LESSON 5 • Scripture as Truth

How many books have been written in the history of the world? No one knows, of course, but the Library of Congress has over 18 million of them in its collection. The Bible says it is a book that is different from every one of those 18 million and all other books ever written. The Bible claims it came from God and not from man. 

No. 1. It claims, in fact, to be the word of God, objective truth, that is from God. That is quite a claim. Are there reasons to accept that claim as true? 

No. 2. Today, we see not only an assault on the Bible as truth but an assault on the concept of truth itself. Their supreme authority is “self,” which means no fixed standards. Everything, these say, is relative. It is not “what is right,” but “what is right for me.” My “right” and your “right” may not be the same. Modern art is a good example of this. You may think a painting is a football, and I may think it is a submarine, and someone else may think it is a submarine sandwich. The painter stands by and says, “Wonderful.” You are all right. Whatever my painting is to you, it is what it is. Thus, they say, there is no objective truth.

No. 3. While many do not accept this view, we must be prepared to deal with it.

No. 4. If there is no objective truth, then the Bible cannot be objective truth. And if the Bible is not objective truth, then there is no absolute standard I must meet. I can do as I please and, essentially, I am responsible to no one. In this view, the Bible, like any other written document, means only what anyone takes it to mean. Not everyone in our society has agreed with this view but it is a concept with which we must learn to deal.

So, how shall we take the Bible? A book of truth, that presents absolutes from God? Or shall we wee it as shall we see it as a piece of modern art—it means what any one wants it to mean? This relativist view means I can do pretty much as I please and I am not accountable to any objective standard. If, on the other hand, the Bible is seen as a revealed standard of objective truth, then I am accountable for this standard and should learn it and obey it carefully. 

No. 5. As we begin to answer to this question, we should note that the Bible claims to be the word of God, not the word of man. While the claim does not make it so, the Bible does make this claim. Look at Galatians 1:11-12. Some in Galatia have left what Paul taught for “another gospel.” Paul says, “I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.” But can we take such claims seriously? 

Under No. 6, let’s look at five reasons to accept this claim.

1. (6a) The Bible’s teaching on many topics has proved itself valuable. Although written by many who were often uneducated, sometimes obscure, and frequently reviled in their own time, the content of the Bible has proved itself to be remarkably insightful. How does the teaching of the Bible about ethics, morals, family, and treatment of others relate to what you have been taught about how to succeed in your field? When you come back to this point, be prepared to give an example of how teaching of the Bible has been a help to those in the field in which you work.
2. (6b) The Bible tells the story of the most influential man who every lived—Jesus Christ. How do we account for the fact that Jesus has had more influence on the world than any other unless he really is “God with us? An obscure Jew from an obscure place. No education, no position, no power, no writings, and killed as a criminal. Yet every time we even write the date, we testify to His impact on the world. Does all of this suggest that God really has stepped down into human form and has revealed truth to us through Himself? Be thinking about some things that show the great influence this man has had on the world. 
3. (6c) The Bible accounts of people and events are shown to be accurate as archaeologists uncover more and more artifacts. While such discoveries do not prove the Bible is of divine origin, the Bible could not be of divine origin if it were proved to be inaccurate. The British Museum, for example, devotes more than an entire room to artifacts found in the palace of the Assyrian King, Sennacherib. His written record, on the left, says he attacked Judah in 701 BC, conquered 46 Judean cities including Lachish, and that he surrounded Hezekiah in Jerusalem. He says, however, that he left without conquering the city. He also left a pictorial record of the event in wall carvings. Here on the right is a sample showing the soldiers attacking the city of Lachish. The Bible records the same event in 2 Kings 18-19, 2 Chronicles 32, and Isaiah 36-37 and the story told in these five chapters fits exactly with the record from Sennacherib. And this is only one of hundreds of instances in which the Bible has been shown to be right in such details.
4. (6d) The Bible provides many prophecies, written long ago, which we have seen to come true. Here is just one sample. Look at Isaiah 13:19-21. Here Isaiah predicts that Babylon, one of the mighty cities of his day and which has been in existence for hundreds of years will, eventually, be destroyed and never be rebuilt. Here is a drawing of what we think it looked like. But by about 200 B.C. it was a ruin and has not been rebuilt even today. How can such predictions, and many others, come true every time if God did not guide men in what they wrote?
5. (6e) The Bible is in harmony with the facts of science as they have been discovered. When the Bible was written, men believed the earth was flat, that there were only 3,000 stars, and that the earth was held up by a giant turtle swimming in a cosmic sea. Such ideas, however, do not find their way into the scriptures. Rather, the Bible uses expressions that are precisely in harmony with what we know about the world 2,000 or even 3,500 years later. Isaiah writes of the circle of the earth. Job says God hangs the earth on nothing, and in Genesis, God uses the stars as an example of what is numberless. Take another case. As late as 1870, at one of the best hospitals in Europe, doctors did autopsies and then treated patients without washing their hands. They had no concept of germs. Yet, Moses, over three thousand years before, in Leviticus, gives directions for the lepers to live outside the camp, to burn the clothing of those who have been contaminated, for sanitary disposal of excrement, that those who had touched a dead body were to be unclean for seven days and then to wash before associating with others. These were not the practices he saw in Egypt. How did he know? He had help in what he spoke and wrote. 

No. 7. The Bible really is different from any other book ever written because (1) its teachings have stood the test of time, (2) the man it proclaims as divine has turned out to be the most influential man in history, (3) archaeology has shown it to be correct in many details, (4) it accurately predicts events of history hundreds of years in advance, and (5) its writers did not speak as their contemporaries thought about the world but spoke about it in ways that are completely in harmony with the facts we know about the world today. If all of this is true, then we have strong reasons to believe the claims of the Bible that it is the revealed truth of God, absolute truth.

I hope you will dig in to see the extent to which you can agree with the principles I have suggested and, that if you find them to be true, you will agree with the conclusion to which that would lead us—that the Bible is the will of God, presented to us in a written form which we should accept and follow because we believe that God will hold us accountable some day.

- Stafford North