In this lesson, Pastor Joe Babij continues with the introduction to the Bible by overviewing the Bible’s origin, content, and structure.
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It is 9:00 and we need to start. And thank you so much for being here on time.
Remember to be a half hour late. A half hour early is to be on time, right? To be on time is to be late.
All right.
All right. So, this morning, thanks for for being here. We’re doing uh our study on fundamentals of the faith. And hopefully you have a your book and you were supposed to do your homework last week. All right. Now, next week, even though you don’t necessarily have homework this next coming week, you’re just finished with that first lesson.
Um, you do.
Next week, I’ll have somebody checking your homework.
Carlos. All right. You got that?
All right. So, you have another week to do your homework and we’re going to check to see if you do it. Now, it’s very simple. All I got to do is open up your Bible and fill in the spaces there.
But, it gives you a sense on the different books of the Bible and what what they’re about. Some are history, some are poetry, right? Some are uh narrative, some are um epistles, and some are gospels. Um and so there’s there’s a lot of different genres in the Bible that uh we need to be familiar with, right? And so, uh, as we go through this, this is is kind of a a low-level theology course. We’re going to be going through all kinds of, uh, subjects in this course. And we’re still on the subject of the Bible itself. Last week, we looked at the revelation. Uh, there’s uh, there’s two kinds of revelation. What are they?
General. All right. General Revelation and uh, what?
Special. Now, general revelation, what would that be?
Okay, creation. What else?
Conscience.
Conscience and also history, right? God is working in in those those three areas. Uh and then um special revelation. What is that?
Okay, specifically the Bible, right? and how God spoke in through men and through uh historical events and through prophets and through priests and through all kinds of people in the Old Testament that brought us the word of God from Genesis to Revelation. We can be confident today that we the word of God that we have in our hands is the word of God. It is probably the most attacked and scrutinized and uh book that’s ever been written and it is God’s word. If you read through the Bible, you know, you you meet sometimes people and you say, “Well, uh you know, you’re witnessing to them.” Oh, I read to the B I read the Bible right now. I think they read maybe portions of the Bible. Maybe they heard some things about the Bible.
But to read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation every year, year after year after year after year, and then here in preaching and the study of scripture, you’re convinced that no man could have come up with this book. You know, and not only couldn’t they come up with it because of the content, but because it of the space of time it was getting given, right? It’s it’s so unified from the beginning to the end that you have to say the only way that could all have come together and been protected and superintended has to be by someone other than a human being, right? It has to be by God himself. And so, so the Bible that means we h when we speak the Bible, when we share the Bible, we’re we’re talking about the authority of God that we’re speaking on his behalf. And so it is our job to find as it’s a Christian’s job to find out what does the Bible actually say. And of course that’s a lifetime study. You know you can study the Bible every day and uh year in and year out and never exhaust it because there is so much to know about it. And there’s certain portions of the Bible that are uh very small portions that are really locked up that we don’t we we can take a guess at what what some of it means, but we really don’t know some things that are are not understood. And and part part of that is is because it is a book that has its source in God himself. And if we think we understand God, we will never understand God uh in totality. But the Bible gives an gives us the information we need to have a proper understanding of God on this side of eternity so we can actually love him as a person and live for him every single day. Uh so the Bible does give us that foundation and and not only that we have we having great encouragement because as I said last time that as as believers we actually have the whole story of humanity right in the palm of our hands. We know what God’s going to do next. He tells us what he’s going to do next. So we’re at kind of the end of his program. Uh and but we do know God is still working. He is working and he’s using us. He’s still saving people. No matter how crazy the world gets, he’s still saving people.
He’s the gospel still going out everywhere through all kinds of means.
The gospel is going out and uh he’s reaching people. And God from, you know, this is the times of the Gentiles until that last Gentile is saved and then God moves his program back to Israel. Then, um I don’t know when that is. Nobody knows when that is. We just got to be, the Bible always tells us, be ready. You know, don’t be setting dates. Be ready because he could come anytime. And I don’t know about you, every time I turn on the news, I feel like he’s coming like in the next 10 minutes. Like this world needs salvation, doesn’t it? And uh but anyway, we ought to be ready. It just encourages us to uh be sure of our own salvation, be faithful to live our Christian life, and be ready. And uh and don’t go back. Don’t go backward. Don’t go to back to the old ways, the old habits, the old sins. Go forward. Right?
And God gives us the victory by his spirit to be able to overcome our sin and say no. Even though sin still tempts us, we say no. And every time you say no, the flesh gets weaker and the Holy Spirit gets louder, right? And then we can say no. And then we don’t even have the desire anymore. He takes the desire away, too. And so, but that’s there’s battle in that. There’s uh there’s conflict in that. All right. So, today we’re looking at um the next lesson. And of course, today is going to be we’re going to be looking today at pretty much general information about the Bible. Uh some structure, some content, and some themes. We probably won’t get to all that because they actually uh in the in the lessons they want to have give you an overview of every single book of the Bible. We don’t have the time to do that. So, we’re going to give you some general information about it. All right.
But let me pray and then we’ll continue on this morning. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you Lord Jesus for coming to into this world uh as the perfect man that you lived a perfect life that we could never have done. Adam couldn’t do it. You’re the second Adam and you did it. And you did it for a very spe specific reason. not only to show us who the father is, but also to be willing, able to go to the cross and qualified to go to the cross and die in our place.
Take all our sin, all your all the punishment that was due us. You took it upon yourself. You satisfied the father’s justice and you transferred our sin to the cross and you put your righteousness on our account. And Lord, for that we’re grateful. And we find that in the word of God. We can find it that truth nowhere else. And then you rose from the dead. You defeated Satan in death. You ascended into heaven.
You’re seated at the right hand of the father. And Lord, you’re preparing a place for us so we can go be where where you are. And Lord, you’re planning also uh to come back again while you intercede for your saints to keep us uh walking faithfully and serving you. uh and loving you. So to thank you for this time together as we meet this morning. I pray you bless us and increase our understanding and and knowledge of your word. In Jesus I pray. Amen.
All right. So here is the first question this morning.
How did we get the Bible?
How did we get the Bible? Now let’s take our Bibles and turn to a passage of scripture that actually answers that question. Second Peter chapter 1. Now when I was I was preaching through this book, I spent some time on that. Second Peter chapter verse number 20 and 21.
Well, if we look up to verse number 19 too, let me read that. Second Peter chapter 1 verse 19 it says, “So we have the prophetic word more sure to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your heart.” And then it says in verse 20, “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation.
For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” All right. So, let’s answer that question now based on that passage of scripture. What’s the answer? How did we get our Bible?
How do we get our Bible?
The word of God.
What?
Through the word of God. But specifically in that passage of scripture, what does it say?
Who wrote?
Okay. Men wrote, right? So the answer to that question really is God spoke through men to write. That’s what he did.
So people didn’t come up with this stuff called the Bible.
No human being, like I said, could come up with it. It was the Holy Spirit of God that used men to write what God wanted them to write.
All right? Without messing up their personality, without making them mechanical. He spoke through them just what he wanted so they could write. So the word of God never never has its origins in impulse, desire, whim or the will of any person at all whatsoever.
They didn’t think it up themselves.
And the word of God is not the so the word of God is not the product of human thoughts, genius, cleverness, or study.
So, of course, when you talk to people and they retort back to you, well, just men just wrote the Bible.
See, now of course they’re right on in one respect, but in another respect, they’re not right because they don’t realize how it happened, right? How God brought the word of God to us through people, right? Uh and of course, not just many people, people that he chose to be able to bring the word of God. So divine revelation given to its authors and their interpretation of it was directed by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in other words controlled every word and ensured that every word, every jot, every little tit those are the smallest marks in uh used in the Bible uh for I believe in the Hebrew words. And he wanted to use these things uh and the thoughts he wanted to express he expressed through men so they would that all scripture in other words was in superintended by the Holy Spirit. So the hol holy men were carried along by the Holy Spirit like like in other words a sailing ship moved by the wind. And be as that happened and the spirit of God moved upon them, they wrote scripture. And so we know from last time that all scripture remember is God breathed, right? And is divine.
And also the prophecies uh in the Old Testament did not originate in the prophet’s own thinking. The the job of the Old Testament prophet was not to study the word of God and bring it to the people. They didn’t have it yet. in many respects that God spoke directly to them and they were to speak just what God said. Right? And if it came true, they were found out to be a true prophet. If it did not come true, then most of the time when that happened, it came from their own dreams, their own thoughts, their their own ingenuity, and they were found out to be false prophets, and they were killed because of that. Uh God was very serious about those things.
And of course, it says in Amos 3:7, “Surely the Lord God does nothing unless he reveals his secret counsel to his servants, the prophets.” So, thank the Lord that the prophets were ones who uh God used to bring the word of God to us.
And uh all right, so as we move on, there are some important presuppositions. one of them and if you look at the screen you’ll find out that the uniqueness of the Bible as a book is very unique and since God in is the divine author of the book it is totally unique.
It is one of a kind.
The Bible really uh is not simply a book with men’s thoughts about God and man.
The Bible reports what God did and communicates what he is and what he desires. The Bible is also unique in that it was written by God and man.
Human authors wrote as they were guided by the Holy Spirit. All right. So the the point is in this first question is how did we get our Bible is that we got our Bible that God spoke through men to write. What what did they write? Right? They wrote manuscripts.
They wrote manuscripts.
And of course, a manuscript is um actually when my wife and I were in Jordan, um we um got a chance to go to the Jordanian Museum because I wanted to go there specifically because I knew that there were Quamran scrolls on display. And so I took a picture of them. This is how they would look. Uh these are the scrolls. Actually, these are scrolls that are uh found were found in caves in they’re called the Dead Sea Scrolls, but these scrolls were actually uh found put there by Jewish rebels against the Roman Empire around 1900 years ago. And according to uh that was that’s according to uh what is established as far as recorded history.
And these scroll frag fragments really bear verses from the books of Zachchariah, Nahhem. And they’re finding more fragments from the 12 minor prophets. And I believe they also found large se segments of the prophet Isaiah.
So, in other words, when they found these scrolls and they found them in pots like this uh that were shoved into the the caves, when they found them, they were so amazed that they were so intact and they were able to be translated. And when they started translating these manuscripts, all right, they found out that the Bibles that we have today are extremely accurate to what was written back then. So it just gives further confirmation that the word of God that we have in our hands from Genesis to Revelation is God’s word. We don’t have to worry about, oh, is it not God’s word or it is God’s word. And so that’s what we ought to be uh establishing our whole premise of uh the authority of the word of God in is that we do have the word of God. We don’t have to worry about that.
That’s already been established even though people are still poking holes in it. They’re still doubting it and they’re still going to do that, right?
because they’re living in in darkness and uh until God opens their eyes and gives them the spirit of God and the spirit of God now illuminates your understanding to understand the scriptures then it’s going to be they’re going to be in the it’s going to be they’re people are going to be in the dark and they’re going to attack the word of God. All right. So, so these scrolls uh were it’s pretty amazing uh that it was written in Greek and um so you can read them scholars could read them and they took of course they they have to preserve them and do certain things for them.
They don’t let you uh actually I had to take a picture from the corner because it was in a glass case. Uh and uh just to get some pictures of it and uh anyway I thought it was pretty interesting that uh to be able to see manuscripts from you know from 1900 1900 years ago. All right. So saying that the when we consider all this these manuscripts the first five books of the Old Testament were written Cisora 1400 BC. Now the Cicora means approximately uh and of course the last book revelation was written Cisra about 95 AD. That means that the Bible was written over a span of 1500 years. Uh it depends on when you’re when you’re actually starting the dating. It’ be could be 1600 years. I think your book the book says 1600 years but a period of 1600 years. It was written also by 40 different human authors and it was written 66 books. the Old Testament being 39 books and the New Testament being 27 books. And we know first of all that it is a human book.
The Bible is really not mystical. Um it was written in human language and intended to be understood by human beings. All right? So it’s it’s it’s not mystical. Some people want to make it that it is not.
And then of course it is also a divine book. God is the ultimate author of all scripture. This means that some things in his word will be beyond our ability to comprehend.
Now that just means gives it more proof that it is not a book written by man. It is a book written by God himself too.
So, in which direction when we we’re when we talk about reading the Bible, in which direction should we read the Bible?
What’s that?
Start to finish. All right, that’s that’s a good way to say how many people when people read the Bible, where do they usually start?
No, they don’t.
They usually start it in the New Testament, right? Because what you know what happens when they turn to the old testament you know what they immediately say I can’t understand this right so they go to the new testament say oh I can understand this a bit uh but so in other words you have the old testament new testament this is how not to read the bible you don’t read the bible from the new testament to the old testament right and why why should we read the bible like this what’s All right. God gave us the Old Testament first, right? He didn’t start with the Gospel of John, the Gospel of Matthew, right? He didn’t start with any of the Gospels. He started with the Old Testament, right? So, when we read the Bible, really, the word of God, we should read it like this.
All right. Now, I always every year I want I kind of encourage people to get a one-year Bible and to start January 1 and then read it through. And even if you fall off the wagon a few times, just pick it up the next day and keep going till the end. And then as you establish that habit year after year, you’re going to find that you’re going to be able to read through from Genesis to Revelation every single year. every single year because you begin to discipline yourself to do that. And then you get to the point where you want to wake up and read it. You want to find out what is God what God says. Like right now I’m in in Judges. uh you know just came out of Deuteronomy and now in Judges and you find that listen when here’s Joshua who is doing all these battles and giving all the inheritance to all the people and then Joshua dies and just a generation later they don’t even know who he is and they’re they’re slipping into idolatry then God has to raise up judges because the people aren’t obeying the Lord and all these things. It doesn’t take very long for you to forget forget everything and for a whole generation to miss out on the word of God. I mean, one of the things when you go to the mall and you talk to the young people, uh they’re they’re just joking about everything. They take nothing spiritual serious. Um I was witnessing uh to a a group of this Friday to a group of high school kids, about five or six of them. They’re the toughest groups to have. Uh, and anyway, I was saying, hey, I have two questions for you. The first question is, have you come to a place in your spiritual life that if you die today, you know for sure you go to heaven, or is that something you’re still working on? And one of the kids says, “What does spiritual mean?” And he wasn’t kidding. He was really serious. He wasn’t fooling around at that point. I mean, they don’t even know the basic things because where are they getting it from? They’re not getting it from anywhere. any media source is not giving them uh the truth. Um they have to go search for it and then sometimes when they search for it, they’re searching at a a site that’s not giving them the truth, right? And so it’s sad to see that’s going on. And that’s why the church and the church being the pillar in support of truth is so incredibly important because we’re the only one holding up the light. We’re the only one that can give them the message that will save their soul and prevent them from going to an eternal uh destination called hell where they’ll be separated from a good and a merciful God.
So we have to we have to be faithful to that. All right. So how do we read the Bible? We read it from the Old Testament to the New Testament. Right? And of course then on once we start doing that we get a sense on how all this revelation has been given. Now in mentioning the manuscripts uh there are no original manuscripts that we have in our possession today or and there the the original manuscripts are called the autographs.
All right. That means when the apostles and the prophets and the writers of scripture wrote those particular original documents are not in our possession today. However, that’s why we have manuscripts because those manuscripts were copies of the originals and th they were passed down. So, a Bible manuscript is a copy written by hand in the original language of the Bible, whether it’s Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic.
All right. Autographs, they’re the original manuscripts in of the Old and New Testaments, and the autographs are the ones that are inspired by God and protected by God.
But when people did take those autographs and wrote manuscripts, they the the regulations they had on themselves and that were put on their writing was that even if they made a mistake, they have would have to throw the whole thing away. That they were very meticulous. The scribes were very meticulous on writing exactly what was on the original autographs. So the manuscripts now now we today we have many many many manuscripts that we know are accurate and so uh languages then become very important for us as we think of the word of God. In other words, the Old Testament is written in biblical Hebrew, right? It’s written in biblical Hebrew.
Now the Old Testament also tell I don’t know why that’s happening my mic.
No, I don’t I don’t It’s not doing that.
All right. Well, maybe I’ll uh I think it’s down here, but maybe I I’ll just leave this on Eric. So all right just in case. So it’s it’s written also Old Testament is written in the Hebrew and Aramaic. Daniel uh chapter 2-6 and Ezra chapter 4-7 written in Aramaic. Also the Septuagen Yes.
What is Aramaic?
Aramaic is just another form of a biblical a language that they wrote in back then. It was it was just like it was a a seemetic language, you know.
Thanks. That that’s all it was. It was just these were just basic languages that they spoke at the time, you know.
Now, of course, today we do not have these languages spoken. Uh today in Hebrew, uh Jews in Jerusalem are not speaking biblical Hebrew. They’re speaking classical Hebrew. And it’s not the same. I’m not I’m sure there’s some similarities, but they’re not it’s not the same as biblical Hebrew. Uh, and so when you it’s just that when you’re going to the word of God, you’re going to find there are certain sections that are written in a different language. But basically, Hebrew, Aramaic, and then in the New Testament, Greek are the only languages that the Bible’s written in.
And all those languages have been rendered dead.
They’re dead languages. That means there’s no biblical languages because they’re rendered dead, they have no new vocabulary being added to them.
So that means God did that that did that in the sense so the Bible once it was written everything was closed. It cannot be added to as far as the original types of languages.
All right. So secondly uh the Septuagen is the Greek translation of the Old Testament written in about 3 BC and it’s called the LXX or that’s the Roman numeral for 70. And the reason why they it’s called the Septuagen because Septuagen means 70 and it means that the work it was done by the work of 70 Jewish elders. And so we know that Jesus quoted from the Septuagen and um it is a very good translation of the Old Testament because the old if the Old Testament is written in Hebrew and you can’t read Hebrew and you’re a Greek, right? then you uh this was a great benefit to those who did not speak Hebrew or Aramaic but spoke Greek. All right. And so the New Testament then was written in Greek coin Greek and that means this kind of Greek was the it was the market language. It was what everybody spoke in the region so they can do business. So, so it’s it was the most basic kind of Greek that you can use. And and because they they spoke in this way, the word of God became very understandable all throughout many regions of uh that part of the the Middle East and the world. Uh that people would be able to preach the word of God and they would understand it. Even though they may have had another language, the Greek was the market language. And so many people knew it. Uh it just like it’s the same in many countries today. There’s a particular I think like in the Philippines Tagalik is one of the main uh market languages but everybody has their own dialects and translate you know other languages they have in their own culture uh in that in that culture.
There are many of them and some some people can’t even they don’t even know what the people are saying the next town if they’re using their own dialect. And uh it’s just kind of crazy. We don’t really have all that stuff in America.
Of course, we do it because we’re a melting pot of cultures, but basically, most people in the United States understand what language?
English, right? And uh and believe Americans have destroyed the king’s English. They have. And uh and we know, you know what? Our dictionary gets bigger and bigger every year because we’re all constantly adding words. We’re constantly adding words to our dictionary. That’s why it becomes so difficult for people to actually learn English is because there’s too many vocabs. They and there’s too many idioms. There’s too many phrases that we use that if you if a person doesn’t know what you’re talking about, they’re not going to know what you’re talking about.
So, um all right. Now, here’s a uh a test. What does that say?
All right. It says O there. O the first word the O is the it’s a it’s a article.
The is what?
God.
Agape is what?
Love. Right. So estin is is.
So this says what?
All right. It says the god love is.
That’s what it says. But of course we don’t talk like that. So where do we get that from?
First John chapter 4:8, right? What does it say? It says God is at the end of that verse, it says God is love. That’s exactly how it looks in the original Greek. All right. Greek is um actually is a very specific language.
When you’re studying it and you’re you realize that you’re going to scripture to to stud study uh Greek, it is very it doesn’t um you kind of know what it says in the original language even if it may be even a little murky or cloudy in the English language or another translation.
So it’s really important that we um we stick to the original languages and that any dispute in interpretation must be finally solved by an appeal to the original language. So that’s why when when we go to school, if you want to be a pastor, you go to school and usually take a lot of Hebrew and a lot of Greek, a lot of Greek. and uh and so you get a a real familiar sense of of what the original uh manuscripts said. Uh so you can see where the difficulties are, where the difference there are in manuscripts. In fact, there’s a book written by Bruce Mezer which I have in my hands right now.
Uh and this book is about all the varants in every manuscript that we have. All right? And there’s many manuscripts that we have and the variance are the differences between one another. There it may be very small difference but it’s a difference and they record all the differences. So because Bruce Mezer used to teach at Princeton University and he was a professor of Coptic but he was also an expert in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and every other language. He was a language geek. And I used to go on Thursdays and use the seminary library and study there. I did that for many years because the seminary library I think Princeton seminary library is the largest theological library in the world. The third, the first is the Vatican. The second I think is in Oxford or is I think it’s Oxford and then the the third is Princeton. So any book that I ever wanted was right there at my fingertips. And I used to I knew that at this point Dr. Mezer would read his paper in the seminary library and I finally got the guts to go up and ask him uh a question. So he said, “Hey, listen. I’m going to lunch.
Why don’t you come to lunch with me?” So uh I went I got a chance to sit down at lunch and talk to Dr. Mezer and I I had one question for him. I says, ‘Of all the varants in the Bible that you wrote in this book, does it change any major doctrine of scripture? And he says, ‘No, not one.
So he says, you can be confident that this is the word of God. And he was 90 years old at that point. He didn’t look 90, I tell you that. But he was uh so I I I was that that question was burning in my saddle and I knew he could answer that and it was just a he was just a gracious humble guy and um it’s sad though when the se when the college started getting liberal they didn’t ask him to do anything for about 20 or 30 years he just did stuff on his own and and uh so you’ll find his name in many places when it comes to languages is Bruce Mezer is going to be there somewhere.
He’s been on every committee I think in Bible translation that you can think of and uh he has he has some good insight and expertise to give to those who are translating.
All right. So that means that when we go to scripture, if you’ve been through our membership class, you’ll you’ll find out that we stress that the requirement of the grammatical historical interpretation, right? That means the grammar is super important and the historical context is super important. You have to get a sense on both of those. And the fundamental principle of the grammatical historical interpretation is basically this. To gather from scripture themselves the precise meaning which the writers intended to convey.
So really that that is the goal of anyone studying to teach the word of God is what did the writer who wrote the scripture intend in his original uh intention to display to the audience or to the right the people who would be reading the material and you know that’s not easy to do so we really can’t say well I think it says this and I think it says that and oh this is what I think it says. No, what does it say? You know, like what does it say if you were never born? That kind of thing, you know, if you were if you never live, what does it say? Because it’s not going to change.
So, that becomes uh and and that’s the same thing we would apply to not only sacred books, these particular principles, but it’s the same grammatical process and exercise of common sense and reason we we we would uh apply to any particular writing. It’s the same thing. All right? So when we think about those things that is what we ought to uh be uh here’s another uh these are the two things that I just mentioned.
So the precise meaning which the writers intended to convey. All right that’s what you’re always asking. What did the gospel of Mark the writer of Mark what what was he what was the message he was trying to get to the people? Colossians, what was Paul trying to communicate uh to the people that were going to read those letters, not only in the Colossian church uh and the Leadyian church, but what about our church, right? And so that’s what we want. We need to know what God said through Paul to that audience because it’s the same message for us today. It hasn’t changed one bit.
Now, the Bible does have uh several titles. Now, when you’re reading through the scripture, you’re going to find every one of these titles. The first one is the Bible, right? And what the Bible means, a book or a scroll.
And it became known as the book. All right? So, we could say this is the book. Uh and that is part of what the Bible recognizes as a title. And then a second one is canon. Now, I’d like you to take your Bible and turn to a few passages in Galatians chapter 6, verse number 16.
Galatians 6:16 and then also Philippians 3:16.
this word canon.
Um you you hear it because this is the way or this is the word they use to use the word uh where we um would say well how do we know this book was part of the the canon of scripture? Well there were certain rules that they had to follow to pick each book of the Bible. All right. So canon is really the Greek word that means rule and it came to mean scripture itself.
Uh and it further means that which measures or a rod or a ruler. So in other words, just like a tape measure will measure what’s the height from the ground to the ceiling and we can get an accurate reading that there were measurements put in place that they measured whether this was a book of the Bible and or this wasn’t a book of bible like the apocrypha uh that is included in some books of the bible most uh at the end once they uh did all the measurements on what whether something is scripture and not scripture. The apocry even though it’s good material and it’s historical material, it was not deemed to be scripture because it did not meet the rule or the measure of what God’s word is. And so they decided never to include it uh in the Bible. All right? So if you look at these two passages of scripture, look at Galatians 6:16. It says, “And all those who will walk by this rule,” there’s the word canon. Peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. Now, so we walk by a certain rule. Now, what would that rule be? What rule do we walk by?
All right. the rule the rules and the regulations and the instruction that we receive from the word of God, right?
That’s our rule of faith, right? That’s our rule of godliness, our rule of holiness. We can know how to be holy and we can know how to be godly by looking at the word of God. And as we see it in the word of God, we can live this way.
All right? And then also in Philippians 3:1 16 it says, “However, let us keep living by the same standard.” There’s that word can canon. All right. To which you have attained. Again, the standard of faith, the rule of faith found in the word of God. And that’s how we live our Christian life. We we should know how to live our Christian life as as we go through the word of God. as we hear the preaching of the word of God, right?
This is what pleases God. This is what doesn’t please God.
And so we have a rule of faith. And so some of those this word was applied to all of the measurements they used in picking scripture.
All right? So that is another word that is used as a title of the Bible. And then of course a a third one would be scripture itself.
Let me just read the passage for you.
John 7:38 it says he who believes in me as the scripture said from him his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. So Jesus is saying in John 7 listen as the scriptures. So Jesus referred to the scriptures and what scriptures is he referring to?
The old testament. Why is he only referring to the old testament?
Because there was no new testament yet.
All right. So the scriptures, he’s already affirming the Old Testament of scripture. He’s already affirming that and he does that over and over again. Uh and so another way of putting it also is the writings and if you remember the writing that Paul was writing to Timothy and this is what he said in Timothy uh 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse uh 3 to chapter 3 verse1 15. It says, “And from a child you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Jesus Christ.” Now, here’s young Timothy being raised by his mother and his grandmother. Obviously, his Greek father must have died early in his life.
And his what is his grandmother and mother doing? Teaching this kid the writings, the Old Testament, right?
So this Old Testament, now this is an amazing thing. This Old Testament writing would be able to lead you, not only give you wisdom, but lead you to salvation. That’s through faith in Jesus Christ. That’s in the Old Testament. So the the the person that is center as you’re looking in the Old Testament, you’re looking forward to the cross. As you’re looking at the New Testament, you’re looking back at the cross, but it is all about Jesus Christ.
He is the central person in all of scripture.
And we know that in our hands, we have the writings. And then also the next one is the word of God. Now, this is a very common one.
Uh 1 Thessalonians 2:13, it says uh at the end of the verse, it says, “The word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.” So the word of God is active. It’s alive, right? It cuts down to the the thoughts and intents of the heart. It reaches deep into your gizzard and squeezes it until you see yourself.
And then you repent of your sin and then you see Christ and then you realize he’s the way, the truth, and the life. No way I can go to the father except I walk through this door, Jesus Christ. and he becomes the center person in all of theology and he is the one who will grant you eternal life, forgive you of your sins, and confess you before the father when you get to heaven. See, that’s the hope that we have. And then there’s a passage of scripture I want you to turn to. Uh this is the next one.
And that’s where it says the law, prophets, and psalms is the word of God.
Now turn there. Luke chap 24 verse 44 because this is Jesus speaking to the disciples after the resurrection and they’re walking down the road Emmas right and Jesus kind of hooks up with them in other words they’re walking and comes alongside of them and he’s talking with them and they’re talking about this guy who rose from the dead and they thought he would be the hope for Israel and all that kind of thing. And then Jesus says to them in verse 44 of Luke chapter 24, now he said to them, “These are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you that all things which are written about me,” who’s me? Jesus, right? In where? in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled. Right now, you know what he’s saying there? That’s a way that a Hebrew knew he was talking about the whole Old Testament, the law, the prophets, the psalms. That’s the whole Old Testament. All right? So, that is and it’s all speaking about Jesus.
That’s who it’s speaking about. So, you can’t say that Jesus was an add-on in the New Testament because who did this prophet speak of?
The coming Messiah, right? Who’s going to fulfill the law?
One greater than Moses, Jesus Christ, right? And who is it spoken of in the Psalms? The one who would be the deliverer, right?
the savior, the one who would meet the needs of his people. See, that’s what uh is so important to start reading from the Old Testament to the New Testament. Now, of course, of course, that brings us to the next section in our is is the Old Testament, the New Testament. Uh the word testament is derived from the Latin testamentum meaning a will.
And of course the Greek word also means will meaning an agreement or a covenant entered into by contracting parties.
Right? So we have an Old Testament covenant and we have a New Testament covenant.
And of course the contracting parties are between men and God and God and men.
And so we have both testaments and both testaments are important.
You can’t have the New Testament without the Old. You can’t have the Old Testament without the New because the New Testament does give us more information about what God has actually done.
Now, the Old Testament was based on the Old Covenant.
Now, what was the Old Covenant?
What was the Old Covenant?
All right. It was a covenant of works, right? It was a covenant of works which depended on the people’s obedience. And if they obeyed, they were blessed. And if they didn’t obey, what were they?
All the curses that God says, listen, if you don’t do these things, the curses are going to fall on you. If you do these things, you’re going to be blessed. And when we look at the word blessing in scripture, blessing means God is near you. Cursing means God has exited from you. All right? and he’s left you to your own devices and to the devices of the culture and to the devices of the sin that has caused destruction in the world. You’re left to those things when God is not honored and in in this case disobeyed. And all covenants in the Old Testament were ratified by what?
Blood. All right. Blood sacrifices had to be given. So the covenant can be ratified. All right? And so that becomes an important picture for us. Now in the new testament was based on of course the new covenant. And where where do we find the language? Well, we’ll look at it in a minute. But the new covenant according to Hebrews chap 7 and verse number 22, it says this. Listen to what it says.
But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry by as much as he also he is also the mediator of a better covenant which has been enacted on better promises.
So who’s the one who gives us the better covenant?
The L the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s not only gives us the covenant but he becomes the one who ratifies the covenant with his own blood. Not the blood of the sacrifice of an animal but his own blood. So he not only and remember the job of the priest was to uh bring the sacrifices in make sure they’re correct and uh without blemish so they can go offer it to God. Right?
And then the priest had to offer a sacrifice for himself for his own sin and then a sacrifice for the people.
What’s amazing when we come to the New Testament is that Jesus is not only the priest but he is the sacrifice.
He is the sacrifice.
That’s think on that for a while.
Hebrews chapter 8 and verse number 13 it says the old covenant is passed away.
Hebrews 8:13 says when he said a new covenant he has made the first op obsolete but whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is already is ready to disappear. So the old covenant, the covenant of obedience and blessing and cursing is passed away.
Now you have a new covenant where Jesus becomes the one who pays the price for sinners and dies in their place. So that means that this new covenant is through the blood of Christ’s blood. Matter of fact, every time we have the Lord’s table, this is one of the passages that I read or someone else would read when we do the Lord’s table. It says in Luke chap 22 verse 20, it says, “In the same way he took the cup after he uh after they had eaten, saying, the cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” Right? So the new covenant in my blood is So this covenant, this agreement between God and man is ratified by the blood of Jesus Christ.
And therefore, because he ratifies that covenant and does all the work in the behalf of the sinner, that means we can be cleansed of all our sin, forgiven of all our iniquity, and be made right with God. Not based on anything we could do in our own obedience, but based on the obedience of Christ who died in our place, who took the wrath of God, right?
And who satisfied the wrath completely.
We could have never done that by keeping the law, right? The law just showed us we were sinners and we couldn’t save ourselves.
So the new covenant is not the law is not of the law but the new covenant is is of the spirit.
Um and sec 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 5 and 6 that’s what it tells us. It says um in 2 Corinthians chapter 3:5, “Now that we are adequate, we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.” Verse six says, “Who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit.
For the letter kills, what’s the letter?” The law. What does the law do? kills you.
Right? When Paul says in Romans 7, when when he understood he was coveting, he saw the law rose up and killed me.
Right? That’s what it does. It convicts you. It exposes you as guilty before God. It was never meant to save one anyone at all. It was meant to convict us of our sin, showing us we can’t save oursel and causing us and pointing us to the one who can save us, right? Jesus Christ. So, so this covenant that has been given uh here we see that this new covenant is not of the law but of the spirit. And as there’s the scripture right there that I just read and it’s here’s basically there this under the law uh it does not the law actually does not uh free us. The law also cannot cleanse us from sin but of also that the the law does does show us we are sinners but it’s a deathdeing indictment. That’s what it is. But under grace, we’re freed from the law’s bondage, right? Because of what Christ accomplished. So we have lifegiving compulsion given to us once we are believers that we are are freed from anything that we can say I did this to save myself or I did that to save myself. No, has nothing to do with that.
It has all to do with Christ Jesus. And so that is uh becomes a very important uh point when we think about the Bible.
And uh we realize that the old and the new testament have one message and that message from the old testament was leading always to the cross. It was leading always to the cross. It was always leading to Christ dying in the place of sinners and rising from the dead dead to give eternal life to all those who would believe. It always was pointing to that. Now, um we’re so next week we’ll be meeting again and we’re going to be looking specifically about uh about this the Bible’s claim to inspiration. And we’ll look at that next week. Now, if you didn’t do your homework yet, lesson one, do it for next week and I’ll have my watchd dogss out looking at your uh homework. All right?
And then also I’ll discuss a little bit which I would I didn’t have time to do today about just the different translations of the Bible and how we got them and uh some of the methods that are used to bring a translation uh from a manuscript into a different language.
I’ll talk about that a little bit. All right, let’s pray. Thank you so much for being here today, for uh being on time and and uh interacting and continue to consider these things as we go through them. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you again for your people. We thank you Lord for how you have worked in the past and how all the details about what you have done comes together for your people that the gospel of Jesus Christ which will be the light of the world will be proclaimed and taught so people can understand what you have done on their behalf. And then once they understand that, Lord, and you grant them faith and repentance to come and believe in Jesus Christ, the only way of salvation, that they would have the blessing of knowing how much you have loved them from the demonstration of the cross and how you give them your spirit and your word so they can know what you want and how to live. And that Lord, you not only save them and forgive them, but you give them eternal life. that this life is not the end. We will slip out of this world and go into your presence.
And as the Bible says, either people will die in the Lord or they’ll die in their sin. And we know, Lord, anyone who believes in you will die in the Lord.
And that is the blessing we have. Thank you so much for that truth. It is the greatest comfort that we can have. I pray this in Christ’s name. Amen. Okay.
Thank you.