THE
REVELATION OF GOD
This is our
second study in a series titled
CREDO –
A)CREDO = Latin for I BELIEVE.
B)Jude —- a brother of Jesus and of James
said this in his short letter
V.3 “Beloved,
although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found
it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once
for all delivered to the saints.”
C)In this series we are following the storyline of the Bible and
defining the essential doctrines of Christianity
DOCTRINE = WHAT
CHRISTIANS BELIEVE.
A)Last month we began the series with a study titled TRINITY: God is. In that study we
saw that
Bible teaches that there is
ONE God –
B)Who eternally exists as
three distinct persons – Father, Son and Spirit – Each FULLY and EQUALLY God!
Credo #2 tonight – Revelation God speaks
A)Revelation is the means by which God has chosen speak to us.
If you travel to
A)And there’s a recording that plays each
time the doors open.
B)A British accent warns you of the gap
between
the platform and the train. A voice says, “Mind the Gap.” It’s become a
C)In fact, you can buy a T-shirt that reads, “Mind the Gap.”
God did just that! God paid attention to the gap.
A)A
holy God is in heaven.
B)Needy
humans are on earth. And sin has caused a gargantuan gap between them.
1)People are too sinful and too
limited to discover God on their own.
C)The
only way for us to know God is for Him to disclose His identity and His will.
1)And He has… God “minds the Gap…”
D)He’s
spoken across the divide and bridged the gap between His holiness and our
ignorance.
Tonight we are going to discuss – How God has spoken!
A)What
He did to Mind the gap!
B)Speculation is human guesswork.
Throughout the centuries proud men have not
hesitated in speculating about who God is and what
He desires.
1)
People love to speculate: Witnessing tool – what do you think God is like. { Freely
talk / Pretend
Far more
trustworthy than speculation is revelation.
There is no need to guess about God.
A)He
doesn’t have lockjaw. God has spoken.
B)Speaking
of God’s revelation there are two broad categories – general
and special revelation.
C)Think of general revelation as a billboard on Hwy. 78 – and
special revelation as a text message on your cell phone.
D)A
billboard communicates to everyone in the community over a long period of time.
1)A text message addresses a narrower
audience and conveys a more specific message.
So it is with God’s revelation.
A)General revelation includes
the witness of God we find in nature.
Psalm 19:1 tells us, “The heavens declare the glory of God;
and the firmament shows His handiwork.”
B)Intelligent
design speaks of a designer
C)Creation
tells us that God is an Artist!
D)Different
species of fish – kinds of flowers – climates
Landscapes
– God is an Artist – He is creative
1)You
cannot open your eyes without being compelled to see God!
D)He
is glorious in his Creativity.
1)The
Diversity and the Creativity in the body of Christ.
Creation
tells us that God must be Beautiful because his creation reflects something of
His glory.
General revelation also includes God’s
providence – or His overarching supervision in the world.
A)God
not only created. He sustains His creation.
B)When Paul preached to the agrarian community
of Lystra, he attributed rain, and seasons, and growing cycles to God’s general
revelation.
Paul says of God in
A)The
processes of nature that sustain life on the planet say something about God’s
goodness and love.
B)They’re
part of His general revelation.
1) Often God in His providence
orchestrates circumstances.
C)The
rabbis have a saying, “Coincidence is not a kosher word.”
D)It’s
true. Nations rise and fall. Promotions come. People cross paths because God is
at work.
1) God is behind the scenes working
through our situations to accomplish His purposes.
2)Sovereign
over the affairs of men!
F)So
His providence is also an example of His revelation.
Conscience:
A)God’s witness within us is another
example of general revelation.
B)Our conscience – our
sense of right and wrong
“For when Gentiles, who do not have
the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the
law, are a law to themselves, 15 who show the work of the law written in their
hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their
thoughts accusing or else excusing them) 16 in the day when God will judge the
secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.”
Paul is saying
that EVERY human being — even though they are not a Christian experiences general revelation through the
INNER conviction of their conscience.
A)Anyone who has ever NOT done something because they innately knew it
was wrong
B)Anyone who has ever done something they KNEW was wrong and then felt
badly about it
C)Anyone who has ever apologized for something
D)Anyone who has ever appealed to a greater moral standard —
1) “That’s not right —you
should NEVER do that
E)THAT is why even non-Christians will say that you shouldn’t take
advantage of the poor.
1)Rape of murder or steal.
WHERE does this come from? God
Examples of General revelation tell us a lot about
God
A)But they don’t communicate God’s name,
His way of salvation, His standards for holiness, His justice, or His
grace.
This
is why we also need Special revelation.
I
do think the distinction between general and special revelation might best be
summarized as the difference between works
and words.
A)General
revelation is sent through the works of
God, but when God gets specific He uses words.
B)The
most intimate human communication takes place through words.
C)Teens and texting – so fast -
1)An
executive secretary couldn’t type as fast with 10 fingers as teenage girl can
with her two thumbs.
Kids today find it easier to put words in
text than to speak them.
A)Early
on, God chose to reveal Himself and His will in text, with ink, on
parchment.
B)We call it “Scripture.” The
Bible is the scripted Word of God.
1)Of course, the Bible isn’t the only book
that claims to be from God.
C)Every religion has its sacred writings -
the Koran of Islam, the Hindu Vedas, the Buddhist Sutras, the Book of Mormon
D)but when it comes to religious literature the
Bible is in a class all by itself. It’s unique.
There is a new movie coming
on next week called
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
A)Centers around Greek
Mythology – Zues Posieden Hercles – all the Greek gods
B)Inter action with men – relations –
C)Very bazaar belief!
1)But many growing up in the greek cluture believed these myths to be
true!
Now when you
think about Christianity – It can seem a little farfetched at first – to person
who knows nothing. Sargent Shultz
A)Before there was anything – there as God – dwelling in 3 persons
B)Create a world {spoke}– Man who would rebel
1)God the Son – would come – Crucified from before the foundation of
the world.
C)Wait – several 1000 yrs – Predicting His coming
1)Man further and further away from God
D)All the while God was revealing himself to man
E)Hopeless – God send his son to be Savior
1)Doesn’t come riding Stallion – Comes as a baby
30 yrs obscurity.
3 Years of Public ministry – led to a
Cross
A)Buried 3 days – Risen – 40 days -
Acsended
B)Church born – 2nd Coming –
1)At first blush the story sounds bizzaar
C)But the thing that separates this story from Greek Mythology or any
other form of religion is the way that God has chosen to Reveal Himself to us.
D)Uniqueness of the Word –
1)Highlight some of the Bible’s Uniqueness
The
Bible is unique in its continuity.
A)We say the Bible is one book - but its
actually 66
books written over a 1500 year period - by
40 authors, on 3 continents, in 3 languages.
B)It
was written in various places - prisons
to palaces.
1)Its authors had various backgrounds – princes, peasants, farmers, and fishermen.
C)It
was written under different circumstances -
triumph
and tragedy.
D)It’s comprised of different types of
literature - poetry, prose, and proverbs -
1)yet the Bible deals with scores of controversial
subjects without a single contradiction.
No
other book has such diversity yet unity.
A)From
cover to cover the Bible has one central theme - the work of Jesus.
B)Try to find any other collection of 66
books with this continuity and you'll search in vain.
The
Bible is also unique in its content.
A)Other books contain rules and rituals you have to
perform to get to God.
B)The Bible portrays salvation as God's
free gift. It’s all about grace – what God has done to mind the gap.
The
Bible is unique in its candor.
A)It treats its heroes with brutal honesty - "warts and
all." Noah got drunk –
B)Abraham lied – David stoopped to
adultery and murder. The Bible has no skeletons. It has the ring of truth!
The
Bible is unique in its correctness.
A) In fact, every new scoop of the
archeologist's shovel
proves again the historical accuracy of
Scripture.
B)The Bible is also scientifically
reliable. 1900 years before
"(God) drew a circular horizon on
the face of the waters, at the boundary of light and darkness."
C)Careful Bible students knew the earth
was round long before explorers verified the fact.
The
Bible is unique in its completed prophecies.
A)
B)The
Bible predicted the conquest of Alexander the Great - the rise of the
1) the
rebirth of the modern state of
C)Daniel
9 predicts 500 years in advance, the exact day Jesus would make His final entry
into
D)The
Bible contains 300-plus prophecies of Jesus’ first coming! .
The Bible’s predictive accuracy is
evidence of its author’s vantage point.
A)The
true God sits outside of time. He sees the end from the beginning.
The
Bible is unique in its constancy.
A)It’s survived countless attacks.
B)In
303 AD, the Roman Emperor Diocletian ordered the destruction of all Bibles.
C)Christians at the time worried about the
future of their movement. Yet how quickly the tide changed…
Diocletian's successor,
D)In
fact,
*It’s
been said, "The Bible is an anvil that has broken
many hammers."
The Bible’s uniqueness sets it apart from all other books.
A)No wonder the Bible is the world’s all-time
best-seller.
B)And
it has but one explanation – the Bible has a supernatural origin.
C)It’s God’s revelation. It’s from God to us!
This is why Paul writes to Timothy and
tells him to read the Bible, study the Bible, live the Bible, preach the
Bible. He says in
man of God may be complete, thoroughly
equipped for every good work.”
Now When we say the Bible came from God
to us we’re tempted to think He sent it to Earth tied to a meteorite – but
God chose a far more spectacular approach – the processes of inspiration, canonization, preservation…
First, let’s talk about inspiration. The Greek word translated
inspiration means God breathed.
A)Inspiration is the supernatural process by which God breathed His
Word into existence.
B)People
didn’t just make up the Bible. Its authors were influenced by the Spirit of
God.
C)The
Holy Spirit oversaw the natural process of the author’s writing to insure that
what was written on the parchment was what God desired.
D)Think about this Jesus is called the
Living word Just as the living Word, Jesus, shared some of his mothers features
Likewise we can expect the written Word to
retain the writer’s style, vocabulary, culture, personality…
A)Four
words help us understand what we mean when we talk about the doctrine of
inspiration.
B) literal, verbal, plenary, and inerrant.
Literal means we take the Bible at face
value. What it says - it means.
When the Bible says God created the earth
in six days - or Jonah was swallowed by a fish – or Jesus is coming again
– don’t try to spiritualize!
The Bible means what it says. There are
Bible passages that are meant to be taken figuratively, but when they are, it’s
apparent from the text.
Verbal inspiration
means every word of the Bible is God-breathed, not just its thoughts or
intent.
A)This is God's attitude toward Scripture.
In
B)All 774,746 words in your Bible are God-breathed.
The rabbis use to say… "When Messiah comes He’ll not only
interpret the passages for us, He'll interpret the very words; He'll even
interpret the letters; in fact, He will even interpret the spaces between the
letters!"
C)They
believed even the spaces between the letters were inspired.
Inspiration is also plenary – which means "the whole of Scripture."
A)Not just the parts that deal with
theology or ethics, but all the Bible is inspired by God - even its historical
and scientific statements.
B)Some folks have a "Dalmatian theology." They only take seriously a
spot here or spot
1)Ok if your dog
looks like this but your theology can’t look like this.
C)Thomas Jefferson took a Scissor to his
Bible and cut out parts that He didn’t like.
D)In my flesh there are parts of the Bible
that I don’t like
1)But I know that they are good for me.
Mark Twain – It is not the parts of the
Bible I don’t understand that trouble me – it is the parts I do understand.
Also
the Bible is inerrant.
We believe that in the autographs (or original documents) the Bible is free
from all error.
This was Jesus’ endorsement of the Bible.
In
A)We believe in literal, verbal, plenary, and inerrant inspiration.
B)But Inspiration was just the first step
of bringing us the Bible.
Next
was canonization. The word “canon" means "reed". In ancient
times reeds were used as measuring sticks.
A)The
canon is the standard - the official list of inspired books.
B)It
defines Paul’s phrase, "All Scripture."
C)The Old
Testament Canon was determined by the Hebrews.
Jesus affirmed the Jewish canon. He says
in
These were the same three divisions that
made up the Jewish Bible – and that make up our Old Testament today.
A)So
The OT canon was decided by the Jews and affirmed by Jesus.
B)The
NT canon was also affirmed by Jesus, but in advance!
1)He clarified the canon by limiting it’s
authorship to the supervision of the 12 apostles.
C)In
1)These were rabbinical terms which meant to prohibit and
permit.
D)And it was this authority that enabled
the 12 apostles to establish the faith and practice of the early Church through
the writing of the NT.
Peter affirmed Paul’s apostleship and
calling as a writer of Scripture.
In 2Peter 3:15 Peter comments, "Our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written
to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these
things, in which are some things hard to understand, which
those who are untaught and unstable
twist to their own destruction, as they do
also the rest of the Scriptures."
Peter
admits Paul is difficult to understand at times. He tackled heavy subjects.
A)But Peter puts Paul’s letters on a par
with sacred Scripture.
B)When the last apostle neared death, John
knew he was the final person authorized to write Scripture, so he closes Revelation
with a warning.
In
But
wait if men wrote it and copied it – couldn’t it have a lot of errors
Let me also comment on the Bible’s preservation. Since we no longer possess the original documents,
how can we be sure that what we read today is what was first written? How
well has the Bible been preserved?
There are two ways to test the reliability
of an ancient document…
First, is the number of copies we have of
that document. The more
copies the more you can look for similarities or possible corruptions.
Second is the length of time between the
writing of the copies and the date of the originals.
The logic goes, the older the copies - the
closer to the originals – and the more likely they are to be free from
errors.
Textual
Criticism
This is where evidence for the reliability
of the Bible is overwhelming.
Today
we have 5400 copies of
the Greek New Testament. This is an unheard of number of ancient manuscripts - a
mountain of corroboration.
We have just 5 copies of Aristotle, and 7
copies of Plato, yet no one doubts their authenticity. How much more should we
trust the NT?
In addition, compare these 5400 documents
and you'll find a 99% agreement. The 1% difficulty is mostly due to variations
in spelling - and not one of these variants affects any major biblical doctrine.
It’s also impressive to know that the
oldest copies we have of the Greek classics are 800 years separated from the
originals.
Whereas, we have portions of the NT dating
back to a few decades of the time the apostle wrote them.
There’s a portion of John’s Gospel in a
library in
The Bible is like a surgeon’s scalpel.
It cuts to cure. It lays
bear our motives. It does surgery on our hearts.
“God, who at
various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed
heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; 3 who being the
brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all
things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat
down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”