Sunday, March 27

Jesus said, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”       John 5:39-40

Theme for the Week: The Truth about Scripture

If you are thirsty, you don’t dribble a few drops of water on your tongue and move on. You fill a glass with water and have a good drink. If you want to know someone, you don’t put him on the speed dial on your phone and then never call to get together for a visit. To get to know God, to understand the truth about him and the truth about yourself, you have to spend time in the Scripture. There must be some level of sincere intensity of engagement with the Bible. A few verses dribbled here and there during the week in and out of worship simply do not suffice. We search the Scriptures with a purpose, and that purpose is to know Jesus, who reveals truth to us.

Do you believe that the Bible is true and reliable? Countless Christians throughout the ages say that it is. This does not mean that we are to take all its words literally, but it does mean we can trust what it says and then work at understanding what it says.

Why trust the Bible? First, because Jesus trusted the Old Testament of the Bible—the New Testament was yet to be written! He knew it as the truth from God. He knew that it bore witness to himself. His frustration with his people was that they did not understand that the Scriptures pointed to him. He even called some of his disciples foolish in regard to their biblical blindness. Walking on the road to Emmaus he said, O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And Luke goes on to record that beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself (Luke 24:25-27). Several verses later we read:

Then[Jesus] said to [the disciples], “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise [the Holy Spirit] of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:44-49).

When we study the gospels we can see that Jesus never doubted the truth of the Old Testament in its history and prophecy. He used the truth of the Old Testament in his teaching. He saw himself as the central message of the Old Testament, and he taught his followers to read the Old Testament in light of what it said about him.

Jesus understood that Scripture is a guide and teacher for anyone who would come to God, who wanted to know about life, who sought divine wisdom. Our tendency as humans is to go beyond the limits God has set for us. The Scriptures help “fence” us in, protecting us from being led astray like lost sheep. Imagine if our society followed the Ten Commandments, how different it would look. They are God’s directive on basic human behavior. In another sense the Scriptures are like eyeglasses that help us see what was undetected or indiscernible before. The Scriptures guide us in seeking God for without them we are confused as to who he really is.

However, Jesus warned his followers that it is not just Scripture but Scripture enlightened by the aid of the Holy Spirit that makes the difference. When I was 27, I attended my second church retreat. The retreat speaker suggested that each person spend some time alone in prayer, asking God to answer a question of faith. I prayed something like this to God: “Lord God, I know you and I know Jesus, but I don’t know the Holy Spirit. Help me to understand.” I sat there for a few minutes in silence and then felt and understood God’s incredible immediate presence with me through his Spirit. I didn’t just know about God, I actually knew him. I actually had a living relationship with him.

That encounter with God changed my life. I had a new hunger for God’s Word that I had never had before. I went to the bookstore and bought a One-Year Bible so that I could read through the Bible in a disciplined way. And I did, and I have never stopped reading through the Bible since then. The combination of Word and Spirit was and is powerful. John Calvin writes, “Scripture will ultimately suffice for a saving knowledge of God only when its certainty is founded upon the inward persuasion of the Holy Spirit . . for 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.”

Since the Bible is the Word of God, it can only provide its own proof. It does not appeal to external authority other than the Holy Spirit, meaning that it appeals directly to God himself. Paul commends this understanding in his first letter to the Christians in Corinth:

But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him"—these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual (1 Corinthians 2:9-13).

The role of the Holy Spirit is not only to prepare our hearts to receive God’s Word with reverence, but also to remove all doubt and to seal our hearts with the truth of God revealed in the Scriptures. The Spirit confirms in our hearts the authority Scripture already possesses.

Before you read from John’s Gospel this week, ask God to fill you with the presence of his Spirit, that you may know him and the truth of his Word.