Biblical Authority - BD #3 | 2 Timothy 3:15-16

Introduction:  Tonight we’ll continue our look at Baptist Distinctives. It’s really just a look at the fundamental doctrines that the Bible teaches.

And before you think this isn’t important, I’ll remind you of last week’s premise: Doctrine is Essential Because:

Truth is under attack

We are called to represent truth in our culture

What you believe determines how you live

The summary last week was:

There is absolute truth, it all matters, we can know it, and we’re responsible to represent it to this generation.

If all of that is true, the next question is “Where do we start?”

If we are in the business of truth representation, then it makes sense to me to start with the source of truth - God’s Word.

And that goes along with the the list of Distinctives that we’ll be going through on Wednesday nights. You may remember the acronym from last time, but here it is using the word “Baptists.”

BIBLICAL authority (2 Timothy 3:16)

AUTONOMY of the local church (Acts 13:1-3)

PRIESTHOOD of the believer (1 Peter 2:9 “…Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people”)

TWO Ordinances – Believer’s Baptism and the Lord’s Supper (Acts 2:41-42, 1 Cor. 11)

INDIVIDUAL Soul Liberty (Rom. 14:5, 12)

SAVED Baptized Church Membership (Acts 2:41, 47)

TWO Offices – Pastor and Deacon (Phil. 1:1)

SEPARATION of Church and State (Matt. 22:21)

Lord willing we’ll spend some time on each of these, but it makes sense to me to start with the Bible. That’s our foundation. Our understanding of God’s Word shapes how we view everything else.

Before we get into that, I have to clarify that we come into this study with two primary assumptions or presuppositions:

1) There is a God (He is a triune God and He is both sovereign and personal), and

2) He reveals Himself to us or speaks to us. Some people might say that presuppositions aren’t trustworthy, but every worldview begins with a presupposition, or a series of assumptions.

We live in an age that relies heavily on science, logic and evidence to formulate beliefs. It’s called an “empirical” worldview in that it requires proof. An empiricist claims that our world is a closed box, meaning we can only know what we touch, taste, or feel inside the box. It claims that our senses are all we need. There are other worldviews as well, but this isn’t a study on those per se, so just suffice it to say that even empirical thinkers and rational thinkers begin with some presuppositions. There is an element of faith to their conclusions.

For instance, if we think it requires no faith for someone to believe in Evolution even though no one was there to observe it and the evidence is inconsistent at best, then we don’t understand faith. They may not admit it, but they have to exercise faith to believe that.

But for a Biblical Christian our presupposition starts with God.

One commentator said, “God is the great Originator and Initiator. False systems of theology and philosophy begin with man and seek to work up to God. We must, in our thinking, begin with God, and work down to man.”

Contrary to popular belief, the universe does not start with or revolve around mankind. Francis Schaeffer the apologist coined a phrase that I think sums our presupposition well: God Is And He Is Not Silent.

There is a God that exists and He reveals Himself to His creation. We assume that’s true. And that’s a normal human assumption, by the way.

Elijah in his showdown with the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18:24 “And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.”

Psalm 115:4-7 “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not: They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.”

Habakkuk 2:18-20, “What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols? Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach! Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it. But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.”

God is a God that speaks or reveals Himself.

Now, when we say the “Word of God” we don’t just mean the Bible. This is the Word of God written. God’s Word is first spoken. The Word of God would also include the power by which God brings about the counsel of His own will, which is a phrase from Ephesians 1:11.

This would include how Creation came to be. By God’s spoken Word. He is not a silent God. His Word reveals His nature and His power. His Word is a genuine reflection of Who He is. He’s a speaking God. Unlike the dumb idols we already referenced. That doesn’t mean the Bible is necessary to God’s existence because there were centuries in which God’s written Word was nowhere to be found, but communication is necessary to God’s existence. He doesn’t operate privately. He fellowships with the Godhead (the trinity is made up of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit). Since the beginning God has existed in fellowship between those three expressions of Himself. But He doesn’t limit His communication to simply being within the Godhead. He speaks to us. What a gift that God communicates with His Creation.

And that’s what we’re dealing with today – one of the key forms that God’s revelation takes is through Scripture. The Bible is God’s special revelation committed to the written Word. That presupposition gives us the confidence then that His Word is our ultimate authority.  

The Bible is our sole authority. And we can certainly use a verse like 2 Timothy 3:16 to establish that. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:”

We’ll dissect that verse a little more during a different message, but it clearly states that God’s Word is authoritative because it came from God. Scripture is God-breathed. It carries His authority. And it’s a case that can be made throughout Scripture.

Old Testament

The authority of God’s written Word goes back to the Ten Commandments. Those two tablets were penned by God Himself.

Moses wrote in Deut. 5:22, “These words the LORD spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me.”

When God was entering into a covenant relationship with Israel, He gave the people His Word. And think about this, where did the Ten Commandments go after they were written? Well, the first set was broken by Moses when he came down from the mountain and found Israel worshipping a golden calf. His Word was the terms of the covenant and it didn’t take them long to break the covenant. But when the tablets were re-written, they went into the Ark of the Covenant, the most sacred place on earth, because they were God’s authoritative Word. They weren’t just some man-written ideas.

And as Moses wrote the Pentateuch and the other OT writings began to come about, they were treated with the same respect. They were divine, they were God’s Word, they were viewed in the same way as those original tablets penned with God’s own finger.

New Testament

The New Testament also recognizes the Authority of the OT writings. Jesus Himself treated the OT Scriptures as absolute authority. If the Son of God has that kind of respect for God’s Word, so should we.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:17 “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” He didn’t come to abolish or correct the law and the prophets. He came to prove their validity.

Jesus also treated the OT Scripture as authoritative. In John 10:35 He said, “scripture cannot be broken.” The OT law cannot be made null and void.

How many times did Jesus quote the Scripture and say, “It is written…”? When He did that it was end of discussion. Think about this – when Jesus was being tempted by Satan in Matthew 4, how did He combat the temptations He faced? He used the Scripture. Specifically, four times Jesus said, “It is written.” Each time He was quoting OT law from the book of Deuteronomy. 

Not only that, Jesus lived His life according to the Scripture. Luke 24:44, “And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.”

Jesus Christ lets us know that God’s Word is the ultimate authority. Jesus is God the Son, the second person of the trinity, and yet He submits Himself to God’s written Word.

The Rest Of The NT Also Recognizes Its Own Authority Equal With The OT

Jesus obviously gave testimony to His own teachings being that which the first church should operate by.

In Matthew 28:18-20, “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

That doesn’t do away with the OT. Jesus Christ came to fulfill the law. But His and the Apostles’ doctrine have become the core teachings we declare and propagate in order to make disciples. In John chapters 14-16, Christ explains how the Holy Spirit will come and guide us and remind us the truths that He taught.

You can look into the rest of the NT as well and see how it declares its own authority.

Turn to 2 Peter 3:1-2, “This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets (OT Scripture), and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour (NT Scripture):”

Peter clearly states that the word from the apostles and Jesus Christ are on the same level of authority as the OT Scripture. Look down in verse 15-16. Peter is telling the believers how to view the second coming of the Lord and says,

“And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; 16  As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.”  

The interesting part is verse 16, in which Peter says that Paul’s epistles sometimes include things that are hard to understand and that those who are less knowledgeable or less mature might struggle with them in the same way that they struggle with the OTHER SCRIPTURES. Peter recognizes Paul as an apostle with the authority to teach, and he equates Paul’s writing with Scripture. The other Scriptures would primarily be the OT Scriptures.

Last one. 1 Timothy 5:18 Paul says, “For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward.”

 The first phrase is from Deut. 25:4. The second phrase is a quote from Jesus Christ in Luke 7:10. Paul says both are Scripture. Both are authoritative in our lives.

We could simply turn to NT verses that talk about the importance of the Scripture in our lives and the effect it has, and we will do that in future weeks, but I wanted to start this section by helping us have a big picture look at why the Bible is authority because everything we do is established on our faith in God’s Word. This is the most important doctrine. The Bible is our sole authority for all matters of faith and practice.

We believe the Bible is God’s Word, it came from God, and it is our sole authority, meaning we don’t follow denominational traditions nor do we feel the need to add anything to the Scripture in order to please God. This view of God’s Word has typically been a Baptist distinctive.

I’m not saying every Baptist has that high a view of Scripture, nor am I saying that every non-Baptist has a low view of God’s Word. I’m simply pointing out that we believe in having a lofty view of the authority and importance of God’s Word in a believer’s life. If that makes me a Baptist, so be it.

So a few questions to close:

If God’s Word is the ultimate authority, is there anything in your life that is in disagreement with God’s revealed will? (Personal habits, sins, beliefs, spirit, behavior, etc.)

If God’s Word is that important, how much influence do you allow it to have in your daily life? Reading? Meditating? Memorizing? Tuning in when it’s taught or preached?

If God is a God of communication – He exists and He is not silent – how much effort have you recently been putting in on a daily basis to communicate with Him and allow Him to communicate with you?

It’s obvious He wants it because it’s part of His nature, but heaven forbid that a Holy God would be more passionate about spending time with us sinners than we have about spending time with Him.

However the Lord has worked through this in your life, I’d like to now go into a time of invitation.