What is this book that we preach out of every Sunday? For some it is a rule which we follow. For others it is a wonderful book about real history. For others it’s a spiritual book that helps with the Spiritual side of life. Or maybe, a set of practical tools to help reshape the world, or to better your life. Or a roadmap to eternity. Where did it come from? Did it just fall out of the sky one day? These are questions that we are going to be dealing with over the next few sermons on the Belgic confession.
So which is it? At its most basic level it is the word of God Scripture is the voice of God. Scripture is the discourse of God in human words. This Word is powerful and can do what it claims and keep all its promises. This Word has the power to call and gather the Church.
When we are at Bible studies and we discover something new, it is not the same as a young child researching google for good practical advice, or for an school assignment. Because the bible is the word of God it is different than studying any other resource in the sense that it studies you as much as you study it.
Bible study is important because it is in a very real sense time with God – it is God speaking to his people who have the His Spirit and therefore have ears tuned by faith to ear his voice. We need to always discover afresh the urgency and the immediacy of Gods voice in our midst. That is what is happening when I preach from this Bible on Sunday mornings. And if God is speaking surely you don’t need to answer any text, or WhatsApp on your phone during that that from some mere human. Certainly, you can turn off the cell phone and use it only for the purpose of reading this word. When God is speaking surely, we would be enraptured and desire nothing more then to hear it.
But alas I know my sinful heart. I know how easily I am distracted. As the ministers reads every morning “I am the LORD your God who took you out of the land of Egypt,” my mind is already a million miles away at work or thinking about how that or that person is doing. Then suddenly I hear the rustling of Psalms books as people get ready to sing, and I find what we are singing, and sing along I do while my thoughts are still distant.
Dear brothers and sisters the word of God is not only delivers something to us, it imparts faith, but in a very real way is the thing which is delivered. It imparts faith, but it is also the faith. The very breath of God. That is what is breathed into this building every week again. The Breath of the creator God who calls those things that are not as though they were. So I want to encourage you to take advantage of this moment every Sunday. To honor it, and guard it by guarding your mind closely. For here you are filled with the breath of God, by his word which is God-breathed, and his Spirit who is called His breath.
The Word of God is God’s Word.
- not man’s
- God’s
- holy and divine
Not man’s
The temptation of Adam and Eve was, “Did God really say.” Was it really the voice of God you heard, and are you sure you heard it correctly? Did God really say? That is the question – still today and that is why the confession starts here. If you doubt this basic theological presupposition and you can’t make it past here then you may as well stop reading, because you will not believe the rest as well. The question for today is, “Did God really say?” Is this really the Word of God – a book that is totally, absolutely and uniquely transcendent – or is it the words of man with many different authors writing over thousands of years?
Article three states that “we confess (that is all believers) that this Word of God did not come by the impulse of man, but that men spoke from God As they were carried along by the Holy Spirit,” as the Apostle Peter says.”
We did not come up with this book is what it is saying. Neither did the people hearing it or writing it. Did you notice it was not just what they wrote, but what they said that was inspired? It is called the verbal inspiration of Scripture. These people were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Someone did not one day sit down and think. Boy, I should write a Bible. No, God spoke through these people. It was God speaking when they were speaking.
And after speaking through them, we confess that in his care for us and our salvation, God commanded his servant, the prophets, and apostles, to commit his revealed Word to writing and he himself wrote the two tables of the law.” Wow this is quiet a claim. This book is God-breathed. I don’t think we often think about what a magnificently difficult claim this is. How in the world can we make such a claim – that this is not the word of man?
There are a few practical reasons we might know that this is not mans words. Let me give a couple of them.
First of all, the people writing this are way too honest about their own sins and failings. If you wrote a holy book that you made up, would you confess all your sins and failings in that book, or try to make yourself look better. I a mean let’s be real, why would Moses mention his own sin. Why would Moses make the History of the family of Israel so ugly if he made it up. Most other religious books are quite sanitized to hide the imperfections of the books greatest characters. Not the Bible. In Scripture we find characters that are deeply flawed, and broken people.
Second, we can look at What the bible is all about. It is not about Humans, about how great we are, or what we must do be saved. . That is the intent of every religious book to show you how to get saved -To show what specifically we must do to reach nirvana or emptiness, or the Muslim heaven, or live a happy life a happy life here. Not the Bible. This is about God saving us, and man cannot do anything to be saved, that God has done it all.
The Bible tosses this worlds principle upside-down. It doesn’t speak and try to influence the wealthy, the powerful, those with influence – no rather it speaks to the broken, the weary, the poor, the widow and the orphan, and proclaims to them a crucified criminal who died on the cross as their salvation. It is foolishness. Total foolishness from a human worldly point of view. Its message is subversive to the way that we normally think and act. We think and act in terms of power, influence, money, prestige. But the bible tosses these out the window. We follow a man that died without power, influence, money, prestige – and yet who received all power, influence, and prestige. Our way is the way of the cross. This is not a human idea. It is foolishness.
And it is not just that we realize in hindsight that this was not mans message throughout the authors of scripture made clear that this was not their words, but Gods. Paul says exactly this when he says in Galatians 1:11, “I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up, I did not receive it from any man. Not was I taught it.” It cannot be said much clearer then this. Its not something he made up, nor did he get a copy of it from another person, nor was he taught it. No he received it by revelation from Jesus Christ! Which brings us to our second point.
Its Gods
We believe that all scripture is the inspired word of God. Not that it is inspiring like Shakespeare or a Wilbur Smith book might be inspiring. If it was that kind of inspiring, then the Sermon on the Mount would carry a lot of weight and the nine chapters if names at the beginning of 1 Chronicles would not be that important. But we confess that in terms of authority they carry the same weight. Inspiration means to breath in. Now this may not be the best definition because it is not like there were already words there, and that God just breathed into them. But the words themselves are the breath of God. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All scripture is God-breathed.” Have you ever thought about what that means. God didn’t just inspire the words that were already there, but he spoke the words. That means they hold in them the very character of God. God and his word go together.
Now I can hear some people say how do we know that this is Gods word. The first answer would be because it says so. Then the question would be, well, how do you know what is says is true? And my answer would be because it is the word of God.
Now right away I can see you all thinking that this is a very circular argument. Yes it is, but an important one. Let me explain, if the Bible never said that it was the word of God, or if it only mentioned it very occasionally. Then if we claimed that it was the Word of God, they would say that we are going farther then the evidence allows us to go. If the book itself doesn’t say it, what right do we have to say it. And if it only says it here and there, then we might accept some as scripture but not all of it. But amazingly over thirty authors writing sixty books there is amazing uniformity in the claim that the words are inspired – that the prophets accepted that they were speaking god’s word. So the Bible says it is inspired therefore we believe.
It is also amazing that Jesus believed it to be inspired and understood the consequences. In John 10:25 He quotes the scriptures of Psalm 82:6, and he says, “If he called them gods to whom the word of God came.” Did you catch that? “To whom the word of God came.” He understood this psalm not to be the words of a man, although it was written by a man, but the very words of God. And then he goes on in a very short statement and says, “And the scripture cannot be broken.” That is the consequence of the word of God. It cannot be broken, for it is God who stand behind it.
But does that mean that the people were simply robots that were dictated to. Like a translator, or a machine that simply spits out what the author puts in. and if they were not robots does that mean the only other option is that it was written by people and not God. No, not at all. For the God of the Bible is the God of History.
We believe after all, that this is the God who works all things according to his will, and who does whatever pleases him, for no one can stay his hand. To this end he so controlled events that Moses was born at a given date, placed in the water to save him from early death, found by Pharaohs daughter, given the best Egyptian education possible, driven into the wilderness to learn patience, and in every detail was so prepared by his nurture and nature, or heredity and environment that when the time came, Moses mentality and literary style were instruments precisely fitted to speak God’s word. As one author states, “Between Moses and God there was an inner union, and identity of purpose, a cooperation of will, so that the words Moses wrote were God’s own words and Moses’ own words at the same time. There is a unity and a oneness between Moses and God. “
This is why we see such a unique style in each writer. God not only gave the words, he gave the person behind the words so that the person and the words fit together, and yet in the most astounding way have a uniform message with every other author, across every other century, in multiple different places.
The testimony of consistency underscores this to be Gods word. He is consistent within himself. Always. And so his word is consistent. No Other book is like this one for consistency. =66 books, over 30 writes, written over thousands of year – one message. Ultimately one book. Written by God. Its amazing. Almost no even perceived inconsistencies.
But it is not only the testimony of consistency but the testimony of history that underscores the truth of this book. The 20th century has proved the truth of scripture in History again and again, as we find more and more evidence from archeology of what Scripture says. Much more could be said here, but we will leave that for a later talk.
But the proof of consistency or of history does not matter if the Holy Spirit, God Himself testifies in us that this is the word of God. Without the Spirit we will not accept it as Gods word. No matter how much evidence. But again and again we see that Gods work is powerful and effective not only in our lives but in others lives as well! The truth of Scripture can be seen in the changed lives of people. None but God can do this. Changing the worst of sinners into the greatest of saints.
Indeed, If they are the very words of God that are spoken then it should transform us at the most basic level of the human person, leading to communion with God. The spiritual power of the Bible emerges for Christians from the fact that the “Word of God” is not just a matter of words. Jesus Christ is the substantial Word, the eternal Logos (Or Word) who was made flesh for us and for our salvation.
And if it is the divine word of God then it will have an effect. We must simply believe it. The reformation got this to a great degree, and we still hold onto it. I love this quote from Luther ““I opposed indulgences and all papists, but never by force. I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And then while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my Philip and my Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor did such damage to it. I did nothing. The Word did it all.”
The word did it all because the word is the Word of God and the Word of God is Jesus. In the Word we find the Word made flesh, and it is that Word that comes to you when the Word is preached.
Some observations before we close
- I think something that the early church did, and the church of the reformation picked up on was the regular reading of Gods word in the worship service. Th tradition was that outside of the text choices someone would read a chapter from the Bible every Sunday in the Worship services. They might read one chapter from the new testament in the morning and two from the Old testament in the evening, thus reading through the whole Bible as a church over a period of time.
- Second, and I quote from a theologian, “…. An inspired text aims for inspired lives. When we approach the Scriptures in a prayerful search for God’s purposes in our lives, the encounter produces knowledge both of God and of ourselves….the Bible’s proper place is not the academy but the Church.” In other words this word was not given to pastors or elders, or people that have studied theology. This word is for you. Young child, for you young university student, for you at work, at school, at home. This word belongs to you to read. It is Gods timeless word given in time for his People. It is the connection between time an eternity. So read it. Study it. Will it be easy always? No. The saints of old have compared it to digging in a field, or mining for treasure. Both take effort. Which brings us to our last points
- It takes faith and prayer. The pharisees knew the Bible but at the same time didn’t know it. In John 5 we read, “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life…. But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set.” In other words, they didn’t even understand the man on whom they had set their hope. They studied diligently but had not idea what they were looking for because what they needed could only be spiritually discerned. So pray before you read, that you might understand rightly. And look for Jesus.
- Finally this brings us to our last point – as Jesus himself says, “these are the scriptures which speak about me.” This is not about ticking something else off your morning list. Woke up. Tick. Showered. Tick. Ate. Tick. Bible Tick. If we do that with all of our life we may never truly enjoy anything. Life becomes one big checklist to check off. This is not playing for laughs; this is reality. You can go for a month and read your Bible and not know Christ any better because of the way in which we approach it. This book finds its focus and its fulfillment in Jesus. All of the pieces of the jigsaw form up and give to us this wonderful picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. So lets seek him. Prayerfully in all the pages of this God breathed book. Take time to soak it in, memorize it. Meditate on it.
Amen.