Why Believe the Bible?

The pivotal question of Christianity centers around the Bible itself.  If this book is only a record of the religious quest of the Hebrew peoples, and if it deals only with their hopes, aspirations, and accomplishments in their upward search for God from polytheism to monotheism, then it cannot be the Word of God as we use that term here.

We believe that the Bible is God’s word to man.  We hold that from cover to cover, from Genesis to Revelation, the book is God’s whole counsel to man and that it is without error in whole and in part.

To say that we believe the Bible is the Word of God is vastly different from stating the reasons why we believe that it is the Word of God.  One may so believe on a pragmatic basis; another may believe after extensive research in the field of archeology; another may believe following an exhaustive internal examination of the Bible in the framework of lower and higher criticism; still others may come to this view through a combination of the foregoing and other reasons as well.  Why then do Christians believe that the Bible is truly the Word of the living God?

A.      The Testimony of Christ and the Apostles.

We believe that Jesus is God.  We confess our confidence in His omniscient authority.  We also believe that the words of the apostles are authoritative.  Both Jesus and the apostles consistently testify that the Scriptures are the Word of God.

B.      The Spiritual Test.

In the physical world things are physically revealed.  Reactions in the material realm are, after all, responses to stimuli.  Obviously such responses are not forthcoming unless the proper stimuli are present.  A blind man does not react to the stimulus of a Wagner or a Bach.  Dead men do not react to stimuli of any kind.

What is true in the physical world is also true in the spiritual world.  People who are spiritually dead do not respond to spiritual stimuli.  But when a man becomes a Christian the Holy Spirit takes up His residence in his heart.  The believer is now alive spiritually as well as physically, and is able to respond to the witness of the Spirit of God to his spirit.  The Holy Spirit convinces him that the Bible is the Word of God.  This is known as “the testimony of the Holy Spirit” (testimonium spiritus sancti).  So Paul proclaims: “Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.  But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man’ (1 Cor. 2:13-15). “And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth” (1 John 5:6).

Scholarly and scientific men with an objective bent of mind may strengthen one’s faith in the inspiration of the Bible.  But after all, it is the Holy Spirit, resident within the believer’s heart, who bears witness to the truth and finality of the Scriptures.  Let us remember, therefore, that the witness of the Spirit is of inestimable value in enabling one to know that the Bible is truly God’s holy Word.

C.      The Pragmatic Test.

In recent years we have heard much about pragmatism. Almost constant reference is made to the idea that the acid test of a truth or an idea is: Does it work? An inventor produces a machine, but until he can demonstrate that is will really do the job he claims it to do, it is not accepted.  Medicines are tested to demonstrate their efficacy; airplanes, tanks, guns, automobiles and a thousand other items are subjected to the acid test: Will they work, and will they do what the inventors claim for them?

In the field of comparative religions we ask of any religion in particular or of religion in general: Does it do what it says it will do?  It is not an unfair test to apply to the Scriptures the standard we impose in other realms.  Surely if the Bible is the Word of God, it can meet such a test.  If it is true, then whatever it promises it will fulfill.  Indeed, the Bible itself suggests the pragmatic approach as an evidence of its truth. “O taste and see that the Lord is good,” says the Psalmist (Psalm 34:8).

Experimentally any man can make the test for himself.  Meet the conditions of the Word and see whether or not its promises are fulfilled in your life.  For twenty centuries men have witnessed to the fact that in their own experience they have found the Bible to be true.  God promises pardon to the repentant and they have a sense of forgiveness; God has promised peace to the broken-hearted and they have His peace; God has promised to supply the material, physical, and spiritual needs of His children and these have been supplied.  In no particular can it be shown that the Bible fails to do what it promises to do; whereas on the contrary, countless men testify fearlessly that the Bible has done exactly what it said it would do when certain conditions were met.

The Bible works! Any honest man who will put it to the test can discover this fact for himself.  Jesus taught, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself” (John 7:17).

D.      The Test of Fulfilled Prophecy

Reference is often made to “prophets” or “clairvoyants.”  Whenever men run into phenomena outside the ken of the average human mind, they think of the supernatural.  To them this usually connotes some extra-sensory experience, or prophetic statements rising out of such an experience.  Strangely enough, men cheerfully believe the weirdest tales involving the supernatural as related to prophetic utterances on the part of God’s servants who were accurate in their predictions, and few will believe.

One of the grandest evidences that the Bible is the Word of God is fulfilled prophecy.  By fulfilled prophecy we mean that men, before the events occurred and before anyone could have known what would happen, foretold historical events which transpired according to their words.  The Bible is replete with prophecies which have been fulfilled literally.  Among those which might be mentioned are the following:

1.       Prophecies concerning Jews.

a.       Their dispersion. “And it shall come to pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it.  And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the eart even unto the other; and there thou shall serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind” (Deut. 28:63:37).  Behold Israel today scattered to the ends of the earth!

b.      Their reproach. “And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee” (Deut. 28:37).  This prediction too has been fulfilled.

c.       The loss of Jerusalem to the Gentiles. “And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be let away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke 21:24). For almost two thousand years this condition has prevailed.

2.       Prophecies concerning Nineveh. 

The ancient city would become a desolation. “Woe to the bloody city!  It is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not… Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.  Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations they nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame.  And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock” (Nahum 3:1,4,5,6).  “And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria; and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness. And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations: both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it; their voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall be in the thresholds: for he shall uncover the cedar work” (Zeph. 2:13, 14). And where is Nineveh today?

3.       Prophecies concerning Babylon.

When Babylon was queen of the earth it was predicted that the city would become a perpetual desolation.  “And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall not be prolonged” (Isa. 13: 19-22).  “And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant” (Jer. 51:37).  The glory of Babylon has long since crumbled into dust!

4.       Prophecies concerning Egypt. 

The prophecy was made that Egypt would become the basest of kingdoms; that Memphis would be a desolation, and that No (Thebes) would be broken up. “It (Egypt) shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more about the nations; for I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations” (Ezek. 29:15). “O thou daughter dwelling in Egypt, furnish thyself to go into captivity: for Noph shall be waste and desolate without an inhabitant.  Egypt is like a very fair heifer, but destruction cometh; it cometh out of the north” (Jer. 46: 19,20). “And I will set fire in Egypt: Sin shall have great pain, and No shall be rent asunder, and Noph shall have distresses daily” (Ezek. 30:16).  Who can deny that history confirms the fulfillment of these stern proclamations of woe?

E.       The Test of Archaeology.

Men frequently ridicule certain stories in the Bible. For example, so-called experts at one time did not believe that Abraham really lived or that the place from which he came, Ur of the Chaldees, actually existed.  They claimed that the tower of Babel was a myth and that in Abraham’s day men could not write.  Archaeology has proved the skeptics to be wrong and has confirmed the Biblical accounts in a remarkable way.

Whenever archaeology has uncovered evidence the results have confirmed the Bible.  In scores of cases the findings have demonstrated the validity of the Book.  Archaeology refutes the critics’ contentions that the Bible is inaccurate and fallible.  It remains to be demonstrated that it is wrong in given particulars.  Archaeological discoveries have done much to prove the truth of the Biblical records and to establish the believer in the conviction that the Bible is true.

Men whose hearts have not been opened and whose eyes are blinded by the prince of this world will never come to the truth of God even when the evidence is given to them.  Essentially the problem remains a spiritual one. Only when men permit the light of the gospel to shine in their hearts through Jesus Christ will they believe that the Bible is the Word of God.

NEXT WEEK:  THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE