something that because of its qualities is separate and
different from others.
This book is called the Holy Bible because it is so
distinct from any other writing, even from other religious writings. It stands
alone for so many reasons. Last week we talked about how it had all these
different authors, how it was written over such a length of time, crossing
cultures and languages and people groups and whole generations of men and
kingdoms of history. It has poetry. It has narrative. It has villains and
heroes. It has complexity enough to satisfy any professor and simplicity enough
that it can be taught to children.
The Bible is as unique as its primary Author. It is holy
because its Writer was the Holy God. And just as God is set apart from all
others because of His nature and characters of deity, His Word is set apart
from all other books, writings, texts, everything and anything. The Bible is
wholly different.
The Bible is the only book of its kind. But it is the fact
that it is God-breathed, that its origin was in God’s mind, which makes it as
unique as it is. No other book came from the mouth of God.
Thus the Bible is the Holy Bible. This book is separate and
distinct from all others on earth.
So, first off on our list of its divine attributes, the
holiness of the Bible: it’s separate-ness and uniqueness, it’s purity,
perfection, sacredness: it’s Holiness.
Before we
jump on to the next point, let’s pause for some personal implication: if the
Bible is Holy, what does that mean to us? If the Bible is pure, perfect, unique
and sacred what should that mean to you and I?
One practical thing I can think of is how we talk about the
Bible. How do you talk about the Bible? In our American culture today overdosed
as it is with catchy Christian phrases and cartoons and gimmicks, is that Bible
as sacred to you as it ought to be? Or is it a joke? Is the Bible something we
should take lightly, a book which is stained with the blood of the Savior and
the blood of thousands upon thousands of martyrs, which men and women have wept
over, run to in source of comfort and counsel, whose passages are chosen as the
final words with which to bid a passed loved one good-bye? Is its message
something you take lightly? How important is this book to you?
It ought to be totally and utterly sacred, treated with
honor and respect, not disdain, not contempt, not casting it aside as a common
thing like you would any other book. No, this book is God’s Word. Let us treat
it with reverence, not make it into a joke.
2.
The Authority of the Bible
Again II Timothy
3:16, focusing now on the second part of the verse: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness…”
How much of Scripture? All of it. What parts of Scripture?
All the parts. All of the Scripture has the authority to provide teaching and
instruction and correction.
Why so? Why should a book, mere words, have the authority
to declare what must be done in a
human life? Because these are not mere words! They are the words of God!
Remember last week how we compared the parallel passages,
showing that what the Scripture says, God says? The book is the Word of God and
it speaks into a man or a woman’s life with the authority of the One who is the
Judge of all the earth, as Abraham called the Lord.
It’s laws aren’t trivial suggestions, they are commands
uttered from the voice of God Almighty. It speaks with total authority.
So a little personal implication, if you will:
Let’s say you’re driving down 10th street here
and reach up to turn on the radio. Immediately your ears are assaulted by some
pop diva who sounds like her vocal chords are stuck in a blender. So naturally,
you quickly look down to turn off the radio. But while you look down, you
didn’t realize that you just crossed the intersection while the light was red.
You realize your mistake after the fact, but just keep going, until you see red
and blue lights flash up in your rear-view mirror. You know what that means, so
you pull over. The officer walks up to your window and says ‘License and
registration, please’. Now… would you blow him off? Would you delay or
dillydally even a second? Would you tell him ‘tomorrow, perhaps? Of course not.
You recognize that this is an officer of the law and he just asked for your
license and registration. So you give them to him in swift obedience as his
authority demands.
Now let’s say you were walking into the courthouse because
you were due in court, because, hey, you got a ticket. You walk in through
those imposing doors into the chamber with the judge, and there he is seated
high above you. He takes one look at you, raises his gavel and says to you
‘Tuck in that shirt. This is a courthouse.’ What would you do there before all
the security guards and the onlookers and the jury and the prosecutor and
lawyers and the judge himself, a man who is in control of your possible
monetary fines and fees and even prison-time? You’d simply tuck in your shirt.
No questions asked. It may be a small request, but you would probably do as his
authority demands.
Now, let’s say right at this moment that God Almighty was
to open up the sky with a loud RIP! and peer down at you with terrifying,
burning holiness, He looks right at you, and then He says to you with a
glorious voice like a billion supernova’s: ‘Tuck in that shirt’… and then
presuming you weren’t dead at that point, what would you do? Would you blow Him
off?
Of course not. You’d obey His command. Every single one.
Why? Because this isn’t a human judge in control of your earthly destiny. This
is God Almighty, who can control the eternal destiny of your soul. Christ said
in Matt 10:28, “…Fear Him who is able to destroy both the soul and the body in Hell.”
And you would fear God, tremendously, at that moment, if that was to happen,
and you would obey quickly. You would obey with greater speed and greater
terror than you would any demand from an officer or a judge, because this is
the Creator of the worlds, the Almighty, the Fear of Isaac, the God of Abraham,
the Holy One. You would do anything but take Him lightly.
Then why do we so often take lightly the commands of His
Word to us? They come from the same eternal God. They have the same authority.
The next time your tempted to blow off something you read in Scripture about
how you should conduct yourself, about how you need to love your neighbor as yourself or go out and make disciples or love
God with all your heart, soul and mind and think ‘eh, I’ll get around to it’
or ‘eh, that’s for my parents’ or ‘eh, tomorrow maybe’… think again, think
about whose Word this is. It speaks with absolute authority.
3.
The Immortality of the Bible
Isaiah 40:8, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the
word of our God stands forever.”
Another fingerprint of the divine is the fact that the
Bible like its primary Author is immortal. It is eternal.
For all its enemies, for all its attackers, for all its
critics, for all the atheists who claimed they would destroy it, the Bible has never
been better. Every strike against it has been like a hammer upon an anvil,
striking until the hammer shatters.
The Bible might be the most widespread book in history, but
it is also the most hated book in history. It has been burned, buried, blasphemed,
banned and banished but its still here.
It outlived all the persecuting Roman Caesars. It outlived
the outspoken Voltaire. It outlived Kant and Nietzsche. It will outlive all its
enemies in our day and it will even outlive you and I, all this grass, all
these trees, all the buildings of this city and even all of this planet.
This is such a huge blow to an enemy of Scripture. Surely
there is a limited amount of these printed. Surely with enough strength and
enough know-how, every last copy of the Bible, physical and digital, could be
confiscated and burned. But this has never happened because it is impossible.
Time cannot weary it. Philosophy cannot tear it down.
Natural processes cannot decompose it. Atheists cannot make it obsolete. Kings
and tyrants cannot overrule it. Forgetfulness cannot put it out of mind. Neglect
cannot remove it. Movements cannot move it out. No power can destroy it.
Psalm 119:160 “The entirety of Your word is truth, and
every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.
Luke 16:17, “And it is easier for heaven and earth to
pass away than for one iota of the
law to fail.”
Jesus Christ said in Matthew
5:18, “For assuredly, I say to you,
till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass
from the law till all is fulfilled.”
Not one jot or one tittle, the words are the Hebrew letter yod and the Greek letter iota, the two smallest letters in both
the Hebrew and the Greek alphabets. He means that nothing of the Scripture will
pass away. Not even the smallest crossing of a t or the dotting of an i.
Not even the smallest yod or the
smallest iota.
This is one of my favorite things about the Bible, because
it shows just how epic it is. It is so far beyond us. We think sometimes that
it just occupies a dusty corner of our house when we neglect it, but the Bible
cannot be neglected. It is an immovable object. It is utterly indestructible
and invincible to any attack that can be mounted against it.
No other book has been so attacked and yet no other book is
more prevalent than the Bible.
In conclusion,
the Bible is Holy, the Bible has Authority and the Bible is Immortal.
I don’t know about you, but studying more about just what
kind of treasure we have here, the privilege God has given to us in the message
of this book, makes me glad that I’m a Christian.
I don’t have to try to prove to you that this is God’s Word
because it’s so eloquent, or that its God’s Word despite the fact that a single
crazy or immoral guy wrote it so many years ago, or that it came from golden
tablets that no one has ever seen, or any of the other nonsense that other
religions have to try to pass off as truths.
No, you can have the assurance that this book is the Word
of God, Holy, Authoritative and Immortal as its Creator. This is God’s magnum
opus, His masterpiece, His special and specific revelation of Himself to
mankind. May you treasure it, obey it and hold it in the highest esteem as
valuable and sacred. May God reveal Himself more and more through it to you.
May you run to it for instruction, for counsel, for comfort and for direction.
May you come to it more often than you do now.
Next week, God willing: the last four attributes of
divinity in the Holy Scriptures.
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