Is the bible Gods word?

This is a crucial question and one which is very much in dispute today.

It is, however, not the foremost question in evangelism. Many Christians think they must prove the Bible to be the Word of God before they begin to witness. This is not the case. The cru­cial issue in salvation is one's relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ-not his view of the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God, re­gardless of what a person may think about it, and he can be led to consider Scripture even before the question of its inspiration has been settled in his mind. After conversation with a believer, a person should realise that the issue is, "What think you of Christ?" rather than "What think you of the Bible?"

All we need do to confront a person with the claims of the Lord Jesus Christ is to show him that the Gospels are reliable historical documents. This is reasonably easy, as we shall see in a later chap­ter. After a person has trusted Christ, the logical question for him to ask is, "How did Christ view the Bible?" As we shall see, it is abundantly clear that the Lord Jesus Christ viewed Scripture as the authoritative Word of God. As a follower of Christ, the logical step of obedience is to accept His view of the Scripture.

But how can we answer this far-reaching question for ourselves as believers?
While the statements and claims of the Scriptures themselves are not proof, they are a significant body of data which cannot be ignored.

Biblical View of Inspiration

In 2 Timothy 3:16, we read, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." The word inspired, here, is not to be confused with the common usage of the word, as when we say Shakespeare was inspired to write great plays, or Beethoven was inspired to compose great symphonies. Inspiration, in the biblical sense, is unique. The word translated inspired
(2 Tim. 3:16) actually means God-breathed. It refers, not to the writers, but to what is written. This is an important point to grasp.

Second Peter 1:20-21 is another important statement "No pro­phecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation, For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Here again the divine origin of the Scripture is emphasised.
It is important to realise, too, that the writers of the Scripture were not mere writing machines. God did not punch them, like keys on a typewriter, to produce His message. He did not dictate the words, as the biblical view of inspiration has so often been cari­catured. It is quite clear that each writer has a style of his own. Jeremiah does not write like Isaiah, and John does not write like Paul, God worked through the instrumentality of human personal­ity, but so guided and controlled men that what they wrote is what He wanted written.
Other indications of the claim of supernatural origin of the Scripture are sprinkled throughout its contents. Prophets were con­sciously God's mouth-pieces, and spoke as such:

"The word of the Lord came unto me" is a phrase that recurs frequently in the Old Testament. David says, "The spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and His word was in my tongue" (2 Sam. 23:2). Jeremiah said, "The Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, 'Behold, I have put My words in thy mouth'" (Jer. 1:9). And Amos cries out, "The Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy?" (3:8)

It is also very remarkable that when later writers of Scripture quote parts of the Scripture which had previously been recorded, they frequently quote it as words spoken by God rather than by a particular prophet. For instance, Paul writes, "And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, 'In thee shall all nations be blessed' " (Gal. 3:8).

There are other passages in which God is spoken of as if He were the Scriptures. For example, "Thou art God ... who by the mouth of Thy servant David has said, 'Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?'" (Acts 4:24-25 and Ps. 2:1) Benjamin Warfield points out that these instances of the Scriptures being spoken of as if they were God, and of God being spoken of as if He were the Scriptures, could only result from a habitual identification, in the mind of the writer, of the text of Scripture with God speaking.

It became natural, then, to use the term "Scripture said," and to use the term, "God says," when what was really intended was, "Scripture, the Word of God, says     "The two sets of passages, together, thus show an absolute identifi­cation of "Scripture" with the "speaking God."'
It is equally clear that New Testament writers have the same prophetic claim to authority as Old Testament writers. Jesus said that John the Baptist was a prophet and more than a prophet (Matt. 11:9-15). As Gordon Clark has put it, "He was superior to all the Old Testament prophets. Yet the prophet who was least in New Testament times was a greater prophet than John. It fol­lows, does it not, that the New Testament prophets were no less inspired than their forerunners?"
Paul claims prophetic authority: "If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord" (1 Cor. 14:37).
Peter speaks of Paul's letters as what some "wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction" (2 Peter 3:16). His reference to them on the same level as "the other Scrip­tures" shows that he viewed them as having the prophetic authority of Scripture.

Jesus' View of Scripture

Most significant of all, however, is our Lord's view of the Scrip­ture.

What did He think of it?
How did He use it?

If we can answer these questions, we have the answer of the incarnate Word of God Himself. Surely He is the authority for anyone who claims Him as Lord!
What was our Lord's attitude toward the Old Testament? He states emphatically, "Verily I say unto you, Till Heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law, till all be fulfilled" (Matt. 5:18). He quoted Scripture as final author­ity, often introducing the statement with the phrase, "It is written," as in His encounter with Satan in the temptation in the wilder­ness (Matt. 4). He spoke of Himself and of events surrounding His life as being fulfilment's of the Scripture (Matt. 26:54, 56)

Perhaps His most sweeping endorsement and acceptance of the Old Testament was when He declared with finality, "The Scrip­ture cannot be broken"
(John 10:35). If, then, we accept Jesus as Saviour and Lord, it would be a contradiction in terms, and strangely inconsistent, if we rejected the Scripture as the Word of God. On this point we would be in disagreement with the One whom we acknowledge to be the eternal God, the Creator of the universe.

Some have suggested that in His view of the Old Testament, our Lord accommodated Himself to the prejudices of His contemporary hearers. They accepted it as authoritative, so He appealed to it to gain wider acceptance for His teaching, though He Himself did not subscribe to the popular view.
Grave difficulties beset this thesis, however. Our Lord's rec­ognition and use of the authority of the Old Testament was not superficial and unessential. It was at the heart of His teaching con­cerning His person and work. He would be guilty of grave deception, and much of what He taught would be based on a fallacy.

Then, too, why would He accommodate Himself at this one point, when on other seemingly less important points He abrasively failed to accommodate Himself to the prejudices of the time? This is most clearly illustrated in His attitude toward the Sabbath. And we could ask an even more basic question: How do we know, if accommo­dation is His principle of operation, when He is accommodating Himself to ignorance and prejudice and when He is not!

Helpful Definitions

Several definitions will be of great help in our understanding the
Bible as the Word of God.

Those who accept the Bible as the Word of God are often ac­cused of taking the Bible literally. The question "Do you believe the Bible literally" is like the question, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" Either a Yes or a No convicts the one who responds. When­ever the question is asked, the term literally must be carefully defined. Taking a literal view of the Bible does not mean we can't recognise that figures of speech are used in the Scripture.

When Isaiah spoke of "trees clapping their hands" (Isa. 55:12), and the psalmist of "mountains skipping like rams" (Ps. 114:4,6), it is not to be thought that one who takes the Bible literally views such statements as literal. No, there is poetry as well as prose and other literary forms, in the Bible. We believe that the Bible is to be inter­preted in the sense in which the authors intended it to be received by readers. This is the same principle one employs when reading the newspaper. And it is remarkably easy to distinguish between fig­ures of speech and those statements a writer intends his readers to take literally.

This view is in contrast with that of those who do not take the Bible literally. They frequently attempt to evade the clear intent of the authority, suggesting that the biblical records of certain events (for instance, the fall of man, and miracles) are merely non­factual stories to illustrate and convey profound spiritual truth.

Those holding this view say that as the truth of "Don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg" does not hinge on the literal factual­ity of Aesop's fable, so we need not insist on the historicity of bib­lical events and records to enjoy and realise the truth they convey. Some modern writers have applied this principle even to the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The expression "Taking the Bible literally," therefore, is ambiguous and must be carefully defined to avoid great confusion.
Another very important term we must clearly define is ignorance. What does it mean and what does it not mean? Consider­able confusion can be avoided by clear definition at this point.

A temptation we must avoid is that of imposing on the biblical writers our 20th century standards of scientific and historical pre­cision and accuracy. For instance, the Scripture describes things phenomenological-that is as they appear to be. It speaks of the sun rising and setting. Now, we know that the sun does not ac­tually rise and set, but that the earth rotates. But we use sunrise and sunset ourselves, even in an age of scientific enlightenment, because this is a convenient way of describing what appears to be. So we cannot charge the Bible with error when it speaks phenomenological. Because it speaks in this way, it has been clear to men of all ages and cultures.

In ancient times there were not the same standards of exactness in historical matters. Sometimes round numbers are used rather than precise figures. When the police estimate a crowd we know the figure is not accurate, but it is close enough for the purpose.
Some apparent errors are obviously errors in transcription, which means that careful work is necessary in establishing the true text. We will discuss this more fully in the chapter on whether or not we can trust the Bible documents.
There are some other problems which as yet do not yield a ready explanation.

We must freely admit this, remembering that many times, in the past, problems resolved themselves when more data became available. The logical position, then, would seem to be that where there are areas of apparent conflict, we must hold the problem in abeyance, admitting our present inability to explain, but awaiting the possibility of new data. The presence of problems does not prevent our accepting the Bible as the supernatural Word of God.

Carnell puts it succinctly:

There is a close parallel between science and Christianity which surprisingly few seem to notice. As Christianity as­sumes that all in the Bible is supernatural, so the scientist as­sumes that all in nature is rational and orderly. Both are hypo­ theses-based, not on all of the evidence, but on the evidence "for the most part." Science devoutly holds to the hypothesis that all of nature is mechanical, though as a matter of fact the mysterious electron keeps jumping around as expressed by the Heisenberg principle of uncertainty, And how does science justify its hypothesis that all of nature is mechanical, when it admits on other grounds that many areas of nature do not seem to conform to this pattern? The answer is that since regu­larity is observed in nature "for the most part," the smoothest hypothesis is to assume that it is the same throughout the whole.3

A helpful guide to apparent contradictions in the Bible is Some Alleged Discrepancies in the Bible, by John W. Haley (Gospel Advocate).
A further indication that the Bible is the Word of God is in the remarkable number of fulfilled prophecies it contains. These are not vague generalities like those given by modern fortune-tellers-"A handsome man will soon come into your life." Such pre­dictions are susceptible to easy misinterpretation.

Many Bible prophecies are specific in their details, and the authentication and veracity of the prophet rests on them. The Scripture itself makes it clear that fulfilled prophecy is one of the evidences of the super­natural origin of the word of its prophets (Jer. 28:9). Failure of fulfilment would unmask a false prophet: "If thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follows not, nor comes to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptu­ously; thou shalt not be afraid of him" (Deut. 18:21-22).

Isaiah ties the unmasking of false prophets to the failure of their predictive prophecy. "Let them bring them forth and show us what shall happen; let them show the former things, what they be, that we may consider them and know the latter end of them, or declare us things for to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods" (Isa. 41:22-23).
There are various kinds of prophecies. One group has to do with predictions of a coming Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Others have to do with specific historical events, and still others with the Jews. It is very significant that the early disciples quoted the Old Testament prophecies frequently to show that Jesus fulfilled in detail the prophecies made many years earlier.

We can mention only a small but representative number of these prophecies. Our Lord refers to the predictive prophecies about Himself in what must have been one of the most exciting Bible studies in history. After conversation with two disciples on the road to Emmaus, He said, "0 fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. . . . And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" (Luke 24:25, 27).

Isaiah 52:13-53:12 is the most outstanding example of pre­dictive prophecy about Christ. It is full of contingencies which could not be rigged in advance in an attempt to produce fulfilment. They involve His life, His rejection in ministry, His death, His burial, and His reactions to the unjust judicial proceedings.
Micah 5:2 is a striking illustration of both a prediction about Christ and historic detail. "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting."

It took a decree from the mighty Caesar Augustus to bring this event to pass.
Predictions dealt not only with the coming Messiah, but with kings, nations, and cities. Perhaps the most remarkable (Ezek. 26) has to do with the city of Tyre. Here a whole series of little details are given as to how Tyre would be destroyed, the utter complete­ness of its destruction, and the fact that it would never be recon­structed (v. 4). How this prophecy was fulfilled by degrees, in Neb­uchadnezzar's attack and through the savage onslaught of Alex­ander the Great, is a phenomenal illustration of the accurateness and reality of predictive prophecy in the Bible.

Finally, there are the remarkable prophecies about the Jewish people, the Israelites. Again, only a few of these startling prophecies may be cited.
Their dispersion was predicted by Moses and Hosca. "The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth" (Deut. 28:25). "My God will cast them away, because they did not harken unto Him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations" (Hosea 9:17). Persecution and contempt were predicted: "I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them" (Jer. 24:9).

Jeremiah 31 makes the astonishing prediction of the restoration of Israel as a nation. For centuries, this was considered to be unthinkable. Some events in our own time, however, may well be at least partial fulfilment of these prophecies. All observers agree that the reestablishment of Israel as a nation, in 1948, is one of the amazing political phe­nomena of our day.
One cannot gainsay the force of fulfilled prophecy. Many proph­ecies could not possibly have been written after the events predicted.

The Holy Spirit's Role

There are, then, a number of pieces of evidence on which one can reasonably base his belief that the Bible is the Word of God. As helpful as these evidences are, the testimony of the Holy Spirit is what finally makes one believe that the Bible is the Word of God. As he surveys the evidence and as he reads the Bible, "it dawns on him," to use Gordon Clark's phrase, that the Bible is the Word of God.4 This realisation is the work of the Holy Spirit, But the work of the Spirit is always toward some purpose. This involves the giv­ing of reasons for belief, and the explanation of the Scripture mes­sage itself.

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus asked, "Did not our hearts burn within us?" This same experience becomes ours as, by the Holy Spirit, we come to the conviction that the Bible is the Word of God, we feed on it, and we share it with others.