It certainly claims to be. Peter tells us that holy men were moved by the Holy Ghost whilst writing the scriptures (2 Peter 1: 21) and that Paul’s writings were on a level with the rest of the holy scriptures (of the Old Testament) (2 Pet 3: 15, 16). Paul tells us, specifically of the Old Testament, that it is inspired, or rather expired, by God: so that it is profitable to make us wise unto salvation, and, thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3: 15-17). Elsewhere he tells the believers that his message, whether spoken or written, was the Word of the living God and not merely the word of man (1 Thessalonians 2: 13). He seems clothed with this awareness of divine authority (1 Corinthians 14: 37 ); and such an awareness of it is recognised by those who see it in him (1 Th 1: 5). This includes both others, believers, and other apostles as well. A similar awareness among the people of God, and a like self-awareness among His prophets, of being clothed with divine power, is seen in the seers and sages of the Old Testament (Numbers 27: 18; Joshua 3: 7); and, as shown above, is witnessed to by Peter and Paul: and by the whole of the New Testament, which asserts its legitimacy only by appeal to its being a fulfilment of the Old Testament (Mark 1: 1, 2). Nowadays we often attain to acceptance of the Old Testament by an initial trust in the New Testament; such, however understandable in our context, is to reverse the approach of the New Testament itself, which sees the Old Testament as primary (Acts 18: 24-28) and its own message as being legitimate only because it conforms to the prior revelation.
The Bible, written by over forty different people and over a period of 2,000 years, reads as if it were inspired by a divine omniscient Author for, despite the differences of eras and areas, it shows a unity of purpose, intention and coherence which is impossible to explain otherwise. So, its claim to being the Word of God is seen to be backed-up by its character as a one-in-many book, and library of books, with a One-in-many set of authors: the chief Author being God Himself working in, through, and behind all the human authors.
Nor is the Bible seen to be as anything less than inspired on grounds of historical unreliability; quite the reverse. It gets all its facts proven to be right wherever we can test them. Admittedly, it does tell us things that are hard to believe: the Creation of the worlds by the word of His power and that in the space of only six days; the talking Serpent in the garden of Eden; the flood of judgement and destruction upon ungodly men in the days of Noah; the overthrow of the homosexual cities of the plain; the ten plagues inflicted upon the gods of Egypt; the opening of the Red Sea for the flight of the Hebrews to safety; the translation of Elijah into heaven in chariots of fire; the coming of the just One, the Son of God, to deliver us from our sins; His passion and bloody death at the hands of both His own people and the Romans; His rising again from the dead and His coming again in judgement. It is not easy to check out ordinary historical facts because they are unique and one-off happenings; and many of the facts alluded to above are not only historical but quite extraordinary. But it is a poor way of reasoning to reject something merely because it is extraordinary, much less because it is abounding in wonder. Can such wonderful stories be untrue? Can you not feel their truth in their abounding wonder? But, to come down to the mundane, where the Bible does relate more ordinary happenings as incidentals, as it were, to the main message; where the Bible’s ‘minor’ facts can be checked-out more readily, it is truly astonishing how accurate it is in its mundane historical details, which can be verified from elsewhere - either from secular historians or through historical research and archaeology. If it is not the Word of God with a message for us today, it is most certainly an amazingly accurate record of the ancient history of mankind with motifs and themes quite different, as one might expect, to the motifs of modern day historians. In it we taste a glimpse of the ancient world through the eyes and experience of the ancient world. And yet it all seems so relevant to today as if, in a very real sense, mankind is the same today as he was then - very much in sin and in need of Jehovah’s powerful help, protection, commands and strength. Men and women who read the Bible tell us that it is ever fresh and that it renews them in the inner man to become more like Christ, who died for them and rose again. As John Calvin (1509-1564) said, however, our full persuasion that the Bible is the Word of God must come from God the Holy Ghost Himself who inspired it and who witnesses with our spirit that it is the Word of God (1 John 2: 20, 27), rather like how an author testifies that what he has written is his own and we see that it is because it matches his style and character.
That must surely bring us on to another outward test of whether the Bible is the Word of God: does its wisdom match the wisdom that God has given us? If it does then that is surely a sign that He is the source of them both. This is a very practical test and it gives a very practical answer: it is the wisdom of God, and therefore the Word of God. On so many subjects we see that the Bible gives us genuine practical wisdom when all our mindless and utterly gutless political leaders are talking madness. Whether it is homosexuality, feminism, the mixing and mangling of nations, the attempt to set-up a one-world system of governance; the test of welfare dependency, the humanity of the unborn child, the need for the death penalty in society for murderers and of corporal punishment in schools and over children, the Bible speaks with a practical voice which matches the God-given sense of the masses of the people who have to live in the world of reality and who are not cocooned from it by an impractical, irrational, and ivory-tower outlook. Time and time again the God-given wisdom of the Bible backs-up the ordinary man’s practical sense (or “prejudices” as Edmund Burke (1729-1797) might have referred to them in a non-pejorative sense) showing that both come from Him. Only a divinely inspired Bible could do that in the face of the madness of the political elites. The ordinary man knows, for instance, that the death penalty for murderers is needed for social and moral order; so does the Bible. Both therefore come from Him. A healthy respect for the good sense of the ordinary man, as well as for the divine character of the Bible, is something that is much needed in our own day and is very much essential for an enduring society. Another good example of the Bible’s intense practical wisdom, clearly divinely given, is its emphasis on diversity and hierarchy in any given society. It does not trumpet the need to “promote equality” recognising of the church, and by implication the wider society, that “…if the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were hearing, where would be the smelling.” (1 Cor 12: 17) We are not supposed to be fully equal, or exactly the same, in ability or utility. We each have a unique role to play as members of a wider society which is sufficient in itself and does not need an imported diversity to ‘enrich’ it. The Labour Government’s programme to “promote equality” is really an attempt to “promote mediocrity” because in the context of inequality of ability the only way you can impose equality is by attacking quality, or ’elitism’ as they fondly call it. If the politicians had understood the teaching of the Bible they would not have made such a mountain out of a ghastly Marxian molehill. Proof of the divine wisdom of the Bible? It is certainly proof of some uncanny kind of wisdom in the Bible which might very well be divine. It is not for nothing that Alfred the Great (849-899) based his writing of the West Saxon laws on the teachings of the Holy Scriptures. In so doing he was well ahead of the current rulers of this country and truly earned the epitaph ‘Great.’
That must bring us to the supernatural elements of the Bible, of which there are a great many. Western society has gone through a phase where it has done-down the supernatural in our lives and where it has held that nature can be explained simply in its own terms as though it were its own cause, a contradiction in terms; or as though it were causeless, something which natural science rejects - for the universe had a beginning. Atheists have been mocking in their disdain for the Bible and its belief in God, and for anyone who shares it. But the knowledge of God is innate (Romans 1: 19-20): no one needs to explain the concept to anyone and we instantly recognise it with a sense of fear and dread, or wonder, when we come across it. The proudest atheist trembles at the prospect of God whom he must meet at and beyond the end of his days. He protests too much and takes too many pains to put the idea of God and of judgement out of his mind, with theories or amusements, to prove to us that he does not know that there is a God. Moreover, nature is not self-explanatory. The worlds that we see, and their processes, cannot explain their origin; nor can the life-forms that we see within our own world. Though Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) is a worthy, if highly speculative and somewhat dated, read and though it still contains many useful details about species and the varieties within them, it is essentially a work of pantheism and the absence of proof. The intermediate forms on which his ‘conclusions’ should have been based were then, and still are, utterly absent; and in giving to the creation (the effect) the qualities of the creator (the cause) he confused the distinction between the two thereby making the effect (or creation) its own cause (or creator). His theory of Evolution was nothing more than a theory in self-contradiction - a theory of self-creation. Put like that, it instantly falls. At least that should give us pause for thought.
But, as the Bible says, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. The Bible explains all this in a way beyond human invention; its subject-matter being so high that we could not be the source of it. Even on the moral front the deist and anti-Christian Thomas Paine (1737-1809) acknowledged that the Bible could not have been written merely by man, although in his case - being offended by its talk of everlasting punishment (1 Th 1: 5-9) - he suggested that it must have been inspired by a demon! But at least he conceded that the Bible is of such a character that it cannot be explained by sheer reference to man alone; and in that he was surely right. But the moral grandeur of it points to the Divine Being, being totally opposite to the author Paine supposed as the source of it.
But perhaps the best proof that the Bible is the Word of God is to taste of it yourself and see (1 Pet 2: 3). This is easily done by obtaining a copy and reading it, maybe starting with the gospel of John and then moving on to Paul’s letter to the Romans. It is so easy to dismiss something, even the Word of God, without having bothered to become acquainted with it. No one has to be convinced that it is the Word of God to read it but many who do so become convinced that it is - it has the power, as it itself claims, to be the savour of life unto life to those who put their trust in the One who is its message (2 Cor 2: 15, 16). The Bible has wisdom for the life that now is (and we can readily see that and test it); it has a stupendous accuracy for the time and the world in which it was written, insofar as that is testable by us today; but even more, it has a timeless capacity to make those who trust in the One who is its message, as it says, wise unto salvation and equipped for every good work.
O Lord, the source of all wisdom, who is Wisdom itself, grant to us to see the wisdom in Your Word, with that wisdom with which you endow all your reasonable creatures, through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ who with Thee and the Holy Ghost are ever worshipped, one God. Amen.
© The Revd RMB West, Dip. Th.
The Christian Council of Britain, PO Box 41, Spalding, Lincolnshire, PE12 2AH
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