When I had that last “magical” birthday, I confessed to some of you that my knees were betraying my age. Sometimes, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason from my perspective, they just don’t work like they’re supposed to! They let me down. They fail.
In fact, most everything around us seems determined to prove right the theory of planned obsolescence. We’ll have to replace it, sooner or later. The old design, or the old model, just won’t last forever. For the record, and totally off-subject, I think that older refrigerators worked much better than the new ones. (But I digress.)
Here’s another place where the Bible really shines: it’s infallible! That means that, when the Bible speaks to its central saving message of the Lord Jesus Christ, it cannot fail. It cannot mislead. It cannot lie. In all matters of faith or practice, the Bible is an infallible source of truth and authority for us. In fact, God has so guarded the integrity of His Word that He has made certain that the Bible transcends the spiritual or material flaws of its writers, its media of communication (like print or preaching), and its readers and hearers. (I would ask you to reread that last sentence. It’s very important.) God uses His written Word, unlike any other, to tell us what we most need to know.
That is not to say that the Bible addresses in detail every subject on Planet Earth, specifically. If we’re learning geometry, the Bible does not explain the Pythagorean Theorem, for example. Your math teacher can help you with that. It doesn’t diagram knee replacement surgery for curious inquiers like me. It doesn’t tell us who will win the Super Bowl. That’s not what the Bible is about. The Bible is about our faith in Christ, and our living out of that living faith.
But how do we know that the Bible is infallible? How have we arrived at that conclusion? A lot is at stake here, and can we know that our trust in the Bible is not misplaced? I used to struggle with these questions, until I was introduced to a man by the name of R.C. Sproul, who is now with the Lord. R.C. taught me that we arrive at the conclusion of the Bible’s infallibility one premise at a time. In other words, we start with something which we believe to be true, and we build from there. If you’ll allow me, I’ll walk you through the main steps of Dr. Sproul’s line of reasoning …
Premise A (this is the one that most of us can accept, particularly if we’ve considered honestly any of the Bible’s history):
The Bible is a basically reliable and trustworthy document.
Premise B (because we accept A, B is not a far leap):
On the basis of this reliable document, we have sufficient evidence to believe confidently that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
Premise C:
Jesus Christ, being the Son of God, is an infallible authority.
Premise D:
Jesus Christ teaches that the Bible is more than generally trustworthy; it is the very Word of God.
Premise E:
The Word, in that it utterly comes from God, is utterly trustworthy because God is utterly trustworthy.
Conclusion (we’ve arrived here one step at a time):
On the basis of the infallible authority of Jesus Christ, the church believes the Bible to be utterly trustworthy, i.e., infallible.
I really appreciate the simplicity of this illustration, and I referred to it earlier as a “line of reasoning” because that’s exactly what it is. It’s an entirely linear progression of thought. Careless apologists sometimes try to use circular reasoning (where the conclusion is already present in Premise A) to make their point, but that won’t fly among people who are thinking seriously about these matters.
Some people “out there” think that we, as believers in Christ, have arrived at our respect for Scripture via some blind leap of faith. Not so! Once you consider all the evidence, believing in the Bible’s authority makes perfect sense.
I’ve been traveling, so I’ll be a little shorter today, but I’ll close (more in this series next week) with a quote from Howard Hendricks: “God wants to communicate with you in the 21st century. He wrote His message in a book. He asks you to come and study that book for three compelling reasons. It’s essential for growth. It’s essential for maturity. It’s essential for equipping you … so that you might be an available, clean, sharp instrument in His hands to accomplish His purposes. So the real question confronting you now is: How can you afford not to be in God’s Word?”
I know that you’re as grateful as I for a church, and a church family, that stands upon a firm foundation: the living Word of the living God!
Pastor Charles
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