The Uniqueness of the Bible - CA-006

Another purpose of apologetics is reassurance for believers. When we can answer these questions, then we feel secure in our faith. The circle is complete because when an unbeliever or a young person new to the faith asks us these questions, rather than saying we don't know or we can answer them off the top of our heads, we can say, "You know, I used to wonder that same thing. And here's the answer that God has given me." There's nothing wrong with studying apologetics so that you can be secure as a believer.

In Matthew 11:2, speaking of John the Baptist (of all people): "Now when John, while imprisoned, heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to Him, saying, 'Are You the Expected One, or should we look for someone else?'" Of all people, John the Baptist sent word to Jesus and he said, "Are you really the Messiah, or should we continue waiting and continue looking for another one?" John the Baptist was Jesus' cousin, and I know that he had been brought up hearing about the miraculous birth of Jesus; about His announcement by angels; the Virgin birth; and, so on. It was John the Baptist who recognized Jesus, and who was the first one to publicly say, "Here comes, behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world." He baptized Jesus, and he heard the voice from heaven.

So of all people, you wouldn't think John the Baptist would ever have a doubt. But he sent word to Jesus, and he said, "Look, will you tell me, are you really the Messiah?" And so Jesus answered him. He didn't say, "How dare you doubt Me. How dare you even question Me." He answered, "What do you see, John?" Jesus said to John's disciples, "Go and report to John what you see and hear. The blind receives sight; the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up; and, the poor have the gospel preached to them. Blessed is he who keeps from stumbling over Me."

So these are all Old Testament prophecies from Isaiah as to what the Messiah would do. So Jesus said, "Sure, I'll answer your question. Check it out in the Old Testament."

Some people are afraid of examining their faith because they're afraid they will lose their faith. But I believe it was Socrates who said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." I believe that the unexamined faith is not worth believing. So if your parents were Christians, and if you became born again at an early age, or even at a later age, then good. You're very fortunate, and you need to examine your faith; you need to understand what you believe and why you believe it; and, you need to be able to answer the questions, as we saw in a previous session, to refute those who want to contradict sound doctrine.

Another reason that apologetics is important is that any Christian generation (any generation of believers), no matter how strong, is always one generation away from heathenism. If we let our young people down, and if we don't provide them with the answers that they need, then the next generation is going to be heathen. We're only one generation away, so apologetics deals with the big questions.

Back in the 1970s, I remember a survey revealed that the biggest questions (the most important questions) that college students wanted answers for. It has changed a little bit now because of post-modernism. We'll discuss that in a minute. But the questions were: does God exist? Is there a God? Is the Bible God's word? Is Jesus who He said He was? Is Jesus really the only way to God? These were the most important questions, according to a survey, that people of high school and college age wanted the answers to.

Now days, they still want these answers, but the big question is: can spiritual truth even be known? In this postmodern generation when truth really is a meaningless concept, people need an even more apologetical ministry. They need more of a frame of reference. But basically, after you establish the fact that spiritual truth can be known, they want answers to these questions. Christianity says, "Yes, there are answers to these questions, and it's OK to ask these questions." God is an apologetical God. God says in Isaiah, "Come, let us reason together."

So the purpose of apologetics is to prepare people for the truth. The truth is, "Yes, God exists. The God of the Bible exists." Hebrews 11:6: "Without faith, it is impossible to please Him. For he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him." So there is a God. If you are (or you know) somebody who is seeking the truth about God sincerely, you will be rewarded for it.

You may ask, "How can anybody seek God, least of all an unbeliever, when Romans 3:11 says, 'There is none who understands? There is none who seeks for God.'" You can tell this to your unbelieving friends who ask you, "How do you know there really is a God?" You can tell them the very fact that you're wondering, and the very fact that you have said, 'God, if you're out there, I want to know something about you,'" shows that God is at work in your heart.

In John 6:44, Jesus said, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent Me draws him. And I will raise him on the last day." So you know someone who is saying, "You know, I'd really like to know if there really is a God. I'd like to know more about Him. I wonder if God really does exist." You can tell them that it is the Holy Spirit of God who is drawing him to Himself. Philippians 2:13: "It is God who is at work in you both to will and to do His good pleasure."

So, yes, there is a God. The God of the Bible exists, and the Bible is God's revelation. In fact, since the God of the Bible does exist, the only way we could ever know anything about Him is if He chose to reveal Himself to us. Because God is infinite and we are finite, we could never figure out anything about God except that there's probably somebody out there who's really intelligent and really powerful, and that's all we can figure out with our natural minds. So God chose to reveal Himself through the Bible. The Bible is God's revelation. As Christian apologists, we point people to the Bible and we defend the Bible.

Now, you may say, "Why should we defend the Bible?" And I've heard people say that. I've heard Christians say, "Well, the Bible can defend itself. It's like a lion. You don't need to defend the lion. It's like a six-shooter. You don't have to say, look, this is a six-shooter and I'm going to blow your socks off with it. You just point the six-shooter and pull the trigger." Well, there's some truth in this. If you can get people reading the Bible with an open mind, then the Holy Spirit ministering the Word does the rest. But sometimes, even to get people interested in reading the Bible, and even more so with an open mind, they need a background of apologetics. The message of the Bible is so radically opposed to human nature that there is no way that faith in the Bible can be maintained without a constant struggle. That's not original with me. Gresham Machen, a great Christian apologist from the 1930s said that.

So we defend the Bible as the Word of God, God's revelation to man on spiritual things. Then God became man. John 1:14-18 tell us that Jesus was God in the flesh, and that God became a human being in the man Jesus Christ, and that Christ's death was an expiation (a propitiation) for man's sins. Romans 3:25 and 1 John 2:2 tell us that. Jesus Christ, after dying for the sins of the world, rose from the dead. 1 Corinthians 15:1 gives the gospel in a nutshell: "Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel."

Somebody said the problem with we evangelical Christians is that we can't even agree as to what the gospel is. But here it is. There's no doubt (there's no reason) to ever wonder what the gospel is, because it's spelled out for us. "The gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold fast the Word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as the first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the Old Testament Scriptures." Again, this is defense of the Bible as the Word of God. Jesus did not come to earth in a vacuum. He was prophesied. Many details about his life were prophesied according to the Scriptures: "And that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures."

So this is basically the gospel, and the whole scheme of Christian apologetics is to bring people to the gospel. God exists. The Bible is God's revelation to man. The only way that we can know anything about God, and the only way we can have knowledge about spiritual phenomena is through the Bible, God's revelation. God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ. He died on the cross as an expiation for our sins, and He rose from the dead. Saving faith is consenting to this truth. So people have to know what the truth is before they can believe it. God exists, and we've been discussing that.

I came across a very nice little gospel tract that uses the teleological argument quite a bit. The teleological argument is that there is design and purpose in nature. This man who wrote this gospel tract Mysteries of God's Creation is a medical doctor, Walter Wilson, M.D. He brings out the fact: "Consider the remarkable transformation that takes place when a caterpillar encases itself in a homemade casket, and it's changed into a beautiful butterfly. His hair is changed to scales: 1 million per square inch. The many legs of the caterpillar become the six legs of the butterfly. The yellow becomes a beautiful red. The crawling instinct becomes a flying instinct."

Then he says, "So God will take the life of a sinner, and transform it until it glows with the beauty of the Lord, and is fragrant with the graces of heaven."

Then he brings out some other arguments from nature. "God's wisdom is seen in the body of the elephant. The four legs of this great beast bend forward in the same direction. No other four-legged creature is made this way. God planned that this animal should have a huge body – too large to live on two legs. For this reason, he gave it four fulcrums so that it can rise from the ground easily. God's wisdom is revealed in His arrangement of sections and segments, as well as in the number of grains. Each watermelon has an even number of stripes on the rind. Each orange has an even number of segments. Each stock of wheat has an even number of grain," and so on.

Then he ends by saying, "As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. Then by grace, we are saved, and by faith, not of works, lest anyone man should boast. So there is a God. He reveals Himself in the Bible. He became human in the person of Jesus Christ. He died on the cross, and He rose from the dead.

So people need this background so that when we tell them this, it's not just empty words. They'll have some kind of frame of reference to understand that. Faith is not belief without evidence. Faith is trust without reservation. In order for people to exercise personal trust in Jesus as Savior, they need the evidence.

We're going to look at some criteria for judging truth claims. Anybody can say that their religion is the truth, or that they have some special knowledge about supernatural things. There are about five criterion that we want to look at, that we should put anyone's truth claims to the test.

Logically Consistent

Internally Consistent

I could say that I have found faith in the great wreath, or the great clock. I'm looking straight ahead, and I see our Christmas wreath and our clock. I could say, "Faith in the great clock has totally transformed my life. I pray to the great clock, and it answers my prayers. I just live in a heaven on earth because I believe in the great clock." Well, that might be meaningful to me, but you might have trouble believing that that corresponds to reality.

Corresponding to Reality

Meaningful to Other People

Supportable by Evidence

First, it must be logically consistent. Secondly, it must be internally consistent. Third, it must correspond with reality. Fourth, it must be meaningful to other people. And fifth, it must be supportable by evidence. Christianity measures up to all of these criteria. This measuring up of the criteria for a truth claim can be communicated to others by apologetics. In fact, Christianity is the only system that claims to have spiritual truth that can measure up to all these criteria.

So God exists. We've looked at the cosmological argument. Hebrews says that every house is made by someone, but everything is made by God. So the Bible subtly and implicitly uses the cosmological argument. The Bible doesn't belabor proving that God exists, but implicitly, some of these proofs, such as the cosmological and the teleological, are used in the Bible.

Now, we've said that the Bible is God's revelation to man. We can defend that. The first line of defense is the Bible's own claim for itself. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, "All Scripture." Somebody once called my attention to this and said, "Well, this is all Scripture. That would include the Quran, the Hindu scriptures, and everything that the world calls scriptures." No, it wouldn't. There are three laws (three rules) for interpreting the Bible. The first one is context. The second one is context. The third one is context. The context of this is that it was written by a converted Orthodox Jew. When an Orthodox Jew says "Scripture," he means the Old Testament. Paul had no intention of including any of the world's religion as Scriptures. He was talking about the Old Testament and portions of the New Testament that had already been written. He refers to these sometimes. He quotes them, and the other apostles did too. For example, Peter said, "Some of the things that our brother Paul writes are hard to understand, but it's just like all Scripture. It is sometimes difficult to understand."

So Paul says, "All Scripture is inspired by God, or God-breathed, and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." All Scripture is God-breathed. All Scripture is spoken out by God. So that's a pretty big claim – that the Scripture is actually breathed out by God.

Then in 2 Peter 1:16, this is the last letter Peter wrote. These are among his last words. People's last words are very important. Peter says, "I just want to write a few things because I'm getting ready to go be with God. I want you to have some written things for me so that you'll remember them to keep on the right track." He says, "For we did not cleverly devise tales when we made known to you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eye witnesses of His Majesty. For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the majestic glory (he's referring to the transfiguration, that he was an eye witness to), 'This is my Beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased,' and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the Holy Mountain, so we have the prophetic Word made sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place."

So in Peter's last words, he says, "I want to tell you what's important. Don't forget it. You know, all these things that we wrote down (the other apostles and I) about Jesus, we didn't make these up. These are not stories. We didn't get together and have a meeting and decide, 'You know, guys, what this world really needs is another religion.'" I mean, the Roman Empire had thousands of religions. That was one thing they didn't need. "We didn't meet and hatch up a bunch of stories to start a new religion." He said, "We were actually eyewitnesses. We wrote it down – the written prophecy. Pay attention to it, just like you would a flicker of light, if you're in pitch darkness, and you see some light. Give it your attention." So Peter says there's absolutely no doubt this is from God. This is the Word of God.

The Quran, the Book of Mormon, and the Hindu Scriptures

So how do we tell? I mean, we tell somebody, "Well the Bible claims to be the Word of God." They say, "Big deal. So does the Quran and the Book of Mormon and the Hindu scriptures."

Well, the problem here, first of all, the Bible is the only book that backs up what it says. We're going to look in a moment at one of the ways the Bible backs up what it says. None of these other books have the nerve to do that. None of the writers of the other books will say, "OK, I'll tell you what, let's play a game. Let's predict the future. If I predict the future accurately, then you'll know that I'm speaking for God." We're going to talk about that in a moment. But what we have is an anti-supernatural bias, and specifically a bias against the Bible. People don't want the Bible to be true, because the Bible tells us that we're sinners, and it doesn't matter what we do. We can spend the rest of our lives doing good works. We'll never be able to impress God. God is absolutely holy. We have to be totally dependent on another.

Nobody wants to hear that. Everybody, in his natural state, wants to believe that there's something we can do to impress whoever it is out there who will be so impressed with us that He will be kind to us, maybe even let us into heaven. So there is a bias against the Bible in particular and against supernaturalism in general. People don't want to believe that we are created beings. They don't want to believe that we have a Creator, a maker, and an owner, because people don't like to be owned. So we have an anti-supernatural bias.

Julius Wellhausen, a theologian, came up with the Graf-Wellhausen theory about how people, over the years, wrote the Bible, and changed it, and so on. When asked about one of the miracles in the Bible, he said, "Who can seriously believe that? I mean, I'm not even going to think that a miracle could actually happen."

Rudolph Bultmann, who also wanted to clean up the Bible, said, "You know, the Bible is a pretty good book. It's got some good ideas in it if we could just get rid of all this supernatural stuff." So he called it demythologization – taking all the myths out of the Bible, and anything that had to do with the supernatural was a myth, it had to go. He was asked, "Well, do you at least believe in the resurrection of Jesus?" Rudolf Bultmann answered, "The resurrection is totally inconceivable."

A man named Fletcher, back in the 1970s, wrote a book called Situation Ethics." Then he wrote another book about miracles and the supernatural. The title of this book was This I Can't Believe.

Harry Emerson Fosdick was a great preacher and a great orator. He could hold people spellbound with his preaching. He was pastor of a big Baptist church in New York City, and a very popular man. But he was liberal to the core. A fundamentalist, back in the 1930s wrote him a letter and said, "Dr. Fosdick, I really enjoy listening to you talk because you're such an entertaining and informative speaker. But I've noticed that you don't really believe the Bible. Let me share some things with you." So he gave him the gospel. Dr. Fosdick wrote him back and said, "You have got to be kidding."

So the bias is against the God of the Bible. That's what we're dealing with. When people don't believe the Bible, it's not that they have examined it with an open mind, and they've said, "Well, reason and logic and careful analysis have proved to me that this could not be from God. And besides, there's not a God anyway. They're saying, "I don't want the Bible to be true. I have a bias against it, so I have made up my mind that the Bible is not true without even looking at it. And this is their presupposition.

We all have presuppositions – our biases. That's another word for it. It just means something that we assume in advance – a preconceived opinion. We all have these. There's no disgrace in being biased. The only disgrace is in claiming you're not biased – not admitting you're biased. So we start with the presupposition that, yes, there is a God, and yes, He has communicated to us with the Bible. We just want to sell an unbeliever on admitting that maybe the God of the Bible is real, and maybe He has communicated with the Bible, and then get them to read the Bible with an open mind, and with the attitude: "God, if you're real, and if you're out there, I want to learn about you. Please reveal yourself to me." Then God the Holy Spirit does the rest.

Defenses of the Bible

Uniqueness

You may know a few Hindus who check their scriptures every once in a while. The Muslims believe in reading the Quran and having the Quran read, but it's a ritualistic thing. They don't do it to get insight and direction into their lives. A man who spent some time in the Middle East told me, "There are professional Quran readers, and some of these people don't even read the Quran. They have it memorized. You can hire them to come to a wedding or a party or something, and they'll be reading the Quran in the background, or reciting it." He said, "Nobody pays any attention to them." Just the fact that they have somebody reciting the Quran or reading it will (supposedly) bring them favor of Allah.

So there aren't any Muslims (if there are, there are very few) who actually study the Quran. In fact, Muslims believe that it's a sin to study the Quran. I heard of a missionary who witnessed to a Muslim, and they went through many Scriptures together. The Christian said, "You know, I really enjoyed studying the Bible with you. Now you lead me in a study of the Quran." The Muslim said, "Oh, no, that would be a sin. Studying the Quran would be blasphemy – to try to analyze what Allah said."

So people take the Bible seriously, in spite of its ancient age, and people live by the Bible. The Bible is unique in translation. The Bible has been translated (as of a few years ago) in 2,200 different languages, and they're producing more translations and more versions of the translations every day. No other book can say this about it.

I have never heard anybody tell me that they picked up a copy of the Hindi scriptures or the Quran or the Book of Mormon, and began to read it, and it totally changed their life. I have heard many people say that, "Yes, I was in a motel room, and I picked up a Gideon Bible, and reading it totally changed the direction of my life. I've been transformed." I've heard many people give that testimony. I've never heard that about any other religious book.

The greatest scientists, artists, and poets throughout history have been adherents of the Bible. The giants upon whose shoulders modern man stands were almost, to a man, believers in the Bible. Some of them were unbelievers, but even throughout history, unbelievers many times have had a deep respect and reverence for the Bible.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a very ungodly French philosopher. He had illegitimate children all over the place; he lived a very evil life; and, he wrote some books that are still read today by some philosophy students. But I don't think a whole lot of people really take him seriously. But Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, "The Bible is so simple and so sublime, could it be that it is not just the work of man?"

We defend the Bible because we're only one generation away from heathenism, and the Bible is so radically opposed to natural man that it must be continually drummed into people that this is the truth. This is where the truth is. You've got to pay attention to it.

So the Bible is the only book that says, "Okay, let's just predict the future. Let's see whoever can write a book that predicts the future accurately (and it's got to be accurately), then we'll say that they have a book from God." In Deuteronomy 18:20, God told Moses the criteria for discerning whether someone is a prophet or not: "But the prophet who shall speak a word presumptuously in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak out, which he shall speak in the name of other gods that prophet shall die." OK, well, if you're going to execute a guy for claiming to be a prophet, how are you going to know whether he was really a prophet or not? Verse 21: "You may say in your heart, how shall we know the Word which the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about (or come true), that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him," or you shall not respect him.

So, that's a pretty high record. If you stepped out in Israel and said, "I'm a prophet," then you were required to predict the future with a 100% accuracy. The penalty for 99.9% was death. The Bible is the only book the writers of which have dared to make this claim. The claim is all based on the integrity of God.

We look a few weeks ago at Isaiah 41:22. Isaiah says, "You people are just attracted to idols, and you just want to worship idols." So, "'Present your cases,' the Lord said. 'Bring forward your strong arguments,' the King of Jacob says." He says, "Let's have an apologetic session. You idol worshipers, let's get together, and give Me your apologetic for worshiping an idol. Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place. As for the former events, declare what they were, that we may consider them and know their outcome, or announce to us what is coming." So you know, if your idols are really gods, then they should know the future (predict the future). Our God can.

Prophecies Fulfilled about Jesus Christ

The Time of Christ's Birth

So the people who were living in Jesus' Day, those who had really studied their Old Testament, knew that it was about time for the Messiah. The time of His first coming was predicted with precision.

The Place of Christ's Birth

The Crucifixion

The Miracles

Then Matthew 9:35: "Jesus was going about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogue, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of illness."

Out of Egypt

The Tribe of Judah and the House of David

The Messenger

The Cleansing of the Temple

Christ's Rejection by His Own People

The Mockery of Christ

Christ's Silence before His Accusers

Christ's Betrayer

The Price of Christ's Betrayal

Christ's Resurrection

Well, time does not permit us to go on. But the point we want to leave you with now is that the Bible, out of all the world's religious books, is the only one that claims to be able to predict the future because, its author is the One who knows all things. And it not only makes the claim, but it backs it up.

Specifically here we've looked at a few, but believe me, these are just a very few of the examples of fulfilled biblical prophecy in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Leon Adkins, 2003

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