JUDGED BY GOD'S WORD

12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.       -Hebrews 4:12-13 (ESV)

God gives us a warning of the terrible danger of a hardened heart.  The good news is that there is something that can soften a hardened heart: The Word of God.  God’s Word is sharp like a double-edged sword.  Jesus himself spoke of his own words as bringing life.

  

“The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”  -John 6:63b

God’s Word also brings judgment:

“The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.”  -John 12:48

God’s Word pierces into the deepest part of our being.   The Word of God confronts us with the God of the Word.  Because we can keep nothing hidden from God, Christians must be prepared to give an account of our decisions to the Lord.  Just as a lawyer stands between their client and the judge and jury, so it is that Jesus stands as a mediator between God and us.

How might it be liberating to realize that God knows every secret of your heart?

66 Books?

           

THE OLD TESTAMENT

When it comes to the Old Testament, Jesus Christ affirmed the Jewish Scriptures of His day—consisting of the very same content that is in our Old Testaments today.

A study of the gospels shows that, throughout His ministry, Jesus affirmed the Old Testament in its entirety (Matt. 5:17–18)—including its historical reliability (cf. Matt. 10:15; 19:3–5; 12:40; 24:38–39), prophetic accuracy (Matt. 26:54), sufficiency (Luke 16:31), unity (Luke 24:27, 44), inerrancy (Matt. 22:29; John 17:17), infallibility (John 10:35), and authority (Matt. 21:13, 16, 42). He affirmed the Law, the Writings, and the Prophets and all that was written in them; clearly seeing the Old Testament Scriptures as the Word of God (Matt. 15:16; Mark 7:13; Luke 3:2; 5:1; etc.).

There is a cluster of about 14 books, known as the Apocrypha, which were written some time between the close of the Old Testament (after 400 B.C.) and the beginning of the New. They were never considered as part of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the Jews themselves clearly ruled them out by the confession that there was, throughout that period, no voice of the prophets in the land. They looked forward to a day when “a faithful prophet” or the “Messiah” should appear.

Why don’t we accept the Apocrypha even though they may be in the Roman Catholic Bible. Significantly, the first century Jews did not consider the books of what is called the “Apocrypha” to be Scripture. Jesus Himself never affirmed or cited he Apocryphal books – and neither do any of the other writers of the New Testament. Many of the early church fathers did not regard the Apocryphal books as being authoritative either. Even the fifth-century scholar Jerome (who translated the Latin Vulgate — which became the standard Roman Catholic version of the Middle Ages) acknowledged that the Apocryphal books were not to be regarded as either authoritative or Scripture. So we accept the Scriptures of the Old Testament on the basis of our Lord’s authoritative affirmation of it. And we reject the authority of the Apocryphal books based on the absence of His affirmation or affirmation of the apostles. After Malachi no other books were added and during the Intertestamental period there was no revelation or voice from God through any prophet. The first Century Jewish historian and scholar Josephus, writing around A.D. 90, clearly stated in his defense of Judaism that, the Scriptures, what we refer to as the Old Testament, had divine authority and acceptance. Since there are literally hundreds of direct quotations or clear allusions to Old Testament passages by Jesus and the apostles, it is evident what the early Christians thought of the Hebrew Scriptures.

For the Jews, therefore, Scripture as a revelation from God through the prophets ended around 450 B.C. with the close of the book of Malachi. This was the Bible of Jesus and His disciples, and it was precisely the same in content as our Old Testament.

THE NEW TESTAMENT

Other alleged “gospels” were written long after the time of the apostles (2nd -4th centuries A.D.) For example,the so-called “Gospel of Thomas”, of which there are references to more than one version, has distinctly Gnostic influences. In short, the Gnostics believed that the flesh is bad, but the spirit is good. As a result, they denied that Jesus truly came in the flesh, a position the early church countered by writings such as 1 John.

The transmission of the New Testament documents through history is astounding. Not only do we have thousands of manuscript copies, as well as thousands more fragments or portions of the New Testament, but in comparing the New Testament copies we have today in various languages with those available centuries ago we can see the message remains intact. When it comes to transmission and translation, then, we can indeed trust the documents.

Our Lord not only affirmed the Jewish canon of the Old Testament, He also promised that He would give additional revelation to His church through His authorized representatives—namely, the apostles.

John 14:25–26 – “These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”

Jesus promised the apostles that the Holy Spirit would help them remember all the things that He had said to them. Two chapters later, in the same context, the Lord promised the apostles that He would give them additional revelation through the Holy Spirit:

John 16:12–15 – “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak of His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.”

Where is that additional revelation found? It is found in the New Testament epistles, wherein the Spirit of Christ guided the apostles to provide the church with inspired truth.

The New Testament was pre-authenticated by Christ Himself, as He authorized the apostles to be His witnesses in the world (Matt. 28:18–19; Acts 1:8). We embrace and submit to the New Testament writings because they were penned by Christ’s authorized representatives, being inspired by the Holy Spirit in the same way as the Old Testament prophets (cf. 2 Pet. 3:19–21).

Every book of the New Testament was written under apostolic authority—either by an apostle or someone closely linked to their apostolic ministry. Thus, we submit to these books because they come from Christ’s authorized representatives. In submitting to them, we are submitting to the Lord Himself. The reason there are no additional books is because there are no longer any apostles in the church today, and have not been since the end of the first century.

Why Did It Take So Long?

The New Testament was not all neatly printed and bound shortly after the last apostle (John) died. Nor were they sent out by the pallet load into all the bookstores and kiosks of the Roman Empire. Here are six reasons why it took time for the books of the New Testament to be gathered together.

1. The originals were scattered across the whole empire. The Roman Empire reached from Britain to Persia, and it would have taken time for any church even to learn about all the letters Paul had written, let alone gather copies of them.

2. No scroll could easily contain more than one or two books. It would be impossible to fit more than one Gospel onto a scroll, and even when codices (books) were used, the entire New Testament would be extremely bulky and very expensive to produce. It was therefore far more convenient for New Testament books to be copied singly or in small groups.

3. No one church or leader bossed all the others. There were strong and respected leaders among the churches, but Christianity had no supreme bishop who dictated to all the others which books belonged to the Scriptures and which did not.

4. The early leaders assumed the authority of the Gospels and the apostles. It was considered sufficient to quote the Gospels and apostles, since their authority was self-evident.

5. Only when the heretics attacked the truth was the importance of a Scriptural collection appreciated. It was not until the mid-second century that the Gnostics and others began writing their own pseudepigrapha (false writing); this prompted orthodox leaders to become alert to the need for stating which books had already been recognized across the churches.

In the light of all this, the marvel is not how long it took before the majority of the churches acknowledged a completed list of the New Testament, but how soon after their writing each book was accepted as authoritative.

· There were only ever the four Gospels used by the churches for the life and ministry of Jesus. Other pseudo-gospels were written but these were immediately rejected by the churches across the empire as spurious.

· Tertullian of Carthage, around A.D. 200, was the first serious expositor and used all the NT books. They were equated with the Old Testament, and he referred to “the majesty of our Scriptures.” He clearly possessed a collection of New Testament books like ours.

· By A.D. 240, Origen of Alexandria was using all our 27 books, and only those, as Scripture alongside the Old Testament books.

And these are just examples of many of the church leaders at this time.

What Made a Book “Scripture”?

At first, the churches had no need to define what made a book special and equal to the Old Testament Scriptures. If the letter came from Paul or Peter, that was sufficient. However, it was not long before others began writing additional letters and gospels either to fill the gaps or to propagate their own ideas. Some tests became necessary, and during the first 200 years, five tests were used at various times.

1. Apostolic—does it come under the authority of an apostle?

The first Christians asked, “Was it written by an apostle or under the direction of an apostle?” They expected this just as the Jews had expected theirs to be underwritten by the prophets. Paul was insistent that his readers should be reassured that the letters they received actually came from his pen (e.g., 2 Thessalonians 3:17).

2. Ancient—has it been used from the earliest times?

Most of the false writings were rejected simply because they were too new to be apostolic, written many years after the last apostle died. Early in the fourth century, Athanasius listed the New Testament as we know it today and claimed that these were the books “received by us through tradition as belonging to the Scriptures.”

3. Accepted—are most of the churches using it?

Since, as we have seen, it took time for letters to circulate among the churches, it is all the more significant that the 27 books were universally accepted well before the middle of the second century. When tradition carries the weight of the overwhelming majority of churches throughout the widely scattered Christian communities across the vast Roman Empire, with no one church controlling the beliefs of all the others, it has to be taken seriously.

CONCLUSION:

So … why these 66 books? Because God inspired them! They are His divine revelation. Christ confirmed that fact. He affirmed the Old Testament, and He authorized the New Testament through the apostles (cf. Heb. 1:1–2). The authority of the Lord Jesus Himself, then, is the basis for our confidence in the fact that the Bible we hold in our hands is indeed “All Scripture.”

It was not the Catholic church that determined the Scriptures. No, it is the authority of Christ Himself, the Lord of the church and the incarnate Son of God, on which the authority of Scripture rests.

Sound doctrine is important because our faith is based on a specific message. 

The overall teaching of the church contains many elements, but the primary message is explicitly defined: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures [and] . . . he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). Change that message, and the basis of faith shifts from Christ to something else. Our eternal destiny depends upon hearing “the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation” (Ephesians 1:3; see also 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14).

Our duty is to deliver the message, not to change it. Jude conveys an urgency in guarding the trust: “I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 1:3; see also Philippians 1:27). To “contend” carries the idea of strenuously fighting for something, to give it everything you’ve got. 

Sound doctrine is important because what we believe affects what we do. 

Behavior is an extension of theology, and there is a direct correlation between what we think and how we act.

Sound doctrine is important because we must ascertain truth in a world of falsehood. 

“Many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). There are tares among the wheat and wolves among the flock (Matthew 13:25; Acts 20:29). The best way to distinguish truth from falsehood is to know what the truth is.

Sound doctrine is important because the end of sound doctrine is life. 

“Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Timothy 4:16). Conversely, the end of unsound doctrine is destruction. “Certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord” (Jude 1:4). Changing God’s message of grace is a godless thing to do, and the condemnation for such a deed is severe. Preaching another gospel (“which is really no gospel at all”) carries an anathema: “let him be eternally condemned!” (see Galatians 1:6-9).

Sound doctrine is important because it encourages believers. 

A love of God’s Word brings “great peace” (Psalm 119:165), and those “who proclaim peace . . . who proclaim salvation” are truly “beautiful” (Isaiah 52:7). A Godly leader “must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it” (Titus 1:9).

COMING TO TERMS: "Trinity"

The term “Trinity” is popularly used to describe the three-fold nature of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.    Would you be surprised to learn that the term "Trinity" is nowhere to be found in the Scriptures?  Yes, it's true!  A term used so widely to explain the nature and character of God is not even used in the Scriptures.

But how are we to understand the three-fold nature of God?  Are we to think of Him as three or as one?   

Let me illustrate how we can understand God as being three-in-one.  I am a son, a father and a husband.  Does that mean I'm three different people?  Of course not!  It simply describes three natures or characteristics of myself regarding different relationships.   To my parents I act as a son showing respect and honoring them.   To my children I act as a father loving them as my own.  To my wife I strive to be an adoring and loving husband.   The relationship I have with each of these are entirely different.  Many conversations I may have with each of these can be very different also.  I have three different relationships but I'm only one person.

God also has three different relationships with us.   God the Father reminds us of His power, majesty and Holiness.   As God the Son (Jesus) He came in person to be like us to relate to us in person.  He became God in the flesh (John 1:14).  As God the Holy Spirit we have His presence within us to guide us into all truth and encourage us in our Christian life.

Is there any event recorded in the Scriptures that shows all three aspects of God's nature at the same time?  Yes!

16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”                                   -Matthew 3:16-17 (ESV)

God the Father created all things and created man to have a relationship with.  

God the Son (God in the flesh) came to personally experience life as we do.  He redeems us from our sins as the perfect, unblemished, and sinless sacrifice on our behalf so we may be restored in our relationship with God.

God the Holy Spirit lives within those who have accepted His love and the sacrifice of the Jesus Christ.  He is our spiritual conscious and guide to help us understand the Scriptures and life as God envisioned.

OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD!

  

CATCH PHRASE #2

Another popular saying I’ve heard over the years is…

“Call Bible things by Bible names.”  

This is a self-defeating statement.  How can one call Bible things by Bible names when the term “Bible” is not even in the Bible?  Have we not by using the term “Bible” called a Bible thing by a name not found in it?  The word “Bible” came from the seaport town named Byblos from ancient Phoenicia in what is modern day Lebanon.  The Greeks took the name of the city as their word for “book” from which was later derived “Bible”.

Does anyone else find it odd that the term “Bible” is not found in the Bible?  So I strive to use the term “Scriptures” in lieu of “Bible”.   

How is it that terms not found in the Scriptures are used to describe such important doctrines that the Scriptures convey?   As much as possible I strive to let the Scriptures interpret and define itself.   I think it wise to strive to stay away from man-made terms as much as possible yet I confess that having grown up in the church and having heard such terms as these so often it is a challenge to refrain from slipping up and using them myself.    

I’m not advocating leaving a fellowship of believers with those who use such terms but I do encourage all to consider striving to use terms found in the Scriptures as much as possible over other man-made terms.  Why muddy the waters?  Let the Scriptures interpret themselves and use the terms its uses as much as possible.  This may take some effort and self-correcting over time to accomplish since we have had such terms ingrained in our consciousness by our traditions and customs for generations.   Perhaps this could be the start of a restoration of terms towards more Scriptural accuracy.

Perhaps this popular phrase should be revised to say,

“Call Scripture things by Scripture names."                                                                                        

16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

                         -2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NKJV)

CATCH PHRASE #1

Perhaps you have heard the saying, 

“Where the Scriptures speak we speak, and where the Scriptures are silent we are silent.”  

This thought sounds good on the surface but is it practical or viable to put into practice? Our non-instrumental brethren would tell us that because musical instruments are not specifically mentioned in the Scriptures we should not use such resources in worship.  Yet, the Scriptures also do not mention church buildings, church buses, Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, a communion table, communion trays, offering plates, and the list could go on. With this reasoning, we should not have church buildings since they are not mentioned in the New Testament. In truth there were no church buildings until at least the 3^rd century A.D. The earliest known Christian Church building (a remodeled cave) dates to about 230 A.D. and was found in northern Jordan. If you study the world of the Roman Empire it makes sense that there were no church buildings in the first two-three centuries. Christianity was technically an illegal religion in the Roman Empire and there were many persecution periods towards Christians from various Roman rulers.   Buildings dedicated as a church building began to emerge in earnest and multiply during the 4^th Century A.D. after the rise of Constantine when Christianity became tolerated and later became the state religion of the Roman/Byzantine Empire.

Some time ago, while on vacation I attended a church that does not believe in the use of musical instruments in worship. Though different than what I’ve been accustomed to I experienced a fine time of worship. However, I did notice that the song leader used a pitch pipe to start each song with the right note. Is not the pitch pipe a musical instrument? In addition, I also noticed they had a piano in their fellowship hall. Oh, but that was not the “sanctuary” or “worship hall”. So am I to assume that piano is used only for worldly or secular music? If they sing hymns or other Christian songs with the piano in the fellowship hall are they not worshiping? In truth, before we judge our non-instrumental brethren too harshly let us acknowledge that we probably have some double-standards of our own that have yet to be reconciled.

“Where the Scriptures speak we speak, and where the Scriptures are silent we are silent.”  

Be careful with such phrases that you do not take them as “gospel”. Where the Scriptures are silent we are at liberty to use or do certain things, as long as it is God-honoring and helping to fulfill the mission of the Lord’s Church. Be careful not to criticize someone or a congregation by saying what they do or use is not in the Scriptures, before we take a hard look in the mirror.  

“Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.      -Matthew 7:1-5 (ESV)