THE BIBLE: REASONS TO BELIEVE IT IS GOD’S WORD

 

Joy, Peace; Strength, Obedience, Confidence in God’s Love

 

Confidence Scripture is the Words of God

 

KNOWING IS ESSENTIAL

 

2 Peter 1:2–4 May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

 

Colossians 2:2-4 (ESV) that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.

 

John 14:23-24 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.”

 

Joshua 1:7-8 “Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

Biblical Faith Is Not a Blind Leap

 

RICHARD DAWKINS:  “Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”

 

 

 

 

BUT BIBLICAL FAITH IS BASED ON EVIDENCE:

• “Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by miraculous signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other.” (Deut. 4:34-35)

 

• “Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. Even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father." (John 10:37-38)

 

• John 5:31 “If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true.”

 

• "I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am He.” (John 13:19; 14:28-29) (BAR)

 

·       2 Peter 1:20–21 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 4:4)

 

 

THE CLAIMS OF THE BIBLE

 

·       Jesus answered [the Devil], "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" (Matthew 4:4)

 

Jesus NEVER set Himself above Scripture as its judge:

 

·       "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” (Matthew 5:17-18)

 

·       He said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself… He said to them, "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms." Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. (Luke 24: 25-27, 44-45)

 

·       Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. (Matthew 22:29)

 

·       Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

 

·       MOSES AUTHORED: "But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?" (John 5:45-47)

PAUL:

• TRANSFORMS: And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. (1 Thessalonians 2:13)

 

• And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. (Acts 20:32)

 

PETER:

·       1 Peter 1:10–12 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

 

·       2 Peter 1:20–21 (NLT) Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.

 

JOHN:

·       Revelation 22:18–19 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

 

 

Proofs of the Bible

 

1.                 WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT (Subjective vs. Objective)

•          Psalm 34:8 Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. 

 

•          John 7:17 (NASB) "If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.

 

 

2.                 CHANGED LIVES

 

•          1 Tim. 4:13-16 …devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. ..¹⁵Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. ¹⁶Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers. 

 

•          STUDIES: “His research led him to conclude that men who regularly attend

Christian services are engaged in happier and stronger marriages and are more involved in the lives of their children than men who do not.” Bradford Wilcox, Univ of Va. Analyzed three studies.

 

•          HISTORICAL TESTIMONY TO THE INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE: “Hospitals

and asylums and refuges for the sick, the miserable and the afflicted grow like heaven-bedewed blossoms in its path. Woman, whose equality with man Plato considered a sure mark of social disorganization, has been elevated; slavery has been driven from civilized ground; literacy has been given by Christian missionaries, under the influence of the Bible.” B.B. Warfield

 

•          Professor of sociology Robert Woodberry’s research on missions: “Woodberry already had historical proof that missionaries had educated women and the poor, promoted widespread printing, let nationalistic movements that empowered ordinary citizens, and fueled other key elements of democracy. (Christianity Today, Jan/Feb 2014, 38)

 

o WOODBERRY: “Areas where Protestant missionaries had a significant presence in the past are on average more economically developed today, with comparatively better health, lower infant mortality, lower corruption, greater literacy, higher educational attainment (especially for women), and more robust membership in non-governmental associations.” (39)

 

 

3.                 MIRACLES

•            John 10:37 Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. 

 

 

•            TALMUD: Jesus’ miracles and Passover Crucifixion

 

 

4.                 FULFILLED PROPHECY

•            John 13:19 "I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am He. 

 

•            ISLAM: Genesis 16:12 He [Ishmael] will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.

 

•            ISRAEL: Deut. 8:17-19 You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." ¹⁸But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today. ¹⁹If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. 

 

•            MESSIANIC

 

 

5.     EXTERNAL CONFIRMATION (Archeology, Extra-Biblical Writings)

•            Magdalen Fragment (Matthew 60 AD); Cave 7 (Mark 50-68);

             SCIENCE:

•            "The cell is as complicated as New York City.” (Look, January 16, 1962, p. 46)

 

•            "A bacterium is far more complex than any inanimate system known to man. There is not a laboratory in the world which can compete with the biochemical activity of the smallest living organism." (Sir James Gray, chapter in Science Today (1961), p. 21)

 

6.     INTERNAL CONSISTENCY (OT/NT--Continuity)

 

▪               Jeremiah 31:31-34  

▪               John 5:39 You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, 

 

7.     THE BIBLICAL BOOKS – Not the Type of Books Humans would Write

 

 

 

 

Hebrew Scriptures as God’s Words

 

 

	NT
OT

 

RABBIS’ INTERPRETATIONS

 

1. THE PATRIARCHS: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the forefathers of Judaism, were certainly not role-models. Instead, the Bible reveals that they were cowards, deceivers, liars and worse. We humans don’t create or select such role models, least of all those who we identify as the Fathers of our faith.

 

Instead, the human tendency is to fashion them into the saints with whom others would want to identify. This is exactly what the Talmud did with the Patriarchs. It sanitized the Bible’s depiction of them and made them virtually sinless. In contrast, the Bible’s portraits sharply conflict with what we’d create – so much so, that we feel compelled to modify them.

• RABBIS: Abraham asked his wife Sarah to lie and say that she was his sister because he was traveling with her to ancient Egypt, a place known for its lack of morality (Genesis 12:10-13). Ramban believes that Abraham unintentionally committed a "great sin" and endangered his wife’s virtue because he should have had faith that God would save him and his family. After all, it was God who told Abraham to leave the land of his birthplace. However, even the Ramban would have to agree that, where one does not have the personal assurance of God, one should be permitted to lie. In fact, Abraham used the same ruse again when sojourning in Gerar (Genesis 20: 1-3). Isaac also used the same lie when traveling in lands where the morality of the inhabitants is questionable and claims that his wife Rebeccah is his sister (Genesis 26: 7).

 

·       Genesis 20:13 “And when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is the kindness you must do me: at every place to which we come, say of me, “He is my brother’”

 

• Jacob’s deception of his blind father, Isaac (Genesis 27). Was Jacob permitted to deceive his father and pretend to be Esau? Some commentaries take the approach that Jacob did not actually lie. When asked by his father who he was (Genesis 27: 18), he replied: "I am Esau your firstborn." Rashi and other commentators try to show that this was not really a falsehood.
  
  

 

• Genesis 48:15–16 And he blessed Joseph and said, “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the boys; and in them let my name be carried on, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.”

 

 

2. MOSES: Even the greatest of all Israelites had been forbidden entry into the Promised Land because he had sinned. Aaron also is presented as a humiliated sinner (Numbers 12). What hope therefore could the average Israelite entertain about his own future welfare? Not much! Such a revelation could not have been the invention of humans who’d naturally want to maintain a zealous following.

 

• RABBIS: Almost forty years earlier, in similar circumstances, G-d had told him to take his staff and strike the rock. Now too, G-d told him to take his staff. Evidently Moses inferred that he was being told to act this time as he had before, which is what he does… Moses’ inability to hear this distinction was not a failing, still less was it a sin. It was an inescapable consequence of the fact that he was mortal.

 

 

• If this interpretation is correct, then Moses did not sin, nor was he punished. To be sure, the Torah uses language expressive of sin (“You did not believe in Me”, “You rebelled against Me”, “You trespassed against Me”, “You did not sanctify Me”). But these phrases may refer, as several commentators suggest … not to Moses and Aaron but to the people and the incident as a whole. The fact that Moses was not destined to enter the promised land was not a punishment but the very condition of his (and our) mortality. http://www.ou.org/torah/parsha/rabbi-sacks-on-parsha/covenant_and_conversation_land/

 

However, Numbers 20:12: it is clear that Moses had sinned: “But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.’”

 

 

3. THE ISRAELITES: They are not portrayed as faithful to God, but as stubborn and unfaithful. On numerous occasions, Moses warned the Israelites to not think themselves better or more deserving than others. Meanwhile, the Talmud characterizes the Jewish people as spiritually superior, the very thing that the Bible warns against:

 

• “After the LORD your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, "The LORD has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness." No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is going to drive them out before you. It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.” (Deut. 9:4-6; 8:18; 1 Corinthians 1:26-29) (Raskin: “Stiff-necked?”)

 

In fact, we cannot find one verse in the Hebrew Scriptures that suggests that the Israelites were superior to or more deserving than others.

 

On the contrary, almost all the prophets denounce Israel, so much so that if we didn’t know better, we might conclude that these Scriptures represent the heights of anti-Semitism. Often, Israel is indicted more extensively than any other people. The first chapter of Isaiah is representative of what we find in the writings of the other Israelite prophets:

 

• “I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its master, the donkey its owner’s manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand. Woe to the sinful nation, a people whose guilt is great, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the Lord; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him.” (Isa. 1:2-4)

 

We humans don’t characteristically write such disparaging things about ourselves and our people, especially if these writings form the core of our self-identity – our significance and reason-for-being. How is it that the Jewish people would canonize such thoroughly condemning writings? They must have been convinced that they had no other choice, lest they oppose God.

 

 

4. MOSAIC LAWS: While much of Moses’ commands resemble those of other legal systems from that period, notably Hammurabi’s Code, much of it is not characteristic of anything else we find in the ancient Near East. For instance:

 

• The covenant was transacted with all the people, not just the king – an oddity in its day. Kings wrote the laws, and these laws reflected the fact that the king was morally and religiously above everyone else.

 

• The king was required to read the Torah (the Five Books of Moses) to remind him that he was no better than other people (Deut. 17).

 

• A day of rest was mandatory for even animals and foreigners (Exodus 20:10). Such concern does not come from the ruling class but from God who created all!

 

HOLIDAYS: Deuteronomy 12:7, 12: “And there you shall eat before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the LORD your God has blessed you…And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you.”

 

• The Sabbath (7th) year required the cancellation of debts to protect the poor (Deut. 15:1, 4) – certainly not something that people who make the laws – the power elite - would tolerate!

 

• The Jubilee (50th) year required that the land be returned to its original owners. In fact, this law was so radical – so counter to human economics - that there is no evidence that Israel ever obeyed it:

 

“Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land.  Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines.” (Lev. 25:9-11)

 

 

It should be noted that such a law depended upon a supreme trust in God to provide in the absence of sowing.

 

 

·       The priestly caste was denied true wealth – land. Instead, God was to be their inheritance. What powerful caste would willingly place themselves in such a disadvantageous position!

 

·       The law granted soldiers permission to leave the army if they feared (Deut. 20). If any nation granted their soldiers such an out, it would loose its army. Therefore, it would be surprising to find such a law in any man-made legal code.

 

Similarly, there are many other laws that humans, especially from that period of time, would never tolerate. Therefore, it seems more likely that these laws must have come from above!

 

 

5. MOSAIC THREATS: The warnings for disobedience were severe and demanding. If an Israelite failed to keep the law in just one respect, he was under a curse (Deut. 27:26). We humans would not accept such a threatening religion. Nor would the Rabbis, who qualified this teaching in several ways. For instance, Gerald Sigal, The Jew and the Christian Missionary, wrote,

 

·       [Deuteronomy 27:26] does not refer to the breaking of the Law by an ordinary individual. It is, as the Rabbis explain, a reference to the authorities in power who fail to enforce the rule of the Law in the land of Israel (J.T. Sotah 7:4). The leadership of the nation is thus charged, under pain of the curse, to set the tone for the nation and make the Law the operative force in the life of the nation.

 

Instead, this verse and many others damn every Israelite. This is a state-of-affairs that no people would tolerate. We come to religion for its benefits and not its curses!

 

 

6. PROPHECIES: The Prophets uniformly prophesied Israel’s future failure (Deut. 29:4; Joshua 24:19). Moses even taught Israel a song that would serve to continually indict them. Israel would reject their God, and God would bring destruction upon them (Deut 32:15-35). No one would invent a religion foretelling such negative consequences for its own people. And who would follow such a religion!

 

Perhaps even more offensive to Israel, the Prophets also envisioned the hated Gentile nations enjoying in the end the abundant blessings with Israel. Perhaps the most poignant demonstration of the Israelite consternation to this Divine plan is exhibited by Jonah, who rebelled against God’s call to preach to Nineveh. This is because he feared that his preaching would serve as a vehicle for God to bless the Ninevites. Even Israel’s prophets are characterized as unworthy of their Master!

 

 

7. PENTATEUCHAL HOLIDAYS: Of the five prescribed holidays, only one of them is truly commemorative of an historical event – the Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread. The other four seem to be prophetic. They look forward to God working events to their glorious culmination.

 

However, this is very unusual – something we humans don’t do! Holidays commemorate past events, like the birthdays or deaths of our significant people, military victories, and even great tragedies like Pearl Harbor Day. They make us remember events that are key to our national and religious identity.

 

Likewise, all of Israel’s non-divinely-ordained holidays are commemorative. Hanukkah commemorates the cleansing of the Temple and the Maccabean military victories. Purim commemorates the salvation of the Jewish people in Persia. T’sha b’Av commemorates the destruction of the Temple. Simchat Torah commemorates the giving of the Law on Sinai.

 

 

8. ASSIGNMENT OF DATES: We assign dates to occasions we want to remember. Not so the Torah (Pentateuch). There is no assignment of a date to the giving of the law, to any military victories or momentous triumphs over an enemy. There is no “Victory over Jericho” day or “Pharaoh’s Defeat in the Red Sea” day. Instead, the dates are those that are important to God. They certainly weren’t important to the Israelites! In fact, Israel was so dumbfounded about the purpose of some of these dates and prescribed holidays that they had to invent rationale for them.

 

For instance, the purpose for the “Feast of Trumpets” was never specified. Therefore, the Jewish people invented a meaning for it. They called the day “Rosh Hashanah” (the head of the year) or “New Years Day.” How strange not to know the significance of one’s holidays! Had they been humanly ordained, there never would have been any question!

 

This is only a mere outline of the ways that the Bible is humanly foreign and sometimes repugnant – not the type of thing that we would create if we had the choice. When we survey the Hebrew Bible, we do not find a human landscape with identifiable benchmarks. Instead, we encounter something entirely alien to our expectations and inclinations – something that doesn’t flatter the ego, but instead humbles us, if we are enabled to see this unearthly terrain through unbiased eyes. But it’s this humbling process that prepares us for a Divine encounter that will leave us unsatisfied with the world we had once inhabited.

 

 

 

Miracles!

 

John 10:37-38 If I am not doing the works [miracles] of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

 

 

EVEN THE SKEPTICS BELIEVE JESUS PERFORMED MIRACLES!

1. “On historical grounds it is virtually indisputable that Jesus was a healer and exorcist.” Marcus Borg (JS)

 

2. “Throughout his life, Jesus performed healings and exorcisms for ordinary people.” John Dominic Crossan (JS)

 

3. “Jesus was widely known as ‘a doer of amazing deeds’ and a teacher who ‘won over many Jews and Greeks’.” Jeffery Sheler quoting Josephus

 

4. “On the eve of the Passover Yesu was hanged…because he practiced sorcery and led Israel astray.” Babylonian Talmud (Jewish sources have an aversion to mention Jesus by name and anything positive about Him.)

 

5. To deny the miracles is to deny the entire NT. All the discussions and teachings were built upon the mutual recognition that Jesus was performing miracles. John 9:32 "Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.

 

 

HOW THEN CAN THEY DENY HE’S THE MESSIAH?

 

What Jesus did wasn’t extraordinary! “Jesus certainly performed exorcisms as they were practiced in the first century…It would have been natural for an itinerant charismatic healer and teacher to do so.” John Rousseau (JS archeologist)

 

Matthew 12:27-28 "If I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges. 28"But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

 

Matthew 9:32-33 While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. 33And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, "Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel."

 

Proof of the Bible’s Reliability

 

RELIABLE TESTIMONY (GOSPELS) à RESURRECTION à JESUS’ TESTIMONY THAT THE BIBLE IS GOD’S WORD

Why EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS are essential:

1.     Open to confirmation and refutation.

2.     Hard to be a holocaust revisionist as long as there are eyewitnesses and pictures.

 

Synoptics prior to 65 AD vs.  “Gospels must have been written after Paul’s letters. Paul never quotes them.”

 

1.     1 Tim. 5:18 For the Scripture says, "You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain," and, "The laborer is worthy of his wages." (Quotes both Deut. 25:4 and Luke 10:7)

 

2.     Magdalen Fragment of the Gospel of Matthew (60 AD)

3.     Cave 7 (Dead Sea Scrolls) Mark fragment (50-68 AD)

 

4.     Acts written prior to Paul’s martyrdom (65AD)

5.     Luke written prior to Acts.

6.     Mark and Matthew generally believed to be prior to Luke.

7.     None record the Jewish revolt and destruction of Jerusalem 70 AD (It would be like writing a history of WW II w/o VE Day nor Hiroshima.)

8.     Each has its own distinctive style.

9.     Hebraic/Aramaic idioms appropriate to the traditional author.

 

LUKE:

1. His accurate use of  1^st  Century terminology proves use of eyewitness accounts and reliability.

1. Publius: “Leading man of the Island” Acts 28:7; 1^st Century inscription: “First Man”

2. Gallio called “Proconsul” (Acts 18:12)

3. Praetor- Magistrate of  Roman colony (Philippi)

4. “For along time people thought Luke was mistaken because no evidence of the term politarchs had been found in any ancient document…However , and inscription on a first-century arch was later found that begins, ‘In the time of the politarchs.’” Strobel

 

2. Luke 3:1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar--when …Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene” However, Lysanias ruled at a different period according to scholars. “It turned out that there had been two government officials named Lysanias! Once more, Luke was shown to be right!” Strobel

 

3. “Quirinius was not reigning at the time of the census!” A coin with his name was found that “places him as a proconsul of Syria and Cilicia from 11 BC until after the death of Herod.” (Strobel, Case For Christ)

 

4. John McRay If reliable in the small things à Reliable in the great! “One prominent archeologist carefully examined Luke’s references to 32 countries, 54 cities, and 9 Islands w/o finding a single mistake.”,

 

5. F.F.BRUCE: “A man whose accuracy can be demonstrated in matters where we are able to test it is likely to be accurate even where means of testing aren’t available. Accuracy is a habit of mind…Luke’s record entitles him to be regarded as a writer of habitual accuracy.”

 

GOSPEL OF JOHN: Intimate knowledge of Jerusalem prior to destruction 70 AD

1. ‘Pool of Bethesda’  having five porticoes (John 5) discovered 40 ft. below the surface.

 

“It [the Pool of Bethesda] lies maybe 40 feet below ground – and sure enough, there are five porticoes…exactly as John had described. And you have other discoveries – the Pool of Siloam from John 9:7, Jacob’s Well from John 4:12, the probable location of the Stone Pavement near the Jaffa gate where Jesus appeared before Pontius Pilate in John 19:13, even Pilate’s own identity – all of which have lent credibility to John’s Gospel.” (McRay)

 

2. These descriptions would have been highly difficult to obtain after 70 AD

3. Proves that authors were actually there at that time

4. If reliable, then their accounts of resurrection more likely to be reliable.

5. Fragment 125 AD (Egypt)

 

6. “Archeology has not produced anything that is unequivocally a contradiction to the Bible. On the contrary, as we’ve seen, there have been many opinions of skeptical scholars that have become codified into ‘fact’ over the years, but that archeology has shown to be wrong.” (McRay)

 

 

NO EVIDENCE OF FABRICATION OR COLUSION (DISSIMILARITY--Genuine, independent witnesses)

 

1. Prophecies about Jerusalem destruction seem to associate it with the end, not a 2,000 year hiatus.

1. Luke 21:27 "Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

2. Gospels must have been written prior! Had they been written after 70 AD à “I told you so”!

 

2. Apostles portrayed in negative light: running away from the Cross, disowning the Faith, w/o understanding….

 

1. If Gospels are a fabrication of the early Church, their Fathers,  the Apostolic authors, would have been presented in a more favorable light.

 

3. No Attempt at harmonization or to suppress apparent contradictions. “The Gospels reflect the apologetic concerns of the early Church which they doctored to address their concerns.”

 

1. Rough edges are left untampered. (Mat 28:1-8 vs. Luke 24:1-10—T)

2. Mt. 8- the Centurion talks directly to Jesus; Luke 7:3- the Centurion sent Elders. Although these tensions give us headaches, they make the Gospel witness more credible.

 

4. The sayings and events of Jesus are difficult, rough, not heart-warming, and don’t reflect the early Church. Continually misunderstood. Didn’t fit anyone’s expectations nor even hopes.

 

 

EXTRA-BIBLICAL ATTRIBUTION OF GOSPELS TO TRADITIONAL AUTHORS

“Nowhere do the Gospels record who wrote them!” (Perhaps, this argues in favor of their authenticity! No attempt to market the Gospels as Apostolic!)

 

1. Papias (125 AD)

1. Attributed the “Gospel of Mark’ to Peter’s eyewitness accounts.

2. Mark ‘made no mistake’ & ‘included no false statement’.

3. ‘Matthew’ written by Matthew

 

2. Irenaeus (180 AD) confirmed all the traditional authors.

a.     “Matthew published his own Gospel among the Hebrews in their own tongue.”

b.     “Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself handed down to us , in writing the substance of Peter’s preaching. Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in a book the Gospel preached by his teacher.. Then John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned on His breast, himself produced his gospel while he was living at Ephesus in Asia.”

 

3. This is the uniform testimony of the early Church.

 

 

Testimony that there was an accepted group of four Gospels (“The canonical Gospels were arbitrarily chosen by the 4^th century Church Councils.”)

 

4. (Irenaeus, 180; Tertulian 200 AD) “It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are.” (Irenaeus)

 

5. “Now the gospels are four, These four Gospels…are the building blocks of the faith of the Church.” (Origen, 228 AD) They were early on collected into collections and routinely read in the churches.

 

6. (Muratorian fragment; Peshito, both 170 AD)

 

7. Early commentaries and harmonies (Tatian’s Diatesseron  (“Harmony of Four” 175 AD) No commentaries on any other book for the first 300 years after the Cross (one exception).

 

8. Manuscripts

a.     P45 (220 AD) contains parts of all four Gospels.

b.     P75 (200 AD) Probably contains all four.

 

9. Quoted as authoritative by the early church fathers and all of these quotations coincide. (Clement, 96 AD; Ignatius, 110 AD; “Letter of Barnabus”…)

1. The entire NT can be reconstructed from the various Church Father quotes (except 11 verses mostly from John 3).

 

 

Enemy Testimony

 

EXTRA-BIBLICAL SOURCES: In Why the Jews Rejected Jesus, David Klinghoffer writes (pg. 117), "The Talmud states that from forty years before the Temple's destruction and onward, there were supernatural omens of the disaster to come--that is, starting from the inception of the Christian religion following the death of Jesus. The eternal fire of the Temple altar would not stay lit. The monumental bronze Temple gates opened by themselves. Josephus confirms the Talmud's account of the inner Sanctuary's east gate and its mysterious openings. He adds other portents from these years: a bright light shinning around the altar and the Sanctuary at three in the morning, a cow brought for sacrifice giving birth to a lamb, apparitions of chariots and armies flying through the sky above the whole land of Israel." Why would someone trying to debunk Christianity make such an incredible admission? Klinghoffer adds, "Was God not warning the people of the disastrous course some [the Jewish Christians] had set out upon?" 

 

Tovia Singer: “In Tractate Yoma 39b, the Talmud quotes a Baraisa that discusses numerous remarkable phenomena that occurred in the Temple during the Yom Kippur service.  More specifically, the Talmud states that there was a strip of scarlet-dyed wool tied to the head of the scapegoat which would turn white in the presence of the large crowd gathered at the Temple on the Day of Atonement.  The Jewish people perceived this miraculous transformation as a heavenly sign that their sins were forgiven.  The Talmud relates, however, that 40 years before the destruction of the second Temple [approximately 30 AD] the scarlet colored strip of wool did not turn white. 

 

Celsus (150 AD) declared the first disciples of Jesus to be deceivers of the worst kind; a band of sorcerers, who fabricated and circulated the miraculous stories of the Gospels, particularly that of the resurrection of Jesus…He refers to the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John, and makes upon the whole about eighty allusions to, or quotations from the New Testament (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 92).

 

 

Resurrection Proof

 

I. Jesus Crucified, II. Empty Tomb, III. Disciples Believe He Appeared to Them  +  IV. No Natural Explanation  à Supernatural Explanation

 

 

I. JESUS CRUCIFIED

1. “That He was crucified is as sure as anything historical ever can be.” Crossan

2. “Both Gerd Ludemann, who is an atheistic NT critic, and Bart Ehrman, who’s an agnostic, call the crucifixion an indisputable fact.” Strobel

3. “Jesus suffered the extreme penalty under the reign of Tiberius.” Tacitus, Roman historian

4. “Josephus reports that Pilate ‘condemned him to be crucified’…Even the Jewish Talmud reports that ‘Yeshu was hanged.’” Strobel

 

 

II. EMPTY TOMB

1. All early reports, even Jewish, cited “empty tomb”! Matthew 28:11-15 Now while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened. When they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, saying, "Tell them, 'His disciples came at night and stole Him away while we slept.' And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will appease him and make you secure." So they took the money and did as they were instructed; and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.

 

2. “Habermas determined that about 75% on the subject regard it as an historical fact.” Strobel

 

3. “All the strictly historical evidence we have is in favor [of the empty tomb], and those scholars who reject it ought to recognize that they do so on some other ground than that of scientific history” Strobel quoting William Ward

 

4. Testimony of women (Rules against fabrication!)

 

5. No reports of anyone producing His body.

1. Jews and Romans had every reason to produce it.

2. Christians wouldn’t have believed had it been produced. But many witnesses (1 Cor. 15:3-8).

3. No counter evidence!

 

 

III. DISCIPLES BELIEVE THAT HE APPEARED TO THEM

1. NT Testimony

1. Book of Acts:

                                                    i.     3000, 5000 believe.

                                                   ii.     Impossible in light of a crucifixion without a resurrection!

 

2. Conversions of Paul and James (1 Cor. 15:3-8)

1 Cor. 15:5-8 He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; 8and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.

 

3. Church Fathers’ Testimonies

1. “Therefore, having received orders and complete certainty caused by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and believing in the Word of God, they went with the Holy Spirit’s certainty…” Clement 95 AD

2. “For they did not love the present age, but Him who died for our benefit and for our sake was raised by God.” Polycarp, 110 AD

 

3. IGNATIUS (110 AD)  (The Church) “rejoices in the Passion of our Lord and in His resurrection”

 

4. JUSTIN MARTYR (150 AD) DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO: Jews sent ambassadors throughout the Med.: “Disciples stole the body”

5. No counter-evidence among Fathers.

 

4. “Even the atheist Ludemann conceded: ‘It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.’” Strobel

 

5. “The Disciples’ conviction that they had seen the risen Christ…is historical bedrock, facts known past doubting.” Paula Fredriksen

 

6. Disciples never recanted, but died as martyrs

 

IV.  NO NATURAL EXPLANATIONS

 

1.     MISTAKEN TOMB THEORY:  Everyone knew where it was, even Roman guard.

Matthew 27:59-61 When Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, 60and laid it in his new tomb which he had hewn out of the rock; and he rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb, and departed. 61And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the tomb.

 

2.     JESUS DIDN’T DIE THEORY (Islam, DaVinci Code)

 

3.     HOAX THEORY (Disciples stole His body.)

 

“All the old theories, like ‘The Disciples stole the body’ or ‘Jesus wasn’t really dead’ have been universally rejected by modern scholarship.” W. Craig

 

CONCLUSION: Jesus is Risen! Hallelujah!!!! If He is risen, then He is who He said He is, and we should believe His words!!

 

 

Non-Christian Affirmation of Resurrection & NT

 

1)    JOSEPHUS (75 AD): Jewish general in the 68 revolt against Rome

 

a)    “Now there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, a doer of wonderful works. ..He drew over to him both Jews and Gentiles. He was the Christ and when Pilate ….condemned him to the cross, those who loved him did not forsake him…; for he appeared to them alive on the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other things concerning him…” (Antiquities 18.3.3)

b)    Many authorities say “inauthentic”

c)     Why authentic

i)       Hard to change all the existent copies

ii)     Josephus says good things about John the Baptist and James also (interpolations?)

 

2)    PLINY (111 AD)  “(Christians)…maintained…that their fault or error amounted to nothing more than this:  they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before sunrise and reciting an antiphonal hymn to Christ as God, and binding themselves with an oath—not to commit any crime, but to abstain from all acts of theft, robbery and adultery, from all breaches of faith, from repudiating a trust when called upon to honor it.  After this…it was their custom to separate, and then to meet again to partake of food.”

 

3)    TACITUS (115 AD) “Crestus suffered the extreme penalty at the hands of Pontius Pilate.”

 

Darkness from 6^th-9^th Hour

 

The Crucifixion of Jesus was noted by Cornelius Tacitus who was a Roman historian, born around 52-54 A.D. Tacitus stated that Jesus had been crucified by Pontius Pilate, and that Rome was in darkness during the reign of Tiberius the Caesar in AD.33.

 

Thallus, a historian writing in AD. 52, wrote to deny any supernatural elements accompanying the Crucifixion . Though his writings are lost to us, we have the quotations of other later writers. The writing of Thallus shows that the facts of Jesus' death were known and discussed in Rome as early as the middle of the first century, to the extent that unbelievers like Thallus thought it necessary to explain the matter of the darkness as something natural. He took the existence of Christ for granted. Neither Jesus, nor the darkness at his death, were ever denied. At the time of his writing, unbelievers had already been explaining the darkness at the time of the Crucifixion as a purely natural phenomenon.

 

Julius Africanus, a Christian historian, writing about A.D. 221, refers to Christ's Crucifixion and the darkness that covered the earth prior to His death saying,

"Thallus, in his Third Book of Histories, explains away this darkness as an eclipse of the sun, unreasonably as it seems to me. For the Hebrews celebrate the Passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the Passion of our Saviour falls on the day before the Passover. But an eclipse of the sun takes place only when the Moon comes under the Sun. And it cannot happen at any other time but in the interval between the first day of the new moon and the last of the old, that is, at their junction: how then should an eclipse occur when the Moon is almost diametrically opposite the Sun?"

 

Quote from Phlegon's Olympiades [1^st Century]:

 

-        "In the 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad [estimated at 33 AD], there was a great eclipse of the Sun, greater than had ever been known before, for at the 6th hour the day was changed into night and the stars were seen in the heavens. An earthquake occurred in Bythinia and overthrew a great part of the city of Nicæa."

 

Another historian, Philipon (along with Origen), confirms the historicity of Phlegon's statement by writing,

 

-        "And about this darkness - Phlegon recalls it in the Olympiads...Phlegon mentioned the eclipse which took place during the crucifixion of the Lord Christ, and no other (eclipse), it is clear that he did not know from his sources about any (similar) eclipse in previous times ...and this is shown by the historical account of Tiberius Caesar."

 

 

4)    BABYLONIAN TALMUD

a)    “…and hanged him on the eve of the Passover” (b. Sanh 43a).

b)    Other Talmudic sources: Attributed miracles to sorcery (b. Sanh. 107b). Jesus was illegitimate (But this –if true- makes belief in Him even more incredible

c)     Toledot Yesu- admits empty tomb

 

 

5)    PALESTINIAN TALMUD (3^rd Century)

a)    Rabbi Abbahu: “If a man says to you, ‘I am God’, he is a liar; ‘I am Son of man’, he will regret it; ‘I go up to heaven’, he said it but he will not be able to do it.”

b)    This testimony helps to establish that these were authentic teachings of Jesus.

 

 

6)    THE PASSING PEREGRINUS, Lucian of Samosata (2^nd Century satirist). “The man was crucified in Palestine because he had introduced this new cult into the world…Furthermore, their first lawgiver (Jesus) persuaded them that they were all brothers one of another after they had transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws.”

 

 

7)    APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS (100 +/- ??; most of which not extant)

a)    “Most of the NT Apocrypha shows little overlap with the info found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This fact alone is significant; it means that…they never tried to deny the truths of the canonical accounts.” Blomberg

 

i)       “This same boy who struck Jesus, and out of whom Satan went in the form of a dog, was Juda Iscariot, who betrayed Him to the Jews. And that same side, on which Judas struck Him, the Jews pierced with a spear.” Infancy Gospel of Jesus Christ (2^nd Century)

 

ii)     “Then the Lord Jesus answered, and said to his mother, ‘When thirty years are expired, O mother, the Jews will crucify me at Jerusalem; and these two thieves shall be with me at the same time upon the cross, Titus on my right hand and Dumachus on my left, and from that time Titus shall go before me into paradise.”  Infancy

b)     

i)       “It would seem that anyone who wished to augment or challenge the canonical traditions (Gospels) knew that their historicity could not be impugned; all one could hope to do was to claim additional knowledge which went beyond what the NT had recorded.” Blomberg

 

 

Circumstantial Evidence For Resurrection (Any effect must have an adequate cause)

EXISTENCE OF THE CHURCH (Conversion of skeptics; martyrdom of witnesses)

 

1)    THE IGNOMINITY OF THE CROSS

a)    Most undesirable symbol for someone starting a new religion

b)    Points out inadequacy of Mosaic system

c)     Represents defeat

 

2)    THE UTTER FAILURE OF THE DISCIPLES

 

3)    EARLY PERSECUTION (Could have more easily remained part of the synagogue).

 

SACRAMENTS

 

1)    From the beginning the Church performed Baptism and the Communion.

2)    Both of these proclaim a belief in the death and resurrection of Christ.

 

SOCIAL & THEOLOGICAL CHANGE

 

1)    Mosaic Law no longer observed: no temple observances; belief in the Trinity.

2)    Such departures carried extreme penalties.

3)    Only a resurrection could explain such a change.

 

 

The Authenticity of the Four Gospels

 

The Jesus Seminar (JS), a collection of skeptical Bible critics active in the 1980s and 90s, concluded that only 18% the sayings that the Gospels had attributed to Jesus were His. Two allegations:

 

1. Apostles weren’t concerned about history but theology.

2. Gospels: Product of the Early Church: 70-100AD

 

 

THE ASSOCIATES OF JESUS

• "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." (Matthew 16:23)
  
  

• "You will all fall away," Jesus told them, "for it is written:  'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.'” (Mark 14:27)

 

• Matthew 8:10 When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith.” (15:28 “Great is your faith”)
  
  

 

THE EVENTS OF JESUS’ LIFE

• Baptized by John the Baptist: Matthew 3:15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented.
  
  

• Jesus confessing ignorance about His return: “Not even the son of man knows” (Mark 13:32).

 

• Women first to testify of Jesus resurrection.

 

 

JESUS’ TEACHINGS

 

• "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. (John 6:53)
  
  

• “Hate mother and father,” “Let the dead bury the dead,” “Cut off hands,” “Don’t let your left hand know what your right is doing.” “Sell all you have,” “Give alms of all that you have,” “Turn the other cheek,” and “Give to anyone who asks.”

 

• His parables highly offensive. None would warm the heart, except perhaps for the parable of the Prodigal Son.

 

• The Rich Young Man teaches that humanity is incapable of salvation (Mat. 19:26). The Workers in the Vineyard (Mat. 20:1-16) insultingly teaches that many of those who had worked the longest and the hardest in the Lord’s vineyard will find themselves out in the cold. The Parable of the Wedding Feast (Mat. 22:1-14) also showed how the most “deserving” lost out entirely. The Parable of the Ten Virgins (Mat. 25:1-13) seems to praise an unwillingness to share. Likewise, The Shrewd Manager (Luke 16:1-8) praises cunning.

 

 

 

THE CRYPTIC NATURE OF JESUS’ TEACHINGS

Jesus had been very cryptic about many of the central doctrines of the faith – His messiah-ship, His divinity, the atonement, the new covenant.

 

·       Matthew 26:64 Jesus said to him [the High Priest], “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power [Psalm 110:1] and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Daniel 7)

 

Liberal skeptics claim that the Gospels were written by the early church (70-100 AD) in order to prove that Jesus is actually God. Most critics will cite the Gospel of John, considered the latest Gospel. It makes more explicit references to Jesus’ deity than the other three Gospels. Consequently, it reflects the church’s growing desire to prove that Jesus is God.

 

For an extreme example, New Testament critic claims:

 

• Bart Ehrman “The idea that Jesus was divine was a later Christian invention, one found, among our Gospels, only in John.” (Jesus Interrupted, 249)

 

• “There is not one word in this Gospel [of Mark] about Jesus actually being God.”(247) 

 

Oh? Mark 1:2-3  As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord [“Yahweh” in OT], make his paths straight’”

 

 

APPARENT CONTRADICTIONS

Had the early church exercised editorial oversight over the Gospels, they would have surely smoothed over the apparent contradictions between Jesus’ teachings and the Epistles. However, we have no evidence that this ever happened in any systematic way. Here are a couple of examples. Jesus seemed to teach unrestrained giving:

 

• “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” (Matthew 5:42)

 

• However, the Epistles have more qualifications: For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat." (2 Thess. 3:10)

 

• “But I tell you, ‘Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.’” (Matthew 5:39)

 

• Matthew 24:43 “But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.”

 

 

TROUBLING PROPHECIES

 

“Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” (Matthew 24:33-34)

 

• Bart D. Ehrman Jesus fully expected that the history of the world as we know it (as well as how he knew it) was going to come to a screeching halt, that God was soon going to intervene in the affairs of this world, overthrow the forces of evil in a cosmic act of judgment, destroy huge masses of humanity…Moreover, Jesus expected this cataclysmic end of history would come in his own generation, at least during the lifetime of his disciples. (Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999) x)

 

But, it seems that Jesus had taught that His return was a long way off:

 

• Olivet Discourse: “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other… And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:6-14)

 

Here are two possible resolutions:

1. “Generation” might also pertain to the Jewish “race” (Isaiah 53:8, “descendants”) meaning that there would still be Jews at the time of Jesus’ return.
   
   

2. The Jesus return to which Jesus referred might not have been His second coming, but rather a “coming” in judgment against Jerusalem (70 AD) during the lifetime of many of His disciples.

 

 

HOW WE GOT OUR NT CANON

 

IT WAS UNDERSTOOD THAT THE TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES WOULD PROVIDE THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH:

• Ephes. 2:19-20 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone,

 

• Ephes. 3:4-5 …when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit;

 

·       How? John 14:26 “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

 

 

JESUS COMMISSIONED THE APOSTLES:

• John 15:26-27 "When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me, and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.”

 

• Matthew 28:19-20 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

 

·       Matthew 24:35 “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”

 

THE APOSTLES RECOGNISED THEIR COMMISSION AND ROLE AS EYEWITNESSES;

• Acts 1:21-22 "Therefore it is necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us— beginning with the baptism of John until the day that He was taken up from us—one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection." (also 2 Pet 1:16-18; Luke 1.2)

 

 

GOD BORE WITNESS TO THEIR SPECIAL COMMISSION WITHIN THE CHURCH

• Hebrews 2:2-4 For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, 3how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, 4God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.

 

• Acts 2:42-43 They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.

 

• 2 Cor. 12:11-12 I have become foolish; you yourselves compelled me. Actually I should have been commended by you, for in no respect was I inferior to the most eminent apostles, even though I am a nobody. 12The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles.

 

 

AWARE OF THEIR COMMISSION, THEY DIRECTED THEIR LETTERS BE DISTRIBUTED (“They had no idea they were writing Scripture!”)

• 1 Thes. 5:27 I adjure you by the Lord to have this letter read to all the brethren.  (Col 4:16)

 

• 1 Tim. 4:11-13 Prescribe and teach these things. ..13Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching.

 

• Rev. 1:11  "Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches…

 

“In the beginning, Christianity did not have a fanatic concern about orthodoxy!

 

 

THEY KNEW THAT THEY WERE ORDAINED TO WRITE SCRIPTURE:

·           1 Thess. 2:13 For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.

 

·           1 Tim. 6:3-4 If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions,

 

·       1 Corinthians 14:37 if anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.

 

·           Revelation 22:18-19 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

 

 

EARLY ON, THERE WAS A CONCERN THAT FALSE TEACHINGS WOULD ENTER THE CHURCH AS FORGERIES:

·           2 Thes. 2:2 that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.

 

 

THERE HAD TO BE A WAY TO DETERMINE WHICH LETTERS WERE GENUINE:

• 2 Thes. 3:17 I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand, and this is a distinguishing mark in every letter; this is the way I write.  (cp. 1 Cor 16:21; Gal 6:11; Col 4:18)

 

• As long as the Apostles were with the Church, authenticity of the “canon” could be assured.

 

• If the epistle was genuinely Apostolic, that was sufficient.

 

 

EVIDENCE THAT A CANON WAS DEVELOPING:

• PETER REFERS TO PAUL’S EPISTLES AS CANON: 2 Peter 3:15-16 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, 16as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

 

• JUDE QUOTES 2 PETER 3:2: Jude 1:17 But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, 18 that they were saying to you, "In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts." (Tolerant of multiple Christianities?)

 

• PAUL QUOTES LUKE 10:7: 1 Tim. 5:18 For the Scripture says, "You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing," and "The laborer is worthy of his wages."

 

HISTORICAL CHALLENGES NECESSITATE IDENTIFICATION OF A CANON

 

MARCION (140)

1. HERETIC: Rejected Law and OT God; influenced by Gnostics

2. CELEBACY: turned off by birth; removed birth narratives from Luke

3. ESTABLISHES OWN CANON: Luke and Paul (omitting 1, 2 Timothy, Titus)

 

MONTANUS (156)

1. MOUTHPIECE OF THE PARACLETE NOW ARRIVED: New revelation

2. CHURCH’S RESPONSE:

1. Jude 1:3 I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.

2. DEFINING EXTENT OF CANON (Muratorian List (170)): Places limits upon new revelation

 

GNOSTICS

1.     Lacked their own competing  “Gospels”  for many years.

2.     They merely misinterpreted the NT books.

3.     They were the first to write a commentary on the Gospel of John

4.     GNOSTIC GOSPELS: cir. 150 AD

 

EARLY CONFIRMATION OF OUR 27 NT BOOKS

 

WITNESS OF THE CHURCH FATHERS

1. FATHERS QUOTE NT BOOKS AS SCRIPTURE

1. Epistle of Pseudo-Barnabus (70-130) quotes Mat 26:31 as “God saith” and 22:14 as “Scripture”

2. Epistle to the Corinthians (95-97; Clement of Rome) calls the Synoptic gospels “Scripture” and “God says” in reference to several NT passages.

3. Both Ignatius and Polycarp (110) refer to numerous NT passages as “Scripture”

 

2. By 110, 19/27 NT books explicitly cited as Scripture

 

3. By 150, 24/27 books

 

4. By 200, 26/27 books. Only 3 John not quoted!

 

5. BY 300 AD, THE FATHERS HAD QUOTED “nearly every verse of the NT” Geisler. (Over 36,000) Only 11 verses unquoted!

 

WHY THE OMISSIONS?

 

1. Distances! Perhaps the churches of both East and West didn’t receive the books soon enough to ascertain Apostolic authorship?

2. What was obviously Apostolic among the Eastern churches, couldn’t be proved as such by the time the epistles reached the West. Too much time had passed.

 

Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix explain:

 

·       The noted biblical scholar B. F. Westcott observed, “Its general agreement with our own [canon] is striking and important; and its omissions admit of easy explanation.” The omitted books were originally destined for the Western [Latin] world, and the Syrian church was in the East. The distance and lack of verifying communications slowed down the final acceptance of these books in the Eastern Bible [The Old Syriac Translation], which had come out before that evidence was available to them. (From God to Us: How we Got our Bible, 109-110)

 

The opposite was also true. The Western world had not received all of the books that the Eastern world had initially received. Communications between the two world had no doubt been interrupted by the intense persecution. Nevertheless, according to Geisler and Nix, the two worlds had received all of the 27 NT books:

·       Between the two earliest Bibles in the Christian church there is a recognition of the canonicity of all twenty-seven New Testament books. (110)

 

What was this early recognition based upon? The Early Church had been convinced by the miraculous confirmatory attestations that if a book was Apostolic, it was Scripture. Therefore, the canon was not a matter of political/ecclesiastical maneuvering but of the sovereign work of God.

 

3. Secondary criteria were then employed.

4. All the disputed NT books had received early acceptance in either the East or the West.

5. RULE: If in doubt, throw it out!

 

 

WITNESS OF EARLY CANONICAL LISTS:

1. MURATORIAN CANON (170) Listing entire NT excepting Hebrew, James, 1, 2 Peter

 

2. CODEX BAROCOCCIO (206) Only Revelation omitted

 

3. EUSEBIUS OF CAESARIA (340) His list omits James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2, 3 John which he lists as “disputed”. Rejects Revelation.

 

4. Athanasius, Jerome Augustine (373-400) Accept all 27!\

 

5. HIPPO (393), CARTHAGE (397), CARTHAGE (419) All 27 books accepted

 

 

CANON:

1. Bruce Metzger: “Neither individuals or councils created the canon; instead they came to recognize the self-authenticating quality of these writings, which imposed themselves as canonical upon the church.”

 

2. William Barclay: “It’s the simple truth to say that the NT books became canonical because no one could stop them from doing so.”

THE REJECTED BOOKS:

 

PSEUDEPIGRAPHA (falsely ascribed to 1^st century authors)

1. ALL REJECTED: “Totally absurd and impious” Eusebius

2.  “Virtually no Father, canon, or council pronounced any of those books canonical” Geisler

 

NT APROCRYPHA (Hidden) Shepherd of Hermas, Didache, Apocalypse of Peter

1. “The apocryphal books were held in high esteem by a least one church father…but never gained very wide or permanent recognition.” Geisler

 

The Everlasting Covenant: Mosaic Cov: Temporary or Eternal?

Jeremiah 31:31–34 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

 

Hebrews 8:13 By calling this covenant "new," he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.

 

Gerald Sigal, The Jew and the Christian Missionary: “The New Testament misinterprets our Hebrew Scriptures claiming that the Mosaic Covenant kills and is superseded by a new one. Instead, Scripture teaches that God’s Word doesn’t change (Isa 40:8) and that the Commandments impart life (Psalm 119).”

 “By an objective reading of the text, one fails to see any reference to a substitution of a new covenant which will supercede the old… the covenant of old is of eternal duration, never to be rescinded or to be superceded by a new covenant is clearly stated in Leviticus 26.”

·           Leviticus 26:44-45 Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God. 45But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God…”

 

WHAT SIGAL LEAVES OUT: Leviticus 26:42 then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember; I will remember the land.

·           MC WAS NEVER A COVENANT OF MERCY OR PROMISE: Deut. 4:30-31 When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice 31(for the Lord your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore (Gen. 15, 22) to them.

 

• Covenant “of your Fathers” was referring to the Patriarchs!  (Ex. 3; 13:5, 11; Deut. 29:13; 30:5, 20; 31:7)

 

·           WHILE THE OTHER COVENANTS GAVE UNCONDITIONAL GRACIOUS PROMISES, MC MADE BLESSING DEPEND UPON OBEDIENCE. GOD NEVER SAYS, “I WILL REMEMBER THE COVENANT I MADE WITH MOSES AND HAVE MERCY UPON YOU.”  Jeremiah 11:7-8 For I earnestly exhorted your fathers in the day I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, until this day, rising early and exhorting, saying, "Obey My voice." 8Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but everyone followed the dictates of his evil heart; therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but which they have not done.' "

 

OUR RESPONSE:

1. Mosaic Covenant was explicitly Temporary

2. Mosaic Covenant was Inadequate and Showed Many Indications That it Would be Superseded.

3. Evidence That Something New Would Come In Its Place

 

MOSAIC COVENANT WAS ONLY TEMPORARY

 

THE PROPHETS RECOGNISED THAT THE MOSAIC COVENANT WAS JUST TEMPORARY

Jeremiah 3:14-16 "Return, O backsliding children," says the Lord; "for I am married to you. I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. 15And I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. 16Then it shall come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land in those days," says the Lord, "that they will say no more, 'The ark of the covenant of the Lord.' It shall not come to mind, nor shall they remember it, nor shall they visit it, nor shall it be made anymore.  (Isaiah 65:17)

 

RESTRICTED TO LAND OF ISRAEL: Deut. 12:8-9 You shall not at all do as we are doing here today--every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes-- 9for as yet you have not come to the rest and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you.

 

Joshua 5:5 For all the people who came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness, on the way as they came out of Egypt, had not been circumcised.

 

 

SEVERAL COVENANTS ARE EVERLASTING (The Covenants of Promise!):

1. TO NOAH--Genesis 9:16 The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth."

 

2. TO THE PATRIARCHS-- Genesis 17:19 Then God said: "No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him.

 

3. Psalm 105:9-10 The covenant which He made with Abraham, and His oath to Isaac, 10And confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant,

 

4. 1 Chron. 16:15-17 Remember His covenant forever, the word which He commanded, for a thousand generations, 16The covenant which He made with Abraham, and His oath to Isaac, 17And confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, to Israel for an everlasting covenant,

 

5. TO DAVID--2 Samuel 23:5 "Although my house is not so with God, yet He has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure. For this is all my salvation and all my desire; will He not make it increase? (Isa 55:3)

 

6. Jeremiah 33:20-21 "Thus says the Lord: 'If you can break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night, so that there will not be day and night in their season, 21then My covenant may also be broken with David My servant, so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne…

 

7. NEVER MC “EVERLASTING”!

 

MOSAIC COVENANT WAS INADEQUATE AND SHOWED MANY SIGNS THAT IT WOULD BE SUPERSEDED!

 

 

THE MOSAIC COVENANT WOULD INEVITABLY FAIL

• Joshua 24:19 But Joshua said to the people, "You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.

 

• Deut. 29:4 Yet the Lord has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day.

 

• Deut. 30:6 And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

 

• Deut. 27:26 'Cursed is the one who does not confirm all the words of this law.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen!' 

 

• Deut. 32:15-20 "But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; You grew fat, you grew thick…Then he forsook God who made him, And scornfully esteemed the Rock of his salvation. 16They provoked Him to jealousy with foreign gods; with abominations they provoked Him to anger. 17They sacrificed to demons, not to God…18Of the Rock who begot you, you are unmindful, and have forgotten the God who fathered you. 19"And when the Lord saw it, He spurned them, because of the provocation of His sons and His daughters. 20And He said: 'I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end will be, for they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faith.

 

This doesn’t reflect a human perspective:

·       Self-Critical

·       Israel must have had compelling reasons to accept something so belittling!

 

 

IT WAS OBVIOUS THAT SOMETHING WOULD HAVE TO TAKE ITS PLACE:

 

1. ISRAEL COULDN’T COME INTO GOD’S PRESENCE--Exodus 20:19 Then they said to Moses, "You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die."

 

2. TEMPLE: signified they couldn’t come before God.

 

Hosea 2:18-19 In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, with the birds of the air, and with the creeping things of the ground. Bow and sword of battle I will shatter from the earth, to make them lie down safely. 19"I will betroth you to Me forever;  yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and justice, in lovingkindness and mercy;

 

3. OFFERINGS: never really achieved ultimate forgiveness. GOD WASN’T PLEASED WITH THEM.

 

                                i.     Hebrews 10:5-7 Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: "Sacrifice and offering You did not desire,But a body You have prepared for Me. 6In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure. 7Then I said, Behold, I have come--In the volume of the book it is written of Me--To do Your will, O God.' "(Psalm 40:6-8)

                               ii.     Repeated offerings said that they never really did the trick!

 

4. Never any promise of Eternal Life although Jesus pointed out that the concept of EL was there (Mat. 22)

 

5. STIFF-NECKED PEOPLE: This would have to change.

 

EVIDENCE OF SOMETHING NEW THAT WOULD COME IN ITS PLACE

 

·           Jeremiah 31:31-34 "Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah-- 32not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. 33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."

 

• Ezekiel 36:25-27 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.

 

• Jeremiah 32:39-41 then I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me forever, for the good of them and their children after them. 40And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me. 41Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land, with all My heart and with all My soul.'

 

• Isaiah 59:21 "As for Me," says the Lord, "this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says the Lord, "from this time and forevermore."

 

• God will ensures Israel’s obedience and consequently blessing. This is in direct contrast with the MC where it all depended upon Israel.

 

• Isaiah 54:9-10 "For this is like the waters of Noah to Me; for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah would no longer cover the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be angry with you, nor rebuke you. 10For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall My covenant of peace be removed," says the Lord, who has mercy on you.

 

• Isaiah 61:8-9 "For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery for burnt offering; I will direct their work in truth, and will make with them an everlasting covenant. 9Their descendants shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people.

 

• Ezekiel 34:25-26 "I will make a covenant of peace with them, and cause wild beasts to cease from the land; and they will dwell safely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. 26I will make them and the places all around My hill a blessing; and I will cause showers to come down in their season; there shall be showers of blessing.

 

• Ezekiel 37:26-27 Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary [John 1:14; Rev. 21] in their midst forevermore. 27My tabernacle also shall be with them; indeed I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

 

 

THIS EVERLASTING COVENANT  WILL BE SEALED BY GOD’S OWN ATONEMENT:

Ezekiel 16:59-63 For thus says the Lord God: "I will deal with you as you have done, who despised the oath by breaking the (MC)covenant. 60"Nevertheless I will remember My (ABRAHAMIC) covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. 61Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed, when you receive your older and your younger sisters; for I will give them to you for daughters, but not because of My covenant with you. 62And I will establish My covenant with you. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, 63that you may remember and be ashamed, and never open your mouth anymore because of your shame, when I provide you an atonement for all you have done," says the Lord God.' "

 

 

A NEW PRIESTHOOD IS IN VIEW, NOT THE LEVITICAL.

• Deut. 32:43 "Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people; for He will avenge the blood of His servants, and render vengeance to His adversaries; He will provide atonement for His land and His people."

 

• Psalm 79:9 Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Your name; and deliver us, and provide atonement for our sins, for Your name's sake!

 

• Psalm 110:4 The Lord has sworn and will not relent, "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek."

 

• A STRICTLY LEVITICAL PRIESTHOOD WOULD GIVE WAY TO A ‘NATION OF PRIESTS’: Exodus 19:6 And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel."

 

 

GOD WILL BE THE REDEEMER  (not the Levites) AND HIS PEOPLE “THE REDEEMED”

• Psalm 19:14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.

 

• Isaiah 35:9-10 No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it; it shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk there, 10And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads.

 

• Zech. 6:11-13 Take the silver and gold, make an elaborate crown, and set it on the head of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest. 12Then speak to him, saying, 'Thus says the Lord of hosts, saying: "Behold, the Man whose name is the BRANCH! From His place He shall branch out, and He shall build the temple of the Lord; 13Yes, He shall build the temple of the Lord. He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule on His throne; so He shall be a priest on His throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both." '

 

• Zech. 3:8 'Hear, O Joshua, the high priest, you and your companions who sit before you, for they are a wondrous sign; for behold, I am bringing forth My Servant the BRANCH.

 

THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD – THE CHRISTOPHANIES

THE ANGEL OF PENIEL

 

Genesis 32:22-30: Now he arose that same night and took his two wives and his two maids and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream. And he sent across whatever he had. Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob's thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him. Then he said, "Let me go, for the dawn is breaking." But he said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." So he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." He said, "Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed." Then Jacob asked him and said, "Please tell me your name." But he said, "Why is it that you ask my name?" And he blessed him there. So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, "I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved."

 

 

Hosea 12:2-4 The Lord also has a dispute with Judah,  And will punish Jacob according to his ways; He will repay him according to his deeds. In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his maturity he contended with God. Yes, he wrestled with the angel and prevailed;

Genesis 48:15-16 He blessed Joseph, and said, "The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, The God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, 16 The angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads;”

 

 

Psalm 24:1-10

 

The earth is the Lord's, and all its fullness,

The world and those who dwell therein.

2For He has founded it upon the seas,

And established it upon the waters.

 

3Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?

Or who may stand in His holy place?

4He who has clean hands and a pure heart,

Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol,

Nor sworn deceitfully.

5He shall receive blessing from the Lord,

And righteousness from the God of his salvation.

6This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek Him,

Who seek Your face.

 

7Lift up your heads, O you gates!

And be lifted up, you everlasting doors!

And the King of glory shall come in.

 

8Who is this King of glory?

The Lord strong and mighty,

The Lord mighty in battle.

9Lift up your heads, O you gates!

Lift up, you everlasting doors!

And the King of glory shall come in.

 

10Who is this King of glory?

The Lord of hosts,

He is the King of glory.

 

 

WHY ARE THE GATES DROOPING? Rev. 5:1-5 And I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a scroll written inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals. 2Then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, "Who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals?" 3And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll, or to look at it. 4So I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll, or to look at it. 5But one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals."

 

 

WHY IS THE BIBLE SO CRYPTIC? 

• 1 Cor. 2:7-8   No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. [8] None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

 

• John 16:12–13 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”

 

Rebellion

 

Exodus 17:1-7 Then all the congregation of the children of Israel set out on their journey from the Wilderness of Sin, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped in Rephidim; but there was no water for the people to drink. 2Therefore the people contended with Moses, and said, "Give us water, that we may drink." And Moses said to them, "Why do you contend with me? Why do you tempt the Lord?" 3And the people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses, and said, "Why is it you have brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?" 4So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, "What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me!" 5And the Lord said to Moses, "Go on before the people, and take with you some of the elders of Israel. Also take in your hand your rod with which you struck the river, and go. 6Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink." And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7So he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the contention of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, "Is the Lord among us or not?"

 

ROCK AT HOREB: 1 Cor. 10:3-4  They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

 

 

Sacrifice of Isaac

 

Genesis 22:10–19 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. ¹¹But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ¹²He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” ¹³And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

¹⁵And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven ¹⁶and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, ¹⁸and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”

 

·       Hebrews 11:17–19 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”  He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

 

·       Galatians 3:8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you [“your offspring”] shall all the nations be blessed.” (Genesis 22:18)

 

·       John 8:56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”