Is the Bible the Word of God? Why this Question Matters to the Next Generation & Why it Matters NOW (Part 4/4)

Before reading part 4 check out part 3, part 2, and even… part 1.

The Bible is All About Jesus.

As we have seen throughout, the need for special revelation to restore crooked and wretched sinners back into communion with a holy, perfect, and just God is found only in the Bible.  The Bible tells the story of how a holy, perfect, and just God can forgive such sinners and restore this communion back with a holy, perfect, and just God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The whole Bible tells the story of Jesus and the unfolding revelation of God and how it finds ultimate climax and fulfillment in the gospel message. 

What is the gospel message? 

The gospel message is that God created humanity to be in perfect relationship with him, but man substituted himself for God in the Garden of Eden, which separated man from God.  In turn, man fell into sin and was kicked out of the Garden of Eden.  But God in his grace and mercy did not leave man to fin for himself.  God established a covenant of circumcision with Abraham in Genesis 17 stating that through this covenant he will be the father of many nations and that this covenant shall be an everlasting covenant.  The rest of the Old Testament is about God holding fast to his covenant, but continuing to show his people there need for a Savior (i.e., through the Law (Mosaic Covenant), Davidic Covenant, the Prophets, and Offices – Prophets, Priests, and Kings), God’s people awaited the coming of the Suffering Servant, the Messiah who was Jesus, who fulfilled the covenant that God made with Abraham.  This Jesus was born of a Virgin under the power of the Holy Spirit and lived a perfect life under the curse of the law.  Jesus in turn substituted himself for us in the same way Adam substituted himself for God in falling into sin.  In this way, Jesus became sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in him.  Jesus defeated sin at the cross, defeated death at the resurrection, ascended into Heaven, and established his kingdom with the coming of the Holy Spirit.  As Christians, our hope is in the second coming of Jesus – who is coming again to establish the New Heavens and New Earth.  

The Bible is all about the gospel of Jesus!

Not only is the gospel the center of the Bible, but it is the center for the meaning of life and all that exists.  Graeme Goldsworthy states,

The hermeneutical question about the whole Bible correlates with the question, ‘What do you think of Christ?’ … The hermeneutical center of the Bible is therefore Jesus in his being and in his saving acts – the Jesus of the gospel. … We can say that, while not all Scripture is the gospel, all Scripture is related to the gospel that is its centre. … The Bible makes a very radical idea inescapable: not only is the gospel the interpretive norm for the whole Bible, but there is an important sense in which Jesus Christ is the mediator of the meaning of everything that exists. In other words, the gospel is the hermeneutical norm for the whole of reality.[1]

As men continue to search for wisdom outside of Jesus, their reason will pale in comparison to the testimony of the Spirit.  1 Corinthians 1:18 says, “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  John Calvin goes on to say about the absolute testimony of the Spirit in comparison to evidence and reason,

Since for unbelieving men religion seems to stand by opinion alone, they, in order not to believe anything foolishly or lightly, both wish and demand rational proof that Moses and the prophets spoke divinely. But I reply: the testimony of the Spirit is more excellent than all reason. For as God alone is a fit witness of himself in his Word, so also the Word will not find acceptance in men’s hearts before it is sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit. The same Spirit, therefore, who has spoken through the mouths of the prophets must penetrate into our hearts to persuade us that they faithfully proclaimed what had been divinely commanded.[2]

Those who believe the Bible is the Word of God only believe so because of the role of faith through the internal power of the Holy Spirit.  Those who the Spirit has called can truly sing with eternal joy in their hearts, “No guilt in life, no fear in death, this is the power of Christ in me.  From life’s first cry, to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny.  No power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from his hand.  Till’ he returns or calls me home, here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.”[3]

[2]Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia, PA: Westminister, 1960), 79-80.

[3]Keith and Kristyn Getty.  “In Christ Alone.”