All About the Bible
5 - Reasons to Believe the Bible is God's Word
If we believe that God exists then it is logical to assume that He would want to communicate with His creation. We have looked at ways in which God has done this. He has revealed himself in Creation, Conscience, Jesus Christ and in the Bible. I want to look more closely now at the revelation of God in the Bible. That God should want to communicate with us is a great act of condescension, especially when you consider the mess man has made of His world. But He has come down to our level and spoken in words we can understand. There are good reasons to accept that the Bible is God's word. When the Prophets of the Old Testament spoke they prefaced their message with the words, "The Lord says". For example in Isaiah 3:16 we read, "The Lord says, `the women of Zion are haughty". Or, the Prophet will say that he has received a word from God. We read in Ezekiel 6:1, "The word of the Lord came to me". Someone might argue that anyone could claim God has spoken to them. How can we be sure they are God's words and not the Prophets’? Well, the warnings of future judgements, and the predictions of future events, given by the Prophets actually happened. For example, around five hundred years before the event, the prophet Micah said that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem. We read in Micah 5:2, "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah though you are small among the clans of Judah out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel whose origins are of old".
Anyone who believes that the Bible is the word of God is in good company. Christians follow Jesus both in His example and in His teaching and views. This is good reason to accept that the Bible is God's word because Jesus himself did. Jesus used the Old Testament. He quoted from it regularly. His use of the Old Testament is very insightful. He believed in its divine character. Jesus said to the Jews in John 10:34-35, "Is it not written in your law, `I have said you are gods`? If He called them 'gods' to whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, what about the one whom the Father set apart". He believed in its divine inspiration. He said in Mark 12:36, "David himself speaking by the Holy Spirit said..." Jesus believed in the history of the Old Testament. He accepted that people like Jonah, Noah and Abraham did exist. He said in Luke 17:26, "Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man". Clearly for Jesus, Noah’s days were part of actual history. Again He said this about Jonah in Luke 11:30, "For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to His generation".
Jesus held to the abiding ethics of the Old Testament. Jesus was asked a question by the Pharisees about the lawfulness of divorce. He said in Matthew 19:3-6, "Have not you read" He replied "That at the beginning the Creator made them male and female", and for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate". Jesus quoted with approval from Genesis 2:24 in the Old Testament. The divine ideal is the commitment of a man and woman to each other in the marriage relationship.
Jesus appealed to the Old Testament to support His own mission. We read in Luke 24:27, "And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself".
Jesus rebuked those who did not accept the Scriptures as God's word and did not allow it to shape their views. He said in Matthew 15:3, "Why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?" Tradition is always subservient to Scripture or rejected when it contradicts it, and for Jesus Scripture clearly contained direct commands from God. How can we possibly have a lesser view of the Bible than Jesus? You might ask the question, "Well you have said the Old Testament is the word of God but what about the New Testament? Is this also the word of God?" Jesus anticipated this question. He left us in no doubt that the New Testament was equally the word of God. He said in John 16:13, "When He the Spirit of truth comes He will guide you into all truth" This predicts the inspiration of the New Testament. When the Apostles began their writing, the Holy Spirit reminded them of Jesus words. Their writing was accepted as Scripture. Peter says this about Paul’s letters in 2 Peter 3:15-16, "Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him ... his letters contain some things hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures" It’s clear that from an early date the writings of the Apostles were placed on equal level to the Old Testament Scriptures.
In the same way the Apostles believed that the Bible is God's word. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost is the fulfillment of God's word. Peter said in Acts 2:16, "This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel". Joel prophesied some hundreds of years before the events on the day of Pentecost. The events happened because God had predicted them. Because the Scripture is God's word then the events will take place. God's word cannot fail. The Apostles referred to the Old Testament to show they were fulfilled in the life and mission of Jesus Christ. The coming of the Saviour promised in the Old Testament is the great theme of their preaching and writing.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, "For what I received I passed on to you of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, and He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures". The Old Testament was clearly held to be Scripture and thereby the very word of God. The Apostle Peter confirms his position about the character of the Old Testament. In Acts 4:25 Peter prays and he quotes from Psalm 2 and says to the Lord, "You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant David: why do the heathen rage?" Again, in 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 21 he says concerning the Old Testament, "For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit". The Apostle Paul was of the same conviction. He said in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness".
The evidence is clear that both Jesus and the Apostles accepted the Old Testament as God's word. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t accept it.