Part One
The Bible has been improved in so many ways in the last
70 years that many of them can hardly find their way back to the source. One revision was
not enough, so the new versions have multiplied faster than diet and Church
Growth books. I remember getting a four version New Testament in the 1960s, in
parallel columns, which provided as much clarity as a family argument.
The Bible is the revealed Word of God, and like Jesus
Christ, has two natures, divine and human, but without error. The Bible is one
Truth, the Book of the Holy Spirit, with all parts in harmony. The spirit of
rationalism, under the banner of improvement, is bound to move from one
imagined contradiction to another. However, faith in Jesus, the Son of God,
leads us from one priceless passage to another.
The Bible is inerrant and infallible. The established
denominations claim that inerrant is a new description for the Bible.
But Luther used the Latin words for inerrant and infallible in
his Large Catechism, On Baptism. Infallible has been the prevailing
definition but the term was watered down so much that the word suggested
fallible. The tepid, tentative, liberal theologians began saying, “Infallible
in doctrine, but not in history or geography.” That was like saying, “Your
essay is perfect, except in spelling and grammar.” Likewise, the inspiration of
the Scriptures was watered down by many similar qualifications and amendments,
so plenary was added to the inspiration of the Word of God.
Denominational mergers of the 20th century hid
their internal conflicts, so they removed the friction with this solemn and
rather angry declaration – “The Bible did not float down from heaven. It was
written by men.” Some added, to ease the pain of serious study, “We could have
30 books in the Bible or 100. Humans decided the number.” I have never
discovered a believer who thought the Bible came down, in finished form, from heaven.
Nor did I find an expert naming another 34 books for the canon. The Apocrypha,
heavily promoted by the Church of Rome and liberal Lutherans, never qualified
for the canon. The marketing of the Apocrypha did little more little more than
make people wonder what those books were.
The greatest detour in understanding the Bible began with
Medieval philosophy and theology – they were really the same at that time. Augustine
began by spoiling the Egyptians, combining his universal grasp of secular
knowledge with the Scriptures. Toward the end of the Middle Ages, Aquinas
embalmed this method, which was embraced by Rome. Reading Augustine and Aquinas
in Latin means moving from the peak of erudition to denominational script.
Unfortunately
for the dream-weaving theologians, Luther was urged to earn a doctorate in the
Scriptures, which brought him into constant and daily contact with the Bible. The
Erasmus edition of the Greek New Testament gave the Reformer the original text
of the New Testament versus the accepted and misleading Latin version.
There is a reason the Holy Spirit chose to speak to us in Greek. This language
was made universal by Alexander the Great’s conquests, his promotion of Greek
culture, and the Greek merchants and managers set up by Alexander to do
business with the world. Centuries before the Nativity, Greek was established
as the natural route for the Gospel to move about in the East and West Roman
Empires, centered in Rome and Constantinople. The mighty Roman Empire, which
grew after Alexander’s, saw Greek as the language of culture, and proved its
admiration for everything Greek by borrowing its architecture, law, literature,
sculpture, government, and pagan theology.
Besides
Greek, Luther also learned Hebrew and used his verbal skills, with a team of
scholars, to translate the Old Testament into German. The Old Testament
completed the Bible he started by translating the New Testament from Greek into
German at the Wartburg Castle. Luther’s Bible established the German language,
just as Shakespeare and the King James Version established the English language.
We
now have endless methods and resources for learning the Biblical languages of Hebrew
and Greek, which caused so much interest during the Reformation and after. But
few seminary students currently learn more than the ancient alphabets,
bypassing Latin as well, due to its expulsion from public education. The put
down of Shakespeare, the actor, having “little Latin and less Greek,” is now
true of the ministry, having little Greek, less Hebrew, and no Latin at all.
The Cornerstone Is the Beginning
The great Dr. Walter Maier, who earned a PhD in Semitics
at Harvard University, identified Biblical inerrancy and Justification by Faith
as the cornerstone and the keystone of the Scriptures. The beginning of the
universe - and the Bible - is an excellent litmus test to see whether an
individual is using ministerial reason or magisterial reason in interpreting the
Bible. Ministerial reason means subordinating our understanding to the clear,
plain language of the Bible. An example is Luther stating that the Bible judges
all books and is not judged by any book. Magisterial reason places human reason
equal or above the teaching of the Bible. This magisterial reason is on
constant display in the modern commentaries, most denominations, and the Church
of Rome.
Genesis 1 teaches us inerrancy, the cornerstone of the
Bible, not simply inerrancy but the power, majesty, clarity, and efficacy of
the Word of God. Without this knowledge, taught by the Holy Spirit in the Word,
we can make little progress in Scriptural knowledge. We may know about the
Bible, as with many other subjects, whether nuclear fission or calculus, but we
do not know the Bible - and become confused, indifferent, or hostile to its
message.
Genesis
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was
without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
God’s creation of the
universe is taught or mocked many different ways, but this is the only true
account. These two verses take chance and evolution out of the picture, and
place God’s will, wisdom, intent, and purpose at the center of our lives. In
the first two verses we find God the Father creating and God the Holy Spirit witnessing.
The third member of the Trinity is revealed in the next verses.
Genesis
1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the
light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God
called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the
morning were the first day.
The skeptic wonders, “Where
is the Son of God in Creation?” – which is answered in John, the Fourth Gospel
and God’s own commentary on the Five Books of Moses.[1]
John
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him;
and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life; and
the life was the light of men.
The Son of God existed
in the beginning. He is the Logos, and through this Logos, God’s Word, all
creatures and elements, stars and planets, were fashioned. To make this very
certain, the double negative is used – not one single thing was made apart from
Him. Moreover, He is the life and the
light of men.
The opening of the Fourth Gospel begins with the
three-fold use of the Word, which indicates the Trinity, as taught throughout
John and throughout the entire Bible. The link to Genesis is difficult to miss,
since only Genesis and John start with the same phrase – in the beginning.
Another lesson hidden in plain view – is light being created before the sun and
planets. The true Light of man is the Son of God, not the sun, planets, and
moon, so often worshiped by pagans.
These comparisons are not slight or accidental, but
essential to the entire Bible and our understanding of Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, Savior. They show how much of the Old Testament is essential to the New
Testament, so knowledge of one without the other is slighted.
The link between Genesis and John is attacked from two
positions. One is to dismiss the Creation in Genesis because every religion has
some kind of Creation story, from the absurd to the disgusting. The other is to
remove the apostolic authority of John by saying it is a philosophical work written
centuries after Christ. Thus, with so much time spent outside of Christian
sources, they find no DNA match between John and Genesis, but an astounding
array of invented matches between paganism and the Biblical books. “The Bible
is dependent upon pagan religion” will land a clever lad or lass in the best
world religion faculties, at elite divinity schools, and at tenure-protected denominational
seminaries.
One Truth, One Harmonious Doctrine
The fatal trigger for many is the promiscuous use of
brief portions of Scripture to prove a point, apart from obvious dissonance
with the Bible as a whole. The trigger word is spelled skandalon in
Greek, and it means the part which sets off the trap and captures the prey. The
Word of God is not so confused that it reveals one truth here and a conflicting
truth somewhere else. The only way to read the Bible is seeing it as the Book
of the Holy Spirit, Luther’s term, and not as a series of possible debating
points.
Teaching the Bible as a unified Truth is a powerful
weapon against false doctrine, because the contradictions are so easily identified.
Laity and ministers should arm themselves in advance, but that is often not
sufficient. Fortunately, attacks against the truth force us into returning to
the sources, the Scriptures and faithful books, to support the strength of the Gospel
and the weakness of error.
One Teacher – The Holy Spirit
The final sermons of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel are beautiful
lessons on the work of the Holy Spirit. If people studied them, they would not be
gaping with wonder at the marketing lectures of Fuller Seminary graduates. If
the Bible were simply a work of man, it would then be just as full of contradictions
as any novel. Even the classic work of Homer has errors that made the ancients
say about the Iliad – “Even good Homer snores.” But the power of the
Holy Spirit throughout the Bible reveals a miraculous unity on one hand and an
ability to teach us on the other. The youngest child, even a baby, can
comprehend the Bible’s message. However, one must believe as a child, or the Kingdom
of God remains a mystery and even an enemy for those too refined to subordinate
themselves to the truth.
The Efficacy of the Word
The snake oil salesmen of the world want to sell us, at a
high price, various notions and potions that are effective. They avoid and
berate the one thing effective, the Word of God. The Spirit was so far ahead of
us that the idea of the effectiveness of the Word was written into the Scriptures,
wisely foreshadowing those days when people desired and pursued everything but
the Bible – as effective.
Outside on March 13th, 2021, the rains are
pouring down on our garden, trees, and weeds. North of us, the city of Denver
is promised one of the biggest snowstorms of history. No one would dare claim
that the soil and plants will be the same after rain falls and the snow melts.
The rain will feed the fungi, bacteria, and earthworms that tend and feed the flowers and crops. The snow will
protect the plants against the freezing, dry winds of destruction. Underneath
this blanket, creatures will be relatively warm and comfortable, the ice
crystals locked together to form a blanket ideal for recycling, warmth for now,
moisture for later. In the snow and rain is something no city or well can offer
– usable nitrogen, the building-block of life, the green of the Green Old Deal.
The best definition of effective is something that always
works, unlike anything made by man. The bridge over the Mississippi River in
Moline was once an object of awe, but now it is being demolished because it no
longer works. Effective would also means – never fails us, unlike our cars that
fail to start on the coldest days or smolder and burn without warning. No one
has ever created an effective plan that does exactly what the leaders projected
and hoped. If a general in the army said, “This plan will work exactly as we
have hoped, with no change or disasters or mishaps,” the soldiers would laugh
and the officer would be replaced.
God’s definition of effective is clearly revealed in
Isaiah 55 – and sadly, this all-encompassing passage is almost universally
ignored.
Isaiah
55: 8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,
saith the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
This reminds us that no
one can discern the thoughts and plans of God. Besides that, His manner of
working is far superior to anything we can grasp, so we have to start with humility
and subordination to Him.
Isaiah
55: 10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not
thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may
give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: 11 So shall my word be that
goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall
accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I
sent it.
Verses 10 and 11 point
out what we should know, without questions, about the rain and snow, their
cycle of coming down from heaven (a familiar motif in John) and returning. Nor
can we dispute that rain and snow have a peculiar trait far more productive
than anything man can produce – the power to make things grow. Farmers say, “Irrigation
keeps the crops alive. Only rain can make them grow.” God’s Word is just like
the rain and snow- it never returns without results. This double
negative makes it impossible to find an exception to the effectiveness of God’s
Word. One retiring minister said he was a failure, so I questioned him:
·
Did you preach and teach the Word
faithfully? “Yes, I tried.”
·
Did you baptize and give Holy Communion?
“Yes.”
·
Did you visit people with the Word and
Sacrament? “Yes.”
·
Are you saying God’s Word was not effective?
The second Promise is
that God will accomplish what He pleases. The truth is – money, members, and
buildings do not prove a thing, and we cannot judge now or in the future where God’s
Word will flourish. We can predict that
replacing God’s Word with raffles, prizes for attendance, entertainment, soft
drinks and snacks, and warmed-over bar music will accomplish nothing in God’s
plan. The third Promise is that God will prosper His Word, which means the
results will be so great – such as the Reformation – that no one can dispute
the results are from Him.
In short, the effectiveness of God’s Word is guaranteed in
Isaiah 55 three ways:
1.
God’s Word always works and is never a
failure.
2.
God’s Word always does exactly what He
wills.
3.
God’s Word will accomplish His plans in
abundance.
Reading this passage
gives us confidence (confidence, literally “with faith”). Teaching this passage
turns people away from the false gods of the market place to the Holy Trinity
revealed in the Scriptures.
The Spirit Never Exhausts Our Knowledge
The Vatican got most of the Protestant denominations to
switch to their patented three-year lectionary, which gave ministers more
variety to ignore. The value of the historic lectionary comes from the
repetition of the basic lessons in the Epistles and Gospels. If a minister
studies the same passages every year, using Luther and Lenski and many more
faithful authors, he will grow in appreciation and knowledge.[2]
The Spirit’s work is such that the deeper we go into the Bible, the more we
appreciate and understand. Some passages, so mysterious to the pastor –
especially those – hit us like thunderclaps with their truth and clarity.
[1] The
Gospel of John is probably the least-read commentary about the Five Books of Moses.
A careful study of John will put to shame a century of rationalistic Biblical
works.
[2] The Lutheran Library has a wealth
of faithful sermon books and sources to use, all as free PDFs. The
Lutheran Library has many of those books available as low cost print books.
