The CRCA
B.C.3 – God's Spoken and Written Word
Word of Salvation - June 2018
B.C.3 – God's Spoken and Written Word
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp
Bible readings: Read: Exodus 34:1-8, 27-35
Text: 2Peter 1:12-21
BC stands for Basic Christianity. What are the fundamentals of the faith?
BC also stands for Belgic Confession – a document in which the Christian church (in a time of great persecution) spelled out the basics of what she believes.
When Christianity is a mile wide and an inch deep it needs to grasp again the basics of the faith and confess them in a world where the faith is increasingly under attack.
Those who drew up the BC declared that they were ready to obey the government in all lawful things, but that they would “offer their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags and their whole bodies to the fire” rather than deny the truth expressed in this confession.
Introd: Why should you believe the Bible?
Why take that as the basis and the starting point for your faith?
Why not the sacred writings of other religions – like the Koran of the Muslims?
I recall a Church Ed class where we once talked about what things we find difficult to believe.
Interestingly, no one had ever really doubted that God exists.
But several young people said: The real doubts I sometimes have concern the Bible.
What if someone has really just made it all up?
What if the Bible is just a very clever hoax?
Maybe you sometimes struggle with those questions too.
If so... then our text and our Confessions will help us work through those questions.
A] EYEWITNESSES TO GOD’S REDEMPTIVE SAYING AND DOING.
1. The apostle Peter says (vs.16), "We did not follow cleverly invented stories...".
They are not myths and legends... stories made up to explain things.
They are not fables... the work of some clever story-teller.
Peter says: We haven’t made it up... and neither has anyone else.
The Bible is not in the same category as some vague and distant “dreamtime” stories.
The apostle goes on to make a very important statement. He says:
BUT WE WERE EYE WITNESSES... Eye-witnesses of His majesty.
He tells us that they, the apostles, set out to record what they had seen and heard.
They saw certain events.... they heard certain truths... and they recorded them as witnesses.
Now that’s true of the Bible writers in general.
Repeatedly they claim to be recording facts and events.... things they have heard and seen.
Wasn’t that the case already with Moses?
Moses simply recorded what he had seen with his own eyes:
God’s saving deeds in Exodus event.
He also wrote things God spoke to him about during the 40 days he was on Mount Sinai.
The Bible writers were all conscious of this to a greater or lesser extent.
They were recording for posterity the deeds and words of God.
And Peter was certainly aware that this was true for the apostles.
Peter singles out one very special and memorable event:
The time when Jesus took them up on the mountain;
Just as Moses had seen the glory of God on the mountain...
So they saw the glory of Jesus on the mountain... He was transformed in front of them.
They had heard the voice of God Himself saying,
"This is my Son, whom I love, with whom I am well pleased."
So Peter calls himself and the other apostles ‘witnesses’.
They were witnesses to Jesus’ death.
They saw with their own eyes the empty tomb on Easter morning.
They had seen something of the majestic glory of the Son of God.
And so he states: these are not cleverly made up stories.
They are the record of eye-witnesses to the deeds of God.
We have been called to testify to what we have seen and heard of God’s saving work.
2. It’s a telling thing that Peter calls his writings, the work of an eye-witness.
That brings out the human element of the Bible.
The authors were ordinary people with all their faults and failings.
Ordinary, sinful human beings... and yet they wrote this book that we call the Bible.
IOW: the Bible we hold in our hands didn’t fall ready-made from heaven.
Some religions teach that their sacred writings were sent direct from heaven.
The Bible did not come to us carried from the Almighty on the wings of angels.
Instead it came by ordinary people sitting down for hours on end writing it down.
Painstakingly recording all the details.
At times making very careful investigation and recording their findings.
Unfortunately Christians have not always done justice to the human authorship of the Bible.
We have sometimes played down human element.
For example: over the years debates about the Bible have raged in some Christian circles.
Whether or not... and to what extent there are errors in the Bible.
That debate about INERRANCY didn’t always do justice to the human element.
Evangelical Christians have little trouble believing that the Bible is the Word of God.
But it is a temptation to ignore the human authors.
After all it is the WORD OF GOD.
So we talk about the ‘inspiration’ of the Bible... that God’s spirit inspired the authors.
But we don’t often talk about the ‘perspiration’ of the Bible... the hard work of the human writers.
As we think of the nature of Scripture I find it helpful to think of Jesus Himself.
Jesus (who is called The Word) is the MODEL.... He was fully God... and fully man.
And we must do justice to both His humanity and His divinity.
A Jesus who is not fully man cannot be a complete saviour for man.
Neither can a Jesus who is not fully God bring about our salvation.
So too Scripture is both human and divine.
And Peter first highlights the human factor involved in producing the Bible.
We could also add that God used the human authors of the Bible in different ways.
At times, people like Moses or Jeremiah, did little more than take dictation direct from God’s mouth.
The Ten Commandments are the closest thing to Scripture dropping straight from heaven.
At other times these men simply recorded what they saw and heard.
And in the case of writings such as the psalms...
we even have simply the God-inspired human response to God’s dealings with mankind.
In fact, probe a little deeper and you find that the author’s own character comes thru loud and clear.
It is evident from Matthew’s gospel that he is a Jew... steeped in the culture of the O.T.
It is just as clear from Luke’s gospel that he is a learned man... a doctor.
His use of the Greek shows he was much more fluent in it than was the apostle John, a Jew.
IOW God not only used the human authors... but used them as they were.
With their own strengths and weaknesses... gifts and abilities.
Yet God guided all these prophets and apostles to commit His revealed will to writing.
3. So the miracle is that these writings can be trusted as being utterly reliable.
The humanness of Scripture should not be a problem for us.
Despite all those different human authors... Scripture is genuine... it is infallible.
It is the authoritative record of God’s saving deeds and His sayings that will never let us down.
It has stood the test of time and will continue to do so.
It can handle anything we care to throw at it.
Sometimes we Christians have given in too quickly when the Bible is attacked.
People see the humanness of the Scriptures and they base their attack on the human element.
And the trouble is that we let people get away with it.
Let me give you some examples.
When I was working in business the subject of religion and the Bible often came up for discussion.
Over the years I often heard people say:
You can’t believe the Bible – there’s too many errors and contradictions in it.
At first I kept quiet because I didn’t have an answer. So I let them win!
Later I learnt not to give in.
Today when someone says you can’t trust the Bible because of the contradictions...
I ask them to please give me an example of such a contradiction.
Most often they can’t actually mention an example.
But if they do we have something specific to discuss.
Others don’t accept the authority of the Bible because they say it is unscientific!
They claim it cannot be proven.
And again we often have nothing to say to that – so they think they have proven their point.
And we let them go away thinking the Bible is not reliable.
Who said that the only evidence to prove Scripture’s reliability has to be ’scientific’ evidence?
(Whatever that might mean anyway.) There are other kinds of evidence.
Four trainee nurses lived in a nurses’ home, back in the days when they still had curfews.
These girls stayed out till after curfew, then climbed in over the fence and into the window.
The only trouble was that matron caught them red-handed.
When asked why they came in so late they said, “the car had a flat tyre".
Matron, being a wise woman said, “Sit down girls.
You over here. Cindy in this Chair. Mary over there... and you on the bed.
Here is a pencil a piece of paper for each of you.
Now write down on the paper which tyre was flat.”
That kind of evidence is available for anyone who wants to check out the authenticity of the Bible.
It is the kind of proof that is used in a court of law every day.
The cross-checking of witnesses.... we can do it by comparing Scripture with Scripture.
Frank Morison was a firm unbeliever... an agnostic.
He felt ever so strongly that the Bible authors could not be trusted.
He focused on the gospels and set out to prove them wrong.
After all, these were mere human writings that contradicted each other.
So he decided to prepare a case against the gospels.
To prove – as in a court of law – that it couldn’t have happened.
That there were enough differences between the gospels to get them thrown out of court.
So he set out to prepare his legal brief on the case in the form of a book.
But that book was never written.
Instead he wrote a book which showed how his studies led him to become a Christian.
Frank Morison had become convinced of the reliability of gospels.
His book ‘Who moved the stone?’ supports the reliability of the eye-witnesses.
B] THE WRITTEN WORD OF GOD MADE MORE CERTAIN.... FOR OUR SALVATION.
1. Of course the reason for Scripture’s reliability goes much deeper than it being written by witnesses.
Behind the human authors there stands the divine Author.
There is a double authorship to the Scriptures.
So just as Jesus is both fully God and fully man...
so too the Scriptures are not only fully human writings but they are also fully the word of God.
In the opening verses of this passage the apostle Peter stresses his own role as an eye-witness...
and the role of all the apostles as witnesses...
Yet he also moves on to give a very clear stress on God’s role in it all.
To begin with Peter immediately relates his task as eye-witness to the Scriptures of His day.
To the prophetic writings of the O.T.
He has spoken about what they saw... the glory of Jesus on the mountain.
But then he immediately adds: “And so we have the word of the prophets made more certain.” (v.19)
That “word of the prophets”... that’s the Hebrew Scriptures – the writings of the O.T.
Peter wants to take his stand on those prophetic writings.
He wants to show that those writings were totally reliable and trustworthy.
So by connecting the events he had witnessed with these writings
he shows that the events he witnessed proved the reliability of O.T.
Let me put it this way: the O.T. prophets had spoken of the coming of Jesus.
They had told of His glory... in dozens of places.
Now that Peter had been an eye-witness to those events it confirmed the truth of the O.T.
The fulfilment of Scripture proves its authenticity.
The word of prophecy is made more sure... more certain as Peter saw it come true.
It guaranteed Scripture’s total reliability – the very Word of God.
Not that Peter doubted it beforehand... he was already certain.
Why? Because Peter saw beyond those human authors to the divine Author.
It was the Word of God which was already sure and certain.
Yet now made even more sure and certain as he actually saw it all fulfilled in Jesus.
2. It’s interesting that it’s also possible to read verse 19 another way.
We could leave out the word "made" – it is actually not there in the original language.
The English Bible puts it in to try to make things clear for us.
But leave it out and the meaning changes just a little.
Peter is then saying: “we have the more certain word of the prophets.”
That gives us yet another way of looking at this whole matter.
It means that Peter wants to put all the emphasis on the written WORD.
Peter is then saying:
We are not following cleverly devised stories.
And I know that because I am an eye-witness... I have experienced the reality of these things.
But even more important than my experience of these things
is that these matters are the subject of the prophetic word.
That prophetic word of which God is the author.
My experience confirms that the gospel is not just a clever myth.
But even more important than my experience of it is the fact that God has said it in His Word.
That is a good balance that modern Christianity baldly needs to take to heart.
We have this tendency today to overemphasise religious experience.
Now, okay, religious experience is very important.
It is no good talking about a faith we have not personally experienced.
But when all the stress is on me and my experience then we are in trouble.
We then become lost in a sea of subjectivism.
It is the Word of prophesy that is more certain.... more certain than our experiences.
Let me illustrate all this by means of this box.
This box has many things in it! And we could guess what is in the box.
We could make up quite a story about the box and its contents... some clever myths.
I could also tell you what is in it... but you might well say to me: Well, you made it all up...!
Why should you believe me if I tell you what’s in this box?
So what we’ll do is we’ll open it up and have a look... we’ll confirm it by experience.
And I’ll ask some boys and girls, to come out and act as eye-witnesses on our behalf.
OK! Now we have eye-witnesses who have actually seen what is in the box.
They have had the experience of actually looking into the box.
They saw all the interesting bits and pieces.
But who can still remember all the things that were in the box?
What colour were the pencils? How many paper-clips were in the box?
Seeing...and experiencing has its problems.
We tend to forget. Things that were not so important become more important!
And the important things sometimes get shoved in the background.
So there is another way of knowing and remembering what is in the box.
That is by an inventory list... a listing I happen to have right here.
The boys and girls might have written it as they checked the items in the box.
Now all we need to do is look at the list.
3. In a similar way God has given us His WRITTEN word.
God had his eye-witnesses make up an inventory of His saving deeds in the Lord Jesus Christ.
He has spelled it all out for us in detail so that we might all know.
Now we have the information at our finger tips at any time. We can look at it whenever we want.
That written word is utterly reliable. First of all because the human authors were eye-witnesses.
Secondly, and more importantly, behind the human authors there was God giving us His word.
No prophesy was ever made by an act of human will
but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
That’s the great climax of Peter’s statement as to why we should believe the gospel story.
It was predicted long ago... not by clever people...
but by God’s Spirit carrying the human authors along as they wrote.
That doesn’t mean that the human authors didn’t know anymore what they were doing.
As if they were only like typewriters used by Holy Spirit.
Rather: They wrote using all their own talents and abilities.
Yet they wrote exactly what the Lord God wanted us to know. That’s the amazing thing.
The Bible was written by sinful, fallible human beings, some 40 or more of them.
It was put together over a period of more than 1800 years.
And yet at the same time – it is the word of the living God to you.
Experiences fade. Word of mouth becomes distorted over the decades.
But that written Word stands firm and secure.
Article 3 of the Belgic Confession tells us that God made sure
that we have a written record of His saving deed and words... the gospel of Jesus Christ
and that He did that out of His special care for us and our salvation.
All so that we today and people everywhere might know Jesus and the gospel message.
In that book that you hold in your hand God has spoken... and spoken for your salvation.
But what are you doing with it?
The best thing you can do with it is to read from it every day again and then live it in daily life!
Amen.
