THE PRE-EMINENCE OF SCRIPTURE

Throughout the entire Bible, we find the same message – Scripture had to reign supreme over every other consideration. Our response to the Scriptures would determine all else: our love for God, blessings, and punishments. Here are some supporting considerations:

NOTHING WAS TO COMPETE WITH THE WORDS OF GOD:

·       Deuteronomy 4:1-2 “And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you. You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you.” (also Deut. 12:32)

NO DEVIATIONS ALLOWED:

·       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.”

SCRIPTURE HAD TO JUDGE EVERYTHING ELSE”

·       Isaiah 8:19-20 And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.

·       Deuteronomy 8:1-3 “The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

Because Scripture was to be so central to all of Israel’s welfare and experience, God issued strict orders to safeguard it:

·       Deuteronomy 18:20-22 “…the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?’—when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

·       Deuteronomy 13:1-5 “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

LOVING GOD = OBEYING GOD:

·       Deuteronomy 6:5-6 “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.”

·       Deuteronomy 11:1 “You shall therefore love the LORD your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always.”

ISRAEL’S WELFARE DEPENDED UPON OBEYING EVERY COMMAND:

·       Deuteronomy 11:8-9  “You shall therefore keep the whole commandment that I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess, and that you may live long in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give to them and to their offspring, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

NEW TESTAMENT:

·       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.”

ALL CLAIMS AND PHILOSOPHIES HAD TO BE JUDGED AND BROUGHT INTO CONFORMITY TO THE WORD:

·       2 Corinthians 10:4-5 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God [Scripture], and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

 SCRIPTURE > HUMAN TRADITIONS:

·       Matthew 15:3-9 He [Jesus] answered them [the Jewish leadership], “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”

ARE THE SCRIPTURES FALLIBLE? The late Clark Pinnock had claimed: “God uses fallible spokesmen all the time to deliver His Word, and it does not follow that the Bible must be otherwise” [fallible]. However, Scripture consistently contradicts Pinnock’s claim:

• 2 Peter 1:19-21 And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

• 1 Peter 1:10-11 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

Pinnock also claimed: “Conservative evangelicals find it difficult to accept the evidence that God in his written Word has stooped to our infirmity and given us a Bible with human limitations.” However, this assertion is also uniformly contradicted:

• 2 Tim. 3:16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

• Romans 15:4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Pinnock had also erroneously claimed: “It is important to insist that the Bible is a merely human text – written, copied, translated, and interpreted by fallible people. It contains all manner of internal contradictions, moral blemishes, legend and saga, inaccuracies, and the like. It is a collection of intensely human documents and is not an authority beyond criticism or correction. To regard it as God’s written Word is an idolatrous perversion of belief which must be dethroned.” However, Jesus’ teachings consistently contracted all of Pinnock’s claims:

·       Matthew 4:4-7 Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" ….4:11 Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'"

·       Matthew 5:17-18 "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. 18I 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.

• Luke 24:25-27 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.

• Luke 24:44-45 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 [not Church proclamations].

• John 10:35 “If he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came--and the Scripture cannot be broken.”

JESUS ONLY HAD THE HIGHEST REGARD FOR SCRIPTURE:

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

·       John 5:45-47 "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?"

·       Matthew 22:43 He said to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him 'Lord'?”

HE PLACED HIS TEACHING ON THE HIGHEST FOOTING POSSIBLE:

·       John 12:49-50 “For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.”

·       Matthew 24:35 “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words [Not His portraits, icons, or Church councils concerning Him] will not pass away.”