Why We Believe God's Word Is The Authority - 2 Timothy 3:16

The Foolishness of Man

Q. Why this is the first point?

A. As Christians, the Bible should always be considered our final authority, meaning it has higher authority than other things. However, I know that if I began with point one being The Foundational Authority as God’s Word with my first explanation being it’s self-defense, which i’ll explain soon, then in our minds there would be the nagging question, “Well, that seems circular, we should subject it to the testing of men!” And that’s a good question for us to answer today. Because, if the Bible is the Final Authority then it has the final say, but if we give someone else the power to decide whether the Bible is true or not, then the Bible isn’t the supreme authority anymore, that man is. So, with that being said, let’s begin with a Scriptural Evaluation of unregenerate men. (Have students read Scriptures)

A. A Scriptural Evaluation

Proverbs 9:10 NKJV

10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Romans 3:10–18 NKJV

10 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; 11 There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. 12 They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.” 13 “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”; 14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 Destruction and misery are in their ways; 17 And the way of peace they have not known.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Romans 1:18–25 NKJV

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

Psalm 14:1 NKJV

1 The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, They have done abominable works, There is none who does good.

So, if the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. (Pr. 9:10) And mankind, dead in sin against this fearful LORD (Romans 3:10-18, Ephesians 2), refuses to acknowledge and fear Him (Romans 1:18-25), then they are as fools. (Psalm 14:1) and so were we but for the grace of God.

But you might be thinking, “Wait, I know smart atheists!” And so do I, but they way they deny God is similar to the depravity of sin, total but not absolute. So, the unbelieving position will have ideas taken from their true Christian context and perverted. However, the are foolish in so far that they first, ignore the only good and wise God. Second, all that they do is vain since it doesn’t glorify their Creator and third, they have no ultimate authority that can justify itself. Which leads me to my next point:

B. A Philosophical Evaluation

Aristotle taught, as Scott Oliphant puts it, that in order to assert anything, in order to argue anything, in order to think properly, even in order to live properly, you’ve got to stand somewhere. There’s got to be a foundation and a source of not only of what we think, but also of our very existence.”

Everyone has an ultimate authority and most of atheism, though not all of them, view reason as it’s ultimate authority, however, reason, or rationality, cannot justify itself and because of that the Atheists have to run to different proofs making those proofs their real final authority.

I want to make just a few minutes to point out just a few things that Atheism cannot account for:

Atheism cannot account for the Laws of Logic because in a world that is purely physical in nature there would be no room for the transcendent laws of logic. If these laws are not present there would be no such thing as knowledge or consistency.

Atheism cannot account for morality. If men are merely a process of blind evolutionary processes and are nothing more than animals then why is it wrong for a man to molest a woman? Why is it wrong for someone to steal, or murder? If there are no morals and we are nothing more than animals governed by chemicals bursting within our heads, then who is to say that the chemicals in Hitler’s head didn’t tell him to commit such atrocities. Who is to say it was wrong?

Atheism cannot account for beauty. If reality is nothing more than physical reasoning then the beauty that is seen as you look at the sun beaming upon a mountain range should be considered the same in beauty as the sun’s light beaming on a garbage can. After all, all it is is light being reflected off of matter.

Atheism cannot account for many other things. A few are the Second Laws of Thermodynamics, the Law of Non-Contradiction, for mental comprehension, the reliability of our senses, etc.

What I am trying to show is that the thinking of the one who rejects the God of the Bible is foolishness. If you’d like to read anymore on this, you can grab a copy of “What Time is Purple?” up here.

Now, lets move to our second main point.

The Final Authority - God’s Word

The 1689 2nd London Baptist Confession chapter 1 paragraph 4 says, “The authority of the Holy Scriptures obligates belief in them. This authority does not depend on the testimony of any person or church but on God the author alone, who is truth itself. Therefore, the Scriptures are to be received because they are the Word of God.7”

The Bible is Self-Authenticating.

Self-Authentication means that the power of Scriptures own identity is present in the Scriptures itself. Another way to put it is, Scriptures authority rest completely in its because it is the very Word’s of God. How do we determine what the Bible is? You determine what the Bible is by seeing what the Bible says about itself—self-witness, self-authentication.

Walter Elwell said, “Perhaps the most striking, if often least noticed, testimony is the sustained interweaving of the direct speech of God in the text of the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament.”

Like in Genesis 1, where we repetitively read, “And God said,” or Genesis 2, 3, and 4 where we read of the conversation of God and man. Or where God speaks to Noah, or Abraham and the patriarchs and so on.

Hebrews 1:1 testifies to this as it says, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways.”

Or in the New Testament, constantly in the Gospels and Hebrews 1:2 tells us of the New Testament saying, “2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;”

The Basis of It’s Authority Is The Author

Have you ever had a parent tell you to do something and you say, “But why?” and they reply, “Because I said so!”? That is an appeal to their authority. Within the Bible we do not hold words merely written as human thoughts about God but we have the actual Words of God Himself. Since this is the case, we are to hold them as absolutely authoritative.

2 Timothy 3:16 NKJV

16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,

The Testimony of Christ Concerning the Word

Foundations of the Christian Faith: A Comprehensive & Readable Theology The Witness of Jesus Christ

Jesus so identified himself with Scripture and so interpreted his ministry in the light of Scripture that it is impossible to weaken the authority of one without at the same time weakening the authority of the other.

Christ Affirmed The Old Testament to Be The Infallible Authority.

When He quoted from Deuteronomy while being tempted in Matthew 4

When He replied to the Sadducees in Luke 20.

He taught that the Scriptures cannot be broken in John 10:35 and Matthew 5:18.

Christ Saw His Life As A Fulfillment of Scripture as He Submitted Himself to it Without Fail.

Christ knew the writing of the New Testament would come so He chose His apostles to be recipients of the New Testament and taught that the Holy Spirit would use them in John 14:26 and John 16:12-14.

The Power of The Word Declared.

Isaiah 55:11 NKJV

11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

We can externally testify to the internal truth taught here. Calvin said, and I’m paraphrasing, that it is the same Holy Spirit that inspired the pinning of the Word that must enlighten us to the Authority of the Word.

When you and I read a text book we assume its true. This same respect is owed when you pick up the Bible. Not as though the Bible is down on the level of a text book, but that it self-attests to its own authority being the truthful words of it’s Author, God Himself. Therefore, since God, who is truth and cannot lie, has authored the Bible, it is to be considered the final authority, because if we subject it to the reasoning of dead men who don’t fear God, which makes them fools, would we not be assuming that fools are more intelligent than the wisdom of God? It is then, by the Bible alone, through the enlightening of the Holy Spirit, that we receive understanding of the world and are now properly equipped to examine the same facts as the unregenerate, however now with a proper and consistent worldview.

Next Wednesday we will finish this mini-series with an external examination of evidences that further our evidences.