Description of the Holy Bible – Part 20

God Is the Author of the Bible contd.

Believers must maintain strong uncompromising view of Holy Scripture as inspired and given directly by God. There are several reasons for this.

• It is the only way to be true to what Jesus Christ, the apostle and the Bible itself teach about Scripture (see Ps 119; John 5:47)

• Without a strong view of Holy Scripture, the church has no true and sure foundation for its faith, no certainty of salvation, no moral absolutes, no message to preach without doubt, no sure expectancy for the baptism in the Holy Spirit and the working of miracles, and no hope for the imminent return of Christ.

• Without a strong view of the Holy Scripture, Christians will not be ready to withstand the extreme difficulties of the last days (see 1 Thes 2:1-12; 1 Tim 4:1; 2 Tim 3:1).

• Without a strong view of the Holy Scripture, Bible-believing Christians have no absolute and objective truth based on the authority of God Himself by which to judge and reject this ever-changing values of this world, human philosophies and the culture’s ungodly practices (Ps 119:160).

• Without a strong view of the Holy Scripture, the full authority and teaching of the Bible are weakened. The Bible will subsequently be replaced by subjective religious experience or by independent and critical reason (Col 2:8; Prov 14:12; 1 Thes 2:1-3)

Some Basic Definitions
Three words shall be repeatedly used in this discourse on The Holy Bible. These are (1) Revelation (2) Inspiration (3) Illumination

Revelation of God’s Word
“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” (Deut 29:29)

“He [Jesus] asked His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” 14 So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” (Mat 16:13-17)

Revelation may be defined as that process by which God imparted to man truths which mankind otherwise could not know. The details of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 are an example of revelation. As man was not created until the sixth day, we could not have possibly known the events occurring prior to this, until God gave the facts to Moses.

We know God spoke to the human authors of our Bible; but just how did He speak? Was it in Hebrew? Greek? Angelic language? He spoke to them in their own language. God’s call to young Samuel in the temple (1 Sam. 3:1-1 0) proves this, for the boy at first mistook God’s voice for that of the aged priest, Eli. Sometimes, God spoke through angels: Gabriel was sent from heaven to tell Mary she would give birth to the Messiah (Luke 1:26-37). On other occasions, the Lord spoke directly to a man, as He did to Noah concerning the Great Flood (Gen. 6:13-21).

One of God’s methods of communication in the Scripture is to reveal His message through dreams and visions: The wise men (Matt. 2:12) were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, while Peter was later instructed in a vision to minister to Cornelius (Acts 10:10-16).

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