A.
I believe that the Bible is the word of God because of
seven evidences. These 7 evidences are:
1.
It’s uniqueness
2.
It’s reliability
3.
It’s honesty
4.
It’s prophetic accuracy
5.
It‘s Universal
Message
6.
It’s Thematic
Continuity
7.
It’s Moral Code
I could have come up with a few more, but I
believe that these seven evidences are the things that led me to believe for
myself that the Bible is the word of God and that I should believe its contents. So this article is about these seven
evidences and how they played a part in the development of my faith in God and
ultimately in Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God.
B.
The Uniqueness of
the Bible
1.
Many people make the mistake that the Bible is a singular
work created by men. Yes men were the
co-authors of the Bible but a singular work it is not. The Bible is a library of Holy books written
by men from all walks of life, compiled into one volume. What makes this library different from any
other library in the world is the fact that all its human authors speak of and
about the words and deeds of God and his relationship with mankind. What so unique about that, nothing if those
men lived at the same time and conspired to compose and compile the Bible, then
the Bible would be the distinct creation of mankind. Telling himself that there is a great
mystical spiritual being somewhere controlling the unseen forces of the
universe and of the earth, but that is not what happen with the bible. The
Bible is the work of several different men that lived at different times and in
different places who wrote their experiences with God or wrote about God’s
actions among men. Because they wrote
about God at different times there was no plan or plot to compile the Bible.
The cause of the compilation of what we know now as the bible came as result of
the church attempting to defend itself from heresies from self-proclaimed
Apostles and prophets. Who created their
own compilation of what they deemed to be scripture and was preaching it
throughout the Christian world. So what was
so wrong with that? Nothing if they did
not cause a disbelief in the original tenets of the faith, but they did
challenge the original tenants of the faith and cause the church to develop the
Apostles Creed which embodied the original tenets of the faith that all the
church adhered to. All this and other
factors allowed the church to produce and preserve what has been accepted as
divinely inspired scripture. No other book in the world is like the books of
the Bible, for the Bible is the only collection of writings that speak about
God’s love for mankind. This is what
makes the Bible unique. When I
discovered the Bibles uniqueness, I realized why it is so precious in the minds
of so many believers and treasured by so many more. Because for some it is Gods voice that speaks
to them who seek its comfort in this modern world. Thereby making it the number one best-selling
book in the world for all time since its creation. It has suffered attack, through persecution, and criticism it has
survived and answered in response. This
makes the Bible, to me, the word of God.
A.
The reliability of the Bible
1.
There are just too many things that just make the Bible a
very reliable text. First of all let’s
define what I mean be reliability. What
I mean by reliability is that the text despite all the challenges to it has
proven itself to be consistent. Surely
there are those who in times past pointed to times and events listed in the
bible as plausibly untrustworthy. Like
the locations of cities or the events in the life of a principal character, only
to find out that later through another archeological or scientific find that
the bible is confirmed to be telling the truth.
2.
Another thing concerning its reliability is when an old
biblical book is found written in the ancient languages of Hebrew, Aramaic or
Greek, those who oppose biblical accuracy
claim that these ancient text proves that the Bible has been
modified. This is not the case when the
claim is more closely inspected and it is found that the bible in concept and
idea is not changed since its creation.
Because of this accuracy an archeologist can take a bible into the Holy
land and just about see all the sights concerning Jerusalem that the Bible
talks about in detail.
B.
The Bible’s Honesty
1.
What do I mean by Honesty? What I mean that the Bible
displays the evil actions of men as well as the righteous actions of men. Some have taken offense that acts of war
and adultery that are literarily displayed in the Bible and deem it as an
unholy book. The Bible is a book of the
historic dealings of God with mankind and how mankind under the eyes of the Creator of the Universe treat each
other. I admit the Bible does not sugar
coat these events or omits them, but rather displays them in contrast with
stories of men doing the right thing and God being with them. What that shows
is that the Bible is an honest library of texts each containing accurate
stories of events so that we who read it for guidance will not make the same
errors our predecessors made and follow the examples of when our predecessors
did the right thing and obeyed God.
C.
The Bible’s prophetic accuracy
1.
The one of the things that validates a Holy book as divinely
inspired is the number of fulfilled prophecies within it. The Holy Bible is a Holy library full of
prophecies within it, but it was just a collection of books that contain a
myriad of prophecies that were never fulfilled
then its divine inspiration could
be doubted. The Bible has many
prophecies that have come to pass or have been fulfilled. There are 33 principle Bible prophecies that
Jesus, the Christ has fulfilled for example.
It is not that there are only 33 Biblical prophecies pertaining to the
Christ that Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled, there are many more that he
fulfilled. There is 33 principle
prophecies in the bible concerning the coming of the anointed one, the Christ,
the Messiah that Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled.
There are other prophecies that were spoken by other biblical prophets
that came to pass. For example Jeremiah prophesied
about the coming of the New Testament. Daniel
prophesied about the end of the Babylonian Empire and of the coming of and end
of successive empires prior to the coming of Christianity. There is the prophecy of Israel becoming a
nation again in the last days. I could
go on and on, but the point is such a collection of Holy books, a Holy Bible,
to have so many accurately fulfilled prophecies that have been attested to be divinely
inspired from God through the voices and
words of men who have been called into His service to deliver his message to
the people how could I not consider the
Holy Bible to be the inspiration Word of God.
D.
The Holy Bible’s Universal Message
1. The divinely inspired books that comprised the Holy Bible has an
universal message. That encompassing
universal message of God’s love for Mankind.
It is a message of God’s compassion through redemption. The messages is unfolded through the
testimonies of the lives of various men and women that have had an experience with
the living God. These testimonies illustrates
the testimony of the love he has toward those believers. Does God only love those who love him? He
loves all in that he extended his redemption to all. Let’s talk about redemption as expression of
God’s love. Redemption is a financial action. Redemption is the act of buying something
back from someone that possessed it.
Adam lost his spiritual authority and power as well as earthly authority
to Satan in the Garden of Eden. Adam
sold his birthright to Satan in exchange for being like God. Adam by doing so committed the very first
transgression, by which God could only fellowship with the first Man and woman
by the shedding the blood of Animals.
From that point on if anyone wanted to be in fellowship with God he had
to shed the blood of an animal. For the transgression that the first man and first woman
committed against the command of God
condemned his descendants with a sinful nature. Some people say that Adam’s sin was his own
and God forgave him in the Garden. Yes
God forgave Adam, that is not the issue.
The issue is how God chose how to forgive Adam. Because just to verbally forgive someone that
violated the command of God does not erase the transgression. God killed and shed the blood of animals and
put their bloody skins to Adam to wear so that he could fellowship with
Adam. Adam taught his sons about the atonement
offering, for Abel took a lamb and shed
its blood and offered it to God as a token of gratefulness and symbol of
atonement for his own sinful
nature. Cain worked the cursed soil and presented
the produce of it out of his grateful nature.
God showed favor to Abel’s offering because he was following the atonement
practice of his father Adam. Cain became
jealous of how God showed acceptance of Abel’s offering and killed his brother
Abel, thinking that God would be forced to accept his offering of produce. Sometime later Noah when he departed from the
Ark performed the atonement sacrifice out of thankfulness. God was pleased with the offering of Noah, because
God knew that practice of atonement would be continued beyond Noah’s time. Here is the question: If Adam’s sinfulness
was his own why did he teach the atonement sacrifice to his sons? Why did Noah, many years later, performed the
atonement sacrifice when he departed the ark if Adam’s sinfulness was his
own? Why continue to offer atonement
offering if sinfulness was limited only to the life span of Adam? Sinfulness
died with Adam, right? No. Sinfulness or
the sinful nature is an attribute of mankind because of Adam’s
transgression. When Adam disobeyed the
command of God in the Garden, sinfulness became a part of the spiritual DNA of
mankind. For if the sinful nature of Adam
is not transferable to his descendants, then what sense to have many
generations practice the atonement offering?
That makes no sense whatsoever.
Furthermore, how does God’s act of forgiving Adam’s transgression of his
command by shedding the blood of animals be limited to only Adam’s life? As long as sinful mankind exists on the earth
atonement of that sinfulness required the shedding the blood. When Moses appeared on the scene the practice
of then atonement offering became codified, that is made law. Now if a person could not perform an
atonement offering itself, he was in violation of the law of God, consigning
him or her to sin and condemnation. Now
would it be compassionate of God to allow a host of people who could not offer
an atonement offering to remain in a condemned sinful state? Of course not! So
what does God do about Adam selling his birthright for sinfulness and disobedience? He redeems mankind, Adam’s descendants. He purchases
mankind souls back by an act of redemption. God by that act of redemption He relieves the
Law of its legal authority upon all men and resigns it as an advisor to all who
believe. By the same act of redemption God ratifies the promise of salvation by
faith to all who believe in Him. At the
center of God’s act of redemption is the person of Jesus of Nazareth, because
he came preaching remission (the forgiveness) of sins. He was preaching the
forgiveness of sins without performing an atonement offering. This was against what the religious authority
in Jesus’ day was endorsing, which was the legal requirement of the atonement for
the sinfulness
of men. John the
Baptist began the preaching of the remission of sins and used water baptism to
symbolize the cleansing that was to come.
Jesus took the ministry of preaching the remission of sins symbolized by
water baptism over as John was removed from the scene and continued it until
Jesus died upon the Cross according to
the will of God. Now why would God use
one man to die in the stead of all who believe or not believe in Jesus and his
message? It is because God had chosen
one man to be the vehicle of which His act of redemption would be accomplished
to put to the end the practice of atonement once and forever to enable mankind
to fellowship with God. This universal
message of God’s redemption, God’s love for mankind, God’s compassion is
centered in the message, sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus. Echoed from the
prophecies of the ages and fulfilled in Christ. This provided evidence that the
Bible is that contains this universal message inspired by God is God’s world.
E.
The Bible’s Thematic Continuity
1.
You may ask, what is thematic continuity? Thematic
continuity is the characteristic that any theme you find in the Holy Bible can
be followed from Genesis to Revelation.
Pick one: Salvation, Judgement, Holiness, Justification, Redemption,
Forgiveness, Love, etc., etc. I used the
theme of God’s redemption in making the point of the Holy bible’s universal message in the last point from Genesis to the
Gospels. I can do that with all the
other themes I mentioned from its beginning in the Bible to its end. The point is that this characteristic of the
Holy Bible to me proves that it is the word of God.
F.
The Bible’s Moral Code
1.
The Holy Bible has a very unique and high moral code. It teaches this moral code by delivering to
the reader testimonies that demonstrate the contrast between good and evil and
the consequences thereof. There has been
a charge that the Bible has a double standard.
This is a misunderstanding of the Bible’s Moral Code. The Bible’s Moral Code has two sides, not two
standards. One side is legal the other
side is gracious. What happens is that
people get trapped in the legal side of the Bible’s moral code and forget about
or do not think they are entitled to the gracious side of the moral code of the
bible. The key of the Bible’s moral code
is the status of the person’s relation to it.
For instance if a person is an unbeliever he can choose to live by the
law or by his own conscience, if a person is an believer in Christ, he should
live by faith and grace, but he can re-invoke the law to govern his life. The law however, has no legal power over the
believer in Christ in that the law can no longer condemn him. What governs a believer in Christ? The law of the spirit of life in Christ is
what governs a believer’s life. That law of the spirit of life in Christ is
characterized by a believer’s life of faith
emulating Christ’s life of faith and the amount graciousness the believer
expresses upon other following the example of Christ’s graciousness. Who is Christ?
Christ is the Messiah, a title given to Jesus of Nazareth. The Law of Moses is not written for believers
in Christ, it is written for those who
after committing to adhere to the Law of Moses do not obey God according to
it. The Law is resigned until it is
taken out of the way in the role of an advisor, showing believer’s what actions please God and what actions displease God so that we would
obey Him by that gracious living
according to the faith of Jesus, the Christ.
So the real issue is on which side of the of the Bible’s Moral Code do
you want to live on. This Biblical
Moral code is divine and perfectly balances a believer moral life between the
precepts and principles of the law
and the life of the spirit of Christ. It is consistent in its principles and its
moral code. It is this consistency that makes
the Holy bible the word of God.
If this article has
blessed you and you wish to continue to follow the teachings of Rev. C R
Sanchez you can find more articles and bible studies at the following web
sites:
http://theheraldofgrace.blogspot.com/p/brean-bible-fellowship-of-nj.html
(click on the side bar
where the arrow and year is listed for a selection of topics)
Or
http://theheraldofgrace2.blogspot.com/
(same here: click on the side where the arrow and year is
listed for a selection of topics)
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