Rules, rules, but which rules?

Spurgeon wrote this sentence in his autobiography and you may wish to reflect upon it: ‘I have found, in my own spiritual life, that the more rules I lay down for myself, the more sins I commit.’ What is the danger in making rules, we may ask? Are they not a path for more successful arrangements of the means of grace? Or, are they a way to avoid doing what the Bible tells us to do?

Take the determination to read several chapters of the Bible every day. Nothing wrong with that, we all know, when we have the time. Moreover, it is an essential part of family worship to read a passage from the Bible. But what if my determination to read my five or seven chapters a day prevents me from stopping to reflect on a line in a verse that suddenly jumps out at me? My rule says, read your chapters, whereas God may be saying, ‘Pay attention to this line. There is something in it that applies to you right now.’

What does the Bible say about how to read it? The common way to read it is by meditation. Today, meditation involves letting your mind go blank and thinking of a nice sunset or similar. That is not what the Bible means by meditation. In Psalm 1, the blessed man is described as meditating. He also does it all the time, or at least day and night. Moreover, the word translated as ‘meditation’ means to mutter to yourself. Literally, meditation is speaking to yourself about what the Bible says and speaking to God about it as well. 

This raises the question as to whom the Bible is speaking. After all, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians no longer speaks to its original recipients because they have moved on to another world. Since they have gone to heaven, they do not need to read the instruction to put on spiritual armour. So when we read Ephesians 6, the question is not, ‘What is God saying to the Ephesians?’ Rather, the question is, ‘What is God saying to me in 2020 about how to fight the good fight?’ A good soldier will stop and think about how he is using the pieces of the spiritual armour rather than rushing on to complete his quota for the day. He can move on if he has the time, but he must meditate on what Ephesians 6 is saying to him. 

The man in Psalm 1 became a spiritually strong man, but he did so by meaningful meditation on the Word of God. The way we show it respect is by following its rules about how to read it. It is very sad if our own rules overrule God’s rules.

The permanence of God’s Word

In 1 Peter 1:24 and 25, Peter contrasts the important messages of humans with the message of the Word of God. Peter lived in a time when many ideas were circulating about life, and the vast majority of people would have been very surprised at his assessment of such ideas. The apostle did not expect them to last long – in fact, these messages would have the same influence as temporary flowers and grass. In contrast, the message that was preached to them, which was based on the Scriptures and is included in the Scriptures, would last forever. 

No matter how surprised Peter’s contemporaries would have been at his assessment, the verdict of history is on his side. How many people today know anything of what the famous thinkers and orators of Peter’s day thought and said? Tourists visit the places where such lived and taught, and have little idea of the influence they once held. Yet the message preached by Peter and others is adhered to strenuously and lovingly by millions of people all over the world today. 

Since Peter’s time, many other notions have been suggested for improving the state of humanity, and they too have disappeared despite once having great influence. Yet the Word of God remains and has greater impact today than it ever did as can be seen in the large number of people who live their lives by it. All this means is that we should have the same confidence that Peter had in God’s Word and we should have the same assessment as he had of other ideas that are advocated in our contemporary world.  

Of course, the primary reason why God’s Word is permanent is because he has made it so. This is the obvious difference between other messages and God’s Word – the other messages were the compositions of weak, limited humans whereas God’s Word is the product of the wise and almighty God. Because he is full of all wisdom, the Lord knew what to put in his Word, and because he is almighty he always has the power to ensure its effects are fulfilled. 

Peter reminds his listeners that they had experienced the effects of this word when it was preached to them. The content of the preaching is described as good news, which raises the question, ‘What were the various features of the message that allow it to be called good news?’ Obviously, he is referring to the gospel about Jesus, in which his person and work are explained. We are familiar with the gospel, but we should remember that it as a gospel that came to us (and them) through the Word of God. As we here the gospel today, let us be thankful for the permanence of God’s Word.

What is the Old Testament About?

I suppose if we were to take a sample poll and ask the question, ‘What is the Old Testament about?’, several answers could be given. For example, some might say that the Old Testament describes the past and future of the Israelites, and that answer would be a common view today. What would the apostles have made of that answer? Of course, they would have accepted that the Old Testament mentions important historical details of Israel’s past, but I suspect they would have disagreed that the Old Testament, in its prophetic passages, is mainly concerned with the future of the Israelites. We can read what Peter thought about this in 1 Peter 1:10-12 – he makes it very clear that the prophecies of the Old Testament are concerned with Peter’s readers. Imagine how his readers would have responded when they heard his words. I think they would have searched the Old Testament with great desire.

Another answer that is sometimes given with regard to the Old Testament is that it is about law whereas the New Testament is about grace. Would Peter have accepted such a distinction? He would have accepted that some parts of the Old Testament were concerned with legal matters, such as various details of the Mosaic ceremonial and civil laws. But he would not have accepted that the Old Testament had a legalistic message, and he states very clearly in verse 10 that its message was concerned with the grace that was going to come to his readers.

What is grace? It is God’s merciful attitude to the undeserving. Peter’s readers would have agreed that they were unworthy of the salvation they had received. They knew that only a few years prior to Peter sending them his letter they were living in pagan darkness, worshipping the non-existent deities in the temples connected to their names. They would indeed confess, ‘We are so unworthy. We know that we had not heard the gospel. Still we could look up to the heavens and recognise the handiwork of a great Creator. But instead of worshipping him as the Creator we chose to give the credit to an image that we created. In doing so, we demeaned in our estimation the greatness of God and revealed that we were so unworthy of his blessings. Nevertheless, the great Creator sent the gospel to us. That is real grace.’

A third answer as to what is the message of the Old Testament is that it is about a God of judgement as against the claim that the New Testament is about the God of love. Often those who argue this suggestion depict the prophets as fierce ranters who delighted in describing a God determined to punish. Of course, such a summary is a gross distortion. We only have to read some of the plaintive words spoken by God through these prophets to realise that their message was marked by compassion.

Peter would have also said that the message of the Old Testament is not only about judgement. He would have admitted that divine judgement was part of its message, but he would have also pointed out that there was much more, and he summarises that much more in verse 11 when he says that the message was about ‘the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories’. We can easily see from that phrase  that there is more to the Old Testament than judgement.

A fourth answer that is sometimes given is that there was little of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. Now it is true that a great change occurred in the church’s experience when the Day of Pentecost occurred. The Spirit came in a manner that was unknown previously. But his coming in that way should not make us conclude that he was not present with the messengers of the Old Testament. Peter reminds us that the Spirit was in the Old Testament prophets and that he spoke through them about Jesus.

What effect did the presence of the Spirit have on these Old Testament prophets? It had the same effect as it had on the New Testament apostles, which was that they wanted to know more about Jesus. Look at how Peter describes the response of these prophets: they ‘searched and inquired carefully’ about the promised Saviour. I suppose the searching refers to how they used the Old Testament portions they had, and inquiring refers to the way they prayed for understanding. True, they did not discover as much as can be known through the apostles, but the inability was not in their messages. The messages of the Old Testament prophets were full of Christ.

So the Old Testament is far from being unsuitable for us. Peter makes it obvious that the Old Testament is actually God’s provision for his people, prepared for them long before they were born. How thankful they should be to God for thinking so kindly about them when their forefathers were living in spiritual darkness. Peter tells his readers that Old Testament prophets and New Testament apostles join hands in providing God’s people with the gospel.

Listening with delight to God's Word

I was thinking this morning of a hymn that I heard many years ago in which the author was expressing his joy to God. The words he used are very basic but they speak volumes. They are, ‘I am so glad that our Father in heaven tells of his love in the Book he has given.’ I realise that my memory might not be accurate with regard to every detail in that line. For example, I cannot recall if the personal pronoun should be ‘our’ or ‘my’. But since both would be true, my memory slip does not matter.

Why are we going to be in church today? One reason is to listen to God’s Word. As we do so, we can listen to him as a Ruler giving instructions or as a Guide giving directions. Maybe we want something personal from the reading and will feel disappointed if we don’t notice anything unusual.

The words of that hymn remind us of a very important aspect of our church gathering. We meet as a family to hear again what our Father thinks of us, has done for us and has planned for us. No doubt, some of those details will be emphasised in the praise items and the sermon. But as we listen to the Bible being read, may we be ‘so glad that our Father in heaven tells of his love in the Book he has given’.

The Bible and us

Taken from congregational newsletter

The Bible is God’s divine revelation. It contains knowledge that could never be discovered in any other way about who he is and about his plan of salvation. For example, only the Bible reveals that God is a trinity and that each of the divine persons is involved in the working out of the plan of salvation. Only the Bible reveals what happened before the entrance of sin at the beginning of time and only the Bible reveals what will happen after the Day of Judgement.

Although the Bible is divine revelation, it was also written by human authors. It contains 66 different books and within that range there is a diversity of literature. There is poetry and prose, there is autobiography and biography, there is history and geography, there are proverbs and prophecies, there are easy-to-understand statements and there are profound declarations. So the Bible is a human book as well as divine revelation.

In addition, the Bible in its original languages is infallible, without any mistakes in what it records. While it is not primarily about history and geography, it is accurate when it includes such details. The reason why it is infallible is because its authors were guided by the Holy Spirit as they wrote and he preserved them from error. They were even guided regarding which words to use as they wrote.

The Bible is also alive – it speaks to those who read it. Primarily it speaks to us about our relationship with God. It shows us that we are sinners and how we can escape from God’s penalty. The Bible describes what our sin is and warns us about what will happen to us if we remain the way we are. It does not suggest what our response should be; instead it states authoritatively what we should do.

This means that the Bible must be accepted as God’s Word. It contains his will on everything that it states and demands. He is the divine author of it and he has put nothing in it that is superfluous and which we can assume is not important. Nothing is to be added to it or subtracted from it.

The Bible was given to us to read and then respond to what it says. The response involves our minds (we must understand it), our affections (we respond with appropriate feelings) and our wills (we do what it says). Inevitably this means that we must use an accurate Bible translation. It is not right to obscure the Word of God by antiquated or trendy terminology. After all, it is his divine revelation, not ours. And we have to understand it before we can obey it in a manner that pleases God.

Psalm 19 – Two Divine Revelations

This psalm concerns divine revelation. The author considers two ways by which God makes himself known: in the creation and in the Scriptures. In verses 1-6, the psalmist describes how God is revealed in the created order (this is called general revelation because it is displayed to every person); in verses 7-11, he considers how God is revealed in the Scriptures (this is called special revelation because it is only revealed to some); then in verses 12-14, the psalmist prays that he would benefit from God revealing himself to him.

General revelation is comprehensive (it includes the heavens as well as the earth), consistent (it occurs every day and every night) and clear (everybody can understand it even although they speak different languages and cannot understand one another). The creation continually says that God is pre-existent (he existed before he made the universe), wise (he designed the universe) and powerful (he maintained it in existence). It also tells us that God is good (he provides what his creatures need).

Nevertheless, creation also says that something is wrong because not everything that takes place is good. There are earthquakes, famines and other disasters, and all of creation is marked by death. General revelation is silent as to the cause of these problems and does not hint whether or not the Creator intends to solve them. In order to know these details, we need special revelation.

The various nouns that the psalmist uses for this special revelation – law, statutes, commands – indicate that it contains precepts to be obeyed, which informs us that God is a sovereign King. One of the terms used for special revelation is the ‘fear of the Lord’ (v. 9), which stresses that it is to be approached with reverence, with the same respect that we would give to the King himself.

Each noun is also accompanied by an adjective such as clean, righteous, and perfect, and they state its moral quality. After all, it is possible for a ruler to have unrighteous or irrelevant laws, but not God. There is not one unrighteous law or one unnecessary command in the Bible.

Each of the six descriptions of special revelation has a statement summarising its effect: it revives, gives wisdom, gives joy, gives illumination, is eternal and righteous. Because of these features, the Bible is both beyond price in value and sweet to a believer’s soul. A Christian learns more about God and receives more from God in the Bible than he could learn about him or receive from him in the creation. Climbing a hill to see the view is good for your health, but the resultant vista does not teach us more about God than is revealed in the Bible. For example, the greatest display of divine power is not the upholding of the universe in existence; rather the greatest display of divine power is the resurrection of Christ.

God's Words in Human Words

I have wondered sometimes what it was like to observe the influence of higher criticism on evangelical institutions in Scotland during the second half of the nineteenth century. Having attended some of the events at the recent Society for Biblical Literature meeting in Boston, I now have some awareness of what the past influence would have been. My appreciation is not based on travel back in time, but on witnessing a discussion arranged by a prominent American Christian publisher with a notable evangelical pedigree. The discussion concerned a recent Baker publication called God’s Words in Human Words, sub-titled ‘An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship,’ written by Kenton L. Sparks.

The author of this work responded to the panel who discussed his book, none of whom found fault with his departure from evangelical standards concerning the inerrancy and reliability of the Bible. In his comments, he stated emphatically that he did not believe in Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy (it was put together several centuries later); he was convinced that many Old Testament prophecies had not been fulfilled within their possible time span, and so were failures (I did not hear him say anything about the possibility that some divine promises of blessing are conditional upon appropriate responses of those who heard them); and he was adamant that the apocalyptic sections of Daniel come from the second century BC and not from the accepted time of Daniel. Yet he announced that he was an evangelical, teaches at an institution which claims to be evangelical, and is published by a company that says it is evangelical.

As I listened to his response, I realised that all I had to do was imagine that the speaker was Robertson Smith in the final third of the nineteenth century in Scotland. He too shared the opinions now expressed by Sparks and also claimed to be an evangelical while teaching at an evangelical seminary (the Free Church College in Edinburgh). Despite the initial interest and success of Smith’s views within the church and the profit made by publishers of his works, the results of his (and others) teaching were catastrophic for evangelical churches, denominations and theological institutions that adopted them as they were for publishers who advocated them and for the thousands of professing Christians who accepted them. Yet the applause of acceptability by the educational elite did not mean that tolerance of error was a means of spreading evangelical influence.

Will the current attempt be any more successful? There is wholesale rewriting of the inspiration and inerrancy of the Scriptures taking place today across the evangelical spectrum. Great interest is being aroused, and desire for literature on the topic is seemingly insatiable, with many leading publishers involved. Inevitably, more books will follow, but perhaps we can find out what they will contain by looking back to see what their predecessors wrote about when the same views were articulated by the higher critics of the nineteenth century. The large evangelical denominations of Scotland in the nineteenth century quickly disappeared, and one of the reasons for their decline was their willing embrace of higher critical views.

Of course, the other detail that the whole discussion reveals is that the term ‘evangelical’ and its equivalents are so meaningless that using them conveys no accurate information about the user until he/she gives further details. At one time, in twentieth century Western Evangelicalism, it was assumed that an evangelical was an inerrantist as far as the Bible was concerted. No doubt, some scholars such as James Orr can be mentioned as being different from that rule. But that is the point – he was an exception. Today, the exceptions are those who believe in inerrancy and it seems that they are observing the speedy decline of the evangelical movement, a decline that is hastened from within evangelicalism itself.

There are other lessons from that period as well, which may have more relevance for those who accept the inerrancy of the Bible. One response to the higher critics by evangelicals was to abandon doctrinal convictions under the illusion that while it was essential to maintain a high view of the Bible it was not so essential to maintain accurate views regarding other doctrines of the faith and they could be adjusted and tweaked in order to make them acceptable to all who acknowledged the inerrancy of the Bible. Doctrines such as sovereign election and particular atonement were minimised. Instead of compromising with those who opposed their views on inerrancy, many compromised on other doctrines. History tells us that such a response, while enthusiastically adopted for a while, even perhaps by a large number of supporters, does not protect the church from decline.

Another response was to adopt the lifeboat mentality which saw that the church was sinking and instead of trying to repair the holes launched lifeboats to pick up those who were sinking in the waters. The lifeboats were evangelistic efforts and missions, which initially had great success, as the number of defunct buildings testifies to us today. But this response did not prevent the church from declining, and in some cases from disappearing altogether.

No doubt other lessons can be deduced. Perhaps others will assume that the ones I have highlighted have been distorted. If I have done so, I apologise. Yet I would suggest that one important response was missing during the decades when higher criticism was rampant and seems to be missing today as well. This response is also sadly missing in me, and it is a lack of serious prayer about the whole issue. Pointing out the errors and defects in various movements and writings is the easy part; getting on our knees and pleading with God to purify his church and restore his cause is another matter altogether.