Why God Preserved His Word
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Last week if you remember we look at 3 different yet vital things about the bible. those things were:
1. Inspiration: The Bible Is God-Breathed
2. Infallibility and Inerrancy: The Bible Is Error-Free
3. Sufficiency: The Bible Is Enough
This week we want to answer the question: “Why God Preserved His Word?”
Why God Preserved His Word
Why God Preserved His Word
Forever, O Lord,
Your word is settled in heaven.
God’s goal in preserving his Word was far greater than merely multiplying people’s knowledge or improving their morals.
The Bible “is not an inspired book of moralisms or a book of virtues; it is, from cover to cover, a book about the glory of God in Jesus Christ through the redemption of his people who will dwell in the kingdom of Christ forever.”
The center-point of Scripture is Jesus Christ himself, and the goal of the storyline of Scripture is his kingdom.
Scripture is inerrant in its inspiration, sufficient in its preservation, and dependent on interpretation and illumination for its application.
So how can we make certain that Scripture transforms us and turns us toward Christ? That requires both interpretation and illumination.
A. Seeking the Right Interpretation
Since first-century Christians saw Scripture as a word from Jesus Christ himself, they placed a high priority on rightly interpreting Scripture.
The New Testament was still being written when Paul warned Timothy to watch carefully how he interpreted Scripture.
These things command and teach.
Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the eldership. Meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all. Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.
16). In a later letter, Paul returned to this same point and reminded his protégé to prioritize “rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).
How can we know whether our application of a text is a result of the Spirit’s illumination?
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth; any truth that comes from the Spirit originates with the Father and exalts the Son (John 15:26; 16:12–13). The Spirit of truth will never illumine an application of the text of Scripture that contradicts sound interpretation of the text.
So how do we rightly interpret Scripture today? We begin by studying each text in its historical context.
If we’re reading Daniel, for example, we need to discover how the exiled Israelites who first received this book understood Daniel’s Spirit-inspired dreams.
When studying Isaiah, it’s important to ask, “How would Isaiah’s first readers have interpreted this text?” But we never stop there, because Jesus and the apostles never stopped there! Jesus and the apostles understood that Jesus himself “is the focus of every single word of the Bible. Every verse of Scripture finds its fulfillment in him, and every story in the Bible ends with him.”
That’s why we look at each part of the Bible in the context of the whole Bible, believing that every part of Scripture connects with other parts of Scripture to reveal Jesus and his kingdom.
Then He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.”
To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.”
B. Receiving the Spirit’s Illumination
Even when we think we’re interpreting Scripture rightly, it’s entirely possible to miss the message of Jesus.
Remember the first-century Jewish theologians who encountered Jesus in the flesh? They were world-class experts when it came to interpreting the Bible, but they completely missed the point of the Scriptures.
You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.
So will we, until the Holy Spirit shows us how to respond to God’s Word.
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.
But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Unless the Spirit is at work within us, we may hear the words of Scripture, but we will never understand Scripture rightly or apply the message in our lives. (James 1:22-2:26)
God’s Word-revealing work is known as illumination.
a French pastor once commented “Without the illumination of the Spirit, the Word will have no effect.”
Reading the Bible without the Spirit is like trying to read a map in a cave; without some source of light, the map may be right in front of you, but you will never figure out which way to go.
As we read and interpret Scripture, the Spirit shows us how the Word should reshape our lives. We respond to this illumination by loving God more fully and by resting more deeply in the grace that he has provided in Jesus.
Where to Go First If You Want to Hear a Word from Jesus
Where to Go First If You Want to Hear a Word from Jesus
“Where’s Jesus?” the little girl asked as she surveyed the empty classroom. “I want to hear him talk to me.”
N.T. Wright said “The Bible is the God-given means through which we know who Jesus is. Take the Bible away, diminish it or water it down, and you are free to invent a Jesus just a little bit different from the Jesus who is hidden in the Old Testament and revealed in the New. We live under Scripture because that is the way we live under the authority of God that has been vested in Jesus the Messiah, the Lord.”
Despite this child’s earnest expectations, the current location of God the Son is not in a classroom in a church; he’s with the Father in a position of heavenly honor.
And yet, the fact that Jesus Christ isn’t physically present among us doesn’t mean we can’t hear from him! The prophets and apostles wrote what they wrote in Scripture because “the Spirit of Christ” declared it.
searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.
“Ignorance of Scripture is,” in the words of the fifth-century church father Jerome, “ignorance of Christ.”
What this means for our daily lives is that, if we yearn for a word from Jesus, the solution isn’t a personal trip into the heavens or an ecstatic vision on the earth. The answer isn’t even found by waiting for Jesus in a classroom!
If you long for Jesus to speak to you, open your Bible. Drink deeply from the truths you find there. Read these texts in the context of faithful Christians gathered in community. Meditate on these words in their manifold beauty, and receive them as the very words of God—because that is what they are.
The Unity of Scripture
At least forty human authors composed the Bible over the span of more than 1,000 years, but this doesn’t mean that the Bible is fragmented or haphazard. The sixty-six books of Scripture intertwine to tell a single glorious story—the story of God’s creation, humanity’s sin, and God’s provision for the redemption of his people through Jesus Christ. God’s covenants with humanity throughout the Scriptures are the spine that ties this storyline together.
The Word of God has been made flesh for us in Jesus Christ, written for us in Holy Scripture, and proclaimed among us whenever the Scripture are faithfully taught.
You never need to wonder what God might say is true if he showed up in the center of our circumstances. God has already embraced the circumstances of this world once and for all in the flesh of Jesus Christ, and he has made his truth accessible to you in the text of Scripture.
So my question for you today is simple. “Are you going to get in the book and find out what God is saying to you? or Are you going to ignore him?