The Word of Truth
The attributes of God in Proverbs • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.
Once again, we have returned to the famous or infamous depending upon your perspective, courtroom scene that we discussed last week. Again, we see Pilate around the bema seat standing on a place called the pavement. Before him stands Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, condemned by His fellow countrymen. It is this Jesus who says that He is the truth and those who are of the truth hear His voice. This prompts the response of what is truth by Pilate which we just read.
Hold on just a minute though. How do we really know that the exchange between Jesus and Pilate actually happened? After all there are a number of ancient books that have come down to us that are rather fanciful stories and yet those stories have a kernel of truth in them. Books such as the The Odyssey or the Iliad just to name 2. Both are ancient, both have many fanciful parts to it and yet have a kernel of truth to them. Wouldn’t the bible with all its miracles be akin to one of those? We can’t just timewarp back to the time and place in which the bible took place. Once there watch the events to see if they happened even though we would like to. Some of the places that the bible speaks about are sadly at the moment buried under the sands of time so we can’t walk down memory lane so to speak like my wife and I did when we stayed at an old mansion built in 1908. This means that we cannot discover if the history of the bible is accurate by this method. This prompts the following question. Is the bible true and is it the truth? This is the question that Lord willing we will be answering today at least in part.
Before we go any further let’s take a look at our proverb verses this morning. Again, just like last week we will be looking at a couple of proverb verses rather than just one.
Have not I written to thee excellent things
In counsels and knowledge,
That I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth;
That thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that send unto thee?
Our second proverb is a selection from Proverbs 8:7
For my mouth shall speak truth;
And wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
We will be looking at proverbs 23:23 again next time.
Review
Review
won’t be going back and looking at all the attributes of God that we have covered in proverbs since hopefully you have remembered them from last week
last time we began our series on truth in which we discovered the different approaches in discovering truth
looked at apologetics what it is and why we should know it
2 types classical and presuppositional
This morning, we will be looking at the truth of the Bible for without it, it would be impossible to know God for the bible is His words of truth to us. While it is true as we said last week that God has left His mark on creation the only way that we know that God has done so is through the reading of scripture and through the illuminating done through the Holy Spirit. Creation leads you to the fact that God exists. It takes the bible and the work of the Holy Spirit to know that the Triune God is the God of creation. Indeed Prov 8:7 tells us this
For my mouth shall speak truth;
And wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
While it is true that the proverbs 8 passage is dealing specifically with wisdom. However, if you look at the entire passage it isn’t difficult to extrapolate it to mean the entire bible rather than just that specific chapter. For it isn’t just proverbs that speaks of the wisdom of God, but the entire bible speaks of the wisdom of God. Paul speaks of this in 1 Cor 2:13
Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
This wisdom that Paul tells us and that Solomon tells us is far superior to anything that man can devise for it comes the very source of truth itself and that being God for Paul also tells us a little earlier in 1 Cor 1:20-21
Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
Therefore, we’ve established that the wisdom that Solomon spoke of and the wisdom that Paul spoke of are one in the same and those words of wisdom are in the bible. Additionally, we have noted from our proverb verses that wisdom and truth go hand in hand with each other. Therefore what is said of wisdom can also be said of truth. Thus, if the bible is wisdom than the bible is also truth. This would be essentially a presuppositional argument for the premise is that we believe the bible is true because it says that is true. We believe the bible has wisdom because it says it has wisdom. It sounds like circular reasoning and that would be correct for it is circular in its nature. We would have a problem if the circular reasoning was the only means by which we know that the bible is true for then it would little different than the book of mormon or the Koran or any other religious book. In fact, there are many validations to the truth of scripture which are in addition to the one we just mentioned which we will be looking at in a minute.
Before we begin to look at why we believe the bible is the word of God lets return to the definition of what presuppositionalism is that we looked at last week. A presupposition is not only the very basic belief system that you have it is also your starting point. It is the very core of your belief that you start with. For example, for the christian he starts with the presupposition that God exists, that He is the creator of the universe, that man is a sinner and that Christ has redeemed his people from his sins. With this very basic understanding the christian will look at everything else through that lens. He makes sense out of himself and the world around him through that set of presuppositions.
The atheist also has a set of presuppositions. His presuppositions are that there is no God, and life ultimately has no meaning so therefore the best I can do is try to be happy and have as much fun as I possibly can before I die and become nothing. This is the lens in which he judges everything and makes sense out of himself and the world around him. Additionally, he is very jealous of his presuppositions and does not want anyone to challenge them lest they be proven wrong. Especially the christian whom he seems to have the greatest hatred for. We will check in on this guy from time to time as we move forward.
As we just mentioned, the Christian starts with, or what his presupposition is, is that God exists and that the bible is the truth. The bible is the only way that we can know who God is, who I am and the relationship between them. The atheist then just laughs and laughs. Then says go ahead go believe your little fairytales in your little corner and leave me to believe what I want to believe. Miracles? ya that's just a bunch of magic tricks to fool the gullible which is what you are if you believe that nonsense. I am a man of science and miracles can’t exist in science and then proceeds to laugh some more. How do we as christians respond to this? We will spend the remainder of our time on this response.
So, let’s put our atheist friend on hold for a minute or so while he’s laughing. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do that in real life? So, what is the bible anyway? After all we’ve spoke of it often not only in our series but in this mornings study as well but we have never clearly defined it. The bible then, is a collection of historically accurate books, with the addition of poetry and prophecy books. It has been breathed out by God which has been written by approx 40 authors as they were carried away by the Holy Spirit as Peter puts it. The bible has as it its focal point Christ and His redeeming work for His people. It is therefore authoritative on all points of doctrine and practice. As Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Tim 3:16
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
Don’t worry we haven’t forgotten our laughing atheist friend. We’ll let him laugh a little longer in his corner. But first before we get back to him let’s take a look at our proverb verse or in this case one of our proverb verses for this morning as we usually do.
Have not I written to thee excellent things
In counsels and knowledge,
That I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth;
That thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that send unto thee?
If you remember from last time we only looked closely at the last part of the verse while kind of ignoring the rest of it. This morning lets take a closer look at the rest of the verse starting at the beginning. Have not I written to thee excellent things In counsels and knowledge? What is Solomon saying here? Essentially, he is saying that he has written these proverbs that are full of excellent counsel and knowledge. The reason why he has written them is in the next section. That I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth. In other words, the reason why he has written the proverbs is so that you will know the complete and absolute truth. Now let’s expand that out a bit. Let’s put it in the larger context of the bible. It is true that Solomon was only referencing the saying of proverbs. However, what is it that we have been studying throughout our series on proverbs? The attributes of God and we’ve come up with a fairly lengthy list of attributes. What else is written throughout the scriptures? Again, we’ve been able to see in verse upon verse throughout the scriptures that speak of the very same attributes that are listed in proverbs. Therefore, it isn’t too much of a stretch to say that within the bible are the certainty of the words of truth as our proverb speaks. So, if we link together what we talked about last time on how the last part of the proverbs 22 verse speaks of apologetics and what we just discussed that the bible is the certainty of the words of truth, what you get is that by knowing the bible is the certainty of truth. Therefore, we will be able to properly defend our faith. One more thing before we move on. We don’t need to defend the bible itself. The bible is quite capable of defending itself. Spurgeon once said that he would not defend the bible any more than he would defend a roaring lion. A lion is quite capable of defending itself and so it is with the bible. What we are accomplishing here is why it is we believe the bible.
Hopefully by this time our atheist friend has quieted down in his laughter. At this point a good way to answer our atheist friend’s laughter is by quoting what Voddie Baucham said in his lecture entitled “Why I believe the Bible”. The bible “is a reliable collection of historical documents written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of eyewitnesses that report supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claim that their writings are divine rather than human in origin.” After you have told him this he may respond in one of two ways. Either he will say umm I’ll get back to you on that and dismiss you or he will just give you a blank stare and ask umm what? At which point you can respond. I’m so glad you asked. Let me break it down for you starting with:
It is a reliable collection of historical documents
It is a reliable collection of historical documents
Before we continue let’s put our atheist friend on hold once again to give you a disclaimer. We will in no wise be exhaustive in our explanation as to why the bible is true as there are multiple classes taught at seminaries that cover this topic. This may require a couple of sermons in order to try and fit in some of the material that is out there so that it is at least somewhat comprehensive. End of disclaimer and back to our topic.
Let’s start by exegeting the phrase (yes you can exegete things other than biblical passages) We will start with the word “collection”. As all of you know there are 66 books in the bible yet there is a common theme that runs through them all which is truly remarkable considering there are about 40+ authors that wrote it. Additionally, it took approx. 1500 yrs to write it. Even longer if you put an earlier date on the time that Exodus was written. No other religious or otherwise, book can claim this. All other religions have only 1 author for their books which actually helps our verification rather than hinders it. Think about it, if only one person writes the book it gets more difficult to verify it. Look at it this way. If it’s just me writing it and I claim to have a vision from God who’s going to say that I did or didn’t? However with more than 40 authors the bible verifies itself in that way.
Our next set of words is “historical documents”. As you all know the bible isn’t strictly historical documents as there is poetry and prophecy etc. However, the largest part of the bible is dedicated to historical events. The history starts with creation and continues on through the 1st century AD. The 1st century AD is not only the end of the history the bible records but is also the ending point of when the last of it was written. This is very significant which we will see in a little bit.
Our atheist friend isn’t going to have a lot of problems with what we just said. After all there are plenty of “history” books out there and there is even a literary genre called historical fiction. Where our atheist friend is going to stumble is over the word “reliable”. He’s not going to like that word. The problem that he has is that that is exactly what he has to accept. He has to accept the bible as history, or he cannot accept any ancient books as history. Not a one. Not Julius Ceasars Gaulic Wars, not Pliny’s Lives etc., etc.
Let’s break this down a little bit. There are over 6000 manuscripts of the bible both OT and NT and over 5000 manuscripts of the NT alone. It doesn’t sound like a lot until you understand that in the ancient world that is a lot. Julius Ceasar’s Gaulic Wars there is only a handful of manuscripts. The nearest competition that the bible has in terms of the number of manuscripts is Homer’s Iliad and it only has a couple hundred. Now let’s add another level. Of the manuscripts and fragments of manuscripts that we have the oldest dates from 120AD, only a couple of generations from the originals. This becomes very important when you are dealing with the reasons why the gnostic gospels were not included into the canon of scripture which we will look at in a little bit. Julius Ceasar’s Gaulic Wars? about 1000 yrs between the oldest manuscript and the original. Homer’s Iliad? about 2000 yrs between the oldest manuscript and the originals so as you can see God preserved His word far more diligently than the other works were which gives additional credence to the reliability of the bible.
Our atheist friend however will rightly point out that just because you have a lot of manuscripts and that the oldest one was written close to the original doesn’t mean that the history contained in it is reliable. This is quite true however there is something that will burst his bubble and that is archeology. There have been over 25,000 yes thousand archeological digs that have verified the historicity of the bible.
Let’s look at a couple. First example which ties into our introduction is the location of Jesus’ trial in which Pilate asks Jesus what is truth. Archeology has found that there could be 2 possible locations for the stone pavement described for us in the gospel of John. The first location is the Antonia fortress which is at the northwestern corner of the temple mount which includes the temple and its surrounding buildings. The Antonia fortress location has the benefit of being close to the temple where it was likely that Jesus was tried by the high priest. It was the spot chosen by the Crusaders as the place of the stone pavement mentioned in John. It has one very big drawback and that is it is too small. It is too small to have a crowd of people shouting crucify him. The second possible location is the palace of Herod the Great. It is very likely that Pilate would’ve chosen this luxurious palace as his place of residence since he was a man of authority and needed to flaunt it. It has the virtue of being big enough to have a crowd chant crucify him. Plus, it has the added bonus of explaining why Pilate and Herod Antipas didn’t get along until Jesus came along. Herod probably didn’t like the idea of a Roman living in his, I believe it was his grandfather’s house, and thought that he was better suited for it. It may have been that Herod was forcibly evicted by Pilate though there is no evidence for that but merely conjecture. Scholars favor the Herod palace as the place for the trial for Jesus as being the most likely spot that it took place. Needless to say, there is no doubt that the stone pavement existed and that Jesus was on trial there.
For our second archeological find we’re going to go to the other end of the bible and take a look at the last few chapters in the book of Genesis specifically the story of Joseph. It is interesting to note the archeology finds on that front. This tends to be a bit more controversial as we are talking a great deal longer time period between then and now. It also depends on when you put the timeline which is why this evidence was dismissed so readily. To be brief here there is a building in the north of Egypt that had 12 pillars, which doesn’t sound all that remarkable, except for the fact that in on corner of the property there is a small pyramid. Again, not very remarkable, except for the fact that inside of this pyramid there is a statue of a guy who has red hair. Egyptians don’t generally have red hair, and this is the kicker, the statue has on a coat of many colors! Now who does that sound like? Ya Joseph.
Another remarkable find is a scroll that describes the plagues of Egypt to a tee. This scroll is on location at the University of Liebisch though it’s dismissed on the basis of it was written at the wrong time. It doesn’t match the supposed time of the Exodus. This and many other reasons is why the actual time of the Exodus may not have happened when it was traditionally thought but rather earlier. However, it is always nice to have outside collaboration, right? One more. In the area where they have been excavating what used to be Nineveh there is an inscription that names King Hezekiah by name. There is just a ton more but we should stop here or our food will get burnt. To reiterate archeology is a silent eyewitness in that it does witness to past events. Archeology gives us the scene in which the things of the past take place which leads us to the second phrase which is
written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of eyewitnesses
written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of eyewitnesses
This seems a bit redundant since it would be hard for an eyewitness to write after all the other eyewitnesses have died but in reality, it is very significant. Let’s take a look at this. 1 John 1:1-3
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.
What John is telling us is that with all of his senses he was an eyewitness to the events that he describes in his gospel. Therefore, we have one claim of an eyewitness. Admittedly one claim of an eyewitness carries very little weight as it is easy to disprove. Many religions are based on just one eyewitness and their claims can be easily dismissed as false. Thankfully we are not done with the number of eyewitnesses to the events that the bible records. Here’s another. 2Peter 1:16-18
For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.
Peter is also counting himself as an eyewitness and in this case, he is pointing to a very specific event in which only he and 2 others were a witness to. This event as we all know is the transfiguration. There is a bit of a historical irony here at least from our perspective. There is a gospel that is attributed to him namely the gospel according to Peter which has some very fanciful writings in it. To keep the record straight however this supposed gospel called the gospel according to Peter is one of the gnostic gospels. All scholars agree, and that’s a feat in of itself, that all the gnostic gospels were written some 200-300 yrs later. This means they were not written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses.
In the gospel according to Peter we have an actual play by play account of the resurrection of Jesus. Just to show you the contrast, in the 4 gospels there is no mention of how the resurrection took place. There is plenty on what happened after the resurrection and that the resurrection happened but nothing on the actual event of the resurrection of Jesus.
In this supposed gospel according to Peter there is an account of the resurrection in which Jesus comes out of the tomb giant sized. He’s like 60 ft tall or something for His head is touching the clouds. It gets even better! The cross that Jesus died on follows Him out of the tomb! Doesn’t say how. Not sure if it just bounces out or grows legs or what but none the less it’s following Jesus out of the tomb. We’re not sure how the cross got into the tomb in the first place. Presumably the Romans didn’t say, well the cross you died on we’ll let you have in your tomb as a keepsake. Why would they? I’m sure they used the same cross for multiple people. But we’re not done with the nuttiness. Not only is the cross following Jesus out of the tomb, but the cross is also actually talking to Jesus. Big 60ft Jesus and His cross are having a conversation together as they are exiting the tomb. Not sure what they said but nonetheless they had a conversation. Talk about a cleverly devised myth! and thus our irony. Keep in mind Peter would not have known of this myth because it was not written until a couple of hundred yrs or more after his death. We will be taking a closer look at the false gnostic gospels and why they were not included into the canon next time Lord willing for it requires a special look into it as it is a controversy that has shown up in our day.
Let’s return to what Peter was talking about when he said we have not told you cleverly devised myths. Peter never could’ve written anything like this tomb story we just talked about. The reason why was because he was never there at the resurrection and therefore was not an eyewitness to the actual resurrection. Peter, nor anyone else was not an eyewitness to Jesus becoming alive. They are just witnesses to Jesus actually being alive after His death. You see the difference? Peter was the first of the disciples to go into the tomb even though John got there first but he did not see Christ rise. Both only report what they saw and all that they saw was an empty tomb and then afterward Jesus reveals His risen self to them. This is significant because it gives a stronger credence to their claims as eyewitnesses.
We have up to this point 2 witnesses which is a lot better than just one witness though when it comes to proving if a thing be true or not the more witnesses that collaborate the story the better off you are. Let’s add some more. Paul gives us a rundown on who and how many witnesses there were. He lists them in 1 Cor 15:3-8
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: And that he was seen of Cephas, (that is Peter) then of the twelve:
(Hold it! Stop right there. Our atheist friend is jumping up and down gleefully at the moment saying Contradiction! Contradiction! Judas hung himself so that only leaves 11. Well, we’ll let him gloat just for a moment before we burst his bubble. After all atheists are delicate creatures that stand on thin ice. If that ice breaks then down into the abyss they go. Ok that’s a contradiction but only if you don’t read the rest of the bible for what happens after Judas hung himself? The disciples find a replacement for Judas, one Mathias who like the other disciples had been with them since the beginning of Jesus ministry and had seen Jesus after His resurrection. So yes 12 disciples just like Paul said. Now back to our text) After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.
As you can see we have 3 people that we have mentioned this morning who were eyewitnesses to Christ being alive again who are also authors of the NT with Paul having written the greatest number of books in the NT. This gives us additional proofs that the NT is reliable in its writing. It is interesting to note that Peter does compliment Paul in his writings despite the fact that they have had their disagreements which Paul tells us as well.
You see the point that Paul is making in 1cor 15? What he is saying is that not only were there 3 eyewitnesses that we looked at this morning and it is significant that Paul not only mentions himself as an eyewitness but also mentions Peter by name. Paul also adds that there were 500 people who witnessed the fact that Jesus is alive. That’s a lot of witnesses that collaberate an event which makes it impossible to disprove because there are far too many witnesses.
It is interesting to note that Paul tells us that there were more than 3oo people who were yet alive when Paul wrote Corinthians. There may have been fewer eyewitnesses by the time the gospels were written since they were written a little later than Corinthians. That may have been the impetus to write the gospels as the eyewitnesses were beginning to die off. So it became imperative that the gospel get written down and the story set straight so that we don’t have a giant Jesus walking out of the tomb with the cross and talking to it as well! The exception may have been Luke who started working on his gospels much earlier and it took awhile to compile all of his information which he talks about in the 1st chapter of Luke.
Do you see the monumental importance of what Paul is telling us here? What it means is that Christ appearing after His resurrection was not witnessed by 1 witness. Nor by 2 witnesses which according to the Law was sufficient to be established which states that by 2 or 3 witnesses is a thing established but by 100 times that many. Thus, with that many witnesses that Christ had risen from the dead is established.
There is another reason why what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians is so monumental is that he is establishing the fact that the bible is falsifiable. Now just wait before you get your head all tied into a knot let me explain. It isn’t what you think it is. If something is falsifiable that means that it is held up against the highest of scrutiny and yet still remains true. For example: if one of the gospel writers would’ve said Jesus came out of the tomb with blood red eyes someone of the 500 witnesses would’ve written back and said No! He didn’t! Besides, how do you know that since no one actually saw Jesus rise from the dead! Therefore, anything that could’ve been false would not see the light of day.There would be 500 critics to make sure you got everything exactly right. So, what it means that the bible is falsifiable means that it holds up against being disproven because every single test that could prove that the bible is false, it proves itself true every time. Indeed, every test that could prove the bible false has been given it and every time it has proven itself true. This fact gives us another tool to show that the bible is reliable.
Our atheist friend still has one more trick up his sleeve for he states that “what about all those inconsistencies that seem to be contradictory in nature? Does that not make the scriptures unreliable?” Actually, no it does not. As a matter of fact, those inconsistencies actually help us rather than hinder us. We will be looking specifically at the 4 gospels as they have had the most scrutiny. If all 4 gospels were exactly the same with no variation whatsoever the charge of conspiracy could be much more successfully applied. If this was the case then it would just seem like everyone copied each other. However, since there are variations, these variations tell us that the gospels are not just copies of one another but rather 4 separate accounts with each having its own perspective. The interesting thing is is that the variations actually compliment each other rather than contradict each other. What happens is that where someone leaves out a detail the other writer includes it in order to give us a fuller picture which is what normally happens when you are dealing with multiple eyewitnesses. Again, it is expected when dealing eyewitnesses to have some variations in what they report because they have different backgrounds or are emphesising different things or they are standing in a different spot. By having multiple witnesses in a scene it becomes much easier to construct the entire scene because of the different angles in which the event was witnessed. In other words the variations that are in the 4 gospels help confirm the reliability of the bible rather than take away from it. J Werner Wallace in his book Cold Case Christianity gives us a much fuller account on this subject. Interestingly enough when he began his research on the 4 gospels he started as an atheist and a skeptic only to find that the bible is true.
This morning we have only covered half of the quote from Voddie Baucham which reads; the bible “is a reliable collection of historical documents written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of eyewitnesses that report supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claim that their writings are divine rather than human in origin.” Yet the first part that we covered today would be enough to say that the bible is true. Yet there is even more which we will cover next time. So once again we can say to Pilate if we had timewarped to that place, you are looking at truth in the person of Christ Jesus who is the Truth. Thankfully the Lord has blessed us with an absolutely accurate account of the events so that it is almost like we have timewarped to the scene. Next time we will take a closer look at the second half of Voddies quote.
