Does the Bible Contradict Itself? Part 3

We concluded our last post by saying that,

Our goal as Christian readers of the Bible is to use the God-revealed unity of the Bible as the lens through which we see the drama of the diversity of the Bible all in order that we might respond properly to the Bible.

As we begin this discussion about reading the Bible properly, it is essential that we start with the basics (“Lets start at the very beginning, a very good place to start,” as Julie Andrews exhorted us).  When it comes to theology, nothing can be taken for granted, and everything must be defined. 

Thus, we start here, with the phrase, Our goal as Christian readers of the Bible.  We are approaching the Bible as Christian readers, and we see the Bible as something unique, something unlike any other piece or collection of writing ever crafted, something even… divine.

Firstly, we are Christian readers.  We see in the Bible exactly what it says that it is, the Word of God.  This is not a conviction that we have proven or measured or quantified, but it is something that has been “revealed” to us.  As Paul tells us, “these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit” (1 Cor 2:10).  Apart from God’s work in our hearts, we would see in the Bible only those in our previous posts have seen: an endless morass of contradictions.  Yet, since this work of grace has happened to us, our eyes are now open, our minds now function, our hearts can respond to the words of the Bible.

Secondly, we see this book as the Bible, God’s word.  That means that our opinion of the Bible is the same as the Bible’s opinion of the Bible.  Hmm.  Strange concept, eh?  This is called Scripture being “self-attesting” or “self-authenticating”: it testifies to itself, it authenticates itself.  No human do this work.   Here is that view expressed by three theologians, one dead and two living:

John Calvin: “Let this point therefore stand: that those whom the Holy Spirit has inwardly taught truly rest upon Scripture, and that Scripture indeed is self-authenticated; hence, it is not right to subject it to proof and reasoning. And the certainty it deserves with us, it attains by the testimony of the Spirit” (Book I, Chap 7:5)

Wayne Grudem: “We are convinced of the Bible’s claims to be God’s words as we read the Bible.”  That is, “it is one thing to affirm that the Bible claims to be the words of God.  It is another thing to be convinced that those claims are true.  Our ultimate conviction that the words of the Bible are God’s words comes only when the Holy Spirit speaks in and through the words of the Bible to our hearts and gives us an inner assurance that these are the words of our Creator speaking to us.  Just after Paul has explained that his apostolic speech consists of words taught by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 2:13), he says, ‘the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned’ (1 Cor 2:14).  Apart from the work of the Spirit of God, a person will not receive spiritual truths and in particular will not receive or accept the truth that the words of Scripture are in fact the words of God….It is important to remember that this conviction that the words of Scripture are the words of God does not come apart from the words of Scripture or in addition to the words of Scripture” (77).

Sinclair Ferguson: “If one objects that any sophisticated reasoning or preunderstanding would bar the ordinary Christian from reaching the conviction that Scripture claims to be the Word of God, the answer is at hand.  We are ultimately persuaded of the inspiration and authority of Scripture not on the basis of coherent arguments in textbooks of doctrine but through ‘the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.’  It is by reading Scripture under the Spirit’s influence, rather than by skill in logic, that trust in God’s Word is born” (49-50).

We’ll pick up next time with the Bible’s own words.

DJB