Is the Bible the Word of God?

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

Report of the Christian Council of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

2009 was a busy year for the Christian Council of Britain, beginning with the Moderator engaging with other ordained ministers, over issues raised by the Constitution,especially article 5, The Gift of Race and Nation.  This drew fire - or at least concern - from a number of ill-informed clergy who seemed to confuse the definition of ‘nation’ with that of ‘state’.  Our Moderator pointed out that the Greek word for nation is ethnos (whence ethnic) which would seem to indicate, as nationalists believe, that nations and ethnic groups are one-and-the-same and must not be confused with States which, as political constructs, can be either mono-national or multi-national.  By contrast nations are not mere political or social constructs but are organic in the truest and deepest sense of the word; hence the need for great care in how they are treated - a point which our philistine politicians and anti-race warriors do not seem to realise.   In Genesis 10 it is recorded that God (not man) divided mankind into their separate and distinct nations and then dispersed them each into their own homelands.  Racism?  Not at all: simply race!  And there we have it.  If God has done it there is a reason for it; who are we to oppose it?  Take note, the new Babel-builders of the EU and Eurabia. 

This was soon followed by our Moderator’s first appearance on the Big Questions led by Nicky Campbell at King Edward VI School, Southampton, on 8^th February.  The pressing moral question, which our Moderator was called upon to contribute to as a front row guest, was “should BNP members be banned from employment as clergy and teachers.” Revd West had the opportunity of engaging with the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, and made a contribution which was much appreciated by viewers and had a positive impact on the studio audience. The very appearance of a clergyman in full clerical collar for the “realistic right” spoke volumes; but when Rev West highlighted that - on grounds of racial equality - the British were a definite people and should be treated as such by officialdom and by every other ethnic group, people commented afterwards that he had made some valuable points and a positive contribution to the debate.   Officialdom likes to talk about equal treatment and practise the opposite!  By contrast Dr Carey seemed ill-informed on this occasion, as if the Hoy Bible favoured the mass transformation of Britain into a foreign country against the wishes of its people!  The Rev West also pointed out that the personal morality of the Bible must not be preached-up against its political theory (nations)! 

Meanwhile in the north of England the CCoB had its first local group set-up under Mr K.N. Harvison, who became its local spokesman under the Constitution, and who organised a meeting for them in May with a distinguished speaker, Mr Nick Griffin, Chairman of the BNP.   Lots of correspondence was also published, there and nationally, in The British Church Newspaper, The English Churchman, and the Times Educational Supplement!   Both Mr Harvison and the Rev West were in fine fettle. Perhaps a lot more could be done by members and local spokesmen for the CCoB writing and corresponding through the local and national press?    The CCoB’s first leaflet was also produced at about this time, courtesy of Mr Jeff Drew, Did you know: Racism is not what you have been told! Two editions were printed: one for South Lincolnshire and the other for Norfolk.  But they were basically saying the same thing: that racism is not where you want to keep your own country and culture but where someone else (the evil politicians, in this case) strive to take it from you.  Bible verses were quoted to show that it is God’s will for us to live in our national homelands as distinctive, different and fruitful nations.  But is not this Apartheid?  No!: nor is it Multi-Culturalism, as we call it here in Britain.  It is where each nation has its own country and not where each nation is forced into its own “reservation” in a great multi-national state, such as South Africa was (and is) and modern Britain is becoming. 

In May the Moderator once again stole the limelight in a radio debate with the Bishop of Hulme regarding the current immigration invasion into Britain.  When the Rev West quoted the Bible at the Bishop, His Grace replied “don’t you dare quote the Bible at me!”  even though the Bishop had at first asked for scripture citations to support the Bible’s view of nations. But what else can we quote at someone who is supposed to be a keeper of holy writ?   The suffragan Bishop could not seem to see the need for border controls, at all, to defend Britain; that would be discrimination, he felt!  But only a fool would not discriminate between those who have a right to come here and those who do not.  The prelate was very much tied up by his own undiscriminating lack of logic.  In June the Moderator appeared, for a second time, on the Big Questions.  This was on the issue of freedom of speech.  Rev West, of the CCoB, and Andrew Brons MEP, of the BNP,  gave a very good account of themselves in the face of a biased presenter and studio audience.   They each put forward the case for freedom of speech for all; something that both Nicky Campbell and much of the panel and audience did not seem to be at ease with.  Nor did the panel appreciate the Bible’s teaching on nations which the Rev West was able to put across exceedingly well.  Jonathan Bartley of the Far-Left think tank Ekklesia and Louise Bagshawe, a minor celebrity novelist, were particularly unable to digest scripture teaching or come up with any reasoned rebuttal, and reverted to almost stone-age tactics to close-down freedom of thought and discussion.   In the end a member of the studio audience rebuked Bartley, Bagshawe and the presenter for their lack of professionalism; and so something positive was learned.  However, out in the real world innumerable viewers were shocked by the sheer lack of courtesy and probity on the part of those of whom, such as Nicky Campbell, we have a right to expect better.  A terrific own- goal, perhaps, for the nation-crushers.  It seems that in the halls of the BBC the battle for freedom of speech and thought has to be fought and won, all over again.   One wonders who are wearing the real jackboots in all this: Nicky and Co?

In July our Moderator, who had stood in the East Midlands area for the European Community elections, also now stood, once again, this time  for the Norwich North by election to Westminster, gaining 2.7% of the vote in an area where there was strong UKIP and Green support; and where the Conservatives were able to wrest the seat from New Labour.  His stand for Christian values was not well received by the local totalitarian group, “Unite Against Freedom” (UAF), nor by the local Church hierarchy which seemed to be wedded to sell-out, duplicity and surrender.  In particular Rev West was “denounced” by a group of six senior clerics (the Bishop of Norwich, theBaptist Union Supervisory Minister, the Methodist Supervisory Minister, the Roman Catholic Bishop of East Anglia, a spokesman for the United Reformed Church and theFriends Representative) for putting up as a Christian minister of the BNP.  They also questioned his ordination and his right to wear clerical dress!   Similar assertions had been made before, over the internet, but the Rev West quite rightly pointed out that he was theologically trained and ordained, with nearly 30 years of experience in the pastoral ministry as a preaching presbyter.  He also pointed out the double-standards of this ecumenical bundle in that the Roman Catholic Hierarchy do not recognise Church of England ordinations as valid; the Church of England is now conducting Biblically illicit ‘ordinations’ for women and active homosexuals which are unlawful or invalid by scripture; the Society of Friends do not accept any ministerial ordination at all; and the United Reformed Church,  the  Methodists and the Baptist Union reject Bishops utterly! The body that criticised our Moderator thus lacks all coherence and credibility about its own credentials as well as clearly getting its facts wrong about his.  It is because such leaders are in such a muddle, due to so great a lack of sound thinking on their part,  that the Christian Council of Britain has had to come into being!  How poorly we are served, at times, by our higher clerical leaders. 

Moving back to local events Mr Dave Fleming organised church visitations in Kings Lynn which went down extremely well with the lesser clergy.  St Faiths’ was visited by a CCoB delegation, as was St John‘s.  But the highlight of “the process” has to be the visitation to St Margaret’s.   The somewhat short local incumbent was in the pulpit, admonishing his flock on who “not” to vote for (guess who?) and then ordered them to pray “in silence”.  It could have been 1309 rather than 2009!  This was simply too much for our Moderator to bear, who was not used to such a beastly desecration of the sanctuary.  He spontaneously spoke and prayed out in his loud voice which carries, “We thank You Lord for the BNP, in Jesus Name”.  The monk-like creature flew back and besought us all to “pray in silence”.  In the evening we heard that the ‘priest’ concerned preached on the Tower of Babel and how it meant the exact opposite of what the Bible says it meant.  Such are the lengths which bias and prejudice will go, to make out a semblance of respectability for itself. 

In August 2009 an Executive meeting was held in which Mr David Fleming of Kings Lynn replaced Mr Anthony Williams as secretary of the Council, although Mr Williams continued as the treasurer.  Mr Mikal Greenberg was appointed to the post of webmaster and progress was rapidly made with the development of the CCoB website with numerous articles going up.  100 copies of the Redemption Hymnal were also bought for the use of the Council together with a music edition of the same and 100 copies of the Metrical Psalter (Psalms of David put to musical rhythm) according to the usage of the Church of Scotland.  Mrs Jenny Noble was also charged to investigate the CCoB’s ability to apply for charitable status.  The Rev West performed a wedding blessing and  lent help to a Church of England service, in Oxford, under an Anglican Bishop; and, in mid-September, conducted full Morning Prayer, as Presbyter,  for the Church of England near Bath; the service, with declaratory absolution, being much appreciated by the attendees.   In November Rev West travelled to Kirktown of Deskford in northern Scotland to carry out a remembrance day parade, and service, and a Church of Scotland mode of baptism.  It is the policy of the CCoB to recognise both child baptism by sprinkling, or pouring, and believer’s baptism by full immersion. 

The year closed with Mr David Fleming and the Rev West leading a visit to Northern Ireland under the banner of “Mission Ulster”.  Much good work was done to warn the folk of Ulster of their possible fate in the face of a tidal wave of migration swamping them; and both Mr Fleming and the Moderator were well received at Larne, where both spoke ably to a committed audience of patriots.    Despite the hectic activity within the CCoB over the last year, especially for certain members within it, a great deal more needs to be done and there are so few workers available to do it.  We need to pray for the Lord of the Harvest (the Holy Ghost) to send forth ministers into His harvest, that the work be not delayed, or held back; and that the light of His truth may be more clearly proclaimed from each and every house-top. 

The Christian Council of Britain, PO Box 41, Spalding, Lincolnshire, PE12 2AH.

The morality of the Multi-Racial society

The words ‘nation,’ ‘ethnic group’ and ‘race’ are all closely related depending on the extent to which you identify them with a descent group.  Edmund Burke (1729-1797), the founder of conservatism, would have agreed for he said that the nation-state was a partnership between the living, the dead, and the yet unborn. The question before us then is: is it wise, right or moral to put the various descent-groups or nations of men together into one state or lock-in society.  There are good reasons based on the nature of man and his psychology, as well as the nature of politics and morals, to conclude that multi-racial societies have little to commend themselves to any of us in terms of them being either morally justifiable or practically workable and beneficial. There are a number of inter-related moral and prudential principles which point to this and we will look at them one by one. 

ARE NATIONS ENDED?

Whilst the Holy Bible in the Old and New Testaments is primarily a history of man; of his fall into sin and of God’s plan from eternity to deliver him from sin, and misery, by so great a redemption as the death of His own dear Son; the Bible also contains a political and social theory laid down by God - almost incidentally, as it were - by which we should seek to be governed.   This has been long recognised as so, even from the earliest days of New Testament Christianity, where Apostolic and Church Fathers set out, in their writings, their views of how the believing community should relate to the society in which they found themselves; and how the society in which they lived should relate to God’s ways for them - for God had a purpose, both for the community of faith and for the earthly city.  Augustine’s De Civitas Dei (The City of God) is perhaps the greatest early treatise on this theme of how God deals with the Church (the folk who have faith) and the world (those who do not).  But the New Testament itself also did the same.  The apostle Paul relates, for example, in his Letter to the Romans that the civic ’…powers that be…are ordained by God…’; that they have their duties from God - to be a terror to evil works; and that they are God’s ministers to execute wrath on evildoers, even to wielding the sword, the instrument of death, upon them (Romans 13: 1-10).