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God’s Word

The Bible attests to the authorship of the Almighty in numerous places. God is speaking. Jesus has something to say. We are no longer living in “long ago”. The very Son of God is talking to us.

Am I listening? Am I hearing Jesus? What is He saying as I read the four good news books?

Long ago God spoke to the fathers by the prophets at different times and in different ways. In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son. God has appointed him heir of all things and made the universe through him. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.| Hebrews 1:1-3

Biblical writers write unequivocally that the Bible is divine over three thousand times! Dr. Michael J. Kruger, a noted New Testament scholar, rightly affirmed, “the Bible bears evidence within itself of its own divine origins.”

One of those places of self-attestation is in the Psalms. Psalm 19 is one of the better-known Psalms of King David. The Psalmist composes a sacred song to the glory of God’s revelation to humankind. Psalm 19 is divided into two parts. The first part of the song says that we know God from (what theologians call) General Revelation. Consider verse one as it describes how we know God through creation:

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”

For six verses, David extols God for having revealed himself through creation. The second half of Psalm 19, beginning with verse seven, begins with these words:

“The law of the Master is perfect, reviving the soul.”

This way of knowing God is known as Special Revelation. Psalm 19 teaches that while we can know God through creation — standing in an open field and looking into the incomprehensibly deep and dark night-sky studded with innumerable stars, a million suns illuminating other unseen galaxies, twinkling like diamonds against black velvet — we do not know God personally through this observable form of revelation. When David writes that the law of Master is perfect, converting the soul is saying that we recognize there is a God in general creation, but we come to know this God and His will for our lives through the special revelation. This special revelation is the Word of God, “the law of the Master that is perfect, converting the soul:” that is, the Holy Bible.

The Bible self identifies as a supernatural “word from another world.” But how do we know that the Bible is the Word of God?

Jesus Declared that the Bible is the Word of God

Jesus knew the Word of the Master from infancy. The doctrine of His nature, fully God and fully Man, yet never mixed or confused, let us recognize that as God in the flesh, the Master Jesus knew that the Triune God wrote the Bible. But as a human being, from infancy, Jesus received the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God. Each Shabbat Jesus gathered with his family at the synagogue to hear the lectionary readings. He learned the Bible at home. He sat under others. We know that at twelve years of age He was instructing the rabbis and the priests. But there are clear instances in our Master’s life when He declared the authorship of the Bible, its inerrancy, infallibility, and intent. While each of them should be considered, none is more explicit that the resurrected Savior’s attestation of the Bible concerning his being raised from the dead:

“Then he said to them, ‘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 Messiah should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things’” (Luke 24:44-48).

Source:

Michael A. Milton, PhD (University of Wales; MPA, UNC Chapel Hill; MDiv, Knox Seminary)