“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)
In my previous blog, I illustrated the changeability of the “truths” which people hold, by describing some old magazine advertisements that used questionable “scientific” claims and now-embarrassing social attitudes to purvey their products: from the antique Coca Cola ad which proclaimed it is “the ideal brain tonic, specific for a headache, relieves mental and phisical (sic) exhaustion” to the Lux Toilet Soap ad which admonished women, “You’ve WON him, now you must KEEP him” by using its cosmetic-cleansing properties to remove old makeup. We laugh at such ads or just shake our heads, but must admit that one day people will laugh at things we think are true and reasonable. For example, there are the pharmaceutical ads on TV which show happy, attractive people doing enjoyable activities with smiling friends and family while a purring voice-over describes the possible side-effects of the drug – including heart attack, stroke, coma, and death. But at least you won’t have itchy skin any more!
Another example comes from my own days in Junior High. Our history class was discussing the Civil War and the topic of slavery came up. I remember watching and listening in amazement as the consensus of the students changed from one extreme to another: one day they all agreed slavery was bad (my view), and the next day they argued that it was mostly beneficial and that the slaves were better off because they had food and shelter. Fortunately, I think the class went back to the “slavery=bad” view by the time we moved on to a new subject. But, the idea of what was “true” changed depending which opinion was in favor on which day. Even though I was not yet the sophisticated, highly educated, clear thinker which I am now, this flip-flop caught my attention as to the unreliability of consensus “truths.”
Truth is not determined by popular vote.
This first became evident to me even earlier, when I was in first or second grade. Our teacher asked us whether the sun is closer to the earth in the summer or in the winter. Everyone but me raised their hands to vote “summer.” But for some reason, I waited and voted “winter,” much to the jeers and laughs of my fellow pupils. Their laughing stopped when the teacher said, “Yes, Richard – you’re right!” This was an early lesson for me that truth is not determined by popular vote. (Okay, if our class had been in the Southern Hemisphere, they would have been right and I would have been properly laughed at. But we weren’t.)
So where do we go for the truth? Is there something that is unchanging and reliable, that doesn’t vary with the passage of time, popular attitudes, or the latest scientific theories? Fortunately, we have such a dependable source. It is God’s Word, given through the prophets, embodied in the person of Jesus Christ, and recorded in the Bible. Isaiah 40:8 proclaims, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” Jesus affirmed this in Mark 13:31: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”
The Bible is God’s written Word, and that is where we find dependable, unchanging truth. It is, as Psalm 119:105 attests, “a lamp to my feet and a light to my path,” dependably guiding us in a world of changing ideas, attitudes, truisms, and “scientific facts. As I promised in my last blog, here are some of the reasons why I fully trust God’s Word for all matters of faith and life:
- It is a matter of faith. I believe the Bible is what it claims to be: the inspired Word of God. It claims to have been written by men moved by God’s Spirit to convey his revelation to the world, and I trust it to be true. I know this is my “subjective” belief, but without this foundation, Scripture just stands alongside other great writings, subject to the same kinds of flaws and levels of importance they have. But because of faith, God’s written Word has authority over me, no matter what issues I encounter in areas of evidence or interpretation. Jesus loves me, this I know. . . why? . . . for the Bible tells me so – and I believe the Bible as a matter of faith.
- It is a matter of authorship. Because God is the ultimate Author of Scripture, it is always absolutely true. God tells the truth because
- he knows the truth about everything. He is all-knowing (omniscient), whether it is men’s hearts or the reasons things happen or the science behind creation or what will happen in the future. He knows the end of something from its beginning (Isaiah 46:10).
- he tells the truth because he “will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind” (1 Samuel 15:29).
- he wants us to know the truth because he loves us and desires that we turn from darkness and enter into his light, for our eternal benefit (John 1:9, 3:16).
- It is a matter of reliability. We can have full confidence that the Bible texts we have today are true to what the original writers wrote under God’s inspiration. There is more textual evidence for the books of the Bible than for any other ancient book. For example, the earliest copy of Julius Caesar’s Gallic and Civil Wars dates to about 1000 years after he wrote it. In comparison, the earliest fragment of John’s Gospel dates to 115 AD, or less than 30 years after it was written. A scrap of Mark’s Gospel in Greek is believed to be among the Dead Sea Scrolls, which dates it to within 40 years after Christ’s death and resurrection. And speaking of the Dead Sea Scrolls, they have pushed back by 900 years the copies of Old Testament books available to us, and they agree with the newer texts we had been using. One other example: when the King James Version was written (1611), there were five ancient manuscripts of the Greek New Testament available to the translators; since then, another 5,000 such manuscripts have been found and the texts are almost completely the same (with minor variations due to copying variations). There are no contradictions when it comes to doctrine or historical accounts in either Testaments. Finally, related to the charge that the Roman Catholic Church picked and chose which books would go into the Bible, suppressing or changing books they didn’t like: no one church ever had such control over the Bible; the books were copied and distributed in many places around the ancient Mediterranean world until a consensus was reached, before there even was a church known as “Roman Catholic.”
- It is a matter of preservation. Related to the reliability of the biblical texts is the fact they still exist after thousands of years of opposition and persecution. Many have burned Bibles and persecuted to the death those who read and believe it, yet in spite of such horrendous suppression the Bible still flourishes and is available around the world in every medium and almost every language. God has preserved his Word among us, and indeed has allowed it to spread until, as Paul wrote in Romans 1:8, the faith is being preached in the whole world.
- It is a matter of consistency. The Bible was written over a period of at least 1500 years in three languages by dozens of (inspired) human authors. The books vary in style from historical narrative, to songs and poetry, to proverbs and prophecies, to biographies and parables; yet they combine to tell a consistent story of an all-powerful, holy, and loving Creator God against whom we rebelled, yet who in mercy has provided us forgiveness and eternal life through the substitutionary death of his own Son. The thread of God’s plan winds its way throughout the scriptures, culminating in the return of Christ one day to bring everything to completion.
- It is a matter of validation. Although the truth of the Bible does not require validation by other fields of study, it is still encouraging to see how many times the Bible has been shown to be true by discoveries in archaeology, history, and science. While this subject is way too big for me to adequately present here, a few examples may be helpful.
- Skeptics used to criticize the Bible for speaking of the Hittites because their existence had been lost to history, until archaeologist rediscovered that powerful civilization in 1884.
- Another validation was the victory by British General Allenby in World War I over a Turkish army in Palestine, using the same tactic used by Saul’s son Jonathan to defeat the Philistines at the same location (1 Samuel 14).
- Critics said the Bible was wrong when it said in Daniel 5 that the last king of Babylon was named Belshazzar. Wrong, they said, it was Nabonidus. But as more recent archaeology has shown, even though the last king of the Babylonian empire was Nabonidus, he didn’t like the city of Babylon and moved away from it, leaving his son to rule in his place. His son’s name? Belshazzar, of course.
- And there are stone inscriptions which corroborate biblical events and the names of kings, including Omri, Ahaziah, and David.
- It is a matter of changed lives. As predicted by the Bible itself, people of every nation, tribe, and language have embraced Jesus Christ by the power of God’s Word. Their lives have been changed for the good in consistent ways: feeling grace and forgiveness, and being able to forgive others; being at peace even in death’s shadow, being confident of eternal life with God; sacrificing one’s time, resources, and life in Christ’s service; improving society and helping the hurting; accepting martyrdom not as a way to kill others, but to bless them; and cleaning up their lifestyles to reflect biblical standards of morality and holiness. God’s Word is not just about God’s power, it is God’s power to effect salvation. As Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:13, “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,” and in Romans 10:17, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”
God’s Word is not just about God’s power, it is God’s power.
There is much more that could be said about each of these reasons – in fact much more has been said in the many good books on Christian apologetics that are available. Here, I have just touched on them to show the range of reasons I accept and trust the Bible to always be true.
Unlike those who seek fickle ideas that by tomorrow are “just so yesterday,” may you find the unchanging and unshakeable truth of God’s Word, fulfilled ultimately in Jesus Christ, who “is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). And in finding him, may you find a peace that passes all understanding!
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: Hebrews 13 and John 14:1-6