Unimpeachable

Impeachment. That word has been spoken, written, and debated more during this past month than it was in the previous twenty years put together. The reason, of course, is the attempt by one political party to remove the current President of the United States from office, or at least to discredit and damage him politically. This process was established in the US Constitution as a check and balance on the Executive Branch of the federal government, to remove a president (or other civil officer) in case of treason, bribery, or other “high crimes and misdemeanors.” As I’m sure you’re well aware, this has happened only three times before, against presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and William Clinton. None of them was actually removed by the established process, though Nixon resigned before the House could actually vote on his impeachment. Where the current attempt goes, or what its merits might be, I will leave to others to decide.

As I heard various reporters and office-holders talking about impeachment, I thought about the word itself, and what it means, besides referring to the current political scene. I knew, for example, that the word is used in other contexts, such as referring in court to a solid witness’s testimony as being “unimpeachable.” To “impeach” is by definition, to call into question the integrity or validity of someone or something. Synonyms are: to discredit, to charge, and to accuse. Therefore, if the above-mentioned witness were to give questionable evidence, the opposing attorney would certainly try to impeach what he or she had to say. Testimony which is “unimpeachable,” therefore, is rock-solid and truthful beyond a doubt: what people used to call, “the Gospel truth.”

The Gospel truth. I like the sound of that. Something that you can believe without a doubt, that is trustworthy, that you can hang your hat on, that you can take to the bank (plus any other old-timey sayings I can come up with). The saying that something is the Gospel truth came about because people believed that the Gospel is true; it was a testimony that what the Bible says about God and his Christ is absolutely trustworthy, as the Church has believed over the centuries. It was the highest designation of truth one could give, because God’s Word was, well, unimpeachable.

Unfortunately, that “old-timey” view of Scripture has become less and less prevalent today. Powerful forces are at work in the world, and in our own society, to impeach the written Word. There are the relativists, who deny objective truth, and might say your Bible may be true for you, but not for them.  There are the so-called “social justice warriors” who charge the Bible with being patriarchal propaganda that has kept (name the group) in submission. There are the atheists, who view the Bible as the human creation of creative writers who were scientifically ignorant. And there are many people who just want to be masters of their own lives, and will try to discredit anything that would impose moral restrictions on their activities and lifestyles. Even more unfortunately, there are many in the Church, even respected leaders, who compromise with these anti-Christian attitudes for the sake of cultural relevancy and acceptance.

But God’s Word cannot be impeached. It is the Gospel truth. It is the one standard by which all other truth is to be measured. It is the sure foundation of life itself, both now and forever. It is the source of hope, the mirror of our lives, and the revelation of our Creator and Redeemer. It is the unchanging truth that we need in a changing and fickle world. It is, as the Church as often declared, “the only norm of faith and life.”

Scripture declares this about itself. Isaiah 40:8 proclaims, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” 1st Peter 1:24 repeats this verse, adding, “And this word is the good news that was preached to you.” Paul wrote, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). He praised the church in Thessalonica: “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers” (1 Thessalonians 2:13). Acts 17:11 commends the Bereans for checking the scriptures to see if what Paul was preaching to them was true. And Paul reminded Timothy that he had grown up with the Scriptures which were able to make him wise to salvation through Christ (2 Timothy 3:15). Hebrews 4:12 says, “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.” There are many other scriptures which proclaim the truth and power of God’s written Word, but we’ll look at just one more, a testimony by Jesus himself: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me” (John 5:39). There’s no way anyone can take the Bible seriously and claim it is just a human writing.

Of course, non-believers might argue, “Of course the Bible claims it’s true. But if you compare it with what we know about history and science, it falls short.” Fortunately the Bible can stand on its own in spite of such charges. Even though the Bible is neither a history book nor a scientific treatise, what is says in those areas is true, and has been proven to be true time and time again in spite of Herculean efforts by skeptics to discredit it. There are entire books written to defend the veracity of the Scriptures, but let me share just a couple right now, as examples of “the Gospel truth.”

1. People used to charge that biblical references to the “Hittites” were fictional, because no such people were known in history. Then the archaeologists discovered the capital city of the Hittites, along with thousands of written records of their history, which meshed with the biblical accounts.

2. Others charged the Bible with ancient beliefs in a flat earth, but Job, Isaiah, and the Psalms speak of the circle of the earth, and nowhere does it claim a flat earth. Likewise, the Church has believed and taught a round earth as did most people even of ancient times; it eas only in the late 1800s that two skeptics, John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White, charged the Church with teaching a flat earth, and too many people have uncritically accepted their criticism.

3. Daniel 5 describes a feast in Babylon thrown by King Balshazzar, during which a hand is seen writing a message on the wall. The king becomes terrified, and calls on the aged Daniel to come interpret the vision. Daniel does, and proclaims the message is from God, saying that the king has been weighed and found wanting, and will lose his kingdom that very night. The king offers Daniel the 3rd highest place in the kingdom as a reward. The chapter closes with the terse statement, “That very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom” (Daniel 5:30-31). But the critics have tried to impeach that account, claiming that the last king of Babylon was not Belshazzar, but Nabonidas, and that supernatural handwriting shows it was a fanciful story. But archaeology has shown that King Nabonidas did not like living in Babylon, so he moved out to a city named Tema, leaving his son, Belshazzar, as king in the city. In fact, an inscription from Nabonidas to his son has been found. And then there’s the account of the ancient Greek historian, Herodotus, which told how the Medes and Persians conquered the city of Babylon during the night while a great feast was taking place. As in so many other cases, what was thought to be an error in Scripture has been shown to be true once all the facts are in.

4. One more example of biblical validation. During World War I, a British general named Allenby was leading troops against the Turkish army that was holding Palestine. He came to a pass which was heavily defended by the Turks, which would be very costly to assault head-on. But as he thought about the name of the location, he remembered something he had read in the Bible. That night, he took out his Bible and read the account in 1 Samuel 14 about how King Saul’s son, Jonathan, had defeated the Philistines at the same place by going around and flanking them. The next day, Allenby’s men found the path around the Turks, and likewise flanked and defeated them.

The Bible is unimpeachable, not just for its archaeological, historical, or scientific accuracy, but more importantly, for what it says about God and about us. Its spiritual lessons are helpful, even for those who just view it as a moral or ethical system. But for those who believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and trust that he truly rose from the dead after bearing our sins to the cross, the Bible’s truths are life-changing and life-giving (Romans 10:9 – “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”).

It takes faith to believe in an ancient book as the key to life, especially when so many forces are arrayed against it. But faith is what God desires from us. For when we believe, we become his children, and as children, inheritors of eternal life and all the joys and riches of heaven. As the Apostle John said in his Gospel: “but these [things] are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). And that life which God gives you will be unending, unimaginable, and . . . unimpeachable.

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: Daniel 5, Matthew 5:18, 2 Timothy 3, Revelation 22:18-19