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Is the Bible the Word of God?


Guest shiloh357

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Guest shiloh357

This issue was raised to some extent in another thread.   it was asserted that the Jesus is the Word of God, but the Bible is just a true and accurate testimony of Him.  The implication seemed to be that  the only "Word of God"  is Jesus and the Bible is not qualified to hold that title.

 

So, is the Bible the Word of God?   The Bible isn't just a collection of God's thoughts; rather it is a collection of God's words.  When we talk about the Bible being the inspired Word of God, we are referring to a plenary and verbal inspiration.   Plenary means that from the first verse of Genesis to the last verse of Revelation, all 66 books of the Bible are 100% of divine origin without the mixture of human input.   Human beings were the instruments by which God penned the Scriptures, but the information contained in the Bible is 100% divine in origin.  When we say that it is is a verbal inspiration we mean that it is not the thoughts or concepts that are inspired.   It was not a thought for thought form of inspiration, but that the very words of God are inspired.  The words penned in the original manuscript were not just inspired ideas, but inspired words, the very words that God wanted placed on parchment/papyrus.

 

How do we know the Bible is the inspired Word of God and not just a book that serves as a testimony about Jesus?

 

1. Christ’s resurrection proves that the Bible is the Word of God. The resurrection of Jesus is the vindication of all that the Bible teaches from Genesis to Revelation. 

 

2. The Bible’s unique construction proves that it is the Word of God.  The Bible has numerous human writers who lived at different times and most were not contemporary and yet their writings form a perfect unity right down to the very words of the text.  This unique construction shows that the Bible is the product of the mind of a single author working through different writers.

 

3. Fulfilled prophecy proves the Bible to be the Word of God. Prophecies about Jesus are so detailed and many of them cannot be fulfilled by a mere man because one cannot choose where one is born or who will be one's parents.    The odds of Jesus being born in Bethlehem, in the tribe of Judah and to be born of a virgin are simply off the charts. 

 

4.  The Bible's candor proves it is the Word of God.  Most of the time, when a person writes about their heroes or great religious figures, they whitewash over their flaws and shortcomings, but the Bible's greatest heroes are often seen in the deepest seasons of failure.  Abraham Sarah, Moses, Aaron, Miram, David, Solomon, Peter Paul, James and John are all exposed as the sinners that they were.  The disciples of Jesus as a whole are presented as weak, slow of understanding, faithless, selfish, arrogant, disloyal, and one was a thief.

 

5. The continued existence of the nation/people of Israel is an excellent testimony to the inerrancy and divine origin of the Bible and is proof that it is the Word of God.  The nation of Israel is a testimony to the faithfulness and accuracy of God write down to the nitty gritty details.

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The Word of God is Christ, not the Bible. The Bible are words from God

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Guest shiloh357

The Word of God is Christ, not the Bible. The Bible are words from God

The Bible is the Word of God because it is also the words of God.   Jesus is the living personification of Word of God that came through Moses and the prophets. 

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We will have to agree to disagree

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The Bible was not written by God, but was written by men. However, it was divinely inspired and therefore it is the word of God!

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Guest shiloh357

The Bible gives us internal evidence that it is the Word of God.  Note the following verses just from the book of  Psalms:

(Psa. 17:4; 119:9,11,16,17,25,28,38,41,42,43,49,50,58,65,67,74,76,81,82,89,101,105,107,114,116,123,133,140,147,148,154,158,160,161,162,169,170,172; 138:2)

 

Jesus calls the Scripture God's Word.  He speaks to the Father of His Word not of Himself ( John 4:50; 17:6,14,17)

 

The apostles and other followers of Jesus speak of the Word of God and are not referring to Jesus, but of the Scriptures (Acts 4:29)

 

In Matt. 13, Mark 4 and Luke 13.  Jesus uses the parable of the sower to illustrate the Word of God as seed to be sown.  He is not speaking of Himself but as something else as the Word of God. 

 

In Romans 10, the Gospel message is also called the Word of God.  

 

The Word of God is our spiritual sword in Ephesians six.  There is no way to force that text to mean that Jesus is our sword.  The text simply won't allow for that. 

 

So when we say that the title, "Word of God" only applies to Jesus and not the Scriptures we are violating a preponderance of internal biblical witness that says the Scriptures are the Word of God.
 

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Guest shiloh357

If we deny that the Bible is the Word of God, we are denying some fundamental doctrines about the Bible itself.

 

1. The doctrine of inspiration is violated because to say it is not the word of God implies it is not 100% divine in origin.  Many erroneously claim that the Bible contains the Word of God, but it is not the Word of God.  One person told me years ago that he believed that everything God wanted in the Bible is there, but that doesn't mean that everything that is in the Bible is from God.   If it is not God's word, then whose word is it?  

 

2.  The doctrine of inerrancy is violated because if it is not God's word then it is subject to error.  No one would argue that God commits errors of any kind.  So inerrancy is intricately linked to inspiration because it follows that if the Bible is 100% divine in origin then it cannot contain any errors, contradictions, historical misstatements, etc.   I think it is important to note that when we are applying the doctrine of inerrancy we are speaking to the claims that Scripture makes as being inerrant.    We are not talking about textual variants and scribal errors in the text.  The Bible while being divine in origin, is still transmitted by imperfect human agency.    Misspellings, or errors in recording the size of a  nation's army are not threats to inerrancy.

 

If, for example one text in Kings speaks of a battle involving the Israelite army and it claims that that there were 2,000 chariots and horsemen, but a passage in Chronicles that references the same battle and says that Israel's army had 20,000 horsemen and chariots involved in the battle, the difference in numbers is more than likely a scribal error.  The issue of inerrancy is whether or not the battle took place.  Inerrancy means, if the Bible says it happened, it happened.    Scribal errors and minor textual variants are the natural result of imperfect human agency and are expected, actually.   They do not adversely affect the historical core or the message of the Bible in any way shape or form.

 

3.  The authority of the Bible is also negated if we deny it is God's word.  If the Bible is not authoritatively God's Word, then the preacher has nothing to preach.  He is preaching from a book that has no right to claim man is a sinner, it is no right to define sin,or  to call man to repentance for sin, and has no right to make any exclusive claims about Jesus as the only way of salvation.   If the Bible isn't the Word of God, it carries no more authority over man than  the Koran or the teachings of Buddha, or that of Hinduism or any world religion.   If the Bible is not of divine origin, we have no need to trust in its accuracy or any claim it makes and we have no reason to submit  to it's authority over our lives.

 

When we deny that it is God's word then all of biblical doctrine/teaching isn't' worth the paper and ink on which they are written. If the Bible isn't God's word, it teachings are the teachings of men and so all Christian/biblical doctrine collapses into dust and we have no real assurance that anything the Bible teaches is the truth.

 

Claiming the Bible isn't the Word of God is a false teaching that really imperils the spiritual well being of believers and should be abandoned.

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So then if Christ is the word of God, and not the SON of God who said He only spoke the words God gave Him to speak, can we just ignore the OT?

 

this is a new one for me....where do people get this stuff?

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We will have to agree to disagree

 

 

That's not just a disagreement.  That, is just wrong.  The Bible is the word of God.

 

Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. 21For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.  I Peter 1:20-21

 

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,  II Timothy 3:16

 

“If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. 48There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day. 49For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. 50I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”  John 12: 47-50

 

Jesus Himself stated that the words he spoke were ALL from God.  

 

It seems to me, that someone might be actually questionning the doctrine of the trinity if they believe that Jesus words pre-empted the Bible, which itself clearly states was given by God,

is from God and inspired by God and reveals the will of God, salvation and anything and everything else including God sending His only Son, Jesus.

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If we deny that the Bible is the Word of God, we are denying some fundamental doctrines about the Bible itself.

 

1. The doctrine of inspiration is violated because to say it is not the word of God implies it is not 100% divine in origin.  Many erroneously claim that the Bible contains the Word of God, but it is not the Word of God.  One person told me years ago that he believed that everything God wanted in the Bible is there, but that doesn't mean that everything that is in the Bible is from God.   If it is not God's word, then whose word is it?  

 

2.  The doctrine of inerrancy is violated because if it is not God's word then it is subject to error.  No one would argue that God commits errors of any kind.  So inerrancy is intricately linked to inspiration because it follows that if the Bible is 100% divine in origin then it cannot contain any errors, contradictions, historical misstatements, etc.   I think it is important to note that when we are applying the doctrine of inerrancy we are speaking to the claims that Scripture makes as being inerrant.    We are not talking about textual variants and scribal errors in the text.  The Bible while being divine in origin, is still transmitted by imperfect human agency.    Misspellings, or errors in recording the size of a  nation's army are not threats to inerrancy.

 

If, for example one text in Kings speaks of a battle involving the Israelite army and it claims that that there were 2,000 chariots and horsemen, but a passage in Chronicles that references the same battle and says that Israel's army had 20,000 horsemen and chariots involved in the battle, the difference in numbers is more than likely a scribal error.  The issue of inerrancy is whether or not the battle took place.  Inerrancy means, if the Bible says it happened, it happened.    Scribal errors and minor textual variants are the natural result of imperfect human agency and are expected, actually.   They do not adversely affect the historical core or the message of the Bible in any way shape or form.

 

3.  The authority of the Bible is also negated if we deny it is God's word.  If the Bible is not authoritatively God's Word, then the preacher has nothing to preach.  He is preaching from a book that has no right to claim man is a sinner, it is no right to define sin,or  to call man to repentance for sin, and has no right to make any exclusive claims about Jesus as the only way of salvation.   If the Bible isn't the Word of God, it carries no more authority over man than  the Koran or the teachings of Buddha, or that of Hinduism or any world religion.   If the Bible is not of divine origin, we have no need to trust in its accuracy or any claim it makes and we have no reason to submit  to it's authority over our lives.

 

When we deny that it is God's word then all of biblical doctrine/teaching isn't' worth the paper and ink on which they are written. If the Bible isn't God's word, it teachings are the teachings of men and so all Christian/biblical doctrine collapses into dust and we have no real assurance that anything the Bible teaches is the truth.

 

Claiming the Bible isn't the Word of God is a false teaching that really imperils the spiritual well being of believers and should be abandoned.

 

The bible is the words of God, and God's word, but the term 'the Word of God' has a unique meaning. It goes beyond words, even if those words are the absolute truth which can be believed and relied upon because they are written by inspiration from God.

 

In both the Hebrew view at the time of Jesus, and the Greek view at the time, the Word had added meaning.

 

In Judaism, the Word of God was God's divine action on earth. In Genesis, creation was done by the Word of God. God hovered over the water. The Word of God was God's manifestation on earth. Clearly, Jesus can be called the Word of God, in that context. Jesus was/is God, Who came in human flesh. God manifested in the flesh on earth. If anyone wants to look further into this, do a search on Onkeles Targum, an Aramaic translation, Memra (which means word but is used in the Aramaic translation whereever God is manifest on earth).     

 

At the same time Greek Stoic philosophy used the term logos (word) in a unique way referring to  the divine animating principle pervading the Universe. 

 

So, it certainly might have been a crossover where a Greek philosophy term was used by Hellenistic Jews applied into Jewish philosophy. 

 

But, in the end, the Word of God has a unique meaning which applies to Jesus. The words of God are not God manifest on earth. Yes, I have met people who became confused by the use of Word as applied to Jesus and scripture, and thought or taught a theology which said that the words of God had a power of their own, which could be applied by people by speaking the word. This confusing belief went as far as to teach that there is power which can be tapped into and appropriated by speaking the word (bible), to acquire things, or actions. Yes, it would fall into gnosticism.  

 

The bible contains the truth, and is inspired by God, but is there more truth then is contained in scripture? Yes, this can be the hairy edge and easily misunderstood, but the truth is also, we do not know as God knows. And scripture does not contain all that God knows. It doesn't even contain an account of all that Jesus did. It does contain everything we need to know for righteousness and salvation. The Holy Spirit uses those words to enlighten, but the words without the Holy Spirit do not have any power on their own. However, the Word of God is the power of creation. The words of God, the written scripture, does not have the power of creation on their own.

 

The NT does use the term, word of God, referring to scripture, and it does use the term, Word of God referring to Jesus. But, in the original Greek, I have been told there are no capital letters, so using Word, with the capital, is an English addition. Is using Word for scripture actually elevating scripture to the level of God?  Is Jesus equivalent to scripture? Or is Jesus greater then a book containing the inspired words of God?    

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