John MacArthur is he right or wrong

Do racial issues really “disappear” because of the Gospel? A response to John MacArthur.

(Comment by Charles: this is a direct copy of the article.  I do not agree with the overall article, but its good to see that they are saying.

by Nana Dolce

July 26, 2016 http://christandpopculture.com/racial-issues-really-disappear-gospel-response-john-macarthur/t the age of 11, Olaudah Equiano — the son of an Igbo elder in what is now Nigeria — found himself in a slave ship’s cramped quarters. His autobiography describes the horror: “The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate… almost suffocated us… the air soon became unfit for respiration… and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died.”

This was life for captured Africans in the infamous Middle Passage — the second leg of a three-part voyage that began with the trading of European goods for human cargo in Africa, which was then transported across the Atlantic and sold for raw materials that were carried back to Europe. Africans who survived the transatlantic crossing became slaves in the Americas.

Relatively speaking, Equiano fared better than most. His time in slavery was spent largely in the service of British navy captains and on cargo ships. In 1763, he was purchased by an American Quaker who allowed him to conduct his own minor trading operation. Equiano excelled at the venture and within three years had enough money to purchase his freedom.

In 1767, free and converted to Christ, he moved to England and became an active abolitionist. He spoke widely against the brutality of slavery and called for an end to the transatlantic slave trade. In 1798, Equiano’s cause gained an important ally: William Wilberforce.

The Gospel enables believers to see social issues from a spiritual perspective — but does it remove social issues altogether?

Following his conversion, Wilberforce became Parliament’s anti-slavery voice. His 20-year battle to end the slave trade came with great personal costs. Historian Ramsey Muir writes that “in 1807 some 17 million pounds changed hands in the slave trade in Liverpool in just one year.” Some of the trade’s “stakeholders” were among Wilberforce’s own influential circle. Thus, to expose the evils of the system was to invite “vitriolic attacks in the newspapers; [Wilberforce] was physically assaulted, he faced death threats and he had to travel with an armed bodyguard.” Yet he persevered.

Wilberforce perceived enslaved Africans as fellow men and brothers and was moved to take their cause as his own. He rejoiced with tears in Parliament in 1807 as the transatlantic slave trade was ruled illegal. Wilberforce didn’t leave a legacy of numerous theological treatises yet his commitment to other image bearers revealed a solidly scriptural understanding of God.

The men we Christians lionize are usually known more for their doctrine than for their application of truth to the issues of their day. In our own time, we often honor (and rightly so) contemporary theologians who shepherd us in our orthodoxy. Many are fiery preachers with solid Biblical expositions that leave us in awe of a big God. Dr. John MacArthur is certainly among these men.

MacArthur is valiant for the truth. As a younger preacher, he was among the 334 evangelical leaders who gathered in Chicago in 1978 to formulate the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. Just a decade into his pastorate, MacArthur joined luminaries including J. I. Packer, Francis Schaeffer, and R. C. Sproul to defend Biblical inerrancy against liberalism’s assaults. Since then, he has remained steadfastly orthodox in his passion for the Scriptures. I’m thankful to say that my own theological formation has benefitted greatly from his confident preaching.

So when The Master’s Seminary — of which MacArthur is president — released a YouTube video titled “Racism and Black Lives Matter” on July 8, 2016, I expected a strong application of the Gospel to today’s polarizing racial issues. What I heard instead was disappointing.

The clip begins with this question to MacArthur:

Obviously our county has had an issue with race since the beginning. And we’ve seen a continued increase in racial issues from Ferguson to the Black Lives Matter movement… [H]ow does a pastor address this if their church isn’t predominately African American or doesn’t want to become a “social justice” church?

Here’s a portion of MacArthur’s answer:

[Christ] has already predetermined before the foundation of the world the racial mix of His church… so all I want to do is preach… the Gospel, with the same love that God has already determined to shed on every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation on the planet. So there’s a sense in which this is a non-issue… I can’t fix racial injustices… my responsibility is to realize that in Christ there’s neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, we’re all one in Christ… The object of life is no longer to fix past injustices. The object of life now is to proclaim Christ to whomever. And I just will not give that up for another agenda… once [you] come to Christ, all other issues… disappear and the Gospel takes prominence.

I expected a larger view of the Gospel from a man like MacArthur. While he explains the Gospel as preeminent, his overall position says otherwise. My husband explains it best:

To suggest that social issues become spiritual issues for believers or that social issues “disappear” once saved actually has the reverse effect: rather than making it clear that believers can hope amidst the reality of sin and suffering because our gaze is fixed on a coming King, MacArthur’s answer amplifies the voice of every… heckler who ever claimed Christianity as merely mythical panacea or elusive escapism.

I’m surrounded by black Christians for whom racial issues have not disappeared with salvation. Dr. MacArthur’s position is disrespectful to those battered by the blows of discrimination. If nothing else, his response is very insulated. Not many pastors in Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Dallas, Ferguson, Baltimore, or Chicago could sit today and claim that salvation erases racial issues.

Answers like MacArthur’s tend to scoot too close to Luke 11:42: “For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” As someone whose understanding of the Gospel has been shaped by teachers like MacArthur, I would’ve been encouraged to see his bold passion for the Gospel extend to touch current issues rather than avoid them. I would’ve rejoiced in his acknowledgement of ugly racial injustices while heralding the power of the Gospel to reconcile enemies (Ephesians 2:14-19). His ability to preach and leave us in awe of a big God would’ve been a gracious gift to the Church in these divided times. Instead, he condenses the Gospel to a message that denies current racial issues.

John MacArthur’s words were disappointing, as was his timing. The Master’s Seminary chose to release this video on the topic of race just three days after the shooting death of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, by white officers of the Baton Rouge Police Department. The shock of Sterling’s death was barely absorbed when a second black man, Philando Castile, was shot and killed by an officer in St. Paul, Minnesota on July 6.

The days following 2016’s Independence Day were difficult ones for America. We watched families grieve the unexpected end of loved ones in Baton Rouge, St. Paul, and Dallas and were reminded, not of our unity, but of our land’s abiding fragmentation. Our Fourth of July celebrations this year ended with cries.

And as we mourned, many, particularly African Americans, were reminded of other reasons to weep. We remembered men and women killed hastily and seemingly without due process of law. Our tears over those killed in July were also for Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Trayvon Martin. We cried for Amadou Diallo and Emmett Till. We cried for Laura and L. D. Nelson, a mother and son lynched together in 1911 over a railroad bridge in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma. We cried over the terrors of chattel slavery and the dehumanization of Jim Crow segregation. And yes, we even cried for Olaudah Equiano and 12.5 million Africans captured, packed, and shipped through the transatlantic slave trade.

In Genesis 1:27, the Bible declares that “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” And in Luke 12:6-7, Jesus adds: “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

If God remembers the sparrows, then human beings made in His image are worthy of our concern. So when blood is spilt, it’s right to grieve. Much more, when death and repression come as the result of prejudiced systems, then we lament and call for repentance (Jeremiah 7:1-7). If persons (and even nations, see Matthew 11:10-24) await the ultimate examination of a holy Judge, then Christians do well to sound the alarm when we see the sin of racism and injustice.

But instead of bold words of caution, some corners of evangelicalism saw the contention of early July and said nothing. Others, like John MacArthur, offered evasive remarks. We tend to lose our voice when it comes to the issue of race. And when we do speak, our inclination is to reduce our message to Galatians 3:28 and little else: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Russell Moore writes that some white Christians “assume that if they don’t harbor personal animus against those of other ethnicities, then there is no ‘race problem.’”

Perhaps this is Dr. MacArthur’s perspective. In the video, he implies friendship with certain black leaders and recalls holding memorial services for Martin Luther King in black high schools. Like the man who justifies himself from the suspicion of racial bias by naming the minorities he knows, this section of John MacArthur’s video sounds a bit conciliatory. He says this: “Look, I’ve been on that side of it [the racial justice side?]… But I also see the power of the Gospel and when the Gospel changes your life, you go from social issues to spiritual issues.” While he may not nurture prejudiced feelings toward minorities, Dr. MacArthur’s statement reveals a major disconnect from the experience of his said black friends.

Yes, the Gospel enables believers to see social issues from a spiritual perspective — but does it remove social issues altogether? Indeed, do we actually diminish (or perhaps even doubt) the power of the Gospel to conquer racism if we ignore the reality of that sin?

Addressing The Gospel Coalition Council in May 2016, Mika Edmondson said this:

We have a natural tendency to actively resist dealing with racial sin… How else can you explain a theology that comfortably co-existed with chattel slavery, the lynching tree, Jim Crow, segregation, and myriad ways black folks suffer today? How else could Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield have had such great theology but think that it had nothing to say to the black suffering they saw all around them? (Edwards wrote copious notes on the duty of Christian charity to the poor on the one hand, while callously purchasing trembling little African girls off the auction block on the other.) […] Evangelicals have a social ethic, but it’s a strangely selective social ethic. We show our feelings about the Lord by how we treat our neighbors made in his image.

Furthermore, we show the beauty of our Savior’s work in making us truly one when we mingle our voices together and insist that, in the fullness of time, even racism will bow at Christ’s feet. Rather than using Scripture as a reason to dismiss social issues, we should emulate the model of Olaudah Equiano and William Wilberforce, who offered an accurate application of Galatians 3:28 through their joint address of the racial injustices of their time.

 

Note: Access to the John MacArthur video “Racism and Black Lives Matter” linked in this article is at the discretion of the original publisher’s YouTube privacy settings. Unfortunately, at present (6/26/16), it is not publicly available.

— Nana Dolce

Nana Dolce was born in Ghana, West Africa; she lives today in Washington, D.C. with her husband Eric and two home-schooled daughters. She has a Master of Arts in Theological Studies and serves on staff at a local church. She blogs at motherhoodandsanctity.com.

THIS WAS MY COMMENT ON THE ISSUE:

================Alfred Charles “Al” Sharpton, Jr. An American civil rights activist, baptist minister, has not as well as Jesse Louis Jackson, Dr. also An American civil rights activist, baptist minister, with all their effort has changed the climate in today’s issues. We are seeing even worst problems today as we have seen in the last few years.

The evil in the hearts of men will never change without Christ in their heart, then its is still hard for men to do right.

I was raised in Roanoke VA, and there was a divide in the black and white race. My Dad was a preacher, and he taught that while are race was different our love for one another should be the same. Our church was open to everyone. I was raised in the 60’s and I know the troubles that many faced.

Would you not say, that if the Gospel of Jesus Christ can transform the heart of evil men that they would not become more like Christ? The problem is that the world is made up of those who have not been born again.

So how does government and society change the culture that we are seeing today.? How can we see all races come together in unity and love? How can we see crime in our streets come to an end where there would be no need for the police to step in and stop crime, and may too often act too quickly? If there were no crime and no breaking of the laws, would we be seeing killings and injustice take place?

Are we to blame society and government for the problems people face today? The world has never seen a society that is free from the sinfulness, and lawbreakers, and Illness of the world?

There have been preachers who have tried to correct the problems of the world. But there is within society this problem of selfishness, and hate, and disregard for God that has created this divide. Government has tried to solve the problems with programs, money and laws. They have all failed to bring us to a perfect society. We are not yet in the Star Trek Next Generation society where all society problems have been solved. That is not ever going to happen in this earthly planet.

So what can we do as Christians, and as Pastors/Teachers?

So is John MacArthur right?

Are we to reach out to the people with the Gospel, which has the ability to change the hearts and minds of people? Yes. Are Christians police to do their job in the light of their faith and laws? Yes. Are Christians in government and leader ship to lead in a just and right way? Yes.

Are the Michael Jordon’s and Tiger Woods to speak out on the behave of their race? Would that help? Really they have their own problems with life and justices.

So how do we see the future? Do we see the people turning to God as a guild to the problems of the world? Any government that does not see God as their guild will fall into the society with out God.

The Protestant Reformation Revival

by John MacArthur

The Protestant Reformation is rightly regarded as the greatest revival in the last thousand years of church history—a movement so massive it radically altered the course of Western civilization. Names like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox are still well-known today, five centuries after they lived. Through their writings and sermons, these courageous Reformers—and others like them—left an enduring legacy for the generations of believers who have followed them.

But the true power behind the Reformation did not flow from any one man or group of men. To be sure, the Reformers took bold stands and offered themselves as sacrifices for the cause of the gospel. But, even so, the sweeping triumph of sixteenth-century revival cannot ultimately be credited to either their incredible acts of valor or their brilliant works of scholarship. No, the Reformation can only be explained by something far more profound: a force infinitely more potent than anything mere mortals can produce on their own.

Like any true revival, the Reformation was the inevitable and explosive consequence of the Word of God crashing like a massive tidal wave against the thin barricades of man-made tradition and hypocritical religion. As the common people of Europe gained access to the Scriptures in their own language, the Spirit of God used that timeless truth to convict their hearts and convert their souls. The result was utterly transformative, not only for the lives of individual sinners, but for the entire continent on which they resided.

The principle of sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) was the Reformers’ way of acknowledging that the unstoppable power behind the explosive advance of religious reform was the Spirit-empowered Word of God.

For the reformers, sola Scriptura meant that the Bible was the only divinely revealed Word and therefore the believer’s true authority for sound doctrine and righteous living. They understood the Word of God to be powerful, life-altering, and wholly sufficient “for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). Like the church fathers who had come before them, they rightly viewed God’s Word as the authoritative foundation for their Christian faith. They embraced the inerrancy, infallibility, and historical accuracy of Scripture without question, gladly submitting to its divine truth.

Though they were part of a major social upheaval, the reformers understood that the real battle was not over politics, money, or land. It was a fight for biblical truth. And as the truth of the gospel shone forth, empowered by the Holy Spirit, it ignited the flames of revival.

Honoring the Author of the Word

That spirit of uncompromised commitment to God’s Word is mostly absent from the evangelical landscape today. While many give lip service to the primacy of Scripture, the popular trends in the church tend to push aside the standard of God’s Word, softening the truth or suppressing it altogether for the sake attracting the world.

But let’s be clear: Any movement that does not honor God’s Word cannot rightfully claim to honor Him. If we are to reverence the omnipotent Sovereign of the universe, we must wholly submit to the things He has spoken (Hebrews 1:1–2). Anything less is to treat Him with contempt and rebel against His lordship. Nothing is more offensive to the Author of Scripture than to disregard, deny, or distort the truth He has revealed (Revelation 22:18–19). To mishandle the Word of God is to misrepresent the One who wrote it. To reject its claims is to call Him a liar. To ignore its message is to snub that which the Holy Spirit inspired.

As God’s perfect revelation, the Bible reflects the glorious character of its Author. Because He is the God of truth, His Word is infallible. Because He cannot lie, His Word is inerrant. Because He is the King of kings, His Word is absolute and supreme. Those who wish to please Him must obey His Word. Conversely, those who fail to honor the Scriptures above every other truth-claim dishonor God Himself.

Because the Reformers recognized Jesus Christ alone as the Head of the church, they gladly submitted to His Word as the sole authority within the church. Thus, they acknowledged what all true believers throughout history have affirmed—that the Word of God alone is our supreme rule for life and doctrine. Consequently, they also confronted any false authority that might attempt to usurp Scripture’s rightful place; and in so doing, they exposed the corruption of the entire Roman Catholic system.

Defending the Faith

Believers today are likewise called to defend the truth against all who would seek to undermine the authority of Scripture. As Paul wrote, “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5, ESV). Jude similarly instructed his readers to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints” (Jude 3). In referring to “the faith,” Jude was not pointing to an indefinable body of religious doctrines; rather, he was speaking of the objective truths of Scripture that comprise the Christian faith (cf. Acts 2:42; 2 Timothy 1:13–14).

The authors of the New Testament did not discover the truths of the Christian faith through mystical religious experiences. Rather God, with finality and certainty, delivered His complete body of revelation in Scripture. Any system that claims new revelation or new doctrine must be disregarded as false (Revelation 22:18–19). God’s Word is all-sufficient; it is all that believers need as they contend for the faith and oppose apostasy within the church.

From the very beginning, the battle between good and evil has been a battle for the truth. The serpent, in the Garden of Eden, began his temptation by questioning the truthfulness of God’s words. Casting doubt on the straightforward revelation of God has been Satan’s tactic ever since (cf. John 8:44; 2 Corinthians 11:3-4).

With eternity at stake, it is no wonder that Scripture reserves its harshest words of condemnation for those who would put lies in the mouth of God. The serpent was immediately cursed in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:14), and Satan told of his inevitable demise (v. 15). In Old Testament Israel, false prophecy was a capital offense (Deuteronomy 13:5, 10), a point vividly illustrated by Elijah’s slaughter of the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal following the showdown on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:19, 40). But the Israelites often failed to expel false prophets; and by welcoming error into their midst, they also invited God’s judgment (Jeremiah 5:29–31). Consider the Lord’s attitude towards those who would exchange His true Word for a counterfeit:

Thus says the Lord God, “Woe to the foolish prophets who are following their own spirit and have seen nothing. . . . They see falsehood and lying divination who are saying, ‘The Lord declares,’ when the Lord has not sent them; yet they hope for the fulfillment of their word. Did you not see a false vision and speak a lying divination when you said, ‘The Lord declares,’ but it is not I who have spoken?” Therefore, thus says the Lord God, “Because you have spoken falsehood and seen a lie, therefore behold, I am against you,” declares the Lord God. “So My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations. They will have no place in the council of My people, nor will they be written down in the register of the house of Israel, nor will they enter the land of Israel, that you may know that I am the Lord God.” (Ezekiel 13:3-9; cf., Isaiah 30:9-13; Jeremiah 5:29-31)

The point of that passage is unmistakable: God hates those who misrepresent His Word or speak lies in His name. The New Testament responds to false prophets with equal severity (cf. 1 Timothy 6:3–5; 2 Timothy 3:1–9; 1 John 4:1–3; 2 John 7–11). God does not tolerate those who falsify or fake divine revelation. It is an offense He takes personally, and His retribution is swift and deadly. To sabotage biblical truth in any way—by adding to it, subtracting from it, or mixing it with error—is to invite divine wrath (Galatians 1:9; 2 John 9–11). Any distortion of the Word is an affront against the Trinity, and especially against the Spirit of God because of His intimate relationship to the Scriptures.

Martin Luther put it this way, “Whenever you hear anyone boast that he has something by inspiration of the Holy Spirit and it has no basis in God’s Word, no matter what it may be, tell him that this is the work of the devil.” ^[1] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, vol. 23, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis: Concordia, 1959), 173-174. And elsewhere, “Whatever does not have its origin in the Scriptures is surely from the devil himself.” ^[2] Luther’s Works, vol. 36, 144.

The battle cry of sola Scriptura harkens back to a bygone era—one that might seem outdated and irrelevant. But the church today must rekindle the Reformers’ commitment to the purity and authority of God’s Word, and vigorously defend it from corruption and compromise. God’s truth is in the crosshairs of a world in love with its sin, and we need to be all the more committed to upholding Scripture as the true standard and final authority.

(Adapted from Strange Fire.)

Burington NC REVIVAL 2016

I have been following a little of this Burlington NC “Revival” Tent meeting. My Dad had a large tent revival in Burlington back in the early 1940’s. I wish I had talked to my Dad about those meetings.

While the 2016 meetings have drawn 1000’s to the meeting, and reports of many churches and pastors have been present, and many people have been excited about the singing and preaching, which I good, I have seen the emotional preaching, and singing, and the altar calls, and th…e many people who have come.

It has been reported that over   800 (I think) have made a “profession of faith”, sign a card, which has been given to other churches for follow-up. 100’s more have responded to the “altar call.”

Having been raised a Baptist, “altar calls” and emotional singing and preaching most of my life, and long invitation, and then giving a count at the end of the night how many responded. it is rare to hear an update a year later on the decisions that was counted.

The Revivals of Billy Sunday and Jonathan Edwards were different I believe.

While I have not heard any report on the overall effect on the surrounding communities of Burlington, but with the crowds of people coming I would hope that a large part of the commumities will be influenced and touched by these external things, and many people will have a greater love for the Lord, and a large number of people joining the churches, and been baptized and serving the Lord.

I wished that I had set down with my Dad to talk about his methods of evangelism, his opinon on “altar calls” and emotional invitations, and counting people saved. All I know there were new churches started and people were saved, becasuse I have seen those churches and had seen those who were saved in our home, even after 60 years. To me that is the result of a real revival.

A report on the meeting:

http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2016/june/nc-revival-draws-thousands-to-burlington-and-god-rsquo-s-word

 

 

HOW DID GOD INSPIRE HIS WORD

by John MacArthur

Have you ever watched an athlete or musician give “an inspired performance”? Have you ever heard your pastor preach what might be called “an inspired sermon”?

Most of us have heard the word “inspired” used in those ways, but frankly I question that kind of terminology. If people give inspired performances or preach inspired sermons, what is the difference between all that and what we call inspired Scripture?

Perhaps it sounds as though I am pushing a point or being picky, and perhaps I am, but for a very good reason. With the authority of Scripture under attack from every side as never before, it is important for the Christian to understand the biblical definition of “inspired.” In the New Testament, the term “inspiration” is reserved solely for God’s Word. The Bible was written by specially chosen men under special conditions and the canon is closed. There are no songs, no books, no visions, no poems, no sermons that are inspired today.

But in order to understand the difference between biblical inspiration and the rather casual way we refer to something or someone as “inspired” today, we need to look closely at what Scripture has to say. Inspiration is tied very closely to another term—”revelation.” Revelation is God’s revealing of Himself and His will. Inspiration is the way in which He did it. To reveal Himself, God used human beings who wrote the Old and New Testaments in order to set down in exact and authoritative words the message that God wanted us to receive.

What Inspiration Is Not

In order to arrive at a correct definition of biblical inspiration, we need to look at some of the erroneous concepts some people have when they talk about the inspiration of Scripture.

First of all, inspiration is not a high level of human achievement. There are people—particularly certain theologians—who say the Bible is no more inspired than Homer’s Odyssey, Mohammed’s Koran, Dante’s Divine Comedy, or Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In other words, whoever put the Bible together was simply working at a high level of genius. “Oh yes,” say these advocates of natural inspiration, “the Bible is full of errors and mistakes and it certainly is fallible at many points, but in regard to its ethics, its morals, and its insights into humanity it reveals genius at a very high level.”

This view then exalts the human authors of the Bible but denies that God really had anything to do with its authorship. God did not write the Bible, smart men did.

This is an interesting view, but it doesn’t hold up. For one thing, smart men wouldn’t write a book that condemned them all. Smart men wouldn’t write a book that provided salvation from the outside. Smart men want to provide their own salvation; they do not want to have to trust in a perfect sacrifice made by God’s Son. And one other thing: Even the smartest of men could never conceive of a personality like Jesus Christ. Even the most gifted fiction writer could not fabricate a character who would surpass any human being who ever lived in purity, love, righteousness, and perfection.

Second, inspiration is not a matter of God working only through the thoughts of the writers. There are some theologians, preachers, and other biblical scholars who teach thought or concept inspiration. In other words, they say that God never gave the writers of the Bible the exact words they would write. God gave them general ideas and they put these ideas down in their own words. For example, He planted the concept of love in Paul’s mind and one day Paul sat down and penned 1 Corinthians 13.

The thought or concept view of inspiration claims that God suggested a general trend of revelation, but men were left free to say what they wanted and that is why (in the opinion of those who take this position) there are so many mistakes in the Bible. This view denies verbal inspiration. It denies that God inspired the very words of Scripture. This view of inspiration has been popular with neo-orthodox theologians (who in general believe the Bible contains the Word of God but is not the Word of God).

But in 1 Corinthians 2:13, Paul made it clear that he spoke “not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words” (emphasis added). In John 17:8, Jesus said, “For the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them.”

God communicates in words. When He sent Moses back from his wilderness hiding place to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, God did not tell Moses, “I will inspire your thoughts. I will be with your mind and tell you what to think.” No, God said, “I, even I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you are to say” (Exodus 4:12). In Matthew 24:35, Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.” God has authored the very words of the Bible. That is one reason why, in my preaching and teaching, I explain carefully the pronouns, prepositions, and even small conjunctions. All of these “minimal things” often contain profound implications and spiritual truths.

We cannot have geology without rocks, or anthropology without men. We cannot have a melody without musical notes, nor can we have a divine record of God without His words. Thoughts are carried by words and God revealed His thoughts in words. The very words of Scripture are inspired. Scripture is verbal revelation.

Theologians use the term “verbal plenary inspiration” to state clearly that all (plenary) the words (verbal) of Scripture are inspired, not just some of them. And that brings us to our next point.

Third, inspiration is not the act of God on the reader of Scripture. Some theologians today teach what I call “existential inspiration.” In other words, the only part of the Bible that is inspired is the part that zaps you. You read a passage and all of a sudden you get sort of an “ethical goose bump.” When you get your ethical goose bump, that particular passage is inspired—to you. But, say these theologians, the entire Bible is not inspired. The writers of the Bible didn’t write down God’s revelation. They wrote down a witness to God’s revelation in their own lives.

All that means the Bible is not really authoritative. It is not the Word of God; it simply “contains the word of God.” If you ask one of these theologians, “How did the Bible become inspired to you?” He will say, “Ah yes . . .” and then launch his explanation of his “first order experience” of his “leap of faith.” When you press him for exactly what he means by first order experience or leap of faith, he will say that it can’t be defined; it is simply an existential happening.

There are still other theologians who talk about demythologizing the Bible. In other words, they want to get rid of the myths that they believe are in Scripture. So, they take out things like the preexistence of Christ, the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, His miracles, His substitutionary death, His resurrection, His ascension, and His return and final judgment. They take all of that out and claim that, historically, none of that information is true. But they maintain that spiritually and existentially, the Bible is true if and when it sends cold shivers up and down your spine.

Now perhaps none of this makes much sense to you. It doesn’t make much sense to me either. If the Bible is full of lies from beginning to end, why would I ever go to it for spiritual truth? It seems to me that if God wanted me to trust the spiritual character of the bible, He would make sure that the historical and factual character of the Bible would substantiate its spiritual truths.

Some people refuse to believe that God performed the miracle of giving to us, through inspiration, an infallible Bible; but yet these same doubters are ready to believe that God daily performs the greater miracle of enabling them to find and see in a fallible word of man the infallible Word of God. Soren Kierkegaard—who some say was the father of the existentialist movement—wrote, “Only the truth which edifies thee is truth.” I disagree completely. How can you possibly have a divinely right experience through a wrong book? If the Bible is full of lies in other areas, why am I going to believe its spiritual claims and statements? Jesus said in John 17:17, “Your word is truth.” Truth is truth and something false does not become true simply because someone decides he is feeling inspired.

Fourth, the Bible is not a product of mechanical dictation. Liberal and neo-orthodox theologians like to poke fun at the conservative fundamentalist scholar and claim that he actually teaches that the Bible was dictated with some kind of mechanical method. The writers of the Bible were not writers; they were stenographers, spiritual automatons who simply cranked out what God literally dictated into their ears.

But it is obvious that’s not what happened at all. The key argument against mechanical dictation is that in every book of the Bible you find the writer’s personality. Every book has a different character and way of expressing itself. Every author has a different style. Yes, I suppose God could have used dictation and given us the truth that way. In fact, He really didn’t have to use men. He could have simply dropped it all down on Earth in the form of golden plates (as the Mormons like to claim for the Book of Mormon).

I don’t know why God used men, but He did. There are variations in style of biblical writing. There are variations in language and vocabulary. From author to author there are distinct personalities, and you can even sense their emotions as they pour out God’s Word on paper.

Still, we have the question, How could the Bible be the words of men like Peter and Paul and at the same time be God’s words as well? Part of the answer to this complex question is simply because God has made Paul and Peter and the other writers of Scripture into the men that He wanted them to be.

God made the writers of Scripture the men He wanted them to be by forming their very personalities. He controlled their heredity and their environments. He controlled their lives, all the while giving them freedom of choice and will, and made them into the men He wanted them to be. And when these men were exactly what He wanted them to be, he directed and controlled their free and willing choice of words so that they wrote down the very words of God.

God made them into the kind of men who He could use to express His truth and then God literally selected the words out of their lives and their personalities, vocabularies, and emotions. The words were their words, but in reality their lives had been so framed by God that they were God’s words. So, it is possible to say that Paul wrote the book of Romans and to also say that God wrote it and to be right on both counts.

We’ve considered four incorrect views of inspiration; what is the right view? Scripture itself offers plenty of information on this question. Next time, we’ll see what God’s Word has to say about its own inspiration.